Do you have an internal monologue?

[tofubreadcoriander]

I just came across this video where somebody interviews someone regarding her not having an internal monologue. I thought I was the only one with this. I'm curious, are there others here that don't have an internal monologue? If so, do you relate with what she described in the video with her answers?

 

[Friday]

I don’t think in words, so there is no monologue. It’s like several streams of thousands of images/feelings/shapes/sounds/movement/colour/etc.. Each devoted to their own focal point.

How many thought streams? Depends on the situation. As few as 1 if I’m hyper focused, as many as 5-8, on average… although when I just wake up (or am sick) it could be hundreds, so diffuse as to almost be static, or none (and then I have to go track down 2 neutrons to rub together to get a spark).

 

[Movingforward10]

My partner doesn’t either. And I’m jealous! All these internal monologues are draining. Thoughts. Counter thoughts. Constant noise.

my partner says she thinks in pictures and colours. Sounds lovely!

 

[Friday]

All these internal monologues are draining. Thoughts. Counter thoughts. Constant noise.

So are the nonverbal versions.

Like someone shouting at you would be verbal?
Someone hitting you is nonverbal.

Both suck, are painful, exhausting, demoralising, etc. Just in different ways.

 

[Movingforward10]

So are the nonverbal versions.

Like someone shouting at you would be verbal?
Someone hitting you is nonverbal.

Both suck, are painful, exhausting, demoralising, etc. Just in different ways.

Hadn’t thought of it like that.

 

[Weemie]

I don't think in words or images. I don't know how I think! I've never been able to describe it. It's like pre-words, extremely fast, conceptual data. But not images, I have no iconic production ability in my brain almost at all, so I don't see lists of things, or images. Neither do I have the sensations of emotions, as other people describe them. (Since psilocybin treatment, I have started to gain this ability, but it is still quite muted.)

It's just conceptual. That's the best way I know how to describe it. Interestingly enough, I tested at about 170 verbal IQ, and I can read extremely fast. Like, really fast. Same with typing, because I don't have to construct my sentences or think of the words before my fingers are flying across the keyboard. I type at about the same rate as I speak. So, who knows.

I always assumed I did have a monologue, but hearing him describe how he thinks, that is not how I think. I don't hear words, I don't hear sounds, I don't have any "sense" information in my thoughts. There's no smells, or tastes, or sounds. It's all a continuous, hyper-fast stream of information. If I want to coalesce that into something specific that I can communicate with others, I can internally choose what words to put to that experience.

I do not need to speak out loud, or write it down, but I do have to remember the words (and I can do this easily). And I can either express them, or just keep those words tagged. More often though (such as in this reply) I spontaneously generate the words at the moment I choose to express myself, in trillionths of a second.

My guess is that this is not abnormal at all and that when people talk about "hearing words" they are really just talking about selecting the words to describe their thoughts, but... hearing him discuss how his thoughts work, that... doesn't seem like it's the same thing as what I do? (But, much like him, I can't understand how another person could do something differently to me - so there's an impetus to be like "no, we're probably saying the same thing, he is just less self-aware about it.")

 

[abovedown]

My partner doesn’t either. And I’m jealous! All these internal monologues are draining. Thoughts. Counter thoughts. Constant noise.

my partner says she thinks in pictures and colours. Sounds lovely!

How does he communicate with himself without this monologue?

 

[Weemie]

How does he communicate with himself without this monologue?

According to the video, they don't - if they want to communicate with themselves, they speak out loud or write it down. My guess, again, is that these are people who probably are fundamentally misunderstanding what it means to have a thought. I am sure that every person has some method they use to communicate with themselves internally, without requiring an outward expression of any kind. But what people are labeling as a 'thought' or a 'monologue' is getting lost in translation.

For example, if I asked the person in the video what their political views were, they would most likely be able to describe them without too much difficulty. This is something that is pre-verbal and conceptual, but that cannot be effectively communicated by lists and pictures alone (and I don't mean asking someone to pick their party - which can be done via imagery, I mean getting people to describe their actual opinions and beliefs).

So there must be some form of conceptual data happening before the words and images show up and I suspect that is pretty much universal. I think people just have different levels of reliance on that data, or different skill levels in memory production (such as my inability to form images or sounds in my mind). For me, I tap directly into it and don't bother with words until I need them, because it is far faster than words. But others, most likely, believe they are only having a thought if they have verbalized it somehow.

Again this is all fairly narcissistic, and based in the assumption that people probably aren't that different from me, and I could be totally and 100% wrong and there really is this huge diversity in human cognition that most people don't know about. But more likely, is that people's understanding of a thought and a memory and a monologue is going to be different, which is why they report different things.

 

[Movingforward10]

How does he communicate with himself without this monologue?

She.

I have no idea actually! She just does and says. She is in touch with how she feels and expresses it.

 

[enough]

it happens so fast, how can i say if it was an idea that was thought or the words that describe the idea? When I am going to speak it I try to think about sentence structure and get the sentence right before I say it, but thats not true with all my thoughts. I can think about an idea and the words that describe it more or less simultaneously, so the decision to form a sentence in my mind comes with the understanding that I want to better understand the idea or remember the idea later in finer context than just the broad idea. Remembering conversations, definitely the words come back in my mind. Remembering lyrics, yes, I think in terms of words rather than ideas. Music is the crossover channel in my head where ideas and words go together. I have a word for a chord progression, C-D-G-F for example, but it transfers into ideas representing chorus, bridge, melody that are secondary to words and lyrics, they have to be I guess. Its a difficult thing to describe and I am not articulate in trying.
Reminds me of conversations with a blind man while working together and during rides home after work. He had never seen colors yet he understood color temperature and could get the idea of "red hot' or "cool clear water" but could not describe his imagery, if it even was an imagery any better than I could describe mine. Where we found common ground was in music, and in spatial relationships. He was a trained assembler where I worked and in helping him develop tools to help him do the assemblies I started to get the idea of what he needed to be able to "constrain" the space shapes he was working with, nuts, bolts, snap fits, correct plumbing and wiring, things of that nature. I learned what he was "looking" for when he had an object in his hands that would tell him where the rest of the space shape details were in relation to it. It made me a better toolmaker, and I learned things from him that I use when designing workstations and fixtures for people that can see too.
All of these deep conversations about mental imagery and working with solid shapes in space and developing the vocabulary we could use to exchange ideas gave me an insight into a mind that had to be working at similar problems differently than my own, and we had much much more in common than you would expect, than I expected.
And we talked about ideas versus imagery versus articulate thought, and we both agreed that it all happened so fast it was indiscernible what had just crossed our minds unless the thoughts had the pretext of being a memory of a conversation or were going to be formed into words for a conversation.
Good topic that rarely gets brought up, thanks

 

[littleoc]

I have an internal monologue and think in pictures both -- depends on what I'm thinking about, but often I see the pictures first and then give words to them. Not always, but often

My bestie sees in only images. He's autistic (as am I) and he relates heavily to Temple Grandin