• 018118055@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    2·
    5 months ago

    I have a non-verbal inner voice which gives meta-commentary on my verbal inner voice. If I want to think about what I’m thinking, that’s what is going on.

  • Ibaudia@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    5 months ago

    I’m one of the 5-10%. I always sucked at verbal memory tasks. Didn’t know some people have an real, interpretable internal monologue until a few years ago. I thought thinking nonverbally was the default. I even specifically remember watching shows and movies where you listen to a character’s internal internal monologue and thinking “this is dumb, that’s not how thinking works”. Turns out it is, and I’m just in the minority! Now I make an effort to manually start an internal monologue when I’m doing anything that requires a lot of verbal processing, like listening to instructions at work. It helps, but I can still tell that I have a deficit compared to most people when it comes to those things.

    • Schmoo@slrpnk.netEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      Your anecdote seems to support that it’s a learned behavior/skill, which tracks for me. I have a very active internal dialogue that’s difficult to turn off. I say dialogue instead of monologue because I often make up “other voices” that bounce ideas off each other, and this generally happens without my conscious effort. I think I developed this because as I was growing up I was encouraged to pray regularly, and I was very fanatically religious as a kid so I did so as often as I could. I prayed silently so often in fact that my thoughts were basically a constant one-sided monologue directed to god. Whenever I would daydream or let my imagination wander I would imagine god responding, and eventually the constant monologue became a dialogue. I would work out problems or make decisions by having conversations with an imaginary god. When I stopped believing in god the second voice never went away, I just started recognizing it as my own.

  • FryHyde@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    TIL some people have an inner voice. What is for you folks, like imaginary sounds?

    • dezmd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      My inner voice is my voice as I hear it, and is more obviously there when I’m contemplative or reflective on ideas and concepts, but it doesn’t seem to actively dictate or narrate most of my actions as I go through the day, except perhaps in anxiety or adrenaline peaking situations. It does seem more likely to flip to the forefront when there’s an ‘emergency’ sort of moment to help stay calm and rational where others may panic. I do have some ‘imagery’ thoughts but only when I’m on more of an autopilot with an activity.

      Interestingly, I can have very vivid and detailed dreams filled with unique imagery and events that can seem very real and my inner voice kicks on sometimes during dreams, and I recognize it as a dream. I have at times been able to influence the direction of a dream that my subconscious usually seems to be running. These dreams can be expansive, I’m talking deep backstory, knowing things and languages I do not know, knowing details about history or science or math that I do not know, and having a strange hyper awareness of existence around me that I do not have when awake. The only really ‘scary’ dreams I’ve had since I was a kid are ones where I can’t find my kids, or where my dad is still alive and shows back up at home like he was just living somewhere else for a while (and it’s not so much scary as just hyper-confusing and stressful). The dad dreams are also some of the best dreams to have that inner voice of awareness happen.