Internal monologue?

[WAB]

Have you ever “heard” yourself talk in your head? If you have, then you’ve experienced a common phenomenon called an internal monologue.

Also referred to as “internal dialogue,” “the voice inside your head,” or an “inner voice,” your internal monologue is the result of certain brain mechanisms that cause you to “hear” yourself talk in your head without actually speaking and forming sounds...

From here:

Internal Monologue: What It Is, What It Means, and More

An internal monologue is an inner voice where you "hear" yourself talk in your head. But not everyone experiences this. Learn what it means and more.

www.healthline.com

I am frankly surprised when I hear that there are people who do not experience this 'internal monologue'. I can't imagine what it would be like not to. According to a few sources, from between 30 to 50 percent of people DO experience this. At first I thought NOT experiencing or hearing an inner voice was very uncommon. My gast is a bit flabbered.

When I read a book I often choose to hear a particular accent, or a specific person's voice. For Shakespeare I like to hear Anthony Hopkins or Ian McKellan, for example. Usually I hear my own voice. If I read an email from my mother, I hear her voice, etc. Of course I know I am not literally hearing a voice...

Any thoughts?

 

[Shadowy Man]

Still, not everyone experiences an inner voice. You might have inner thoughts, but this doesn’t pose the same type of inner speech where you can “hear” your voice expressing them.

They seem to be making a distinction between simply having inner thoughts and actually *hearing* an inner voice. I think internally all the time, but it doesn't appear to me the same as auditory input. I can't imagine anyone not having inner thoughts, but it's not like it's something to be *heard*. Maybe I'm misreading the article?

 

[Elixir]

I consciously (sometimes) convert thoughts to words in my head, but that’s to aid in communication or to clarify those thoughts. Not much different from writing.
Even if it’s not a conscious effort, it’s sun vocalization, not “hearing voices” or “voices in my head”. It’s my own head going through verbal options for expression.

 

[WAB]

Still, not everyone experiences an inner voice. You might have inner thoughts, but this doesn’t pose the same type of inner speech where you can “hear” your voice expressing them.

They seem to be making a distinction between simply having inner thoughts and actually *hearing* an inner voice. I think internally all the time, but it doesn't appear to me the same as auditory input. I can't imagine anyone not having inner thoughts, but it's not like it's something to be *heard*. Maybe I'm misreading the article?

It's like I said in the OP: I know I'm not literally 'hearing' a voice. For instance, if I think of a red triangle, I can easily imagine a red triangle, and it seems as if I can really see it, though I'm not actually seeing it.

If you see the word "red" on the page, do you hear the sound of the word at all? Can you imagine the sound of the word 'red', the way you can imagine a red triangle?

I'm not saying this attendant "voice" or auditory experience happens all the time in daily life. But it occurs routinely enough that I can't quite imagine it not happening at all.

Below is a good short video on the subject:

 

[Toni]

I don’t literally hear voices in my head but I have long had the voice/words/way of seeing and perceiving of my very dearest friend in my head. She’s my gut check for a lot of things. And she’s said that I am that for her. Note: we have very different perspectives on a lot of things, despite coming from similar ( in some ways) backgrounds.

I also hear my father’s voice in my head—again, not literally but my brain imagines what he might say about a certain situation. Occasionally, my mother was well but much less so, partially because she was quieter person but also because I was closer to my dad by a lot.

When I read some books, I hear the voice of the narrator or some characters in my head. Most vivid somewhat recent example is Demon Copperhead—I could hear the voice I imagined the titular character to have. But not quite literally but he sounds just like Montana Jordan. And the poem The Creation by James Weldon Johnson has always sounded like the voice of James Earl Jones, long before I ever heard of James Earl Jones.

 

[pood]

Any thoughts?

I believe that should be your flabber is a bit gasted.

 

[WAB]

Any thoughts?

I believe that should be your flabber is a bit gasted.

True! Thanks.

Just to add a wee tad more, since I'm here. The woman in the above vid claims she hears no dialogue when she dreams. I can't imagine a dream with no soundtrack. NOT that a person dreaming is literally hearing anything, but I know that when I dream I have conversations, and very often I am playing music. Sometimes I remember the tune and can figure it out on guitar. Many musicians claim certain songs came to them in a dream.

How about having an earworm? I always have some song running in my head, often to the point of distraction.

Virtually everyone I know has earworms. In fact I don't recall ever hearing someone say they don't.

The woman in the above vid claims that when she tries to hear words in her head, she has to say them out loud.

My non is plussed.

 

[pood]

Any thoughts?

I believe that should be your flabber is a bit gasted.

True! Thanks.

Just to add a wee tad more, since I'm here. The woman in the above vid claims she hears no dialogue when she dreams. I can't imagine a dream with no soundtrack. NOT that a person dreaming is literally hearing anything, but I know that when I dream I have conversations, and very often I am playing music. Sometimes I remember the tune and can figure it out on guitar. Many musicians claim certain songs came to them in a dream.

How about having an earworm? I always have some song running in my head, often to the point of distraction.

My earworms are usually mondegreens. Which plusses my nons, too.

 

[Politesse]

Have you ever “heard” yourself talk in your head? If you have, then you’ve experienced a common phenomenon called an internal monologue.

Also referred to as “internal dialogue,” “the voice inside your head,” or an “inner voice,” your internal monologue is the result of certain brain mechanisms that cause you to “hear” yourself talk in your head without actually speaking and forming sounds...

From here:

Internal Monologue: What It Is, What It Means, and More

An internal monologue is an inner voice where you "hear" yourself talk in your head. But not everyone experiences this. Learn what it means and more.

www.healthline.com

I am frankly surprised when I hear that there are people who do not experience this 'internal monologue'. I can't imagine what it would be like not to. According to a few sources, from between 30 to 50 percent of people DO experience this. At first I thought NOT experiencing or hearing an inner voice was very uncommon. My gast is a bit flabbered.

When I read a book I often choose to hear a particular accent, or a specific person's voice. For Shakespeare I like to hear Anthony Hopkins or Ian McKellan, for example. Usually I hear my own voice. If I read an email from my mother, I hear her voice, etc. Of course I know I am not literally hearing a voice...

Any thoughts?

I do hear voices when I'm reading. Or if I'm imagining a conversation with some specific person. Not just when left to my own thoughts, though.

 

[spikepipsqueak]

I came across this when i read a book that was written with various Irish idioms and i heard the whole book in my Irish friend's voice.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

Yup, have one, with thoughts and while reading. Fortunately it's not very self-critical either (more introspective than self-bashing) so I don't have that problem.

 

[southernhybrid]

I'm not sure if I hear voices other than my own in my head. I assume I do in my dreams but I rarely remember my dreams, unless I'm napping or if it's early in the morning. I do sometimes get an ear worm I was listening to "What's Going on" by Marvin Gaye, right before a medical appointment last week and the lyrics "only love can conquer hate" were in my head for a couple of hours. But hey. It could have been worse.

The weirdest thing I do is talk to inanimate objects. I do it all the time. If I'm having trouble putting something on a shelf, I might say, "get on that shelf damn it." Things like that. Of course, my thoughts wonder in my brain, but I'm just not sure I hear the voices like some of you do. Are your sure, you're not all hallucinating?

I've had patients who had vivid hallucinations almost constantly. I know that's not the same thing, but perhaps it's related. The difference is that people who have constant hallucinations can't control them, but I would think we can control our internal monologues if we want.

 

[Elixir]

The difference is that people who have constant hallucinations can't control them, but I would think we can control our internal monologues if we want.

One thing I learned from early experiment with LSD is that there are no hallucinations that occur independently from conscious mental processes. In fact the perception of a hallucination is a conscious process.
Not to say we always DO control our hallucinations, but we CAN to some large extent. Inability to control them comes from reacting to them as one would react to an external stimulus. Treating them for what they are (manifestations of internal processes) renders them controllable, and the extent of that control increases with practice.

 

[Politesse]

I would not describe natural hallucinations as strictly analogous to those produced by hallucinogens. Nor indeed, are the the products of different hallucinogens quite the same as the next, nor natural hallucinations produced by different circumstances necessarily the sane. Datura and LSD will both make you see things, but not the same things or in the same way, they act on different parts of the nervous system. The visions experienced in a common trance state differ greatly from the half-remembered "ghost" images that follow a spirit possession episode.

The brain is a most fascinating organ. Highly capable, but often better at "hacking" its own capabilities than rationally organizing them.

 

[Elixir]

Datura and LSD will both make you see things, but not the same things or in the same way, they act on different parts of the nervous system. T

My point is that to some significant degree, ALL hallucinations are, by definition, products of internal processes, over which we have some potential control.
LSD, mescaline and other so-called “psychoactive” substances can cause alteration of perception, and awareness of the genesis of those alterations can help one to consciously control or influence them. Likewise other causes (including fever, which I have also experienced and would have been much scarier without prior experience with psychedelics).

 

[southernhybrid]

Datura and LSD will both make you see things, but not the same things or in the same way, they act on different parts of the nervous system. T

My point is that to some significant degree, ALL hallucinations are, by definition, products of internal processes, over which we have some potential control.
LSD, mescaline and other so-called “psychoactive” substances can cause alteration of perception, and awareness of the genesis of those alterations can help one to consciously control or influence them. Likewise other causes (including fever, which I have also experienced and would have been much scarier without prior experience with psychedelics).

I've never used those drugs, but are you saying that people who suffer from severe schizophrenia and have hallucinations most of the day are experiencing the same thing as the hallucinations caused by certain drugs?


One of my former patients who had severe schizophrenia was almost constantly talking to the voices in his head, but I could get his attention enough for him to let me check his BP. I'd tell him I wanted to check his BP and he'd stretch out his arm, while still talking to the voices. He was on drugs for his disease, but I don't think they worked very well. Then he started peeing in the corners of the room, and the assholes who owned the facility kicked him out, instead of getting him a medical appointment to see if a different drug would have helped solve that problem. We all liked the guy and were angry at the owners. I did wonder if his voices were telling him where to pee. Brain disorders are weird in so many ways.

Then there was the queen, who I've mentioned before. She only had hallucinations like that in the evening, but she honestly believed she was a queen, who had been previously married to Elvis and was currently dating Brad Pitt. She also believed she was in her 30s, when in fact she was about 79. Trump reminds me of the queen. As long as we referred to her as Queen, she was calm and agreeable. If we called her by her real name, she became angry and hateful. She wasn't that delusional in the first five or 10 years that I knew her but her condition got worse over time. Actually, I guess she had delusions most of the time. She only hallucinated in the evening based on what the staff told me.

I read an article the other day about how slow our brains work, much slower than we once thought. Yeah. We think we are so smart, but a lot of other animals are also very smart. They are emotional, intuitive, thoughtful, have morals etc. Dogs understand our emotions much better than we understand theirs, at least that's what I read in another article recently. Sorry if I'm a bit off topic, but the OP begged for other thoughts about what goes on in our brains.

 

[Tharmas]

I never had what I would call an actual hallucination on LSD, just visual distortions. Objects would seem to be vibrating, that sort of thing. I will add that I've done more than my share of LSD in the past. DMT (Dimethyltryptamine), on the other hand, gave me a "genuine" hallucination. It was the first time I smoked pot, which happened soaked in the stuff, and the first time I ever heard The Doors. For a minute of two I was in a riverboat playing poker with a professional gambler sporting a derringer. I tried to figure out what was going on and guessed the year was 1875. It lasted about a minute or two at most. Then the guy who turned me on said "What were we doing? Oh yeah, smoking a joint," and I snapped out of it.

I knew a chemist who got his PhD demonstrating that psychedelics are not related to schizophrenia, which reminds me of another story which I won't go into.

 

[southernhybrid]

Those of you who have used LSD etc. reminded me of an experience from the distant past. My sister used to try just about any drug offered to her in the late 60s, sometimes not even knowing what it was. She also drank too much. So, one time when I was dating my first husband, and our parents were out of town, I took her to a Baha'i social group at his parent's home, thinking that would keep her away from drugs. But, she met some guy and they want off and split a tab of LSD.

Apparently all of the drug was in her share because she kept freaking. out and telling me that my future mother in law looked exactly like a gorilla. I kept trying to quiet her down. That should have been a warning not to marry the gorillas's son. That type of hallucination is very different from what my former patients experienced, especially the one who almost constantly talked to the voices in his head.

 

[Politesse]

I never experimented with drugs that are known to cause long term psychoactive effects, and that includes most hallucinogens. I've encountered some interesting religion- and ritual-related alternative mental states, though. And physical pain can also cause hallucinations... the events that followed a very serious injury when I was a child are still a bit confusing to me. I'm honestly not sure how many of my memories from that during and after that episode are true or not.

 

[Elixir]

are you saying that people who suffer from severe schizophrenia and have hallucinations most of the day are experiencing the same thing as the hallucinations caused by certain drugs?

No. I’m saying that it is possible at least in the case of chemical ingestion-induced hallucinations, to develop a faculty for “controlling” them, or at least their secondary effects like adrenal reactions that exacerbate the suffering. I don’t suppose I’m schizy enough to know for sure but I strongly suspect there is profound potential there.