subreddit:
/r/todayilearned
3.2k points
6 days ago
I had an ischemic stroke last September, which is when a clot obstruct an artery. It was TICI 0 which means a complete blockage with no blood flow. It wasn't painful, and I would not have known I was having a stroke except for the fact I fell from my bike and the complete and utter absence of chatter in my brain. It was the most unnatural feeling of peace and calm that I have ever had. It took 3 days or so for the voice to return, and about a week for me to dream again.
1k points
6 days ago
Just wanted to say this was extraordinarily interesting to read and not something I’ve ever heard about in relation to stroke before. Do you feel like saying any more about your experience and recovery?
517 points
6 days ago
I have had a few anoxic brain injury events over the last couple of years (long-covid crap), and in the early phase of the recovery each time I’ve had around a week or so like this. It is probably not unlike your stroke experience.
Creepy af for someone used to having a lot of mental chatter. I can just sit for hours and not really have any thoughts - I think it’s a lot farther than what people mean when they say they don’t have inner voice thinking as their normal mode - I’m just kinda inert if no one is prompting me to lethargically think things by talking to me or something. I can realize 3 or 4 hours have passed with literally no thinking about anything.
I kind of imagine it is what it’s like to be a much lower mentally-functioning animal.
154 points
6 days ago
I can realize 3 or 4 hours have passed with literally no thinking about anything.
how's your recollection of those 3-4 hours? Is your memory still keeping track or do you suddenly realize 4 hours went by as you were staring at a wall?
166 points
6 days ago
It’s kind of the staring at a wall thing, but I don’t think I’m not patterning memory during it - it’s not like I took Versed or something.
I mean, when some external stimulus or need to pee or something makes me have to actually interact or do something, I’ll sort have my thinking come online, and then if I see the time I’m still able to think “dang, I sat down here 4 hours ago” or whatever.
My memory though seems basically ok - I can still carry on conversations and stuff. I struggle a bit to remember things as I form sentences occasionally, but not as bad as you’d expect for the fact I can just go full vegetable for 4 hours if nothing interrupts me.
I’ve only had 3 of these full-on brain injury events. 2 were as I was even putting together what was going on, and one was actually in a controlled clinical environment where we intended to stay below my trigger threshold but we screwed up.
I’ve pretty well stopped doing any of the sort of activity that triggers them because the consequences are so severe. They take a full 8-12 weeks to get back to 100% normal from. A few weeks into recovery it’s nothing like as bad as the mentally vacant thing I’m describing though.
I’m scared of the possible long-term damage I could have accrued from even those three times too.
64 points
6 days ago*
This is really interesting. Thank You for sharing it. My husband and I discussed it, since he and I have two very different levels of brain activity and I struggle to understand how he just has Quiet Mind activities sometimes.
I don't think I've ever had a quiet moment in my own head, and in point of fact feed into it because if my brain is quiet for very long then my THOUGHTS will GET ME.
42 points
6 days ago
It was like that. I was alert and could understand what's going on, but I couldn't feel anything more than mild amusement, mainly at the frantic firefighters and the paramedics. I heard them talking about stroke but couldn't feel any fear, not even alarm. It was probably the most peaceful I've ever felt, except it felt ever so slightly wrong. I described it as "disquieting quiet."
137 points
6 days ago
Not quite the same, but when my grandfather died I had the same thing. Suddenly radio silence in my head when usually it's like a million TV's all tuned to different channels. I was actually able to just sit in silence. It was bizarre and unsettling.
I hope you're recovering well, friend <3
41 points
6 days ago
hey wow same thing happened to me. i wasn’t even close to the man, saw him one a year as a child, and it felt like i was a shell of a person. no thoughts, no nothing when normally i have a very active brain. it felt like there was a film over my eyes as if i was observing someone in a body that wasn’t my own. took months to get over.
29 points
6 days ago
“absence of chatter in my brain”
Nothing stops my chatter, even meditation. I have learned to live with it, though. I wonder what it would be like.
10k points
6 days ago
I sound like a normal person in my head. When I hear my voice from a video all I can think is, this guy sounds like an idiot.
1.7k points
6 days ago
I get what you mean. I hear myself as it sounds when I’m actually talking but it’s different from how I sound to others like on video or on the phone. Lol that is hard to explain.
1.4k points
6 days ago
Its cause we hear ourselves directly through our bones and meat, while everyone else has a bunch of air the sounds have to go through.
557 points
6 days ago
There's that. But hearing myself on a recording revealed to me that I have an accent. Not so surprising but I never knew since I was born and raised in the city I live in, but I was raised in an immigrant community.
433 points
6 days ago
When you hear yourself talk your brain isn't really listening to your voice like you'd listen to others. There is a feedback loop to help control your vocal chords etc. Try listening to yourself on a slight delay and not stuttering. I'm sure this alters your perception of your voice. Or take a heroic dose of shrooms and really listen to yourself talk like it's someone else.
140 points
6 days ago
I've used an app to do that and it was shocking how hard it was to speak as well as how quickly it happened. At first I was fine then it was like my brain was locking up.
113 points
6 days ago
Ive had it happen on videogames somebodies got an open mic and no headphones so tge audio is playing back twice. It fucks with my abillity to speak to.
58 points
6 days ago
Yup, same thing! As soon as I start hearing myself, my entire thought process derails.
81 points
6 days ago
Do not recommend - I took a heroic dose of acid and listened to myself talk, but somehow I ended up riding in the backseat and my body was basically off acting on its own while I watched. It was unnerving.
61 points
6 days ago
Acid and shrooms are two VERY different things
331 points
6 days ago
You always hear your own voice altered by acoustics of the inside of your head. The sound is also travelling through bone conduction and through the sinuses up into the estacheon tubes, not just coming into your ears the way other people's voices do.
So, your conceptualisation of your own voice is based on hearing it differently to everyone else.
Similar to feeling uncomfortable about photos, partly because you are used to seeing yourself in a mirror, which looks different because faces are not symmetrical (and neither is perception).
143 points
6 days ago
No, to me my thoughts are very clearly not my own voice. It's not my voice I hear, and its definitely not the voice others hear.
Maybe I'm using a voice I heard when I was little? Maybe it's just generic voice?
Interesting part is although it's not my voice, it uses the same intonations like my speech.
105 points
6 days ago
These conversations really hit home that people don't all share the same experiences.
It's quite fascinating.
27 points
6 days ago
I feel like it’s my voice, but it doesn’t really have a sound to it. Like it’s just “the” voice. My self. I can tell that it’s different from hearing but I basically experience it like linear words.
I also see images, and lately I’ve been pondering how weird it is that I can see images in like an internal screen but then also be seeing other images at the same time. Basically different pieces of self-awareness simultaneously but the one I’m not actively paying attention to is a little fuzzy.
There’s music too and I think everyone has that, there is always music inside if there isn’t music outside.
I’ve always wondered how people do math that they can’t see. I fortunately see most math but if I don’t see it, I can’t understand it.
30 points
6 days ago
I hear Darth Vaders voice in my head. On recordings I sound like Jar Jar.
88 points
6 days ago
Hearing your "real," voice is kind of a learned skill. If you do a lot of voice recording work you'll get used to it really fast and start to hear it more when you speak.
Kids these days for example will probably be used to it from a young age with how easy it is to record yourself and watch it back.
94 points
6 days ago
I have to listen to my own voice for work sometimes and I still hate it. That guy sounds like a clown.
14k points
6 days ago
It's more surprising to find out that there are some people who don't do this.
2.7k points
6 days ago
At least im not the only one thinking that...
1.5k points
6 days ago
But did you hear yourself think that?
430 points
6 days ago
I imagine hearing myself talk as my thoughts. I don't literally hear a voice. Some people can't imagine a voice at all, even their own.
FYI, it triggers the same part of the brain as actually speaking, so it can 'feel' the same.
126 points
6 days ago
[deleted]
88 points
6 days ago
I can just barely “feel” the muscle movement in my throat when I’m thinking and “talking to myself.”
58 points
6 days ago
Yeah, when someone goes "did I say that out loud?", Generally it's because saying it in your head is the same as saying out loud, you hear it either way, but other people only hear it if you activate vocalization.
30 points
6 days ago
Same, I don’t literally have a voice
1.1k points
6 days ago*
My inner voice counts letters of sentences I hear or read. It's a constant annoyance. Then i find the prime number of the sentence and then the prime of that until I make it to one. If the prime doesn't let me get to one I count letters of the prime number and get the prime of that, until I get to one.
Edit: thanks for all the interesting questions. This is something I've always been open about with people close to me, but has seldom gotten much of a response. I'm almost 47, and I've had this condition for decades. It's a bit frustrating and comes and goes, but it's just something I've come to live with. I consider it a sort of a "tick".
1k points
6 days ago
There are medications that help with OCD
273 points
6 days ago*
I have OCD with similar issues regarding counting and dividing numbers. I have not found a single medication that works ): had this problem since I was 8 years old and I’m almost 27.
230 points
6 days ago
Ketamine therapy my brother. Changed my life. The silence is incredible.
33 points
6 days ago
I've been very interested in ketamine therapy, not for OCD, but for other "inner monologue" issues. How do you even go about approaching ketamine therapy as an option. Just Google a clinic and ask them if you can come give ketamine a shot?
21 points
6 days ago
Just Google a clinic and ask them if you can come give ketamine a shot?
Basically, yeah this haha
39 points
6 days ago
This is seriously the only reason I haven't done it. It feels so weird to me to reach out to some random receptionist and be all "yo, I hear you guys got drugs and I'm interested in trying them".
12 points
6 days ago
I think that would probably work depending on the provider, I was under the care of a shrink when I first started, made it much easier. There are also providers that go sublingual via the mail that may be worth a shot, I have never used it and have only done IV. Check out r/TherapeuticKetamine
131 points
6 days ago
Unfortunately, I don't have health care.
63 points
6 days ago
Holy crap I used to do this too when I was younger! I could count the letters in a sentence in a fraction of a second. I also used to have some weird fetish with 8 letter words.
I think weed cured it.
78 points
6 days ago
Are you medicated for that? It sounds like pretty severe OCD. Sorry, just curious.
60 points
6 days ago
No, I don't have health care, unfortunately.
11 points
6 days ago
If you need to see a mental health provider, in addition to some states having "indigent funding" or money set aside to cover uninsured patients being seen through specific providers, some independent providers will have a "sliding scale" payment program where your bill for seeing the doc or therapist is based on your income or ability to pay. It might take a bit of research and be a pain in the butt to get started, but you should be able to get seen.
And then affording the medication becomes a bit of a trick, but I think most of the meds for OCD are available in generic. Another redditor suggested Cost Plus Drugs, and that's a good idea.
40 points
6 days ago
Inner voice sounds like me, but apparently has Samuel L Jackson write the script
161 points
6 days ago
[deleted]
122 points
6 days ago
Yeah, it's hard to explain. Like there is no sound despite me hearing the words. I can force my inner monologue to be my voice, but that's something different.
48 points
6 days ago
Same, this all sounds very strange to me. Like how do you hear something that isn't audible? My thoughts are similar in that they use the same speech patterns I have but I couldn't tell you what my thoughts "sound" like.
98 points
6 days ago
Sometimes, I pick an interesting voice (like a celebrity's) and narrate my thoughts in that voice for awhile.
37 points
6 days ago
Strong accents become my inner voice for a while if they're catchy. Scottish and Aussie usually.
998 points
6 days ago
Some people don't even think at all, and they somehow wind up in politics.
202 points
6 days ago
I have aphantasia.
296 points
6 days ago
So does my son. It's wild. Unless he makes a mental note of characteristics beforehand, he cannot describe what anyone looks like unless he is looking directly at them.
Do you also hate reading books without pictures?
My son reads loads of graphic novels, but traditional novels bore and frustrate him for the most part because they chew too much on scenery that he can't visualize.
One of his teachers tried to get him to read Tolkien... he was sooo pissed.
169 points
6 days ago
Yup, can't read at all well I can and eventually develop an overall understanding late in the book but Its just words that I have to try and remember.
It was clear to me in classes like gym when we had to cooldown, and try to stretch and relax I always thought people were just lying about seeing a beach, a favourite place...I used to awkwardly look around and I thought it was some sort of joke. I also wonder what people see or think about when praying...I see nothing. Ever. Can't picture anything
125 points
6 days ago
If it makes you feel better, it is also very hard for me to conceptualize the way people with aphantasia think.
Thinking without sound or images? Like? How? That's all my thoughts are.
95 points
6 days ago
For whatever reason I think I personally have some kind of aphantasia (I can kinda visualise stuff in my head but it's extremely weak and nowhere near as strong as some people describe it, and reading books isn't as fun as a result I think), but the sound version is really strong. When I imagine songs in my head it's like I can almost distantly hear it.
45 points
6 days ago
This is me. When I try really hard to shut my brain off, I can start to visualize but it's weak and then my mind automatically tries to focus on the image using my eyes and it goes away.
35 points
6 days ago
Like a lot of things in life, it's a spectrum.
At the low end you have aphantasia which is a complete or extreme lack of visual imagery.
Then you have hypophantasia which is somewhat of a middle ground of still being unable to fully visualize things.
And on the other end of the spectrum is hyperphantasia, which is is seeing imagery so vivid it can be difficult to distinguish it from actual seeing.
Research into it all started surprisingly recently so a lot of things are still unknown and not everyone agrees on the distinctions. From personal experience hypophantasia oftentimes just gets bundled with aphantasia.
Personally I'm in the "sees no imagery" part of the spectrum. Welcome to the club! Have a cookie!
As a fun sidenote, sound imagination is separate from visual imagination but unsurprisingly it's a similar spectrum as well!
28 points
6 days ago
Aphantasia only applies to images. Sound is something else entirely. Some people have both, but it is 2 separate things.
15 points
6 days ago
Yeah I just think with my inner dialogue. And I feel like my voice can't remember everything, or fast enough, I have ADHD as well but yeah I've learned to deal and cope. 😂
42 points
6 days ago
I have it too and same. I remember in college, we had a professor walk us thru a meditation. I had never really done one before. And she kept saying, imagine a box or your happy place, a beach, etc.
I'm like why would they imagine that? You can't actually see it. Lol
But I can see visuals right as I'm falling asleep. Which is also fairly common for people with aphantasia. But just for a few seconds. It's like a video game. I wonder if that's what it's life for everyone else?
16 points
6 days ago
I feel like I have a very vivid imagination -- I can easily recall my original three-dimensional construct (not 2d picture) of the Hidden City of Gondolin from a reading 25 years ago and like, reproduce it in a computer program fairly easily.
I can mentally build landscapes or cityscapes like a Minecraft time lapse video
But except for dreaming, zero closed-eye visuals without drugs
44 points
6 days ago
One of his teachers tried to get him to read Tolkien... he was sooo pissed.
To be fair, I've read hundreds of books, I'm a huge fantasy dork, I 100% acknowledge the sheer genius of Tolkien's work and it's impact on literally everything to come after...and never want to read his books again.
I just don't enjoy it. Feels like work to me.
23 points
6 days ago
The Hobbit is the most accessible for sure, if you just skip all the songs. LOTR is a bit more of a chore because there are some real lulls. The Silmarillion is a straight up job.
55 points
6 days ago
Thats enough, you have my vote!
211 points
6 days ago
My first thought as well, people without an inner monologue. I might be jealous.
168 points
6 days ago
I feel like my life is The Stanley Parable... Inner voice: Oh look stanley a red button why don't you press it? Me: Shut UP! Is 3am i'm trying to sleep
127 points
6 days ago
'Bored, Stanley decided to have a wank. But with me listening in and narrating the act, could he concentrate? Let's find out. What're you thinking about, Stanley? Not too firm a grip, now. I do hope I'm not putting you off, Stanley. To be moments from a big finish, only to hear me talking about how you're only moments from a big finish...'
47 points
6 days ago
Are you close Stanley? Is this a good time to remind you when you where 15, and you called the teacher 'Mum' instead of 'Miss'? You felt like such a twat, remember? Oh, and then everybody in the class laughed at you, including the girl you had a crush on... Even the teacher laughed...
Oh what was that girls name Stanley? The one with the red hair and that cute little mark on her neck you would stare at every time you talked to her? Abigail? Andrea? A-something... I wonder what she's doing now? Do you think she's on facebook? Maybe she's friends with somebody you're friends with from back then? That could help us with the name... Alison? Fuck! Come on Stanley, think! What's her fucking name... It's on the tip of my tongue...
Gone a bit limp now Stanley. What happened there?
15 points
6 days ago
"Wh- I don't believe it. Are you ACTUALLY getting your rocks off from listening to me narrate your date with Rosie Palms? I didn't think we could sink any lower here, Stanley, but you've clearly proven me wrong. I wash my hands of this whole affair - literally. I'm off to find a washroom, I'll just... leave you to it, then."
9 points
6 days ago
Spot on
30 points
6 days ago
I relive every argument I've ever gotten into over and over again. Sure I come up with much better arguments than I did when I had the argument in real life, but that makes me feel bad that I didn't come up with that on the when it counted.
58 points
6 days ago
I've had to learn to talk to myself to help stay on task. That maybe an ADHD thing
293 points
6 days ago
I'm pretty sure it's mostly due to different definitions.
The voice in your head is obviously different to a real voice right. So when you say "I hear myself think" or whatever, some people may interpret that as literally hearing it as if a person's in the room, as opposed to an inner dialogue.
Thus if you ask people, they have different answers.
196 points
6 days ago
My inner voice is quite strong and generally a conscious effort. It's about as 'audible' as a well-remembered song. I subvocalise when I read.
I do not have any inner monologue, so to speak. Most of my life and thinking is raw experience - don't narrate what's going on, or talk to myself by default. If I 'hear' an inner voice, it's intentional.
So, generally, no inner dialogue for me.
Have discussed this at length with friends, especially ones with anxiety, and they find this description very strange. I'm not sure it's definitional as we drilled down pretty deep - seems to be an experiential difference.
How about you? What's your inner world like?
60 points
6 days ago
That sounds so alien to me. I am always talking in my head. I am always explaining my thoughts to, well, nobody.
I wouldnt describe it as effortless as I will struggle to vocalize and "repeat" myself if I get distracted enough, but its as automatic as breathing. As in breathing takes effort, but your body just keeps doing it automatically.
The only time I stop my monologue is when I am meditating or extremely tired. I know how fast I can think when I stop the monologue, but I cannot focus on the details.
So here is a question. If you arent slowing down for your inner monologue, how are you focusing on complicated stuff like math of planning? Follow up question - if you spend majority of time in this quick thinking state without monologue slowing you down, just how do you handle all those thoughts?
21 points
6 days ago*
Not the guy you were replying too, but I have the same thing going on where my inner monologue has to be consciously driven.
The thing with being in a "flow state", or what you describe as a "quick thinking state", is that you don't really have thoughts that dictate your attention. I pretty much just experience what's going on and any processing of information happens in the background. Just soaking it all in.
This doesn't lead to a vocalized train of thought like, "I left my house 20 minutes ago and this traffic is gonna make me late". Instead I'm just aware of the fact. Sorta like a eureka moment without the euphoria.
Often I'm aware of something without really "knowing" how I came to the conclusion. But I've learned to become very good at backtracking and logically figuring out why I all of a sudden feel a certain way.
Sometimes I'll try to talk myself though something when I'm stressed. But it doesn't really work because I'm just talking into the void with no response. If I need to deliberate on something within myself I don't gain anything from vocalizing the situation. When I'm that desperate, then I already don't have the information I need. Otherwise I would already have an answer.
This was not always the case though. When I was younger I had terrible anxiety and lived in a constant state of rumination. That was very unhealthy. So I did some work on myself from 18 to 22 to ultimately make that stop.
33 points
6 days ago
sounds quite similar as me. I cannot describe the "sound" of my inner voice.
The only times I hear my inner voice is when focused reading, or to keep my mind on a task, example like I would repeat "food" when trying to find out what to make for dinner.
I can also easily stop thinking at all if I want.
30 points
6 days ago
That's crazy to me, can perfectly describe the sound of my inner voice, it's the exact same voice I hear when I speak. I can also do other voices perfectly, including people I don't actually know that well. About 10 mins of speaking with someone and I can "hear" them say anything I want in my head.
I also do have issues where I'll get confused between hearing a sound and thinking about that sound because it sounds the same to me. The most common one being thinking I hear my dads truck door beeping. I have to concentrate for a second to really clear my head when I listen for it.
16 points
6 days ago
I can also easily stop thinking at all if I want.
So jealous of this.
It's not so much the inner voice has a "sound" but mine never shuts the fuck up.
I can't look at something pretty and merely think "wow that's pretty" while admiring it. Sure that's one thought though, the theme so to speak. But there's continuous monolog in my head that never ever stops. Even if I'm reading or listening to someone else speak, the monolog continues on the side.
117 points
6 days ago
Yes, for me, at least, it's not the same as literally "hearing" but more a concept of hearing, very similar to remembering a sound.
Like imagining a picture with eyes closed is not actually seeing the picture (still see the darkness of the inside of the eyelids).
It's difficult to explain to people who do not share the same experience, a bit like trying to explain the appearance of color to someone who has been born colorblind.
The discussions leave me wondering if there is a range of experience from silence and darkness, through sort of visualising and hearing but not really as its different, through being able to conjure up actual hearing and vision from imagination (which would be amazing if you can do it without becoming confused as to what is real). But it might be misunderstanding due to it being difficult to describe.
22 points
6 days ago
One way to explain it is that it's like the same mental experience of listening, but without the physical feeling of hearing a sound. Like you can hear a voice, a sound, or music in your head, but your body and eardrums aren't experiencing any physical sensations.
The purpose of the ear is to transform vibrations in the air into neural electrical signals, and when we remember or imagine a sound we are just replaying or creating those electrical signals in our brain.
For me, remembering and replaying a conversation or a piece of music in my head it is almost as vivid and real as when you actually experienced it.
30 points
6 days ago
No. My husband doesn’t hear voices, his or otherwise, in his head when thinking. He sees pictures and sees words. u/igcipd
99 points
6 days ago
Nope. I have no inner dialogue whatsoever. Zero. When I hear this inner dialogue thing brought up, it sounds so crazy and foreign to me. It's not people misunderstanding the concept, OP was correct: some people have this and some do not.
570 points
6 days ago
If I try to stop the monologue that is my brain talking, I realize that, instead of actually stopping it, I can hear my brain talking about having stopped it....
It never stops.
232 points
6 days ago
"Ok time to relax and stop thinking"
"Great I'm not thinking of anything"
"Wait I'm still talking to myself"
"And it keeps going"
"Finally I have stopped thinking"
"Wait..."
It's a vicious cycle :/
35 points
6 days ago
This is basically meditation practice 😂just keep doing it and try your best without getting frusterated and it should slow down. At some point you'll have more control over the mental chatter. You can also just watch it and not try to engage with the thoughts it can slow down that way too.
37 points
6 days ago
I can stop mine entirely. I can choose to essentially think no thoughts.
There is always that monitor in the background, though. Even if it's silent. It's watching. Waiting.
2.6k points
6 days ago
Doesn't everybody do this ? I be having complete debates in English and my native language about literally everything.
1.3k points
6 days ago
Sometimes I get so passionate about those debates in my head that I unintentionally start saying things out loud
697 points
6 days ago
I’ve brought myself to tears on more than one occasion while giving myself an impassioned pep talk. It’s hard out there, but together me and I we can get through this.
305 points
6 days ago
You're lucky that you and you are together; me and I hate each other.
145 points
6 days ago
Get you and you together and have a conversation about how you treat each other, seriously, I've come to the realization that everyone has multiple personnalities in them, when the gamer in me wants one more game I have to get the student in me to get him to peacefully put the controller down so we can go study, It's really important that you get the different personnalities in you to realize they all have one goal : your happiness.
42 points
6 days ago
We're going to be together a while. Might as well learn to get get along.
38 points
6 days ago
Username... checks out?
24 points
6 days ago
I'm this close to putting money into this nonsense just to award you for this comment, because you and yourself are fantastic and I thank you and you for you and you.
72 points
6 days ago
I do this too. Sometimes I argue with myself and end up making myself irritated which isn’t great.
44 points
6 days ago
The older I get the more vocal the conversations have become. I figure another 15 years and I will be the “old man yelling at clouds” guy.
135 points
6 days ago
I've never known that pleasure. I read words in my head in my own voice but I've never been able to like modulate it in any way.
Edit. I didn't realize till my mid 20's that people could monologue and visualize in their head. I always thought things like imagine the crowd naked was a metaphor
88 points
6 days ago
I was in a nonsense corporate workshop-type meeting once and the facilitator guy was like “imagine a tranquil beach” and then picked a random lady and asked what color her umbrella was. She thought he meant the one she owns, like in her house. No no, the one you’re imagining. What do you mean? I mean imagine you’re lying on the beach under an umbrella, what color is the umbrella? She couldn’t do it.
Turns out there’s something called aphantasia which means you can’t picture an image in your head. None of us, including this lady, knew it existed. Really derailed the poor guys workshop but it wasn’t going well anyhow.
26 points
6 days ago
People don't have IMAX theaters running inside their own head? That's wild. My beach umbrella is blue with cartoon sea creatures cavorting on it.
46 points
6 days ago
I read words in my head
Learning to stop involuntarily doing that is one of the things you learn when learning to speed read. You can still understand a body of text without thinking of each individual word as you read it, but it takes some getting used to.
3.2k points
6 days ago
I talk to myself all the time, but there is no actual voice sound to it at all.
1.2k points
6 days ago
Same. There isn't any voice attached to my thoughts. I still talk in my head though.
997 points
6 days ago*
Sounds like you all are talking about the Language of Thought Hypothesis, also adorably called “mentalese.” It’s a psycholinguistic hypothesis positing exactly what you’re saying - you don’t think in words as we commonly understand them, but your thought is translated to an understandable idea all the same.
Steven Pinker has written extensively about mentalese if you want to learn more - I think the most in-depth plunge is in How the Mind Works but it’s been a bit since I read that one.
136 points
6 days ago
I do this as well as having an inner monologue that has a voice.
106 points
6 days ago
Thank you, I was looking for a comment like this lol. I have like 2 different sets of thought. One has my voice and the other is just kind of... there.
37 points
6 days ago
The other one isn't just...there.. for me, it's the originator of the thought, and the voice is just the translator. My voice part is far less skilled than my abstract part (I may be on the spectrum and have various mental illnesses) and I/voice side can't translate or keep up fast enough.
24 points
6 days ago
Bro exactly. One time I tried to talk about that, thinking everybody's mind langage worked the same way, and I described it as "my thought's thoughts".
189 points
6 days ago
I'm trying to imagine this and quite literally cannot. Do you have a running internal monologue still?
350 points
6 days ago
I have the same thing. It isnt so much a monologue as it is a stream of thoughts with no voice, if that makes sense. If im not paying conscious attention, i dont register it at all. Right now, i cant even remember if i do this all the time lol
201 points
6 days ago
Oh wow! My internal monologue is pretty much unceasing without alcohol to quiet it, and while I don't hear it with my ears I hear it with my brain so much that I find myself breathing as if I was speaking sometimes, and even feel my mouth/tongue move like I'm about to form words. Not all the time for that part, mind you, but the bridge between thinking and speaking is not very far for me I guess? 😳
62 points
6 days ago
I have the same thing. Oddly not always in my accent. I'm English, but sometimes the monologue is in various regional American accents that I've been exposed to via media throughout the years.
30 points
6 days ago
I do this quite a lot as well and you made me think of this:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/device-can-hear-voice-inside-your-head-180972785/
I'm trying to lose that habit because I suspect that this technology could very well be used to spy on people's thoughts.
10 points
6 days ago
If there's really anything going on near me sounds wise the monologue is just drowned out. Like I'm consciously trying, but it's voiceless so anything drowns it out. Kinda like when you read as paragraph and finish and realize you got nothing from it. Like it's just easier to pause what I'm doing and just talk out loud to myself.
128 points
6 days ago
I had no idea people heard their own voice in their heads, that sounds actually horrifying since I find my voice mildly annoying.
To me it's as if I was reading my own thoughts, if I had to compare it to something. Like, when you're reading something, does your own voice say the words out loud in your head, or does the information just register and that's it?
16 points
6 days ago
Basically that.
It's like there's a tiny me sat somewhere between my ears spelling out each of these typed words phonetically as I type them.
And now I'm reading it back for errors it's like that version of me has become a school teacher reading it out loud who's willing to say "fucks sake, spelling is spelt with one 'I' "
54 points
6 days ago
For me, at least, I 100% hear my voice reading to myself "out loud". I can't imagine what it's like to just silently absorb words.
287 points
6 days ago
I feel like sometimes this conversation is kind of like asking if somebody sees the same blue as you. Impossible to describe. I “hear” my voice the same way that I imagine the taste of a food, or the rooms of my house when I’m not in them, and so on. I don’t actually hear my voice, but I hear it just as well as I hear music that I’m imagining. I could say that I don’t experience any of the things I imagine in a real sense, but I feel like my imagination is pretty good, and for all intents and purposes I really do “hear” my voice. But it’s not as if I’m speaking aloud.
85 points
6 days ago
Yeah I "hear" my voice in my head but it's not the same as an audio hallucination. I've had that before and the sounds more external. Went through detox from alcohol and kept hearing what sounded like Alanis Morissette "you oughta know" on the radio playing in another room in repeat all night. Came again the next night and discovered I could change tracks on the album. Only that album though. Lol it was wild. That's when I realized it wasn't someone that just loved the song playing in repeat
11 points
6 days ago*
I detoxed from multiple substances at once and my sister was playing Toontown Rewritten. I swear to God I'm so glad she stopped playing that game because the music kept repeating in my head for a very very long time (like over a month) even in complete quiet.
19 points
6 days ago
I don’t actually hear my voice, but I hear it just as well as I hear music that I’m imagining
Well said.
Think of someone you know well. Do you actually "see" their image in your head? I don't.
20 points
6 days ago
When I get manic, my inner monologue starts to get louder and louder until I can't really tell whether I'm literally talking out loud or merely thinking. It's... not fun. The Germans have a word for it (of course they do): Gedankenlautwerden (approximately "thoughts made aloud")
88 points
6 days ago
I think that's where this discrepancy lies.
People interpret the questions on this matter differently.
36 points
6 days ago
I talk to myself all the time, but there is no actual voice sound to it at all.
Same.
It's not a *voice* but the actual words/thoughts.
Different than remembering a voice where I have the sound in my head.
Just thoughts w/o voice ("sound").
36 points
6 days ago
How? Is it like a teleprompter with subtitles? Every thought I have, typing this reply, it’s all voiced
106 points
6 days ago
It's more like I can feel the words rather than hear them.
54 points
6 days ago
I know what you mean. Like it's there. And it's in the same cadence of my speech. And I hear it. But I don't hear it.
171 points
6 days ago
Most of my thoughts are pictures and fucking Off to the Races from Lana Del Rey please just shoot me the music just won't stop.
42 points
6 days ago
Yeah like 90% of the time the filler sound is music. Like a radio.
83 points
6 days ago
I think this is part of why Scrubs is so memorable.
26 points
6 days ago
Internal monologue? What a weirdo...
868 points
6 days ago*
Does that mean some people can turn it off?? I feel cheated!
My voice, bits of songs and music, quotes, snatches of conversations, random words or noises. And that's just the sounds!
Then there's the images and scenes playing out that I can turn off if I really force it. The random smells and tastes of I get a craving or strong memory, sudden emotions either connected to one of all of the mentioned things or just triggered by wtf ever.
My brain never shuts the fuck off with 2 to 5 tracks constantly running thoughts, sounds, emotions and shit in parallel. And people don't get why I can't concentrate.
Edit: Since so many relates to this or have an opinion: I am diagnosed ADD (the quiet daydreaming version of ADHD). Medication (Ritalin) helps but we're still fine-tuning the dose. As my doctor says, "if you can't make your own neurotransmitters, store bought is fine".
Meditation does not help me, as deprivation of stimuli will just cause my brain to seek it elsewhere with increasing force to the point of an anxiety attack. Why? Because the neuro-receptors for dopamin in my brain are weak and my brain is continually starved of them. I have glitchy wires.
131 points
6 days ago
that describes mine too.
218 points
6 days ago
Sooo.. how's that ADHD treating you?
Edited for spelling
77 points
6 days ago
Diagnosed in my upper 20's and man the Adderall is great. For a while, most of the day on a good day, I don't have to hear myself speak or argue or lash out at the dumbest thing. Now doing work isn't wrangling all the faculties of my brain towards a singular focus so much as it is a measured and deliberate pace through the tasks.
28 points
6 days ago
What made you choose to get diagnosed?
I’m in a situation where I’m fairly certain I have it (lot of things add up and my sister was recently diagnosed as well)
But I’m also kind of scared of getting diagnosed, if that makes sense?
54 points
6 days ago
Hey man, same boat until a few days ago. I'm 28 for the record.
I was scared to bring it up to my doctor as well. I started connecting the dots in late January but it wasn't until this past week a lot of stressful things occurred and my girlfriend and I had a talk because she was worried I wasn't doing okay for other reasons. I realized I had been bottling so much inside and that was one of those things so I decided to stop procrastinating and booked an appointment for the following day.
Talked to my doctor and had my first dose today. I told her I was worried it would affect my personality or my priorities in life and the way she explained it made it clearer for me.
She said most neurotypical people go through life looking at a screen. People with ADHD can go through life looking at upwards to 12 screens, but the medicine might bring it down to a manageable amount like 3. Still the same person, but with the ability to focus on what I want to focus on rather than focusing on everything.
I took it today for the first time and it wasn't a black and white difference, but it was indeed different. I was able to finish tasks without being distracted and more efficiently to the point I was surprised at how much I got done in an hour. I felt more motivated to do things I wanted to and needed to do.
I don't know if it's a placebo effect of just taking a pill, but I've felt productive and motivated today. I'm not stopping my tasks to check on this or do that or even focusing on ambient noises. It was almost peaceful.
That's my 2 cents at least.
77 points
6 days ago
For me it’s at least two monologues, but it’s more like talk radio stations, and the channels change every minute or so. There’s also around 4 bars of a song on repeat. Each of these things fades in and out of the foreground.
I recently attempted to do some schooling - one course. I figured I’m a middle aged adult now, surely I’m capable of doing school now…
…less than a minute into the instructors introduction my mind had wandered off to several other places, just like it did all those years ago in highschool.
Nope. I still can’t do school.
77 points
6 days ago
I was just talking to myself about this earlier
508 points
6 days ago
I still can’t believe some people just don’t have thoughts with words…
80 points
6 days ago
My brain is completely quiet. No sounds at all. My thoughts are purely feelings. I tried to describe it to my family once. Like when I wake up, I just know I need to go make coffee. There are no thoughts that are like, "go make coffee." When I want to actually say something it's a little bit annoying because sometimes I have to stop and translate those feelings into actual words.
408 points
6 days ago
No words. No images. No sounds. Just thought.
317 points
6 days ago*
What the hell is thought if not a stream of words, images and sounds? Sounds like you're describing a 4th dimension to a 3 dimensional being.
Edit: Reading these comments, It sounds like everyone thinks more or less the same way in the end, everyone just hasn't thought how they think.
351 points
6 days ago*
It's sort of hard to explain. My thought is not very often words or images or sounds, it feels more abstract than that. Notions, emotions, and convictions would be closer, all of which can be expressed as words if needed, but none of which 'appear as words' in my mind.
Let's say you are trying to decide on what to have for dinner. Let's say you are trying to decide on pizza or Chinese food. So this thought process, this deciding process, is it like a conversation for you? A series of words in your mind? Like "I could have pizza, but I did have that three days ago, haven't had Chinese for a while, but then again maybe I don't want that..." etc etc etc? That is bizarre to me. Such an internal conversation seems to me to be an unwelcome 'middleman' between reasons and conclusions. I move from reasons to conclusions without any mediating words.
My thinking is not often made out of words in my mind. When I'm making such a decision there are notions of uncertainty, perhaps memories of pizza from a few days ago cause the notion of uncertainty to swing towards Chinese food, steadily a conviction towards one option arises and I have made my decision, I am not having a conversation with myself.
Because of the day-to-day necessity of communicating one's thought to others using words, I find it quite easy to 'switch on' verbal-style thinking by using a 'how would I express this out loud?' sort of process. But left to my own devices I rarely think in words.
29 points
6 days ago
hot damn your comment just cemmented that i am certainly in the latter group that does not have words in their head. This is a pretty precise description of how i choose what i want to eat this evening. There is no middle man, the conclusion comes to me in a natural way. The conclusion would be that i want to eat pizza but i would not be able to coherrently explain to you why, it just is that way because that is what i concluded.
Discussing stuff like this needs a shitload of eloquence i think i do not have. You have no frame of reffrence so it's prtetty hard to describe, what does one consider a voice in their head?
67 points
6 days ago
Very well stated. I was just discording my friend about this topic and was struggling to put into words my thought process. Turns out, I didn't need to. I just copied your post. Thanks!
14 points
6 days ago
Because of the day-to-day necessity of communicating one's thought to others using words, I find it quite easy to 'switch on' verbal-style thinking by using a 'how would I express this out loud?' sort of process. But left to my own devices I rarely think in words.
YES THIS thank you! I only turn on verbal thinking when I need to prepare a conversation out loud. Otherwise its not in words up in here. It's concepts and abstracts and whatnot.
46 points
6 days ago
Wow this is such an accurate description!! I’ve also sometimes found that in certain situations I find it a little hard to verbalise more complicated thought trains because it’s like I have to think of the actual words for the first time
49 points
6 days ago
This came up on reddit a while back and I was astounded that some people don't have an inner monologue - like how the fuck does that even work? I'd just assumed everyone had one.
126 points
6 days ago
It's insane to me that some people DON'T have an internal voice..lol, like, I can hear myself speaking this comment out loud in my head as I type it. If I'm writing a story or reading a book I basically turn it into a movie in my head, or at the least a bunch of images...it's just crazy to me that some people don't have that ability.
39 points
6 days ago
I think you are describing two different things? I can’t relate to the first part of your comment, but I do the same when reading for example. But I wouldn’t describe the latter thing as an internal voice, are you saying it is?
15 points
6 days ago
You're right, sorry, I kinda veered to another related thing. Apparently some people also don't visualize things in their heads, which is another shocking thing to me.
79 points
6 days ago
I'm in my 30s and I just learned back in February that people have an internal monologue. Freaked me out. I started asking everyone I knew, including my own children. THEY ALL HEAR A VOICE. What is this whimsical fuckery? I don't hear my voice in my head!
25 points
6 days ago
What does it feel like to NOT have one?
14 points
6 days ago
For someone with ADHD, it's like someone sat on the TV remote for my brain and it's constantly cycling through images, songs, things to do, things I want.. until it all becomes loud, angry static.
No inner monologue unless I'm writing something though
21 points
6 days ago
My husband and I found out recently, but I am a voice brain and he is not. Each of us thought the other didn’t type exist. He thought that voiceovers of internal monologues in movies were just because otherwise people couldn’t understand that the actor was thinking, because only crazy people hear voices in their head. I can’t even comprehend thinking without words. He thinks the reason I have insomnia is because my head never shuts up.
Incidentally, he cannot hear music in his head, but I have Neil Diamond singing me a personal concert right now.
36 points
6 days ago
People can stop the voice?
15 points
6 days ago
Did it once when I was dissociating out of stress.
Wouldn't recommend. Shit got lonely.
27 points
6 days ago
Its wild to me that this seems to be the norm. For me I don’t “hear” anything, I visualize everything and then for words, music and stuff it just seems to be innately there in my consciousness if that makes sense. I don’t see words/text, It feels like I just pull from nothing? Some days I even need to speak out loud to myself to work through stuff in my head.
164 points
6 days ago
Mine sounds like Yoda.
85 points
6 days ago
Thanks, now mine does too
90 points
6 days ago
mMmm. Too, mine now does...
22 points
6 days ago
As someone without an internal monologue I have such a hard time imagining what that is like? Do you go around like a cartoon character with a thought bubble like "I gotta go to the store and get some potatoes"? That just seems so funny to me
18 points
6 days ago
I'm sorry I can't hear you over the made up scenario that'll never actually happen playing out in my head
33 points
6 days ago
The real question is, how do I stop the music playing in my head all the time?
10 points
6 days ago
Seriously?! Mine is like a radio station I can't turn off and gets worse as soon as I lay down for bed.
15 points
6 days ago
I’ve had some major issues with my internal Voice not shutting up and talking very very negatively about myself.
My therapist suggested imagining it as someone I have absolutely no respect for. I started hearing it as Trump.
It 100% worked.
I still have plenty of issues to work through, but that part is feeling a bit better.
56 points
6 days ago
yeah I know I never shut up, if I weren't me I'd be so fucking tired of me.
32 points
6 days ago
I don't know that I "hear" my own voice in my inner monologue. I don't think I think in a voice.
30 points
6 days ago
I can’t imagine what’s it’s like not to have an inner monologue. How do people think when they’re not having constant conversations with themselves?
28 points
6 days ago
It's more like a constant stream of ideas and concepts. Maybe more like drawing on a sketchboard rather than voicing things out? This all weird to me because I'm surprised to hear that most people are almost always thinking with an inner monologue.
12 points
6 days ago
I can do both ways (I never knew it was typically mutually exclusive). And sometimes the two different methods argue with each other; the internalized monologue voice will argue with my abstract conceptualized thoughts, so it kinda sounds like if you heard someone arguing on the phone but you just somehow know what the person on the phone is saying even though you cant hear them.
The conceptualized abstract thoughts are like... you just have a feeling and know what you are thinking or saying even without laying it out. The verbalized thoughts are not so much like... saying just random words, but any IDEAS or THOUGHTS you have in response to what is on your mind.
So two people standing next to each other, one conceptual thoughts one verbalized thoughts. They both look up and see clouds. The conceptualized guy doesn't have any internal monologue but just by looking at clouds goes "cloud = rain", these aren't WORDS but rather just ideas, maybe pictured, maybe just a innate reaction. The verbalized guy doesn't go "cloud = rain" or have an instant reaction, he instead makes a full sentence and goes "oh wow it looks like it's going to rain". Then both pull out an umbrella.
So if you heard my inner thoughts with both it would go something like. Look up at clouds, clouds=rain (conceptual thoughts) "Yea, maybe, I should take out an umbrella" (verbalized thoughts). Depending on the type of thinker you are, only one of these will make sense to you.
616 points
6 days ago
For all those who say "I don't hear a voice", it's not a literal voice.
It's just your brain registering the words you are thinking, and your brain is subconsciously telling you, as you are thinking, how those words sound. Since those words come from your own brain it affiliates you talking "silently" to yourself, causing your brain to "hear" your own voice but not literally in your ears.
The alternative is visual thinking, in which your brain "thinks" using images and not dialogue.
447 points
6 days ago
consider the possibility that some people do actually hear a voice, and you are one of the people who does not
142 points
6 days ago
This right here, some people have a voice, some have a running verbal narrative, a few don't have verbal thoughts exactly at all. That's the point of this TIL. Internal monologs can be different. What's fun is when a kid learns about schizophrenia through tik tok or whatever and "hearing voices" before they understand this concept. Causes undue stress.
38 points
6 days ago
I hear Morgan Freeman's voice in my head.
15 points
6 days ago
Now I hear it too dammit
299 points
6 days ago
I'm autistic and constantly think in words, even having internal debates. How I thought before I learned the language is beyond me.
114 points
6 days ago
This isn’t solely an autistic thing, myself and many others experience the same
207 points
6 days ago
Those are called thoughts
158 points
6 days ago
Not everyone has an inner monologue. Some think thoughts without any 'voice' in their heads narrating things
19 points
6 days ago
I found out recently that people hear thier own voice in thier head. Thats fucking insane. I feel like that makes me the only sane one for not hearing voices in my head.
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