1y ago

TIL that some people do not have an inner voice and think in different nonverbal ways.

humanities.ku.dk People without an inner voice have poorer verbal memory

The vast majority of people have an ongoing conversation with themselves, an inner voice, that plays an important role in their daily lives. But between 5-10 per cent of the population do not have the same experience of an inner voice, and they find it more difficult to perform certain verbal memory...

cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/2916897

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The original was posted on /r/science by /u/mvea on 2024-05-15 10:17:06+00:00.

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The vast majority of people have an ongoing conversation with themselves, an inner voice, that plays an important role in their daily lives. But between 5-10% of the population do not have an inne...

humanities.ku.dk /news/2024/people-without-an-inner-voice-have-poorer-verbal-memory/

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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.
- 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.
  
  Okay, now I have to know if religious individuals are more likely to have an inner voice. That just makes sense!!!
  
  There's actually a theory that back in ye olden times when inner monologues first started, people thought it was God talking to them because it was a new phenomenon and that didn't have any way to understand that it was some kind of evolution of consciousness, not a god.
  
  I am trying to wrap my head around this. So if you are just walking down the street alone, watching cars go by, not reading, there a voice? What would it even be saying?
  
  Whoaaaa that's so interesting. I grew up silently praying in the daily as well, and also tend to have dialogues going on in my head. Also a stream of unsolicited advice, which is less pleasant... But I'd probably miss it if it went away.
- TIL. I'm one of the 5-10% as well!! I have not noticed a deficit in verbal memory... I'm more interested reading the comments and learning today that people have inner voices?!?
  
  Yes! You've seen TV shows where people are thinking words in their heads or whatever...based on reality!
  
  Basically if I know you well I hear your voice in my head argue for a pov I know you hold. If you are say a safety-first kinda guy I will hear you lecture me when I am not being safe. I got a committee arguing all the time and I admit it sometimes becomes hard to remember if I mentioned X to my mental version of someone or the real someone.
  Yes I am aware that the voices I hear are not real. It is just the way my brain is presenting information to itself. Like writing down notes in different colored inks. It is all the same letters and words but with an added change.
- You get to think in ways that other people can't. You actually have a super power. Don't sleep on that! You rock
- I'm with you. Your movie reference really helped solidify it. I assumed I was one of the lonely minds, but this made it clear.
  Some things that seem associated with this are my constant cravings for social interaction and intellectual conversation. I can't give it to myself. I have never understood how people can just do nothing. I never had an invisible friend as a kid. There are many things people say and do that could be explained by having personal voices. There are many struggles with communicating to others that have already had a conversation with themselves before I can share a full thought.
  
  I drive my office mates crazy because the thoughts in my head just come out of my mouth, especially if I'm bored or nervous.
- "It helps, but I can still tell that I have a deficit compared to most people when it comes to those things."
  I was totally gonna ask you about this until I got to the end! It seems like thinking without any kind of internal monologue would be incredibly abstract which might be good for some things but it would probably suck ass for trying to remember or understand extremely detailed instructions and things like that! I'm so curious what it's like to think the way you do and I wish I could flip a switch for a little bit to experience it because it's kind of hard to really imagine what I would be like.
  
  It's strange because while we can use words to describe our thought processes, understanding how someone else thinks isn't really possible since we only have one frame of reference (our own minds) and words can only go so far in describing cognition. We can only observe differences in task performance and speculate as to the underlying causes on a cognitive level, maybe make some correlations here and there in the process. So weird!
- It’s a two-edged sword. Sometimes it can be really mean to you :(

I’ve seen this conversation come up so many times and I’m never not fascinated by it. I have a nonstop internal monologue, it can be exhausting really. But I can’t fully wrap my head around thinking without it
- I have ADHD, it's like having talk radio permanently on in my head. Often times I'll have an internal monologue playing on top of internal background music.
  
  I have ADHD too but in my case I don't actually "hear" any of the thoughts. But they exist similar to how you describe. At any given time I can feel multiple different thoughts kind of floating around. When music gets stuck in my head I don't so much hear it in there as I feel the presence of a song. So I have to talk out loud in order to keep from losing the thread of what I was thinking about.
- My inner monologue can easily turn into me talking to myself.
- Me too. People like you are fascinating to me. When I first found out that everyone thinks differently I went around interrogating everyone I knew about how they think.
  I don't have an interior monologue unless Im typing, but I sometimes use my internal "sound system" to play music.
  
  My mental radio is rarely off, but I don't have an internal monologue.
  
  Me too!! I had my nephew and his wife arguing at dinner about whether the inner voice was real or god. 🤣
  
  i dont have one at all, i think, i don't even have one when typing, which i think leads to a lot of weird mistakes, sometimes i'll just interject a completely random word, or pickup halfway through a sentence with a completely different sentence, it's weird sometimes.
  
  That's really fascinating and similar to how I think, I think. Like, typing, reading, or thinking about things that are by nature verbal get internally verbalized but in an atonal "narrator voice", though it's still not "quiet" otherwise. I also have what I call my "internal walkman" for playing music in a recording/playback manner (sometimes with some "skips"), rather than any voice of my own.
- I too have an internal monologue. I was high on mushrooms and I thought to myself "What would it be like not have an inner monologue?" Then I had an existential crisis on top of an already emotional workout trip.
- What happens to your monologue when you're not thinking about it though?
  When your senses provide information about tastes or sounds, isn't that a kind of thinking without the monologue?
  
  You're able to turn yours off??
  
  For me, my inner voice is muted when I am focused on something, like working on a task or playing a video game.
  The second I stop focusing, the inner voice starts.
  If I do nothing, it's usually a song that is stuck in my head.
  As for other senses, for me, it is the same as focusing on a task. When my senses are activated, the inner voice stops.
  If I am reading something and I know thr voice of the person that wrote that, I automatically read in their voice and it is extremely hard to read in my voice.
  
  Mine is constantly whatever song my brain has decided is that days hit. Most of the time im able to tune it out but that doesn't mean that 100% that songs playing over and over audibly in my head, it just varies how loud it is at that moment
  
  It doesn’t shut off, I think visually and through the experiences of the senses in part too but the words always accompany the images/senses
- Same, sometimes I even move my mouth when I talk to myself if I am too engaged in my internal dialogue. Freaks my wife out sometimes.
  
  I think that's pretty normal to some extent, I remember reading that you can kinda see people's inner monologue on a head MRI based on tiny movements of speech organs. Take this with a massive grain of salt, no idea where I read that and too lazy to find it right now lol.
  Personally I definitely notice every now and then that when I activate my inner voice I also slightly move my tongue etc. as if I was saying what it says.
- It's fascinating to me, too.
  I have seen everything by now: People who think that only sociopaths have an inner monologue. People who think an inner monologue would be useful, but can't quite lean in on the concept. People who are confused that some people don't have an inner monologue. People getting angry at me for even "questioning" the inner monologue, as if it was holy.
  
  It’s an interesting exercise in trying to understand the experience of others while removing our own biases. Doesn’t always go so well I guess! So how do you think?? I really can’t tell from your comment
- Can you 'replay' music in your head?
  
  Yes…but it has my voice singing on top of the song’s original singer
  
  This is a really interesting question. If I were a researcher, I'd try to go chase this topic, since it seems to be fairly quantifiable.
  Like Mudskipper, I can replay music in my head but it has a few caveats: I don't really process the instruments.... I remember the pitch/volume/etc but primarily of vocals. I also replay with the original singer's voice and not my own. Replaying a few songs in my head now and I can't even focus on the instruments if there were vocals unless they are critical to how the song works, like a bass drop. If I try to replay music that is instrumental, I get verbal recreations, like someone performing the song acapella. If i focus hard, I can hear instruments instead, but that requires thinking about it. This matches how I 'sing along' with instrumental pieces in otherwise verbal songs. It might just be that the backing music isn't retained, so I can remember the melody, but not, say, a bass line unless the bass is being highlighted.
  Are there people who CAN'T replay music in their heads? Are they immune to 'ear-worms' or do they just perceive it differently?

I recently learned that some people do hear a voice in their head. Some see pictures too.
- So, if you study a map of a building, noticing that it has a kitchen at a certain place, then in go inside the building (without the map), and someone says "go to the kitchen," how do you know where the kitchen is? How do you imagine the paths, rooms, hallways to follow?
  If I told you "a pink and brown dog," you can't "see" that dog in your mind at all?
  
  The map would be tough. If someone showed me the map and said, go to the kitchen, I would try remember, turn left then right then its around to the left. I would remember it in words, not visually.
  Brown and pink dog...in my mind I see a hazy face of a poodle with fluffy pink ears. I can't see the full dog. I can't walk around the image and explore it more. Its just a hazy partial visual that flashes in my mind for a moment.
  
  Not op, but I have a very weak ability to visualise. The data is more abstracted. A map is a set of spacial connections that define an area. My brain has learnt to pull that from a map. What I can't do is recall the map to figure out additional information. If my brain didn't think it was relevant when I looked at it, the information is likely gone.
  There are definitely pros and cons to it. I'm not limited to what I could visualise, when thinking. This lets me dig deeper into more complex ideas and patterns. It also makes other tasks a lot harder. I struggle a lot with faces and appearances.
  As for the dogs, I have an abstracted "model" in my mind. The size and breed of the dogs is undefined. There are 2 dog entities in my mind. 1 brown, which is quite generic, the other has pink attached to it, that cross links it with poodles etc.
  I can personally push it to a visualisation, but it takes significant mental effort, and the results are unstable.
  
  I definitely have both. I can even visualize things with my eyes open. I switch back and forth between modes depending on the content I'm working on in my head.
  
  So, if you study a map of a building, noticing that it has a kitchen at a certain place, then in go inside the building (without the map), and someone says "go to the kitchen," how do you know where the kitchen is? How do you imagine the paths, rooms, hallways to follow?
  I know this isn’t true of everybody with alphantasia, but what I do in this situation is I get lost. I can’t visualize walking through the space while I study the map, and I can’t bring the map to mind when I'm actually there. Some people with aphantasia have no trouble finding their way around, so I think in my case it must be that I’m missing some innate sense of direction as well that visualization might have helped me to compensate for, if only I could.
  If I told you "a pink and brown dog," you can't "see" that dog in your mind at all?
  Correct. I’m not 100% on the aphantasia spectrum, so if I think about it then I might get the briefest flash of some dog, like an afterimage at best, and I can’t hold it in my mind, or manipulate it, or see any details or color. It’s not even really a complete outline or anything either that flashes for that quarter-second.
  When I read a book, I don’t know what the characters or places look like. But I have always been able to draw really well. So it’s really a mystery how this all works.
  
  For me it's even weirder than that. Those pictures exist in my mind and I can "feel" them there but the conscious part of me that's supposed to see them can't see shit. I can describe to you the things that are in them or even draw them out as they exist in my mind, but I can't see them. The part of me that's giving directions? It can "see" the map of the building and my position in it just fine like it's staring straight at a live minimap, but the conscious part of me that should be able to visualize that stuff? Nothing. I close my eyes and try to visualize that dog and I see nothing but black. But I can feel the presence of the image that the part of me that does the mental conjuring of images is making.
  It's like turning the monitor off on a computer. Everything is still running even though you can't see it.
  
  There's a kitchen off the hallway just past the bathroom on the left. No magic path to follow. I hate those video games where you just wander around! I can't see a dog - i don't know what kind of dog, size/shape of its parts, what parts are brown, what parts are pink, ... If you said poodle or German shepherd, and i focused hard i could get sort of a loose wire frame outline.
  
  If I told you "a pink and brown dog," you can't "see" that dog in your mind at all?
  Jim Pickens's cat popped into my head. Sigh.
- For the longest time I assumed it was just a literary device, not an actual thing anyone really does.
  
  So, if I tell you "I'll give you $10,000 for you to spend in 24 hours. Spend 20 seconds to think about it," what goes through your head? Don't you hear anything like "shit, that's a lot of money?! Where to start, where to start..."?
  Don't you "have words" in your head to form thoughts?
- Only 1-3% of people lack the ability to visualize images in their head.
  Somewhat related, I recently realized I can't really remember the taste of food at all. I can remember the texture of the food, and whether I liked it or not, but not how it actually tastes. For example, I know I like chocolate but I have no desire to eat it most of the time because I can't remember anything about the taste except for the texture. But once I start eating chocolate and have the taste lingering in my mouth, I find myself craving more of it until the taste fades and I forget what it tasted like again.
  
  When I first learned that other people see and hear, I started asking around. From My polling, about 30% of people either don't hear or don't see. I've only found a handful of people who don't do either. I read some articles that say you can train the visual.
  
  Oh man! That is a perfect example! I have not able to understand the voice or the picture... Like you actually hear a voice or you see an image??.. But I totally understand the taste - almost like the shadow of a taste in your mouth for something that sounds good. I guess that's why what people say, "what do you have a taste for"?)
- I have some very loud voices in my head. One is intentional, like when I read or write things out I hear my own voice in my head. At least one of them just talks shit to me all the time. It's not like schizophrenia "I hear voices", it's just a thought that I'm not actively having. When my depression gets bad it's gets really loud so I drown it out with music and books.
  I can't see pictures in my head.
  On another note, I'm pretty sure religious nutjobs really hear their own inner monologue and think it's a god talking to them. That's why their god always agrees with them.
- The mind of an artist perhaps? I can see vivid film grade depictions of whatever I want in any style I can imagine.
  Its quite frustrating when I know my hands could never produce what I see in my mind.

"Weirdos. I don't have an inner voice", most people thought, using their inner voice.

Some inner voice talking to me all time sounds fucking awful haha
- If it's a different person than you, then you have a different issue ;-).
- Eh, it isn't all the time for most people, and it isn't hard to shut down for most people either.
  The key is that it isn't a separate entity, it's just your own mind using words to ideate. Like, you can see the sky and just enjoy the blue, or you can think about the blue in words, if you have that inner voice. People without that voice still have a way of processing and thinking, it just isn't in words, it's more abstract.
  The few people I've met that don't think in words do seem to have difficulty in expressing the experience to others though.
  
  As someone with an inner voice, I can't even imagine how I'd think about abstract concepts without words. Like, how does "I love freedom" or "I wish all people could be free" happen without words? Maybe this is a learning disability of mine, and explains why interpretive dance doesn't make any sense to me.
  
  I don't think cognitive processing without words is necessarily more abstract.
  Arguably if you're processing concepts such as relative geographical location or how to cook a steak, spatial processing is at far less of a remove than converting it all over to words/symbols.
- It's not "some voice" talking "to you", it really just feels like your thoughts are words, if they're "word adjacent thoughts".
  Like, thinking about how to phrase that first part, it felt like I was reciting the words I was thinking of typing, not like someone else was saying them to me.
- Ikr, it's wild. I don't think I could cope with something like that.
- Mine never turns off the fucking radio

The FBI did a study and most serial killers don't have an inner monologue... You can add that to the TIL.

Now I am reading everything alout with my inner voice instead of just skipping over it. I've entered manual reading mode. Great. Thanks.

Sometimes I wish I could silence the voices inside my head..
- God, same. One of my little annoyances in life is that my internal voice is a goddamn motor mouth and I literally CANNOT stop it.
  I can stare at a white wall and watch paint dry, and my monologue will start philosophizing about watching paint dry, where the phrase came from, why I'm doing it (to try and silence my internal voice), then go on a wiki walk about how trying not to think about something makes you think about it more and the classic example of telling someone "don't think about a brown bear" makes them think about bears, then I'll start thinking about bears and my monologue is suddenly halfway across the world.
  Put me in a sensory deprivation tank, and my internal voice starts ruminating about how Daredevil uses these to sleep, then goes off about fight sequences, and then superhero comics, and whoops I'm halfway across the world.
  Even when I'm paying attention and listening, my inner voice is still motoring away, it's just that it's mirroring what is being said to me instead of going on its own wiki walk halfway across the world (though sometimes someone will say something that makes my internal voice go "wait a second, that makes me think of..." and then I stop listening while I go on a wiki walk).
  I have ADHD, in case it isn't obvious yet.
- You can, but it takes work for some people. Various meditation can help, but require patience and diligence.
  I've learned to turn it off and on mostly at will and frequently just play music in my mind when I want to listen but can't use headphones or a speaker.
- As long as it's not a monologue like op is describing, you are fine.
  
  Usually its a song. But sometimes its more than one song playing at once. And sometimes there's a narrator speaking over the music

The guy in my head is my best friend and the biggest asshole ever.

I feel like if I had an inner voice I'd get super annoyed at it.
- Oh I assure you, you would. Try going to sleep with that mf'r just yapping.
  
  Still have the thoughts keeping you awake, they're just not auditory.
  
  Never thought about that, but that does sound more relaxing
- You know what, I can't roll the R and neither can my inner voice and I hate it for that. I have a speech impairment in my freaking inner voice.
  
  Mine refers to me in an annoying childhood nickname :(
  Wot a cunt

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.
- Oh, the non-verbal one prob does that thing where they look directly into the camera all disappointed & defeated.
- It's voices all the way down!

Wait, do people have an actual vocalized inner monologue every time they think?
- Every time?
  No.
  Easy example; picture an item in your head. Now flip it.
  No language necessary or really even applicable.
  But to learn that some people never have an inner dialogue...? That sounds so weird.
  
  Some people can’t picture an item in their head, or can barely do so and wouldn’t be able to flip it.
  
  oh my friend, you have made the most relevant mistake in the book, may i introduce you to aphantasics? People who are incapable of visualizing something in their mind.
  
  Yeah, those things are still almost entirely word-baaed for me. Low level aphantasia, I can't form a very clear picture in my head, but my inner monologue does a lot of lifting.
- Apparently. I first learned about this last year when a co-worker told me to listen to my inner voice. I said, " oh yeah, like Sybil or Jiminy cricket?" I thought she was kidding. Then I thought she was crazy. Then 2/3 of my office said they hear it too. People who hear don't believe that other people don't, and vice versa. People are always trying to trick me into saying I hear something by asking me how I know the sound of my husband's voice or recognize a song, or get a song stuck in my head. When I have a song stuck in my head it's just the urge to sing it and there's no music. I can recognize actors by their voice sometimes, but I cannot do impressions or accents at all!
  
  you can't recognize voices without an internal monologue? I see no reason that shouldn't be a thing people would even consider. Voices are like identifying unique patterns. They're incredibly easy, and we're trained to do it from birth. Similar thing for songs, although in that case i think it's more a sense of auditory "muscle memory" as the auditory experience illicits previously excited paths through the brain, leading to the same experience as last time, which allows you to define it independently.
- I can't look at text without my inner voice reading it to me
  I can come up with answers or solutions to problem without it, but it's there for a lot of stuff.
- Sometimes yes, like right now. I can sense myself saying the words I want to type in my head. Its really like a voice talking to you but I can hear what the sentence will sound like if I read it out loud.

It has its uses, helpful for remembering a short sequence of numbers for instance, or practicing a specific dialogue line that is going to be important, like for a job interview or something where you want a solid and confident delivery. But generally speaking I prefer it quiet, makes it infinitely easier to pay attention to my surroundings.
Meditation is basically the practice of learning how to turn it off at will. Can take awhile, it doesn't always seem to like being quiet. It also turns off other times though, like when you're suddenly startled for instance.
- Can take awhile, it doesn’t always seem to like being quiet
  Reminds me of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  https://www.piped.video/watch?v=wfYbgdo8e-8
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
  This thumbnail makes me very uncomfortable
- Oh, that's what meditation is supposed to be? Now I get why I never got it.
  
  Yeah it confused me for so long
  Instructor: "what I want you to do is stop thinking"
  Me, internally: okay, done
  Instructor: "I know that may be the hardest thing to ask, but I want you to quiet your mind"
  Me, internally: yep, already did it
  Instructor: "once you learn how to stop the constant parade of thoughts in your head and just listen to the world around you, you will find great peace"
  Me, internally: I do that all the time what

How do they read silently to themselves? 🤔
- It's like I just "know" the text. It's just in there with no intermediary.
- How fo they read silently to themselves? 🤔
  The same way as listening to someone speak. There's a thread of consciousness that takes in visual data and is translating the written word into a string of syntactical concepts that is then processed analytically.
  
  For those of you lacking caffeine today:
  Translated: Yo' brain be doing a figure out.
  
  I wonder if it does the voices too
- Direct-to-video
- I was really surprised when I found out that people imagined voices when reading. Wouldn't they be sped up voices? People read faster than speech. It's so confusing...
  
  I think the inner monologue is more there to "support" the processing of information rather than being filtered through it entirely.
- How do you read silently to yourself? Seems like it would be harder and more noisy if you have to hear the whole thing.
  
  I mean, not really. It's just words in my head.

I always thought only mentally ill people (schizophrenic) have inner voice(s) that is until I learned everyone else has so it’s me that I am not normal lol
I feel like it makes grammar harder tbh. I have to edit shit again and again if I want it to look good for you nerds.
- When I read stuff, my inner dialog reads it back to me, you don't get that? Like in the movies when a someone is writing or reading a letter.
  
  I see images when I read ,like in movies’ I see a theatre, someone reading a letter I see old man reading a letter on a xix century chair with a gray beard and cigarette and focused gaze, jumping from image to image like this and more unspecified ‚ideas’. When I solve a problem I usually use those kind of mind lego bricks to build something in mind and test it. It’s all imagination based.
  I guess I may like books more than average person. I feel like if reading was accompanied by inner monologue it would be slower instead of just direct words to images so to say but at the same time I often lose details when reading or don’t remember them at all considering the action feels like a movie in the head
  I have to read professional books or physics slightly different and often twice same thing but I guess that’s normal when the topic is more complex that it’s hard to form an image connected to the equations and get all these things in head properly connected to form understanding which for me means building some imaginary concept of it from the mind Lego bricks that is logical and won’t collapse. No idea if it is typical way of things or not.
  
  When I read stuff, my inner dialog reads it back to me, you don't get that? Like in the movies when a someone is writing or reading a letter.
  So, it's like you're reading twice? Like you're perceiving it with your eyes/occipital line and then your inner dialog verbalizes it for you? Or all in one shot?
- Sounds peaceful. Mine goes like mad sometimes, it's even woken me from sleep.
  
  That's also not normal
  
  How does this work? Like you sometimes can't control your inner voice, it just says things to you on its own accord?
- My understanding is that among other issues schizophrenics view their internal monologue as not being their own thoughts, but rather an external voice. Take that with a grain of salt though, because it's just something I vaguely remember reading on the Internet at some point.

My inner monologue is an asshole that literally never shuts up unless I'm asleep. If I'm not actively thinking about something and conversing with him or keeping him otherwise distracted, he's singing a snippet of the last catchy song he heard, over and over, until a new one takes its place. Sometimes it's the same song for days on end.
- That’s awesome. Mine just criticizes me over and over and over and over and over again. I’m working on our relationship.

I have both an inner voice and strong imagery. I cannot imagine any other way. I assume that people on the opposite end would see my mind as massive chaos though.
- I have that, too, I think. And I see my mind as massive chaos.

I'm almost the exact opposite. I hear everything when I think. I don't picture 99.9% of my thoughts. I think in sounds. Not all thoughts are languages, but all thoughts are sounds. Even the very very few I have pictured. The thoughts in languages are numerous at a time and constant, as though forever lightning in bottle. I love it. It sounds kind of like the matrix looks.
- are you capable of visualizing things? some time ago i learned that most people apparently can literally see things they picture in their head, which is something i'm only barely capable of doing if i close my eyes and relax.
  Like i can summon the image of a basic shape and make it rotate at a consistent speed, that's it. But then when i'm extremely relaxed and almost about to fall asleep, or when i'm dreaming, i literally just see my imagination as if i'm looking at the real world.
  However what i can do is "visualize" extremely well with the sense of proprioception (the thing that lets you know where your hands are in relation to the rest of your body), so i can rotate objects in my headspace and walk through physical spaces. I can't see anything in there, but i'm fully aware of the shape of things and i simply remember what colour things are.
  
  The best I can describe it is almost always no, I hear spaces, objects, colors, etc. I can think on all my senses pretty easily except vision. I world make in 'sound' and awareness. I don't explain it well, and I do have pretty good spacial and situational awareness. I just don't think in vision.
  A great 'reset button' for me is to be in a small room that is totally as dark as I can get it. Can't see my hand in front of my face after 45min dark. After a while in that space my mind will make up slashes of color. It feels like my brain running a test pattern for my eyes.

Wow l, i didnt know this was a thing. I'm the visual version of this - which i already know sucks less.
I wonder whether you don't get songs stuck in your head... like as a consolation prize at least?
- I'm almost the opposite. I can recall a song I know and "listen" to it in my head. However my dreams tend to be like comics. A static image with accompanying sounds or, on a couple of occasions, my dream was like listening to an audio book... This was before audio books were a thing.
- I get songs stuck in my head almost every day! Drives me crazy and keeps me awake. There's no music, just the urge to say/sing the words

Honestly I'd kind of like that in some ways. Language is actually pretty limiting, so not being stuck with it for thinking would make some thoughts easier to convey to yourself.
- I don't think it's limited like that. While I usually think in sentences, it also happens that I get ideas that I either can't express in words or it happens so fast that I don't bother trying to think it through in sentences.
  Try to think of a house and notice how you don't need to describe it in any detail to instantly visualise how you think a house looks.
  It'll be interesting to hear what they find in the ongoing research, but it's already clear that the brain is not just a large language model.
  
  I can't see a house. If i have a specific description and try really hard i might get kind of a wire frame outline of something.

i still don't understand what the fuck an internal monologue is supposed to be.
I've heard it's the thing that makes you do things, i've heard it's a thing that just exists.
I don't know what it is, what it does, or what it seems to be for, and i don't even know whether i have one.
Science is a bitch sometimes.
- It's basically just you talking to yourself but without actually speaking.
  
  if that's how it's defined than i think i have some sort of weird hybrid of it. I have an internal monologue for certain things, like if im working on a project and need a design for it, that'll cause me problems. But if i'm just sitting down and thinking about something, i'm usually talking it out. For example i've been into sociology a bit recently, and i've found myself talking out loud about things very frequently.
  weird.
- I think if you'd have one, you'd know. There's zero confusion on my part whether it's there. It's definitely there talking to me any time I'm thinking of words.
  
  i think the problem that i have, is that i have one, but only for certain activities, i don't seem to have one for thought/verbal tasks. But when im working on something i'm designing i often have one present most of the time.
- for me, sometimes my internal monologue is like a very lazy audio book narrator who only reads the dialogue, and sometimes not even that. other times its like i have the whole cast of a radio drama in there, in the middle of the apex of the plot.
  
  bruh, u got the whole main character arc going on up there.
- for me it's literally just my own voice (and i can mimic other voices) and i sort of hear it overlaid on everything else, sorta like what happens when you hold a hand in front of only one eye, you see both things at once.
  The only real difference from my physical voice is that there's none of that delay and friction from having to physically speak, so it's harder to prevent my inner monologue from saying stuff which is extremely annoying since i'm autistic and thus have echolalia, meaning i just reflexively repeat things i hear..
  The idea that other people have some sort of independent inner voice, or even several ones, is rather terrifying to me.
  
  Mine doesn't sound like anything but I can change the cadence or accent. Like it doesn't make the "noise" as hearing. Like it bypasses those "channels".
  
  weird, i guess i'm lucky that mine is relatively situational then, because otherwise it'd be constantly blabbering lol.
- Its like being on the phone with yourself. Everything you read is spoken to you. When you see an accident about to hsppen, you hear 'That guy is about to eat it.' When you see an attractive person you hear 'Niiiiccceee!'.
  
  Wow, sounds like absolute madness
  
  huh, yeah for most of that stuff i just think outloud. It's the natural reaction for me.
- It's my own voice in my head. Its difficult to determine on what level I control it. It doesn't "make" me do things, but it's not like I decide what it says before it speaks. I often wonder if it's the other half of my brain. I speak differently in person than I do inside my head, or type, for that matter.
  Regardless whether it's a kind of supplemental personality inside my head, one thing I'm convinced of is that many people mistake their internal monologue for the Voice of God.
  
  huh, that's weird, mine i have full control over. It's thoughts are quite literally my thoughts. And my thoughts are it's thoughts as well.
  maybe i've developed an artificial internal monologue?

I wonder what causes this? Genetics, random, maybe issues during speech development as a child?
- Probably a combination of environment (nurture) and simple evolution. The brain is a complex computer that handles a metric-fuck-ton of information. Some minor variation in how that information is processed or accessed is bound to develope, especially when the sample size is in the billions.
- I don't think issues is a great word for something that doesn't have an obvious negative outcome.
  I have an inner monologue that is something like an auditory version of my thoughts. Reminds me of a movie narrator explaining what people arre thinking, but not a verbal exchange like the article describes. It is absolutely zero help in remembering things because it switches to my current thoughts, and doesn't just run in the background. It doesn't seem to be a negative at all, and it is hearing hearing what I'm thinking but not rrally hearing because it doesn't sound like anyone in particular.
  On the visual side, I can't picture something I haven't seen before and only have brief flashes of what I have seen before. Can't picture anything in my mind except the vaguest of stereotypical ideas, like a tropical island is a tiny island with a palm tree or a lagoon. Maybe the rough outline of a mountain peak. Can't draw anything like that from imagination, but can do a pretty solid sketch of something that I have a visual reference for. Also not really an issue, since most things don't require picturing them without seeing them, but it did derail my interest in art and I can't do any of the meditation exercises that involve picturing myself somewhere.
  I assume any of these kinds of differences can be caused by a combination of genetics and environment since genes are expressed differently based on experience and environments can also impact people in ways that don't involve genes.
  
  I think we will eventually find that it's connected to a lot of other areas. I was thinking of other senses. Someone mentioned taste - i can sort of taste things I've eaten before that sound good. I don't think feeling tactile things that aren't there is a thing, but maybe some people have that?
  The lack of auditory thing doesn't bother me at all. Visual part does bother me. I'm terrible with faces - I introduce myself to people repeatedly and I get confused in shows with too many characters. I lost my mom last year and i can't see her face in my head. Everytime i see a photo of her it's a little bit surprising. Sometimes i stare at my husband - I'm afraid I'll lose my memory one day and won't recognize him. I lost my cat once and brought in another cat that looked similar. My cat was just hiding and freaked out!

Those are probably the quick-thinker types. I wonder if people with inner voices take longer when making decision because they have to "listen" to the their inner voices.
- A friend asked me the same thing, they have a back and forth of voices, at significant speed, and then they reach a decision. Whereas I just "know" all the pros and cons (to the best of my ability) all at once if that makes sense?
  
  It's like chunks and patterns for me.
  
  I don't know what it is I know, except that if I start flapping my gums the ol' blackbox will fill in the details. I kind of realise it as I'm saying it lol
- I've got both pathways in my brain. Thinking without words is definitely faster. Verbal thought is better for communication and crystallisation of ideas. I.e. I think about something non-verbally, then internally verbalise the conclusions to help fix it in my memory and communicate it.
- I don't think i'm a quick thinker guy, but my reflexes are shockingly good. Like i i sometimes knock something over while cooking and i just see it in the corner of my eyes and somehow catch it midair. But in this fraction of a second my inner monologue still goes: i just knocked something over, but what, oh right, i put the soda stream bottle on the counter because i just emptied the dishwasher. Oh no it's also probably the glass one, because i have three glass bottles and only one that is plastic, so this could bet really messy when it breaks, they are also kinda expensive.
  And then i somehow hold it in my hand before i fully caught up. Kinda like when you snooze for 10 minutes but have like 2 hours worth of dreams.
  
  I believe that means you're the kwizatz haderach
- Have to admit the number of people in here with full internal voices has made me realize why podcasts and long videos of youtubers talking are so popular.
  I hate them because it's like spending 10 minutes to be drip fed 1 minute's worth of information.
  
  I hate videos of talking and i don't understand why tiktok is popular. I can skim an article without watching 10 minutes of crap.

I mean I can have an inner dialogue, but normally it goes straight onto the idea level of thinking and I don't waste resources trying to shape it into words. I can do that, though.
- If you're needing to explain those ideas to other people then it's useful to expound
  
  Yes, of course the translation occurs while communicating, and I'm pretty good at putting my thoughts into words when I need it.

I wish mine would shut up every once in awhile...
- With my aphantasia it's not that it's all quiet in there, unfortunately you still get the carousel of regrets/self criticism etc, but it's a carousel of emotions with no narrator if that makes sense
  
  I think I'm picking up what you're putting down.

I'm not really sure if I count as having an inner voice thinker or not. I definitely use an inner voice when composing verbal/written thoughts, and when I'm trying to remember something specific. However trying to pay attention to my inner thought process makes it seem like my thoughts are mostly non-verbal with occasional sporadic words thrown in? It feels like the more relaxed I am the fewer words there are.

I have an internal monologue, but I don't need it to think and it's not constant.
- I wonder if it's a spectrum. I am probably the same as you, but I am surprised when others mentioned about their inner monologue being constant-- many of which are negative-- and how to "turn it off" when it becomes too toxic. I have never really gotten negative inner monologues.
  Nonetheless, the post made me think that this may explain why I am pretty forgetful. I don't speak to myself to remember something in inner monologue/first person.

NPCs

I am not sure about myself. I assume it is English, but now when i think about it my thoughts are much slower, and trip over them selves. It seems odd to consider thought in a means that is contrived for a much less efficient medium. So maybe i don’t think in a language at all and just attribute the meanings after the fact. I can visualize objects in my head though
- yeh not everyone can visualize in their head. weirdly enough (or maybe not), I can taste in my head. like if you say tomato I can taste it. I should've been a chef maybe
  
  Taste is an interesting one.
  I can't say I can truly taste at will but I can remember the experience of tasting something well enough to be able to "visualize" what taste I am craving, sometimes by imagining different tastes one by one until I find the right one. I'm not really tasting them but sort of replaying the experience of tasting them which is enough for me to understand the taste.
  But it's more like my brain describing it to me than actual taste. It's weird.
  
  I can taste in my head but there's a limited range of what I can smell in my head.
  Like, the smell of chocolate or wet dog or chanel no 5, no problem. The smell of my mother's house or a meadow on a sunny day, very vague and uncertain.

When i need to think something through to myself i often start a recording app on my phone and literally talk it out. It helps narrow down the swirling and distracting thoughts, even if i never go back to the recording later. Is that adhd or a failing inner voice?
I never really understand what people are taking about when they say they have an inner monologue or don't. Sometimes i think in words, sometimes i think in swirls and images, sometimes i don't think...
- I think if you think in words you have one. I also think in different modalities, not exclusively in words.

I have several voices in my head and they never shut the fuck up! 😩

TIL some people have an inner voice. What is for you folks, like imaginary sounds?
- 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.
- Do you remember the last time you were talking to someone for more than a couple minutes? Maybe they were explaining something to you, or telling you a story. You might try to remember what they said later - you can't hear it, but your brain kind of recreates the sensation of having been spoken to even though your ears aren't receiving those sounds.
  That's what having an inner voice is like (to me, anyway) - it's remembering a conversation that you never actually had.
- An asshole mostly, but that's another issue. Helps you think through problems because you think about it before doing it. When I read fiction I try to imagine other voices. I read a lot when I was younger.
- It's just a voice inside your head that says what you're thinking. Like when I'm typing this out it says the words as I type them or as I think ahead as to what to type.
  
  What does it do when you're not actively thinking about text or conversation. Is it still verbal then?

I can change what my inner monologue sounds like. It can go from Morgan Freeman to Pete Holmes' Batman trying to figure out his voice.
- The worst is when you start to have conversations in your head in multiple voices. It gets crowded sometimes.
  
  You should get a dog
- Ooh, I don't really do that. I just tried it and it kind of works, but I think I'm much better with impressions in my real voice. I'd have to practice more.

I can do both, ask me anything.
- Why, can't you ask yourself? 😁
- Can your inner voice be quiet? I'm trying to have a conversation with mine!
  
  I SAID YOUR INNER DISHWASHER MAKES A LOT OF NOISE!!!

I think I have an inner voice, but that's clearly not a voice I hear at all, that's the speech part not resulting in mouthing anything. It's mostly true for foreign languages (like english) but less so for my native french.

maybe my brains broken but when I read stuff my "inner voice" is what I hear in my head. so do you guys not do that too? do the people without inner voices not hear anything when they read stuff?
- You can read without using your inner voice if you practice. It supposedly lets you read a lot faster, though I have my doubts about how well you retain the information. One way to do it is to think "lalalala" while reading something!

I’m convinced that a great part of the people that claim to not have an inner voice are either:
lying to come off as interesting
unaware of their inner voice
not understanding what ‘inner voice’ means. It’s not exactly like someone is talking to you, right? But it does come close.

Try thinking some sentences (like a song lyrics or a conversation) while holding your lips and tongue completely still, I mean not moving them even a tiny bit.
- Is this supposed to be difficult?
  
  Well it's supposed to be impossible.

I do wish I could shut up my inner voice a bit more often, especially when I go to sleep.
- Meditating will help you.

The world where chaotic inner mind is the norm.

My own inner monologue is a mix of movie and voice, I often see the real life/animated equivalent of what thought/idea is trending within my monologue. Years after a thought experiment on the concept of creating a Tulpa, that artificial inner presence still exists. It tends to influence the monologue direction for at least a few hours at a time; then it fades from my awareness for weeks or months at a time.

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