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Not everyone has a voice in their head. Do you have a cat? Cats have thoughts. Unfortunately that thought is sometimes, "eff you, human!"
What do you mean about "not everyone has a voice in their head"? I have one.. I would like to research more about this topic.
Well, what do you think it means?
I believe it would be interesting to talk about this with someone wo inner monologue.
I do not have an internal monologue.
This has been at least discussed/studied before but I don't know if there has been any sort of formal poll to find a rate between those that do and those that don't.
There are some studies. I don't remember the specifics but it's something like 50/50 on hearing and seeing and about 20 percent do neither. I'm sure those numbers are off, but that's vaguely what i remember reading.
What do you mean by seeing? Like they don't see images in their mind?
We don't.
I definitely see images, but not specifics. For example, I can see my wife's face, in my mind, but I can't draw from that memory.
Like I am seeing the images from a distance, but if I try to focus on a detail, the image falls apart.
Some people do. Many of us don't.
This is so fascinating! It's easy to assume most people experience things the same way while we are all different all the way down to how we think and imagine stuff!
I have to ask - in what way do you think about stuff? Especially whem you need to be mindful of a process or remember something?
I still think in words and images, but there is no voice.
Something else that came up in previous discussions. I remember emotional response more than specific things. For example, my wife can remember what we wore, what we ate, and other specifics, of a date we had years ago. I barely remember even the location, but I can easily recall that I was happy about the date, but there was some mild frustration early on, something about the restaurant, but then feeling better about it later.
I say this and my wife says, "Oh yeah, we were annoyed because we had reservations but still had to wait 20 minutes, but then we were given an appetizer."
However, before my comments, she couldn't recall if we liked the place or not.
I'll remember if I liked someone, but not why or even their name.
Mine is just chunks of info or ideas. My coworkers think this is why i talk a lot unfiltered- because i don't hear how it will sound it in my head before it comes out of my mouth. There's a little test online that was going around for awhile where you try to visualize a red star and grade it 1-5.
I am curious how many people don't have an inner monologue, but there are a few articles on the subject. Here's one at random.>
My cognition is mixed. Verbal inner monologue is going most of the time when I'm just thinking about routine stuff. But if I'm "in the flow zone" working on a project or playing music or something like that, the little "voice in my head" vanishes completely and that's when I'm the happiest. I suspect most people can relate to those modes.
That's relatable to me at least. And often music is playing my my head in the place of my inner voice.
Agreed, now that I think about it. It’s definitely better to be in the zone. If I’m monologuing I think it might signify that I’m having trouble with something, but I don’t necessarily enjoy being that aware of my own self.
Thx for the info..
There are also people who are unable to see images in their mind. In case you want to go further down the rabbit hole.
Do you know if it's some kind of mental illness? I mean some kind of human abnormality, or do you believe there are a lot of people like that?
My theory is that there's no such thing as neurotypical.
Neurotypical is just the statistical average of all the different ways we're fucked in the head.
i.e. Half have anxiety, the other half have depression and we just assume normal is somewhere in the middle.
We function just fine. Seeing images or hearing voices in your mind is not required for any task I'm aware of.
My MIL and to some extent my husband are like that. It was painful discussing design plans with them when we reno'd our kitchen. I just started doing mood boards so they could see what I had in my head that I wanted it to look like.
I'm terrible at decorating!! After 20+ years in my house most of my walls have pictures that are sentimental to me but not visually connected in any way.
There are a lot of us.
Many of us don't. Many of us also don't see images in our minds.