As per title, I am curious. How does your mind / your thoughts work? I only ever experienced my own thoughts, so I’m curious how it works for other people.
I for one feel like my thoughts sometimes are like me talking to myself silently. Sometimes I can even let out a random short sound, which I’ve come to start disguising by laughing kinda quietly or coughing or whatever. Like it was part of something, and not like an inner monologue almost leaking out.
So, how do your thoughts work?
I have no sound, voice, or pictures in my head. I didn’t know that other people did see/hear things until a couple of years ago. Thoughts just come in chunks.
Me to. It’s called Aphantasia (no minds eye, so some or no pics) and Anendophasia (No inner voice). For me my thoughts are “just there” almost impossible to explain.
The way I explain it is: when you read, you don’t read the words aloud in your head. You look at them and register their meaning. My thoughts are just those meanings. Usually in larger chunks than single words though. They don’t have a language. I can ‘picture’ sounds I’ve heard before though, like getting a song stuck in my head. That one’s more difficult with pictures.
Uuh, yes, yes I do read them aloud in my head.
Same. And depending on what I’m reading I’ll sometimes use a specific voice…
Like if I’m reading a text from a friend I’ll “hear” it in their voice. Or I’ll make up voices for characters in a novel.
I think people are sometimes taught out of that since it slows down reading
I think it definitely does, but now I can’t not.
This is not a good explanation because as someone already pointed out a lot of (most?) people do “read the words aloud in their head”. For me, I often even make tiny moves of my tongue and larynx - see subvocalization.
Interesting, everyone I’ve told this to said that is indeed how they read!
Does reading something quietly take as long as reading something out loud for you? It’s hard to imagine!
If I’m actually reading with the goal of thorough understanding then it will take as long as reading it aloud or longer. I can still skim through the text faster, but I will understand less of it.
The Wikipedia article on subvocalization has a section on speed reading. It seems that subvocalizing can in fact limit the reading speed.
Thanks for the pointer, I’ll read the wiki!
Reading in my head certainly takes the same amount of time as reading out loud (occasionally with different voices for characters, as somebody else said).
If I read without doing that it’s a lot quicker but it doesn’t go in and I have to re-read it. My mind starts chatting away about something else rather than concentrating on the book.
Super interesting, cause for me it’s the opposite! If I try to read it out loud mentally, my mind is (I guess) understimulated and starts to wander, causing me to have to reread it.
Side question: if you give text a voice, what kind of a voice are you giving my comments here? Not just asking you specifically, but anyone who wants to answer!
For me, there is kind of default neutral sounding voice for comments, but as soon as I get some kind of clue as to the speaker, either from language or punctuation patterns or if they say something about who they are- age, gender, nationality, etc., then the voice gets some more distinctive sound to it.
For instance, @[email protected], who is the main poster in several communities I subscribe to, has a picture of Leela from Futurama as her profile pic, and she has mentioned that she’s a she. So obviously when I read a comment or a title she wrote, it’s in Leela’s voice.
Your comment seems energetic and friendly, so the voice is genderless and with a neutral (to me) accent, but with an energetic, friendly tone and cadence.
Mostly it’s my own voice for comments 🙂, maybe a slight inflection. I don’t usually go overboard on the voices unless it’s somebody I know, or occasionally characters in books.
If I read out loud faster than certain limit the pronunciation becomes gibberish. Silent reading is much faster. OTOH when I read out loud, I focus on speech, my attention and hence understanding rate drops. So it takes even longer.
For complicated writing I sometimes even have to re read silently to understand the complete meaning.
Hm so it isn’t like reading it out loud, except in your head, after all?
I’m not sure tbh. It can be but often it feels I’m reading the meaning of a word and not pronouncing it in head. These can be misleading easily. Writing, yes.
When I get a song stuck (which happens constantly) I don’t hear it; I just have the unrelenting urge to sing it.
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I couldn’t understand what it’s like for people who actually see and hear things in their heads. I recently realized that I sometimes experience a faint taste and I guess it’s sort of like that?
I can taste food ok. Too ok, I seem to be some sort of super taster. Everything is to overpowering.
It scares me to think you could have pictures or movies in your head that you may not wish to have.
There was a bit of discussion about this on a podcast I listen to (Adrift) earlier in the year.
My mind is basically me taking to myself. As I write this I’m speaking all the words in my head. As I read it back I’m reading all the words in my head.
I believe there’s a school of thought that you shouldn’t read the words to yourself when you are reading, bit I have to do that otherwise it doesn’t go in. I can read a page without the words being spoken in my head but I will then have no idea what any of the page said, v and have to re-read it. Same if my mind wanders while reading - anything I read whilst my internal voice is talking about something else will not go in.
I can’t shut it up. If I think about nothing, my internal voice will literally be saying “I need to think about nothing. I should empty my mind. How do you think about nothing?”.
It’s extra fun when you know multiple languages since that voice also changes languages
You ever been in a crowded space with hundreds of people talking all at once? You can hear everyone, but not enough to really make out anything except once in a while when someone gets louder than everyone else.
That’s what my thoughts are like when I am not high on weed.
When I am high, the crowd shuts the fuck up and I can actually focus on a single, complete thought.
~just ADHD things~
For me it’s often like watching a movie and lots of 3rd person monolologue as well as one wierd idea after the other popping up and going.
I often alao have interviews with myself how I just killed it in certaim situations and do play by play analysis from these events.
When in public settings I often play in my mind some wierd social games: where I try to find the mood of others and react to what they do (kinda like a dating sim).
I also like to go back to past events and analyse what I could have done better and memorize what to do in a future convo.
Since I speak more than one language my thoughts change languages. When I consume or produce in a certain language my brain is basically in that language and all my thoughts are in that language.
I’m at about level 2 on this scale:
My thoughts are a lot of imagery imagination. There are “words” to go along with it, but there certainly isn’t an extensive monologue/narrative/conversation going on.
If I have seen it less than about a hundred times, it is a 5. I will have some key words that let me describe it successfully to other people, but I can’t actually picture it.
If I have seen it fairly regularly for a few years, or haven’t seen it for several years, probably a 4.
If I have seen it for decades, it might be a 3. Apples, which I see at least every few days is a 3.
I’m a 4-5. Sometimes I can get like a wire frame sketch of the general shape of something.
5 to me, but my thinking is talking to myself and reading is reading the words out loud in my mind. What am i?
I can sort of see images, but they are usually vague, I can’t really see them as such. If I’m reading and picturing something in my mind they can be a bit clearer though. I’m probably a 3.5-4 on that scale.
Hmm I’ve read about aphantasia before and heard shows about it but this diagram actually made me think I may be a 4 or 5. When I try to imagine an apple all I have is flutters of memories of what apples look like, , but I can’t create a picture in my mind of one
My eyes are open and I can still see your comment on screen, but I can also “see” a clear picture of a red apple on a bright sunny day elsewhere in my mind. I can’t explain how I can “see” 2 images simultaneously, but it often means I miss what someone is saying when talking to me, because I’ve started concentrating on my mental image instead.
I tried this, and I just hear Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. No apple appeared. But I know I do picture things in my mind, all the time. Weird that I can’t right now.
For me it is an internal monologue with a silent audience that contributes without a voice.
My internal monologue might say “is this thing I am about to do a good idea?” And a wordless thought will provide a second opinion which my internal monologue would interpret and possibly reply to.
I do have thoughts in words, language. I don’t exactly hear or see it but it’s definitely language based. Often two levels of thought, one superficial and another underneath, thinking about those superficial thoughts.
Same!! Gets bothersome sometimes honestly, especially when you just wanna focus on something
I usually dont engage directly with my thoughts unless I am talking to myself out loud which I often do.
I think mostly on instinct, and rationalise/summarize my actions only if I have to.
It’s a bit like waking up at night in a pitch black room and making your way to the toilet. You barely remember it the next morning, but if someone asks you about it you say “oh yeah maybe” and retrieve/fabricate a memory of you navigating around furniture in the dark (because you MUST have), but can’t actually recall it.
There’s three hamsters running on a wheel in shifts up in my skull.
I switch between having language based thoughts and more abstract thoughts that aren’t language based. I find that my thoughts that aren’t language based are usually more complex. I also can imagine objects, rotate them or walk around familiar places in my mind. Oh and my language based thoughts tend to match the language I am speaking at the moment (I am trilingual).
A fun conversation starter is always “So do you have an internal monologue?”
My mind works by talking to itself, but it’s more like I’m the wordless overseer of that voice. There is a lesser maybe faux alter ego’s voice that’s employed to bounce ideas off of or used for introspection, to humble myself, conceptualization, etcetera, but it can only talk to myself even out loud. If there’s another person present they’re only talking to primary.
Where I differ from many minds like other self talkers here it seems is that I have full control over the two voices employed by my ego, and if I stop talking it’s silent in my skull. Since I also have Total Aphantasia it’s a true void in here besides my emotions and hind brain/instincts unless I’m using the voice(s). No real distinction between thinking in my head and speaking out loud.
The unconscious mind passes stuff it processes to the voices to think about. More nuance is far more paragraphs than worth, so I’ll leave it there.
Wow, I too can silence my mind. I think. Since I often think consciously, I can just stop and enjoy nothingness, which surely is interesting. Sometimes the contrast between thinking a lot and just plain nothing is quite interesting. Can go badly, though, when someone expects me to say something and I don’t have anything to say. They must be on their own side just waiting, thinking I’m crafting something. Meanwhile, if anything, I’m on my side thinking of not thinking, or just plain empty, experiencing the akwardness. It’s been some of the most awkward situations, when I’m done speaking and they wait in silence, like I’m not done yet. Yeah, my answer wasn’t very long, and you may want more, but I’m just done on my side. Do I need to vocalise an End of Line character?
Two of my friends have insomnia because of racing thoughts, which is just a totally alien concept to me. One mitigates it somewhat with meditation, but the way he describes it seems like my natural state of being lol.
Wow, I too can silence my mind
It’s nice to meet another who can!
or just plain empty, experiencing the akwardness.
Yeah it’s a fucking awful feeling, can relate. I loathe traditional dates especially.
Well, sometimes if my mind is too active, I can have a hard time falling asleep. I end up thinking too much or too “hard” and my brain can’t rest. I sometimes just listen to music to fall asleep. As I focus on a song, my mind can drift asleep. Either that or I try and just not think, so my mind can rest. Sometimes I legit gotta go “welp, time to sleep. Silence, now” and just be quiet to try and sleep
At any given time there’s three functions going on in my head. There’s a stream of calculations that constantly flow. There’s my inner entertainment system that that translates those calculations to thoughts if they need to be translated. Then there’s sorting room with the file cabinet and shredder to organize that flow of thoughts.
When I say entertainment system I mean my inner voice and the ability to visualize just by thinking. Is the voice what’s traditionally considered a monologue? I don’t know. It’s nothing like Al Pacino giving a speech. It’s some of the worst narration imaginable. What I think is happening is my mind is doing calculations then using my voice to put those calculations into my consciousness for me to understand. The amount of time my mind shuts the fuck up is almost nonexistent. It does happen but, for it to switch from monologue to nothing requires intervention. I’m either filling my head with something to occupy it like music, or reading, or video games which in that case my head voice focuses on whatever I’m throwing at my brain with a little spillage. Or I’m seeking out a purposefully quiet environment where I can just go and ignore my thoughts. Almost like meditation but I’m no monk. I’m not sitting in some room with my legs crossed and my arms out falling asleep. I usually just find some place quiet outside and take in the world around me.
What really grinds my gears is the sorting room. I imagine it as each thought going to a room with a few filing cabinets and a shredder in it. That room can probably be broken up into bodily function operations, everyday needs operations, and emotional operations. The first two are functioning, it’s the emotional one that’s backed the fuck up and overflowing. There’s some shit that should have been shredded a long time ago. Some thoughts keep popping up because that particular filing cabinet is overflowing. It manifests itself as depression and anxiety. When my inner voice is concentrating on that, then I know I’m in for a tizzy. The narration goes from quiet nothings to fucking full blown yelling and screaming matches in my head. The dangerous part is resisting the urge…
I’m in the “inner monologue” camp. Most of what I think materialises as thought words. I don’t have to move anything in my throat to do that unlike OP though, I can think in words without mumbling to myself.
But I know the voice can’t be all. It’s difficult for me to think in words while actively saying something, but I can have new thoughts while speaking. Sometimes, I get interrupted in thinking mid-sentence, but then I return to that sentence to finish it because… it’s just satisfying? It’s not that I learn anything new.
I feel like I don’t have very much imagination any more. Its hard to produce images in my mind, not impossible but I do have to concentrate - remembering images is easier.
Weirdly, way harder to me: imagining a voice. Inner voice is what I sound like to myself, I can remember and replay songs and quotes as I heard them, but having any voice say anything is hard, especially female voices. Went through some examples in my head couldn’t make anyone say anything - until I thought to make different tf2 mercs sing “Oh Canada”, that somehow worked despite me definitely not having heard that before. Brains are weird.
If I’ve been listening to an audio book, or a tv series my inner monologue can take on the voice of the narrator or main character. I’m always afraid I’m going actually speak out loud like them, but it’s never happened.
