No internal monologue

[The Grand Nudger]

Seems like you understood well enough. Anything else?

[John 6IX Breezy]

The rest was fairly incoherent.

[The Grand Nudger]

Cool story. Do you have anything to add to the discussion that we're having about inner monologues and related phenomena?

[Alex K]

Can all of you guys let an orchestra or band or fantasy instrument play random stuff in your head at will?

I'm sure that I don't represent all but yes I often have music in my head. It's rarely original and usually begins with hearing something tangential.

What is a fantasy instrument?

Just a sound you make up in your head, and then let it play music...

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Can all of you guys let an orchestra or band or fantasy instrument play random stuff in your head at will?

Happens all the time.  The lyrics are somewhat problematic, though, to the point where I have to make sure I don't vocalize.

Boru

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Follow up, for those that can hear music in their heads...does it take more directed attention to accomplish it?

For me, it just happens, like a random thought.  I suspect it's largely music I've heard or played before, but my brain does its own arrangement.

Boru

[Darwinian]

I recently discovered that there are some people in this world  who have no internal verbal thoughts within their own mind.

I had always taken this as a given that everyone could talk to themselves within their own mind, but apparently it's not.

Some people don't have the ability to do it.

I'm still a bit shocked by this revelation.
I guess I just wanted to know if any of you have heard of this before.

It makes me wonder if there are other attributes that I have or don't have that aren't the same as my fellow human beings.

Yes. My best friend doesn't have voices and is very interested in what its like to have them. He cant imagine what its like.

I envy him at night sometimes.

Aaah, I'm your best friend   

But yes, this is true. Until about a year ago I had no idea what an internal monologue was and although I had heard of the phrase hadn't given it much attention.

It wasn't until downbeatplumb was talking about people thinking they were possessed because of the voices in their head and not realising it was their own voice and was quite normal that is slowly dawned on me that some people, perhaps most could actually 'hear' a voice chatting away in their head.

I'm still not quite sure what this must be like but if it's anything like I imagine, actually having a voice in your mind that you are not personally generating quite deliberately as if talking to yourself, which I can do if I concentrate, is surely the stuff of nightmares and the fact that it seemingly doesn't plummet you down the road to madness is quite staggering.

When I think of things, solving problems, what I'm doing later etc. etc. I tend to do it in terms of images, scenarios, abstract thoughts that don't really connect with normal reality but which seem to make perfect sense to me.  The only time actual words pop up in my conscious mind is when I might, for example, be wondering what I should say to someone or, like now, am reading the words I write just after I have just written it, but not before, which I'm now given to understand is not the usual way around.

For me, words describe the thoughts and unless I'm talking or describing something, the words are simply not needed.  

Another thing, downbeatplumb has told me he can actually 'hear' words, indeed, whole sentences in his head as if someone, obviously himself, were chatting to him, keeping him awake at night.  I can't imagine anything more likely to send me insane

Also, and again I have no idea how normal or not this is, when I do deliberately 'talk' to myself in my own mind, it is quite silent.

My son has just read this and called me a weirdo 

[Fireball]

I talk out loud to myself sometimes, just a kind of stream of conscious of what I'm doing. I also whistle tunes all the time. I'll be in the grocery store whistling some happy tune like Black Sabbath's "War Pigs", and people will look at me quizzically. I have music playing in my head a lot, too- replays of music I have heard. When one of my friends pointed out that I was talking out loud (not loudly), I told him that I wanted intelligent conversation. Kind of freaked him out. I guess his experiences as a police officer puts him on guard with people who are verbalizing what they think about. I'm not crazy though, because I have money. That makes me "eccentric". 

[Rev. Rye]

Has the reputation of Austin Powers dropped so far that I have to be the first person to post this clip?





Honestly, given that it took several minutes for me to find it, that might just be the case.

[arewethereyet]

I talk out loud to myself sometimes, just a kind of stream of conscious of what I'm doing. I also whistle tunes all the time. I'll be in the grocery store whistling some happy tune like Black Sabbath's "War Pigs", and people will look at me quizzically. I have music playing in my head a lot, too- replays of music I have heard. When one of my friends pointed out that I was talking out loud (not loudly), I told him that I wanted intelligent conversation. Kind of freaked him out. I guess his experiences as a police officer puts him on guard with people who are verbalizing what they think about. I'm not crazy though, because I have money. That makes me "eccentric". 

In the last few weeks I have noticed that I wake up every morning with a song stuck in my head.  The songs are random as hell and they aren't from something I was watching or listening to.  Some are so weird - everything from one hit wonders to kids songs and everything in between.  Not sure what caused this to start happening...so far, it appears I can still function at work and home so I am not worried but am a bit puzzled, especially since the songs are not songs I would seek out.  I suppose something worse could be happening...like the other day when my Pandora popped up with 'Kung Fu Fighting'...that is the work of some evil force.