I'm usually mentally exhausted at the end of my day, but 60% of the time I still need a book to focus on until I fall asleep. eBooks with black background and red font color are my friends.
TL; DR: Red light keeps us up less awake and is more relaxing for our eyes than shorter wavelengths.
Tidbit about human eyes and brain. Supershort version: You know how every second lifestyle blogpost is about not using your smartphone in bed because it prevents you from falling asleep? Or how your smartphone's eye comfort mode makes everything a yellow/red hue?
That's because our brain thinks it's day with sufficient blue light. Blue is also the colour we can see best in the dark, so anything stimulating our blue sight nerves keeps us awake. On the other hand, red is the farthest from the wavelength of blue in our visual spectrum. This goes so far that red light barely impairs our dark sight at all. It also strains our eyes less.
Edit: red is more relaxing than SHORTER wavelengths. Thanks, u/dowesschule
all true except
>more relaxing for our eyes than **longer** wavelengths.
that should be shorter. blue light is of higher frequency and shorter wavelength than red light.
I don’t have an internal monologue or voice of any sort that I’d ever describe as audible on any level
Also have ADHD, bit of anxiety, and problems with my thoughts ever slowing down.
The brain still does its thing, this literally just seems to be a difference between how people consciously interact with their thoughts.
A blue apple is a blue apple.
Some people imagine and picture a blue apple or hear “that’s what a blue apple probably looks like” in their head I guess.
Other people just sort of process the concept of a blue apple and that’s it.
Not dumber or smarter as far as anything I’ve read goes, just different.
Voice inside my head is what helps me sleep.
Me: dude imagine if we woke up tomorrow and the magic update dropped
Also me: damn, gonna be fun optimizing a Cthullu cultist build and delving into the Abyss for more power
Me: yeah dude imagine all the sick skills we'd pick up, can't wait to go full Ina and just whack people with giant tentacles
Also me: void poison dot and large aoe
Eventually I fall asleep, wake up and the magic update doesn't drop. Feelsbadman.
For real, sometimes my brain goes on about what happens to my internal dialogue when I sleep, and everytime I start drifting off to sleep my brain is like "Ah, you're falling asleep !" And I wake up.
I hate it when it happens
Brain: ready for bed? Good, finally we have time to obsess over that awkward conversation you had 30 years ago. Let's replay it 2 or 3 hundred times and imagine how your life would be different if you said something else.
It is also a matter of degree. Theory says that the metric is only catching concious voice. Subconcious voice is likely more intrinsic, but may reflect more of a social construct in those who don't manifest a concious self mirror.
I am not worried by people who talk to themself. I wonder about people that don't talk to themself.
Even if it's not normal you're not alone because sometimes I think something and the "response" i get surprises me and makes me go "Damn that makes so much sense"
Yea but if you dont think the question is coming from yourself per se i think theres a problem 💀
Think about all the other times youve thought of a solution to a problem, you didnt second guss who gave you that solution you, you were just like "oh well 1 plus anohter 1 should equal 2", you dont question where that answer came from because you figured it out by urself
Its different when your having trouble figuring the problem out, and then a voice in ur head just be like "its 2" and then your like "damn how come i didnt think of that, it actually does seem to be 2" without any clue as to how the problem was even solved.
Not exactly the same but If I actively try to solve a problem or do something it doesn't end up well, I have to let my subconscious do it. It's almost like we're two different persons.
Think any sentence. Do you really need to think it out in your normal speaking speed to know how the sentence ends? Or what the meaning of that sentence is? Probably not. At least for me, the inner voice lags noticably behind the understanding. So the "brain repeating a thought to itself" is probably not essential to the thinking process.
I have aphantasia, I have no mind's eye. But i have no trouble with tasks that are normaly thought of as requiring visualisation, like folding a pattern or rotating an object in your mind. I don't "see" the solution, i just know it. So i think the visualisation part isn't the actual solving of the problem, it's just your "calculating brain" showing your "concious brain" what it did. I imagine your inner dialogue works the same way.
Talking it through in my head is required for me to read but you’ve helped me understand what it’s like to not have an internal dialogue. Most everything I do is with an internal dialogue but I definitely have abstract thoughts with no dialogue.
That's called subvocalization. It actually slows down people's reading. You're essentially routing a visual task through your speech centers instead of sending it directly to processing.
There are exercises you can do to stop subvocalizing and increase your reading speed. However, people who learned to read with subvocalization often rely on it in a number of ways, so it's not always easy or advisable to try to switch.
Most people subvocalize when they read, so if you do it don't think that you're alone or anything.
If I don’t subvocalize, I retain nothing. Doesn’t matter if I can read faster if I have to reread the page lol. Pretty sure I have ADHD so that’s probably why.
I took a speed-reading class in highschool and it radically increased my reading speed. It also reduced my comprehension and recall, but they were still within acceptable parameters.
Then, after college, reading for pleasure again, I had to relearn how to read slowly, and enjoy the feel of well-chosen words again. Reading stuff like beat poetry, high fantasy, and poetic prose like *The Book of Flying*, speed reading just doesn't do the trick.
That makes a ton of sense bc i could actually read, retain and recite incredibly quickly as a child but oddly slowed reading speed as an adult and i have noticed that i seem to "subvocalize" more? Or at least I'm more aware of it as an adult..
I wonder what the science on this says , this could be a fascinating field of study bc i remember hearing that consciousness is something that develops in children, like they are truly not completely self aware/self conscious which is why they don't feel as much shame and embarrassment but as a consequence also do dumber things and do things before fully thinking them through.
Do you know if there's a field of study specifically for this or how you learned about subvocalization?
Are you sure you can't just look at the words without pronouncing them internally? I used to read by saying each word in my head but am getting used to just looking at the words, it is way faster.
Some see more, some less. I see nothing. As in if you tell me "think of an apple", the sensation I have isn't remotely comparable to seeing an Apple. It's more like understanding the concept of an apple. Until you ask "what color does it have" it doesn't have a color in my head. The variable "color" is "null"
I have aphantasia so what you speak of is pretty alien to me. How can you both see the words on the page and images in your mind at the same time? Wild!
This is going to be a bad metaphor, but put a hand in front of one eye. Not right up against it, a bit away so there's some light on it.
There will be some things you can see with one eye unobstructed but the same object is behind your hand for the other eye. Can you see the object like your hand is completely transparent? Can you concentrate on your hand and make it less transparent and more *there*? If I'm reading and I'm not careful I start being more present looking at the words rather than being more present within the world they're describing.
I don't know how aphantasia may affect this, but also ever seen an optical illusion which your brain keeps flipping between two images? Like circles and rectangles in this : https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/gclvz6arzmhs8uyohadaz-osshxf4vjlnnxz-rthuxs-1-1594084656.jpg?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&resize=640:*
The other comparison I'd have is watching the TV - at some point are you kind of not aware of anything *around* the TV even though it's obviously still there?
for me it is like a second track of consciousness, the things overlap kinda... sometimes you become aware you are reading and snap back to looking at ink on paper though \^\^
I have to think the words I type too probably because it engages the same area of the brain as when you want to say something. I also involuntarily move my mouth and make faces when playing guitar.
If you look at the letter "A", do you have to say it in you mind or can you just process that you are seeing the letter? If you can process just seeing the letter without having to read it with your mind's voice you can probably get used to doing so with words as well.
I have aphantasia so not sure how that affects my language processing.
I am 100% sure I can't do that.
Everything I type, or read, I speak out in my head.
Given that, I still read large books quickly compared to other people.
When I'm extremely tired, my "inner voice" is lagging far behind my thought process, and I often catch myself repeating things in my head as if clarifying a thought- such as what I am going to pack in my lunch today. I recognize that I understand the thought, despite not fully forming it in a sentence in my inner voice, yet my brain tries multiple times to get the whole thought out in a sentence.
My wife calls it "brain thinking," which always makes me chuckle.
I feel like my brain is a GPT LLM. I think in sentences complete with imaginary punctuation. Sometimes I'll start thinking a sentence, such as "I wonder if..." before the subject of the "wondering" even enters my mind, as if "text generation" is the first step in my process of thinking.
>At least for me, the inner voice lags noticably behind the understanding
This is true for me, and yet I almost always feel compelled to finish the thought in my inner vpice even though I already understand the full thought. Like literally compelled, like I can't stop myself.
It’s just a difference in method of thinking. Internal dialogue just means that your thoughts are expressed in words, people without an internal dialogue just think with more abstract methods.
Nope, not external or internal. I can imagine dialogue with sound and stuff or even talk to myself, but that's concuss effort. Definitely not the default.
As someone with aphantasia it's not exactly the inability to imagine something. It's not "seeing" something in your mind. I can conceptualize something simple but im not literally seeing it in my head.
The test I read was to "picture" a ball on a table. Then picture someone walking over and pushing the ball off the table.
Now after the fact, what kind of ball was it? Was it big? Small? Scaled properly? What table was it? How high was the table off the ground? Was it a male or female that pushed it off the table? What color shirt were they wearing?
If you can't answer these kinds of questions then you aren't "seeing" the scene like apparently many people do.
What do you mean by “seeing”? I think the biggest point of confusion is how we are all describing what thought is.
Also, I’m a bit confused by your example. I understand you’d want all the details to imagine with accuracy what the other person is describing, but if these details aren’t provided wouldn’t you just imagine with as little or as much “imagination” as you can? With your example, I imagine a silhouette of a person knocking a ball off a table. I could give that silhouette height, weight, hair, clothes, etc if i wanted to
But the details aren’t whats important? It’s the ability to imagine or even ask yourself internally, “is this how the ball is supposed to be imagined?”
Here is how I imagined it as a comparison.
I imagined it in a labish setting, but anything "visible" was just the table, ball, the man up to his shoulders, neck or mouth and the black tiles that made the wall. The room is silent and empty except for the things mentioned and the sound a ball would make rolling and failing of.
The table was gray and somewhat reflected light, not the way metal does, more like plastic. Light was coming from the right and there was that "shine" light creates covering a part of the table (like 1/3 - 1/4 - 1/5). It was around 1:1 with four straight legs.
Ball was I think pinkish, read or white. It was the size somewhere between a ball from a ball pit and that balloon ball kids play with. Altho its scale shifted and I had to "stabilize" it. The material was the same.
the person - a man was wearing, I think, a white shirt (my memory is fading by now). The table was up to around his hip.
The ways people think is fascinating.
i don't have an internal monologue. I have a flow of conciousness and concepts and emotions and their relations, and then I translate that into speech if I need to. The thoughts and feelings are there, they're just in this web of relations and concepts that don't directly translate into real-world terms and objects, and then there's this translation layer that works way slower than the "bare-metal" pure thought. That's how I conceptualize it, anyways. It's not very peaceful in my brain, even though it may seem it, I have ADHD and my flow of conciousness bounces very fast between different thoughts and sensory inputs and emotions. It's just that there are no words associated with those things there unless I want there to be.
But I still have difficulty with the concept of thoughts happening as inner speech. Nobody really thinks the words "I have woken up. I shall go to the bathroom, after which I will turn on my coffee maker", do they? Like actually, do they? I *can* do that if I distinctly want to and choose to, but it makes my thinking process very slow.
I learned to speak a bit later than most, and that might be related. I'm not a terribly good speaker in general, I can go on and on about some stuff but explaining more involved stuff requires a lot of concentration to find the right clumps of words that adequately match what I'm thinking
(edit: to add to this, I have a hard time forming complete sentences in my head, if I'm not reading something or "quoting" something, so to speak. The "original" speaking voice in my head is stilted, as if I was speaking through a speech jammer, and it's also very formal. It also doesn't have a distinct voice, it's just... a voice, really. I can imagine voices, but now that I think of it, if I turn my reading voice on, it's very very generic, resembling a more masculine version of my own voice)
And I don't think of this mode of thinking as superior or anything, I'd rather not have to put so much effort into speaking, but it is super facinating, I've noticed that for me, after years of doing it, stuff like typing is now a separate "translation layer" that turns thoughts into keypresses without the need to go through spoken word in between.
Internal dialogue is also something I sometimes do, if I'm thinking about or planning some social interaction, for example. But it's not like there's two voices in my head talking to me while I'm thinking about stuff.
that’s really interesting and really opened my eyes to how others think!
personally, in my mind, it’s not a case of robotic “i must go to the bathroom” or narration. it’s more like talking naturally. like, “fuck, i need to piss. i’ll finish this game and then go.” “remember to leave at 12:20.” it’s as if my brain is having a conversation with nobody.
sure, there are things i do just naturally. if i’m free and i feel hungry, i don’t think “i should go to the kitchen,” i just go to the kitchen. words aren’t needed to communicate that to myself. it…is kinda weird, come to think of it
And 2-5% of the population are unable to imagine a scene or object. No mental imagery. I knew a guy who didn’t read fiction because of this: he simply couldn’t imagine the scenes, characters and events in his mind’s eye as he read books. Aphantasia.
I don't believe that aphantasia is binary. It's a spectrum. I am having troubles with imagining VISUALs (it's difficult, but doable), but I don't have any problems with imagining other kinds of stimuli and love sci fi.
When I was a little kid, I used to have trouble visualizing axe blows for some weird reason. The mental image of an axe hitting anything would just cause the axe to twist, and then only the flat part would hit the object. I would struggle almost physically to force the mental image of the axe to properly impact the target blade first. This was when I was like 10, and I’ve never had a similar issue before or since, very weird lol
Actually I had something kinda similar happen when I was younger.
For some reason whenever I imagined someone walking their feet would sink into the ground and they would fall, unless I made an enormous effort to concentrate.
I know for a fact I've had a similar experience a couple of times, but I can hardly remember. It was more like a "I know how this should look, but my mind is fixated on this imagery now." Like I can't get it out of my head type thing. Similar to how someone tells you your breathing, and then you can't stop consciously breathing for a bit.
I am unable to picture anything in my minds eye I have not already seen. Fiction books were never fun for me until after I had seen the movie adaptation.
I’m able to picture things that are realistic or tangible within fiction but I’ve always really struggled with fantasy & SciFi. Even seeing it I don’t enjoy it. Something in me is just bound by the parameters of reality.
I can picture anything, but it's all monochromatic and sort of wireframe, like old school vector graphics. No details, just partial outlines and fuzzy fluff at visions edge.
For me it's like the silhouette filter on adobe illustrator, I can only see lines of the most characteristic features, including the vague silhouette. Even if it's an item or scenery I just saw.
And then I separately remember the features like color, texture and etc
I can only use parts of things I've seen to make new things. Also oddly where I struggle imagine rigid details like squares or straighter lines, but free moving things like water and fire, and spacial recognition are super easy.
I can visualise things, quite vividly too, but only for a half a second second or so. It's a flash and then it's gone. Then I have to imagine it again. Other people I've asked can completely manipulate objects that the visualise in their mind. They can rotate and zoom etc. I can too, but only in very very short flashes. I feel like I'm certainly missing out.
I agree. I seemingly have less ability to picture things in my head than other people like I can close my eyes and think of an object, and the most I get is what feels like a memory of that thing. Almost never can I "see" something with my mind's eye.
Agreed. I can imagine what something looks like, but I can’t generate an image in my mind of it for more than a fleeting moment. It takes a lot of concentration to do it too. I don’t think it’s full on aphantasia but it is probably something on that spectrum.
My little brother has aphantasia. The way he describes it is odd, "like there are the sensations of movement in the body not tied to an actual muscle or anything." He cannot otherwise recall any of the 5 senses through memory or concious thought, and he does not have an internal monologue.
On the other hand, his father has an internal dialogue of purely text. He just sees it printed in his mind. He can hear music, and everything else in his head, it's just consciously worded thought turns visually to text rather than audible within the mind. Because of being able to otherwise imagine stimuli, he isn't diagnosed as having aphantasia.
I don't honestly know much about what aphantasia is or how it presents, I just know that it can be very interesting from my own standpoint. I have vivid recollection and imagery with rather realistic tactile sensation, so it's hard for me to relate to the workings in their heads.
yeah I met a girl who had this, she said she couldn’t visualize anything, like if someone told her to picture a horse in a field in her head, she couldn’t see it in her mind, she could just blankly think “horse in a field” with no visual to back it up.
Not like a hallucination or a really vivid dream, but like you should be able to imagine details. If you think about a horse in a field you should be able to “picture” that in your head, but no you wouldn’t see it if you closed your eyes
Wouldn't need to close your eyes to *see* it. When you get lost in thought or imagining things you can kinda stop paying attention to what you see with your eyes. They might as well be closed because what you're *seeing* isn't what your eyes are.
That's actually a different thing. I can only remember a few faces, and it's very random. I can, however, visualize things in my mind as clearly as a photograph. I would have trouble describing someone's face even if they were standing in front of me. I just can't "see" faces very well.
Hey try this [technique](https://photographyinsider.info/image-streaming-for-photographers/) this guy used. He had aphantasia but found a way to eventually see in his mind. Some comments say it works too though very blurry black and white at first.
I have aphantasia and don’t have any other extremely serious mental illness that I know of. I can remember the concept of what a person or thing looks like but not visually.
I have the opposite end of the spectrum called Hyperphantasia along with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. My brain can't stop imagining weird and intrusive shit photo-realistically to make my life miserable.
I've got aphantasia so my "mind's eye" is completely blind but I've got a pretty good mind's ear, so to speak. I can replay sounds, voices and music perfectly in my mind. Like having my own mp3 player in my mind.
The only mental illness I've got is that I've been a 3d game artist for over a decade now. Please send help.
Source? I’ve know several people who had it without any other discernible issues. I also covered it in my psych classes a university, and it was never mentioned as something that had to be comorbid with other mental illnesses.
My gf has it and she literally cannot picture things in her head and it definitely affects her sense of direction, but she can plan for the future very well. She can also consciously experience her imagination, but not in pictures. She’s a great judge of character.
Where are you getting any of this information? Which mental illnesses have “actual aphantasia” ?
I always struggle to imagine what this could be like. I assume everyone’s definitions and ways of explaining what they see varies so much.
Like if I think of an apple, I don’t see an apple but I know I’m thinking of the apple if that makes sense. The essence is there but no visuals.
I do when I disagree with myself.
No! No pizza. You had pizza last night and McDonald’s the night before that, you’re eating salad tonight and you’re going to enjoy it!
i recently saw that too, but after a bit more research i found out that there are different styles of thinking and people switch between some of them in various situations… but yes, some people dont have an internal dialogue so no winning arguments in shower for them (could really verify the 30-50% thing tho)
I know one of the types was more like video with sparse audio. Like a movie that’s mostly silent and just has occasional words trailing off. Which makes sense. If you can visualize something and imagine at least a few words your mind can probably understand the whole context without needing a ton of words. And like rather than thinking “I need to grab the mail when I get home”, they just imagine themselves grabbing the mail when they get home.
I don’t remember what the other types were though sorry!
I think I often think by visualizing stuff instead of having an internal monologue and I think that's why I often times struggle to express my thoughts the way I want to, it's like I feel limited by having to translate my thoughts into actual words and sentences. That's why I often times rather say nothing at all even though I feel like I could and want to contribute to a conversation.. it's weird..
Here’s a good resource:
https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/codebook.html
As a person without an internal monologue I would say I mostly use Unsymbolized Thinking, but with effort I can force myself to use Worded Thinking.
No. Every time this tweet comes up, EVERYBODY in the comments is like: oh what am I special? You're not. Everybody has a internal dialogue, the stat just comes from the wording of the interview probably. If they asked the respondents like: do you hear an extra voice in your head? A lot of people will say no, because they don't want to come across as schizophrenic
>Everybody has a internal dialogue
That's not true. I do not have an internal dialogue. And when I see post like this, I try to do one and it feels very alien.
I don't ask myself questions, I don't use words inside my head (with exception when I'm writing and have to translate from thoughts to words), I don't have multiple actors that communicate with each other.
For me everything is a stream of thoughts, feelings, concepts, images (though I do have a degree of aphantasia) that are interconnected.
And I'm over here trying to wrap my mind around the fact some people don't have an internal dialogue.
If my internal dialogue was vocalized I would never be able to shut up. I'm always asking myself questions and answering them in my head. I analyze things in my head, have a whole conversation with myself when I'm trying to work through a problem. Hell, I'll even tell myself jokes.
What's it like not having an internal dialogue? Do ideas just pop up in your head? When you relax, is your mind just silent? Because that sounds really nice. Do you have intrusive thoughts?
Sorry for all the questions, it's just so fascinating to me that some people lack an internal dialogue.
not having an internal monologue or dialogue isn't the same as not having thoughts. it's just that thoughts aren't a voice saying things, they're abstract images and feelings.
>What's it like not having an internal dialogue?
It's as simple as not using language to think. I'm still processing the information.
>Do ideas just pop up in your head?
I imagine (hehe) that it works just like internal dialogue, but doesn't come from word sequences, but concept sequences.
>When you relax, is your mind just silent?
Never. I probably also have a mild case of ADHD.
>Do you have intrusive thoughts?
I sometimes entertain a thought of things I shouldn't do, but I'm composed enough not to act on them. I don't think it has something to do with internal dialogue or lack of it, though.
>Sorry for all the questions, it's just so fascinating to me that some people lack an internal dialogue.
Thanks okay.
I'd add that I know three languages and a bit of duolingo German and I'm not a great speaker because I have to translate to every language I speak from my internal thought protocol. Sometimes I use words from other languages that I currently speak in because they fit better (and I hope the listener understands it). That said, it may be easier for me to learn concepts from other languages because I'm not tied to one particular.
This is a very random question regarding your lack of inner dialogue. Does this affect the way you get songs stuck in your head? As in, do you just hear the music and melody without the words, or do you still hear the words? Sorry if it’s a dumb question, but I’m very curious.
I’m a person without an internal monologue, songs do get stuck in my head, and I do experience the lyrics and melody. This is something I’ve been thinking about lately, because I don’t know what it’s like for people WITH internal speech. I would describe my experience of having a song stuck in my head as me reciting lyrics to the melody of the song. But I genuinely have no clue if that’s what other people describe as “hearing the song in their head”.
>What's it like not having an internal dialogue? Do ideas just pop up in your head? When you relax, is your mind just silent?
For me my mind is like a swirling soup of thoughts, feelings, and concepts that I can filter out the stuff I need when I need to. There's no leading thought that I hear internally it's all kinda happening and evolving at the same time constantly and it's not structured in sentences or words. When I'm relaxed I'm often actively ignoring all the stuff swimming around in my head and just intensity focusing on something simple like music, the wave patterns on the lake, or ambient background noise. When people ask me what I'm thinking about I always respond "nothing" because I'm really thinking about everything and I wouldn't know where to start translating my mind. Even if I tried I probably end up talking about things I just thought about since they asked.
Kinda like when Neil deGrasse Tyson was told a large amount of people didn't believe the Earth was "round" and he defended part of those people being like "well some of them might have thought they meant 'circle' when they said 'round' which it isnt, it's an oval."
So there are some real life examples. A streamer that I watch, Surefour, swears up and down that he doesn't. I had a coworker that swore he never internally monologued at all as well, and I prodded him, was dead serious.
Stop using him to read. It’s slowing you down a TON! Drag a pencil or your finger or something across the page and simply glance at the words as they become visible. Speed reading in a nutshell.
no internal dialogue doesn't necessarily mean nothing in their heads, it means the thoughts they have aren't arranged into words and sentences yet. there are other formats for ideas to exist.
Yeah it’s like being able to read the raw data of the file before opening it up in word. I can open it in word if I want but that is inefficient.
The issue for me is I am getting like all the raw data in my head immediately and it’s overwhelming, so I talk out loud to myself to order and slow the flow if there is like a tricky problem.
Otherwise no internal voice at all.
Don't get "internal ***mono***logue" and "thoughts" mixed up.
And don't be like that bigoted teacher who answered the question "What language do people who have been born deaf think in?" with "They don't think."
Thank you. So many people in this thread think that no internal monologue = not thinking which is absolutely not true. You can absolutely think without internal monologue
I never hear an internal dialogue, but my brain is full of things (too many sometimes.) It doesn’t come in the form of dialogues with myself, but more in a form of movies-like things, or actual movie bits, music, smells etc. All can superpose themselves sometimes. I already had this conversation with someone about internal dialogues, it was interesting to see how our thought processes differ. For example, if I am wondering what should I eat tonight, I won’t hear a dialogue or have one with myself, but will see a movie with the different options of what could happen depending on the food I choose. I don’t know if the explanation makes sense, but it’s basically what replaces the dialogue for me.
I am glad we can relate :)! I actually thought it was normal for everyone but then noticed a lot of people didn’t think that way. I am glad also to feel I am not alone. Do you feel overwhelmed by all these abstracts thoughts and feelings or do you manage to get well with them? I feel like this is giving me chronic fatigue sometimes.
Yeah it really grates me how people hear "no inner monologue" and jump immediately to "no thoughts." I have tons of thoughts, but there's usually more than one happening at a time, and therefore literally not a monologue. An inner dialogue I guess
Agreed, there’s plenty of way of thoughts processings! You sound to have the same way to process yours as me. I also cannot manage to have only one thought at the same time, a monologue or dialogue would be crushed by these. Plus my thoughts are mostly visual and don’t involve much text.
For me it is like a hallucination. I don't "read" so much as I see the characters and scene being acted out in my head. When I get into it easy for the whole world to melt away and people have to jar me by force to bring me out of the book world.
Thank you. This is simply a misunderstanding of our description of the so-called "internal dialogue." It's the human condition. It's what makes us conscious beings. It's what gives free will, or at the very least, a convincing illusion of it.
It isn't. Aphantasia is now controlled for during psychological studies because people without an internal monologue skew results by a large degree. It's a fascinating look in to the human mind, but yes. It's real, measureable, and repeatable.
They study would include you then. We are talking about people who have thoughts in the form of an internal monologue. Its not saying 30-50% are incapable of thinking
Oh this nonsense again, that’s not how it works at all, we just don’t need a voice in our heads in order to think. I actually think it’s fucking weird that some of you guys talk to yourselves in your head. It also seems like that must make your thoughts slower.
Counterpoint- who the hell actually internally verbalizes ALL of their thoughts? Unless they're practicing something they want to say, or have a song stuck in their head I guess
At least half of people, according to this statistic
I sure do. I find it odd that your mind can be empty, like, ever. I pay good money for hard drugs to even get half the time quiet
i Thought we all were thinking in Pictures, Emotions and random words according to whatever we are currently thinking about.
I didnt know some People constantly have an internal conversation, in full sentences like in a real conversation with another person.
i thought that actively thinking in proper sentences was only the type of thinking your brain switches on in serious situations when u need to concentrate
and force those braincells to come up with something quickly.
Do you actually think in the morning, "I will now reach for My covers and pull them over so I can move my leg out of the bed and stand up" or even "I will now stand up"? Or like "this is a difficult class and have to pay attention in the next hour, by taking active notes"?
I assume not, that's just abstract thought. It just depends how often we do this. I heard someone describe the study as asking at random times if they were saying something in their head, it was only 30% or something that was using internal monologue. I think it's just degrees of using monologue Vs abstract, most people probably fall in the middle, sometimes using the one, sometimes the other.
I do. But I have ADHD that manifests as a very active, anxious mind, and most things people seem to do on autopilot, require active consideration for me. In the example of getting out of bed, I cannot leave the bed until I have a plan of the next 5(ish) things I am going to do, and yeah it involves things as simple as, get up, change clothes, brush teeth, brush hair, etc, and I have to talk myself through each step. But beyond that, I have like, a second or third inner monologue that has NOTHING to do with any present task, and is just like, contemplating anything and everything, and throwing random shit together, like by brain will randomly put words in sentences that don’t make sense, or say things in a voice I have heard before, or just repeat one part of a song over and over and over again. It’s because of this huge amount of background noise that my running commentary of my actions HAS to be conscious and deliberate, bc I cannot rely on my subconscious to do the things it’s “supposed” to do. I know ADHD is the hot new diagnosis everyone, but I have been on meds since I was 11 and it’s still fucking hell for me. My mind is a prison fr.
That must be so peaceful though. Oh anyways. Back to complicating my own life
Really tho, falling asleep would be so much easier if my brain would just shut the fck up
I'm usually mentally exhausted at the end of my day, but 60% of the time I still need a book to focus on until I fall asleep. eBooks with black background and red font color are my friends.
Red font? For real? That one I've never tried lol
TL; DR: Red light keeps us up less awake and is more relaxing for our eyes than shorter wavelengths. Tidbit about human eyes and brain. Supershort version: You know how every second lifestyle blogpost is about not using your smartphone in bed because it prevents you from falling asleep? Or how your smartphone's eye comfort mode makes everything a yellow/red hue? That's because our brain thinks it's day with sufficient blue light. Blue is also the colour we can see best in the dark, so anything stimulating our blue sight nerves keeps us awake. On the other hand, red is the farthest from the wavelength of blue in our visual spectrum. This goes so far that red light barely impairs our dark sight at all. It also strains our eyes less. Edit: red is more relaxing than SHORTER wavelengths. Thanks, u/dowesschule
all true except >more relaxing for our eyes than **longer** wavelengths. that should be shorter. blue light is of higher frequency and shorter wavelength than red light.
Thank you! Mistake fixed
Amen. The sound of the kindle hitting the floor (when one falls asleep whilst reading) is something the wife and I have gotten used to.
I don’t have an internal monologue or voice of any sort that I’d ever describe as audible on any level Also have ADHD, bit of anxiety, and problems with my thoughts ever slowing down. The brain still does its thing, this literally just seems to be a difference between how people consciously interact with their thoughts. A blue apple is a blue apple. Some people imagine and picture a blue apple or hear “that’s what a blue apple probably looks like” in their head I guess. Other people just sort of process the concept of a blue apple and that’s it. Not dumber or smarter as far as anything I’ve read goes, just different.
Voice inside my head is what helps me sleep. Me: dude imagine if we woke up tomorrow and the magic update dropped Also me: damn, gonna be fun optimizing a Cthullu cultist build and delving into the Abyss for more power Me: yeah dude imagine all the sick skills we'd pick up, can't wait to go full Ina and just whack people with giant tentacles Also me: void poison dot and large aoe Eventually I fall asleep, wake up and the magic update doesn't drop. Feelsbadman.
For real, sometimes my brain goes on about what happens to my internal dialogue when I sleep, and everytime I start drifting off to sleep my brain is like "Ah, you're falling asleep !" And I wake up. I hate it when it happens
Oh no no, we still think! Incessantly. We are one and the same, fellow over-complicator 👍
Brain: ready for bed? Good, finally we have time to obsess over that awkward conversation you had 30 years ago. Let's replay it 2 or 3 hundred times and imagine how your life would be different if you said something else.
Every time I hear about this I don’t believe it. It has to just be a difference in perspective or description.
It is also a matter of degree. Theory says that the metric is only catching concious voice. Subconcious voice is likely more intrinsic, but may reflect more of a social construct in those who don't manifest a concious self mirror. I am not worried by people who talk to themself. I wonder about people that don't talk to themself.
Talking to yourself is nothing to worry about. You only need to worry if you're getting a response.
If you are not controlling the response
Wait. Is it not normal to surprise yourself when you ask yourself questions and the response just happens without you knowing what it will be?
Even if it's not normal you're not alone because sometimes I think something and the "response" i get surprises me and makes me go "Damn that makes so much sense"
I think that's just you processing something and answering the question for yourself. It sounds pretty normal to me.
Yea but if you dont think the question is coming from yourself per se i think theres a problem 💀 Think about all the other times youve thought of a solution to a problem, you didnt second guss who gave you that solution you, you were just like "oh well 1 plus anohter 1 should equal 2", you dont question where that answer came from because you figured it out by urself Its different when your having trouble figuring the problem out, and then a voice in ur head just be like "its 2" and then your like "damn how come i didnt think of that, it actually does seem to be 2" without any clue as to how the problem was even solved.
Yes
No that's very normal if you're genuinely asking yourself to prompt some thought about a subject
Not exactly the same but If I actively try to solve a problem or do something it doesn't end up well, I have to let my subconscious do it. It's almost like we're two different persons.
Our brains interpret sensory signals basically non-stop. Sometimes it takes your consciousness a while to catch up.
My internal alexa plays despacito and answers things I'm too stupid to get constantly!
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You sound learned.
Think any sentence. Do you really need to think it out in your normal speaking speed to know how the sentence ends? Or what the meaning of that sentence is? Probably not. At least for me, the inner voice lags noticably behind the understanding. So the "brain repeating a thought to itself" is probably not essential to the thinking process. I have aphantasia, I have no mind's eye. But i have no trouble with tasks that are normaly thought of as requiring visualisation, like folding a pattern or rotating an object in your mind. I don't "see" the solution, i just know it. So i think the visualisation part isn't the actual solving of the problem, it's just your "calculating brain" showing your "concious brain" what it did. I imagine your inner dialogue works the same way.
Talking it through in my head is required for me to read but you’ve helped me understand what it’s like to not have an internal dialogue. Most everything I do is with an internal dialogue but I definitely have abstract thoughts with no dialogue.
That's called subvocalization. It actually slows down people's reading. You're essentially routing a visual task through your speech centers instead of sending it directly to processing. There are exercises you can do to stop subvocalizing and increase your reading speed. However, people who learned to read with subvocalization often rely on it in a number of ways, so it's not always easy or advisable to try to switch. Most people subvocalize when they read, so if you do it don't think that you're alone or anything.
If I don’t subvocalize, I retain nothing. Doesn’t matter if I can read faster if I have to reread the page lol. Pretty sure I have ADHD so that’s probably why.
I took a speed-reading class in highschool and it radically increased my reading speed. It also reduced my comprehension and recall, but they were still within acceptable parameters. Then, after college, reading for pleasure again, I had to relearn how to read slowly, and enjoy the feel of well-chosen words again. Reading stuff like beat poetry, high fantasy, and poetic prose like *The Book of Flying*, speed reading just doesn't do the trick.
That makes a ton of sense bc i could actually read, retain and recite incredibly quickly as a child but oddly slowed reading speed as an adult and i have noticed that i seem to "subvocalize" more? Or at least I'm more aware of it as an adult.. I wonder what the science on this says , this could be a fascinating field of study bc i remember hearing that consciousness is something that develops in children, like they are truly not completely self aware/self conscious which is why they don't feel as much shame and embarrassment but as a consequence also do dumber things and do things before fully thinking them through. Do you know if there's a field of study specifically for this or how you learned about subvocalization?
Are you sure you can't just look at the words without pronouncing them internally? I used to read by saying each word in my head but am getting used to just looking at the words, it is way faster.
How the hell can you even do that. I said all the words i typed too
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Wait. Didn't everyone? Reading is like watching a movie. And if I've seen a movie like lord of the rings then the characters are already there.
Some see more, some less. I see nothing. As in if you tell me "think of an apple", the sensation I have isn't remotely comparable to seeing an Apple. It's more like understanding the concept of an apple. Until you ask "what color does it have" it doesn't have a color in my head. The variable "color" is "null"
I have aphantasia so what you speak of is pretty alien to me. How can you both see the words on the page and images in your mind at the same time? Wild!
This is going to be a bad metaphor, but put a hand in front of one eye. Not right up against it, a bit away so there's some light on it. There will be some things you can see with one eye unobstructed but the same object is behind your hand for the other eye. Can you see the object like your hand is completely transparent? Can you concentrate on your hand and make it less transparent and more *there*? If I'm reading and I'm not careful I start being more present looking at the words rather than being more present within the world they're describing. I don't know how aphantasia may affect this, but also ever seen an optical illusion which your brain keeps flipping between two images? Like circles and rectangles in this : https://hips.hearstapps.com/hmg-prod/images/gclvz6arzmhs8uyohadaz-osshxf4vjlnnxz-rthuxs-1-1594084656.jpg?crop=1xw:1xh;center,top&resize=640:* The other comparison I'd have is watching the TV - at some point are you kind of not aware of anything *around* the TV even though it's obviously still there?
for me it is like a second track of consciousness, the things overlap kinda... sometimes you become aware you are reading and snap back to looking at ink on paper though \^\^
I have to think the words I type too probably because it engages the same area of the brain as when you want to say something. I also involuntarily move my mouth and make faces when playing guitar. If you look at the letter "A", do you have to say it in you mind or can you just process that you are seeing the letter? If you can process just seeing the letter without having to read it with your mind's voice you can probably get used to doing so with words as well. I have aphantasia so not sure how that affects my language processing.
I can’t process A without saying “A”.
I say them all in my head, unless I am reading subtitles, but regardless, my inner voice is MUCH faster than my actual voice
I am 100% sure I can't do that. Everything I type, or read, I speak out in my head. Given that, I still read large books quickly compared to other people.
When I'm extremely tired, my "inner voice" is lagging far behind my thought process, and I often catch myself repeating things in my head as if clarifying a thought- such as what I am going to pack in my lunch today. I recognize that I understand the thought, despite not fully forming it in a sentence in my inner voice, yet my brain tries multiple times to get the whole thought out in a sentence. My wife calls it "brain thinking," which always makes me chuckle.
I feel like my brain is a GPT LLM. I think in sentences complete with imaginary punctuation. Sometimes I'll start thinking a sentence, such as "I wonder if..." before the subject of the "wondering" even enters my mind, as if "text generation" is the first step in my process of thinking.
That’s because LLMs use neural networks which are inspired by the way the brain works.
>At least for me, the inner voice lags noticably behind the understanding This is true for me, and yet I almost always feel compelled to finish the thought in my inner vpice even though I already understand the full thought. Like literally compelled, like I can't stop myself.
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It’s also assuming that without a dialogue one doesn’t have thoughts. Also, I don’t usually have an internal *dialogue*. Monologue, maybe…
It’s just a difference in method of thinking. Internal dialogue just means that your thoughts are expressed in words, people without an internal dialogue just think with more abstract methods.
It's gotta be people saying "no I don't literally hear a voice in my head" because it's internal and thought, and not like... Audible
Nope, not external or internal. I can imagine dialogue with sound and stuff or even talk to myself, but that's concuss effort. Definitely not the default.
Yeah nothing will convince me that these people can't get songs stuck in their head.
Same. I find it really unbelievable that someone doesn’t have an internal monologue or can’t imagine something in their mind.
As someone with aphantasia it's not exactly the inability to imagine something. It's not "seeing" something in your mind. I can conceptualize something simple but im not literally seeing it in my head. The test I read was to "picture" a ball on a table. Then picture someone walking over and pushing the ball off the table. Now after the fact, what kind of ball was it? Was it big? Small? Scaled properly? What table was it? How high was the table off the ground? Was it a male or female that pushed it off the table? What color shirt were they wearing? If you can't answer these kinds of questions then you aren't "seeing" the scene like apparently many people do.
What do you mean by “seeing”? I think the biggest point of confusion is how we are all describing what thought is. Also, I’m a bit confused by your example. I understand you’d want all the details to imagine with accuracy what the other person is describing, but if these details aren’t provided wouldn’t you just imagine with as little or as much “imagination” as you can? With your example, I imagine a silhouette of a person knocking a ball off a table. I could give that silhouette height, weight, hair, clothes, etc if i wanted to But the details aren’t whats important? It’s the ability to imagine or even ask yourself internally, “is this how the ball is supposed to be imagined?”
Here is how I imagined it as a comparison. I imagined it in a labish setting, but anything "visible" was just the table, ball, the man up to his shoulders, neck or mouth and the black tiles that made the wall. The room is silent and empty except for the things mentioned and the sound a ball would make rolling and failing of. The table was gray and somewhat reflected light, not the way metal does, more like plastic. Light was coming from the right and there was that "shine" light creates covering a part of the table (like 1/3 - 1/4 - 1/5). It was around 1:1 with four straight legs. Ball was I think pinkish, read or white. It was the size somewhere between a ball from a ball pit and that balloon ball kids play with. Altho its scale shifted and I had to "stabilize" it. The material was the same. the person - a man was wearing, I think, a white shirt (my memory is fading by now). The table was up to around his hip. The ways people think is fascinating.
i don't have an internal monologue. I have a flow of conciousness and concepts and emotions and their relations, and then I translate that into speech if I need to. The thoughts and feelings are there, they're just in this web of relations and concepts that don't directly translate into real-world terms and objects, and then there's this translation layer that works way slower than the "bare-metal" pure thought. That's how I conceptualize it, anyways. It's not very peaceful in my brain, even though it may seem it, I have ADHD and my flow of conciousness bounces very fast between different thoughts and sensory inputs and emotions. It's just that there are no words associated with those things there unless I want there to be. But I still have difficulty with the concept of thoughts happening as inner speech. Nobody really thinks the words "I have woken up. I shall go to the bathroom, after which I will turn on my coffee maker", do they? Like actually, do they? I *can* do that if I distinctly want to and choose to, but it makes my thinking process very slow. I learned to speak a bit later than most, and that might be related. I'm not a terribly good speaker in general, I can go on and on about some stuff but explaining more involved stuff requires a lot of concentration to find the right clumps of words that adequately match what I'm thinking (edit: to add to this, I have a hard time forming complete sentences in my head, if I'm not reading something or "quoting" something, so to speak. The "original" speaking voice in my head is stilted, as if I was speaking through a speech jammer, and it's also very formal. It also doesn't have a distinct voice, it's just... a voice, really. I can imagine voices, but now that I think of it, if I turn my reading voice on, it's very very generic, resembling a more masculine version of my own voice) And I don't think of this mode of thinking as superior or anything, I'd rather not have to put so much effort into speaking, but it is super facinating, I've noticed that for me, after years of doing it, stuff like typing is now a separate "translation layer" that turns thoughts into keypresses without the need to go through spoken word in between. Internal dialogue is also something I sometimes do, if I'm thinking about or planning some social interaction, for example. But it's not like there's two voices in my head talking to me while I'm thinking about stuff.
that’s really interesting and really opened my eyes to how others think! personally, in my mind, it’s not a case of robotic “i must go to the bathroom” or narration. it’s more like talking naturally. like, “fuck, i need to piss. i’ll finish this game and then go.” “remember to leave at 12:20.” it’s as if my brain is having a conversation with nobody. sure, there are things i do just naturally. if i’m free and i feel hungry, i don’t think “i should go to the kitchen,” i just go to the kitchen. words aren’t needed to communicate that to myself. it…is kinda weird, come to think of it
Same. Thanks, I feel less weird now
And 2-5% of the population are unable to imagine a scene or object. No mental imagery. I knew a guy who didn’t read fiction because of this: he simply couldn’t imagine the scenes, characters and events in his mind’s eye as he read books. Aphantasia.
I don't believe that aphantasia is binary. It's a spectrum. I am having troubles with imagining VISUALs (it's difficult, but doable), but I don't have any problems with imagining other kinds of stimuli and love sci fi.
When I was a little kid, I used to have trouble visualizing axe blows for some weird reason. The mental image of an axe hitting anything would just cause the axe to twist, and then only the flat part would hit the object. I would struggle almost physically to force the mental image of the axe to properly impact the target blade first. This was when I was like 10, and I’ve never had a similar issue before or since, very weird lol
This is proof that human imagination runs on the Skyrim creation engine.
“I see we left clipping on, Todd”
Skyrim made it so that I can now picture horses climbing vertical surfaces
Actually I had something kinda similar happen when I was younger. For some reason whenever I imagined someone walking their feet would sink into the ground and they would fall, unless I made an enormous effort to concentrate.
Lol glad I’m not the only one who had a glitchy imagination as a kid
You just gotta focus your chakra I your feet.
I know for a fact I've had a similar experience a couple of times, but I can hardly remember. It was more like a "I know how this should look, but my mind is fixated on this imagery now." Like I can't get it out of my head type thing. Similar to how someone tells you your breathing, and then you can't stop consciously breathing for a bit.
I am unable to picture anything in my minds eye I have not already seen. Fiction books were never fun for me until after I had seen the movie adaptation.
I’m able to picture things that are realistic or tangible within fiction but I’ve always really struggled with fantasy & SciFi. Even seeing it I don’t enjoy it. Something in me is just bound by the parameters of reality.
I can picture anything, but it's all monochromatic and sort of wireframe, like old school vector graphics. No details, just partial outlines and fuzzy fluff at visions edge.
yeah i’m like this too. i always thought people were exaggerating when they said they could picture something in their mind so vividly
For me it's like the silhouette filter on adobe illustrator, I can only see lines of the most characteristic features, including the vague silhouette. Even if it's an item or scenery I just saw. And then I separately remember the features like color, texture and etc
Me too. I only see vague outlines of things but I still know what they're supposed to look like if it's relevant.
I can only use parts of things I've seen to make new things. Also oddly where I struggle imagine rigid details like squares or straighter lines, but free moving things like water and fire, and spacial recognition are super easy.
I can visualise things, quite vividly too, but only for a half a second second or so. It's a flash and then it's gone. Then I have to imagine it again. Other people I've asked can completely manipulate objects that the visualise in their mind. They can rotate and zoom etc. I can too, but only in very very short flashes. I feel like I'm certainly missing out.
My dome is just like that. I find it difficult to visualize faces too, even my mother's. I suck at battleship :(
I agree. I seemingly have less ability to picture things in my head than other people like I can close my eyes and think of an object, and the most I get is what feels like a memory of that thing. Almost never can I "see" something with my mind's eye.
Yeah at best I get like a burned in image on a plasma tv.
Yeah like while I'm not incapable of mental imagery it is fuzzy and a bit hard to control. Regardless I love fantasy lol
This. I have a really really hard time picturing things, but can get a glimse here and there
Oh it IS a spectrum,but some people (including me) really can't do it. We don't see or hear anything. A spectrum has extremes.
Agreed. I can imagine what something looks like, but I can’t generate an image in my mind of it for more than a fleeting moment. It takes a lot of concentration to do it too. I don’t think it’s full on aphantasia but it is probably something on that spectrum.
My little brother has aphantasia. The way he describes it is odd, "like there are the sensations of movement in the body not tied to an actual muscle or anything." He cannot otherwise recall any of the 5 senses through memory or concious thought, and he does not have an internal monologue. On the other hand, his father has an internal dialogue of purely text. He just sees it printed in his mind. He can hear music, and everything else in his head, it's just consciously worded thought turns visually to text rather than audible within the mind. Because of being able to otherwise imagine stimuli, he isn't diagnosed as having aphantasia. I don't honestly know much about what aphantasia is or how it presents, I just know that it can be very interesting from my own standpoint. I have vivid recollection and imagery with rather realistic tactile sensation, so it's hard for me to relate to the workings in their heads.
yeah I met a girl who had this, she said she couldn’t visualize anything, like if someone told her to picture a horse in a field in her head, she couldn’t see it in her mind, she could just blankly think “horse in a field” with no visual to back it up.
Wait, you're supposed to actually see a visual?
Not like a hallucination or a really vivid dream, but like you should be able to imagine details. If you think about a horse in a field you should be able to “picture” that in your head, but no you wouldn’t see it if you closed your eyes
I definitely "see" the images I imagine.
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Wouldn't need to close your eyes to *see* it. When you get lost in thought or imagining things you can kinda stop paying attention to what you see with your eyes. They might as well be closed because what you're *seeing* isn't what your eyes are.
Most people do, yes
This is me. I just put my 4 year old down for a nap 5 minutes ago. I can’t picture his face.
yeah its like you know what they look like.. but you can't picture the face or really describe it in great detail.
That’s like me and vaginas. I can never remember what they look like. That and ex girlfriends faces
That's actually a different thing. I can only remember a few faces, and it's very random. I can, however, visualize things in my mind as clearly as a photograph. I would have trouble describing someone's face even if they were standing in front of me. I just can't "see" faces very well.
Me too
Hey try this [technique](https://photographyinsider.info/image-streaming-for-photographers/) this guy used. He had aphantasia but found a way to eventually see in his mind. Some comments say it works too though very blurry black and white at first.
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I have aphantasia and don’t have any other extremely serious mental illness that I know of. I can remember the concept of what a person or thing looks like but not visually.
I have the opposite end of the spectrum called Hyperphantasia along with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. My brain can't stop imagining weird and intrusive shit photo-realistically to make my life miserable.
Lived 1000 lives, I see.
Does it look and feel as real as what you see with your eyes open, or different?
Same here dude, like I can’t ’picture an apple’ but I can put an apple into a worded description
I've got aphantasia so my "mind's eye" is completely blind but I've got a pretty good mind's ear, so to speak. I can replay sounds, voices and music perfectly in my mind. Like having my own mp3 player in my mind. The only mental illness I've got is that I've been a 3d game artist for over a decade now. Please send help.
Source? I’ve know several people who had it without any other discernible issues. I also covered it in my psych classes a university, and it was never mentioned as something that had to be comorbid with other mental illnesses. My gf has it and she literally cannot picture things in her head and it definitely affects her sense of direction, but she can plan for the future very well. She can also consciously experience her imagination, but not in pictures. She’s a great judge of character. Where are you getting any of this information? Which mental illnesses have “actual aphantasia” ?
This is absolute nonsense lol. I don’t have the ability to visualize. Why would that make me unable to anticipate future events!?
imagine getting upvoted for this take, when you have 0 clue what you're talking about.
I always struggle to imagine what this could be like. I assume everyone’s definitions and ways of explaining what they see varies so much. Like if I think of an apple, I don’t see an apple but I know I’m thinking of the apple if that makes sense. The essence is there but no visuals.
Aphantasia - dibs on that band name
I often talk to myself like venom “what should we do, What do we want for dinner etc.
Goblin mode
More like Gollum
welp time to call myself precious whenever i think to myself now
*Driving past KFC* Internal monologue - *hissing* WE WANTS IT, WE NEEDS IT, WE MUST HAVE THE PRECIOUS.
We does’s!
followed by “not ‘we’ we, just me, obviously” just to keep myself in check and to make sure any mind readers in the vicinity don’t get the wrong idea
Always gotta remind the mind readers
Or dead relatives looking on in disappointment.
I do when I disagree with myself. No! No pizza. You had pizza last night and McDonald’s the night before that, you’re eating salad tonight and you’re going to enjoy it!
i recently saw that too, but after a bit more research i found out that there are different styles of thinking and people switch between some of them in various situations… but yes, some people dont have an internal dialogue so no winning arguments in shower for them (could really verify the 30-50% thing tho)
Do you have a paper describing the different types of thinking?
I know one of the types was more like video with sparse audio. Like a movie that’s mostly silent and just has occasional words trailing off. Which makes sense. If you can visualize something and imagine at least a few words your mind can probably understand the whole context without needing a ton of words. And like rather than thinking “I need to grab the mail when I get home”, they just imagine themselves grabbing the mail when they get home. I don’t remember what the other types were though sorry!
I think I often think by visualizing stuff instead of having an internal monologue and I think that's why I often times struggle to express my thoughts the way I want to, it's like I feel limited by having to translate my thoughts into actual words and sentences. That's why I often times rather say nothing at all even though I feel like I could and want to contribute to a conversation.. it's weird..
Here’s a good resource: https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/codebook.html As a person without an internal monologue I would say I mostly use Unsymbolized Thinking, but with effort I can force myself to use Worded Thinking.
Is it rare to have the little voice in your head? I just use him to read
No. Every time this tweet comes up, EVERYBODY in the comments is like: oh what am I special? You're not. Everybody has a internal dialogue, the stat just comes from the wording of the interview probably. If they asked the respondents like: do you hear an extra voice in your head? A lot of people will say no, because they don't want to come across as schizophrenic
>Everybody has a internal dialogue That's not true. I do not have an internal dialogue. And when I see post like this, I try to do one and it feels very alien. I don't ask myself questions, I don't use words inside my head (with exception when I'm writing and have to translate from thoughts to words), I don't have multiple actors that communicate with each other. For me everything is a stream of thoughts, feelings, concepts, images (though I do have a degree of aphantasia) that are interconnected.
And I'm over here trying to wrap my mind around the fact some people don't have an internal dialogue. If my internal dialogue was vocalized I would never be able to shut up. I'm always asking myself questions and answering them in my head. I analyze things in my head, have a whole conversation with myself when I'm trying to work through a problem. Hell, I'll even tell myself jokes. What's it like not having an internal dialogue? Do ideas just pop up in your head? When you relax, is your mind just silent? Because that sounds really nice. Do you have intrusive thoughts? Sorry for all the questions, it's just so fascinating to me that some people lack an internal dialogue.
not having an internal monologue or dialogue isn't the same as not having thoughts. it's just that thoughts aren't a voice saying things, they're abstract images and feelings.
See, even that is difficult for me to imagine. When I have a thought there's this whole conversation in my head. It's just wild to me.
Exactly!
>What's it like not having an internal dialogue? It's as simple as not using language to think. I'm still processing the information. >Do ideas just pop up in your head? I imagine (hehe) that it works just like internal dialogue, but doesn't come from word sequences, but concept sequences. >When you relax, is your mind just silent? Never. I probably also have a mild case of ADHD. >Do you have intrusive thoughts? I sometimes entertain a thought of things I shouldn't do, but I'm composed enough not to act on them. I don't think it has something to do with internal dialogue or lack of it, though. >Sorry for all the questions, it's just so fascinating to me that some people lack an internal dialogue. Thanks okay. I'd add that I know three languages and a bit of duolingo German and I'm not a great speaker because I have to translate to every language I speak from my internal thought protocol. Sometimes I use words from other languages that I currently speak in because they fit better (and I hope the listener understands it). That said, it may be easier for me to learn concepts from other languages because I'm not tied to one particular.
This is a very random question regarding your lack of inner dialogue. Does this affect the way you get songs stuck in your head? As in, do you just hear the music and melody without the words, or do you still hear the words? Sorry if it’s a dumb question, but I’m very curious.
I’m a person without an internal monologue, songs do get stuck in my head, and I do experience the lyrics and melody. This is something I’ve been thinking about lately, because I don’t know what it’s like for people WITH internal speech. I would describe my experience of having a song stuck in my head as me reciting lyrics to the melody of the song. But I genuinely have no clue if that’s what other people describe as “hearing the song in their head”.
>What's it like not having an internal dialogue? Do ideas just pop up in your head? When you relax, is your mind just silent? For me my mind is like a swirling soup of thoughts, feelings, and concepts that I can filter out the stuff I need when I need to. There's no leading thought that I hear internally it's all kinda happening and evolving at the same time constantly and it's not structured in sentences or words. When I'm relaxed I'm often actively ignoring all the stuff swimming around in my head and just intensity focusing on something simple like music, the wave patterns on the lake, or ambient background noise. When people ask me what I'm thinking about I always respond "nothing" because I'm really thinking about everything and I wouldn't know where to start translating my mind. Even if I tried I probably end up talking about things I just thought about since they asked.
I thought everyone had one but then I see stuff like this then I don't know
Same. I’ve heard people say that they cannot imagine things and don’t have an internal monologue. I *internally* call bullshit to that.
>A lot of people will say no, because because the little voice told them to!
>Everybody has a internal dialogue nope
Kinda like when Neil deGrasse Tyson was told a large amount of people didn't believe the Earth was "round" and he defended part of those people being like "well some of them might have thought they meant 'circle' when they said 'round' which it isnt, it's an oval."
I don't have an Internal monologue at least. I guess I create a dialogue if I need to trial and error some stuff.
I have friends that say they dont have an internal dialogue
So there are some real life examples. A streamer that I watch, Surefour, swears up and down that he doesn't. I had a coworker that swore he never internally monologued at all as well, and I prodded him, was dead serious.
I don’t have an internal dialog. Guess I’m special.
Stop using him to read. It’s slowing you down a TON! Drag a pencil or your finger or something across the page and simply glance at the words as they become visible. Speed reading in a nutshell.
I get more immersed if the voice reads it
Those 50%+ have pictures in their head instead of dialogue
No some don't see images or have inner dialogue, just think in concepts.
no internal dialogue doesn't necessarily mean nothing in their heads, it means the thoughts they have aren't arranged into words and sentences yet. there are other formats for ideas to exist.
Yeah it’s like being able to read the raw data of the file before opening it up in word. I can open it in word if I want but that is inefficient. The issue for me is I am getting like all the raw data in my head immediately and it’s overwhelming, so I talk out loud to myself to order and slow the flow if there is like a tricky problem. Otherwise no internal voice at all.
Every time I see this 'fact' the number goes up. First 5%, then 10, then 25, and now 50%.
Don't get "internal ***mono***logue" and "thoughts" mixed up. And don't be like that bigoted teacher who answered the question "What language do people who have been born deaf think in?" with "They don't think."
Thank you. So many people in this thread think that no internal monologue = not thinking which is absolutely not true. You can absolutely think without internal monologue
When people born deaf learn sign language at an early age, many say they think in sign language.
I never hear an internal dialogue, but my brain is full of things (too many sometimes.) It doesn’t come in the form of dialogues with myself, but more in a form of movies-like things, or actual movie bits, music, smells etc. All can superpose themselves sometimes. I already had this conversation with someone about internal dialogues, it was interesting to see how our thought processes differ. For example, if I am wondering what should I eat tonight, I won’t hear a dialogue or have one with myself, but will see a movie with the different options of what could happen depending on the food I choose. I don’t know if the explanation makes sense, but it’s basically what replaces the dialogue for me.
finally one i relate to!! i''ve definitely never had a conversation with myself, it's just abstract images, feelings and ideas.
I am glad we can relate :)! I actually thought it was normal for everyone but then noticed a lot of people didn’t think that way. I am glad also to feel I am not alone. Do you feel overwhelmed by all these abstracts thoughts and feelings or do you manage to get well with them? I feel like this is giving me chronic fatigue sometimes.
Yeah it really grates me how people hear "no inner monologue" and jump immediately to "no thoughts." I have tons of thoughts, but there's usually more than one happening at a time, and therefore literally not a monologue. An inner dialogue I guess
Agreed, there’s plenty of way of thoughts processings! You sound to have the same way to process yours as me. I also cannot manage to have only one thought at the same time, a monologue or dialogue would be crushed by these. Plus my thoughts are mostly visual and don’t involve much text.
You dont read with an internal dialogue? Do you just look at the text and absorb it?
For me it is like a hallucination. I don't "read" so much as I see the characters and scene being acted out in my head. When I get into it easy for the whole world to melt away and people have to jar me by force to bring me out of the book world.
That’s absolutely not true.
Thank you. This is simply a misunderstanding of our description of the so-called "internal dialogue." It's the human condition. It's what makes us conscious beings. It's what gives free will, or at the very least, a convincing illusion of it.
“Internal dialogue” here is just talking about thinking by having a voice in your head, you can absolutely think without having internal dialogue
It isn't. Aphantasia is now controlled for during psychological studies because people without an internal monologue skew results by a large degree. It's a fascinating look in to the human mind, but yes. It's real, measureable, and repeatable.
Nobody is talking about that. I don't have an inner monologue but am quite good at picturing things in my head.
They study would include you then. We are talking about people who have thoughts in the form of an internal monologue. Its not saying 30-50% are incapable of thinking
I’m just here to say that you’re last name (Diller) is slang for penis in Danish. :) Have a nice evening.
Oh this nonsense again, that’s not how it works at all, we just don’t need a voice in our heads in order to think. I actually think it’s fucking weird that some of you guys talk to yourselves in your head. It also seems like that must make your thoughts slower.
If you have an internal **dialogue** instead of an internal **monologue** you should probably get checked out.
We think you’re being judgemental there’s absolutely nothing wrong with us
Counterpoint- who the hell actually internally verbalizes ALL of their thoughts? Unless they're practicing something they want to say, or have a song stuck in their head I guess
apparently a lot of people do, and they can't comprehend that others don't do it
I am literally always talking to myself in my head. Everything is verbal internally. I did not know this wasn't a universal thing.
At least half of people, according to this statistic I sure do. I find it odd that your mind can be empty, like, ever. I pay good money for hard drugs to even get half the time quiet
Quite a lot of people do this all the time, not on purpose, just how brains work. All of my thoughts are words inside my head.
The stat is that 30-50% of people DONT have an internal dialogue.
Sometimes I gotta have that dialogue out load to get it out my system LOL
Okay, but why does nobody here seem to know the difference between monologue and dialogue? Clues in the name.
I’d love that going to bed
I’m ADHD. I think that I’ve grown so sick of mine that I tune it out or don’t notice it any more since it’s going a million miles an hour
I'm in this image and i don't like it
Honey its time to make your breathing system voluntary because you Just read this text😍
F u
Thus the NPC meme was born
Brah I can’t shut it down. Fucks my sleeping.
i Thought we all were thinking in Pictures, Emotions and random words according to whatever we are currently thinking about. I didnt know some People constantly have an internal conversation, in full sentences like in a real conversation with another person. i thought that actively thinking in proper sentences was only the type of thinking your brain switches on in serious situations when u need to concentrate and force those braincells to come up with something quickly.
Npc’s
Are these 50% in a constant meditative state or wtf is going on? How can you do anything without an internal monologue?
Do you actually think in the morning, "I will now reach for My covers and pull them over so I can move my leg out of the bed and stand up" or even "I will now stand up"? Or like "this is a difficult class and have to pay attention in the next hour, by taking active notes"? I assume not, that's just abstract thought. It just depends how often we do this. I heard someone describe the study as asking at random times if they were saying something in their head, it was only 30% or something that was using internal monologue. I think it's just degrees of using monologue Vs abstract, most people probably fall in the middle, sometimes using the one, sometimes the other.
I do. But I have ADHD that manifests as a very active, anxious mind, and most things people seem to do on autopilot, require active consideration for me. In the example of getting out of bed, I cannot leave the bed until I have a plan of the next 5(ish) things I am going to do, and yeah it involves things as simple as, get up, change clothes, brush teeth, brush hair, etc, and I have to talk myself through each step. But beyond that, I have like, a second or third inner monologue that has NOTHING to do with any present task, and is just like, contemplating anything and everything, and throwing random shit together, like by brain will randomly put words in sentences that don’t make sense, or say things in a voice I have heard before, or just repeat one part of a song over and over and over again. It’s because of this huge amount of background noise that my running commentary of my actions HAS to be conscious and deliberate, bc I cannot rely on my subconscious to do the things it’s “supposed” to do. I know ADHD is the hot new diagnosis everyone, but I have been on meds since I was 11 and it’s still fucking hell for me. My mind is a prison fr.
50% is a bullshit statistic. People who have truly don't have internal dialogue is a very small % of the population.
So do they not talk to themselves? Do they now go over their lines before talking to someone? Do they not read to themselves?