Today I learned that not everyone has an internal monologue

I've assumed that we experience consciousness more or less the same way, including an internal monologue or maybe dialogue. Apparently not.

Who are the people that don't have an internal voice? Are they also color-blind? Are they more likely to be progressives or JW's or alcoholics? Maybe they're NPCs.

The media is their inner monologue. Its total domination by outside influence. With enough lithium and a chip in your brain, you could be like them too.

Yea it’s pretty freaky

Supposedly it’s like only 20% of people have thoughts.

It actually could explain a lot. Like dim-a-crats and bernie bros.

You guys are freakin me out man!

It's like saying water only seems wet to 40% of people. Weird.

I get the monologue, and there is always some song playing in there, too.

You are correct. The “others” are NPCs

Maybe most of us are npcs and this is someone else's game. Cause I wouldn't play a game that was this shitty. Or maybe I just decided to play on ultra hard mode. If that's the case next time around I'm playing on Mary Sue mode. Or maybe all of this is real and reality just sucks this bad

That is so foreign to me, I can't wrap my head around that.

"And to their surprise, they did not know that the majority of people do in fact experience that echoey voice in their head that is portrayed in TV and film. Another person said that if they tried to have a conversation with themselves in the mirror, they would have to speak out loud because they can’t physically do it inside of their mind."



Last Edited by ElleMira on 02/03/2020 10:02 AM

I read a lot so that’s my monologue for the most part, good or bad.

When I was younger I studied certain forms of meditation very seriously. After a particularly good session it was like the monologue was gone and I was at total pellucid peace, but all the info I needed was just stacked quietly on internal shelves and ready for when I needed it rather than obsessively spinning around in wearying chaos.

Mine doesn't speak in full sentences, though. I think we moved beyond that over the decades.

Actually OP, your quick survey and astonishing results prove a point.

The superego incorporates the values and morals of society which are learned from one's parents and others. ... The conscience can punish the ego through causing feelings of guilt. For example, if the ego gives in to the id's demands, the superego may make the person feel bad through guilt.

In a mad world that seems more dark and dystopian than ever before, it's no wonder that many report no internal monologue. They lack a superego to reign in their id.

We live in a world ruled by id.

Wetiko...

Whoever wrote the piece in the OP must be drawn more to people who have inner monologues because his informal poll showed a large majority of his connections have it, but you're right. Studies have shown it's actually a very small percentage of the population.


[link to www.psychologytoday.com (secure)]

"Consider inner speech. Subjects experienced themselves as inwardly talking to themselves in 26 percent of all samples, but there were large individual differences: some subjects never experienced inner speech; other subjects experienced inner speech in as many as 75 percent of their samples. The median percentage across subjects was 20 percent."


I always assumed the "inner monologue" was just part of the human experience and 100% of us have it until I saw the articles pop up about it several years ago and found the numbers who have it are so small. I wish mine would shut the hell up most days, which is probably why I'm here so much trying to drown it out.

Are you being sarcastic? Everybody has thoughts, right? I don't "hear" the voice/my voice. Because I am from the South and it doesn't come to me in "twang" or as I speak. It is more telepathic thoughts. Silent formulations that don't have any intonation or accent. But, yet it is verbalized as words and thoughts and internal communication with myself.

But, don't mind me, I just realized not too long ago that I was probably a big dumbass growing up and as a 20 something.
As in deeply deluded about a lot of things. So, I reckon now that I should not have listened to my internal voice. It was lying to me quite a bit and it could have been a visualization to the voice I am fairly certain it was wearing rose colored glasses.

Clearly animals do not have inner monologue.

Babies don't think in words either. A childlike mind is full of wonder, not chatter.

Water feels wet when I am not swimming but when I am up to my neck in water it feels thick and dense, almost
pudding-like.

I am using my inner monologue in processing this comment.

I'm 66 years old and it has never occurred to me that some people don't mentally verbalize their thoughts.

I'm visually oriented, and I can and do visualize things in my mind. But to think solely in pictures? (Or worse yet, to "think" without words or images to conceptualize things?)

Perhaps that explains why thought balloons have gone out of fashion in comic books in recent decades. Perhaps some influential comic book writers or editors of recent years don't verbalize their thoughts.

I call it my best friend !!

in addition:

Thread: Odd Question: Is your inner voice male, female, non-gendered?

Talking to yourself is overrated, and silence is golden.

Begs the question what those people without thoughts experience when they read something. When I read something, I "hear" the same voice in my head as if I were thinking. And when I hear a song a few times, I can play it back in my thoughts.

I've already found out there are people who can't visualize anything even if their life depended on it. I'm not that good at it myself, but at least I can "move" or regroup shapes in my head, for example when I have to design a flyer for work. But now imagine how good painters must be at this...

This

No way... only 20%? I've always thought everyone had an internal voice. Mine won't shut up.

I read a lot also and my inner voice is my reading voice which is not my own voice but some generic but recognizable voice to me that I suppose I should refer to as me: The Narrator. I have a difficult time with "meditation" because I can't distinguish it from my normal ruminations.

My mind feels chaotic when my life is chaotic. When I simplify my life, I simplify my mind. Less worry = less chatter inside. Songs I notice come up unbidden almost but seem to form a theme to certain activities like mowing the lawn, as if I've played that song in my mind many times so that it becomes "a mowing song". Or a raking song. Or a driving song. Etc. Can you relate?

My thinking voice is my own voice, and sometimes I have to suppress it when trying to process information faster than I can say it.

My inner reading voice is more creative. I try to give things (stories, at least--and sometimes nonfiction) dramatic readings with voice-actor voices, sound effects, and with background music.

Last Edited by Obvious Alias on 02/03/2020 10:37 AM

I don't think in seeing actual words as it seems some do. I can and do visualize and have found some can't or don't "imagine" things in the same way. You mentioning painting reminded me that I don't paint art, but can decorate in my mind and can put a particular shade to mind so precisely that I could look at the item and come back from a paint store having picked out the exact same shade from a choice of dozens and dozens of close but no cigar shades! That's how clear my visualization is.

Me, myself, and I.

From the related threads - short, but good

Thread: Numerous Leftists Tweet About Being Proud of Having NO Internal Monologue #ProudToBeNPC

OP, you're first mistake was in assuming that everyone "is just like you".

Have you ever encountered anyone on this planet in your lifetime that's "just like you"? No. Women are different from men are different from Chinese are different from children are different from retarded people, etc

Most human beings are high functioning livestock. Most.

Maybe 10-20% can think at the level you operate on, about half for the good, half for their own self interest regardless of it's effect on anyone else.

The voice you hear is what most philosophers refer to as the conscience. It isn't you, per se, but rather a subconscious version of you that instinctively knows right from wrong, good from bad, risk from reward. It guides you, but it doesn't command you. It's loudest when you make the wrong decisions or have impure thoughts and it's almost silent when you are living in accord with your particular destiny.

The vast mass of people have a different voice, what are really a chorus of voices called wants and hungers- eat, fuck, hit, sleep- those kinds of rudimentary functions and nothing much beyond that.

It's a hard thing to live with, this knowledge.

Good luck.