Do you have an internal monologue?

[Dan]

You know, when your train of thought just kind of runs along on its own when you aren't doing anything. I think most people have this right? Anyways when my mind goes on like that, I always feel like I'm talking to someone when I'm thinking. It's kind of like I'm explaining myself or justifying things to them. Sometimes I feel like it's my dad, or a friend, or sometimes it just feels like the general world, or some sort of audience to my life. I tried explaining this to a [real] girlfriend once and she thought it was weird. Anyone else know what I'm talking about?

I wonder if it's left/right brain communication going on. It also kind of sounds somewhat familiar to the third man phenomenon that you've probably read about, although less real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Man_factor

Who is the third who walks always beside you?
When I count, there are only you and I together
But when I look ahead up the white road
There is always another one walking beside you
Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded
I do not know whether a man or a woman
—But who is that on the other side of you?​

 

[Ennui]

Yeah I have this sometimes, especially when I'm mulling over potential real life situations and whatnot. Sometimes I even catch myself whispering bits of my side of the "conversation" under my breath.

I'm obviously insane.

 

[Dan]

I feel like it's an introvert characteristic. I would bet that really extroverted people don't have much of an internal monologue because they think with their mouth as they say what they think.

 

[Bad^Hat]

Yeah, all the time. Sometimes when I'm trying to elucidate my thoughts on something I'll word it out in my head like I'm conducting an interview with myself. Which seems kind of self-important, now I think of it. :v

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

I hold long conversations with myself. Most of them arguments. A lot of them confidence breaking.














quack

 

[Quixoticism]

I do and I say that it goes on pretty frequently.

 

[dfc05]

I do this all the time, but I am an introvert. I'll project future conversations (with other *real* people) that I end up never actually having with them. It happens mostly when I'm out walking around by myself. I never say any of my internal monologue out loud, but I know I tend to project it through facial expressions. Most frequently, I'll go from a neutral expression into a "hmmmm" expression. It probably makes me look psychotic. Sometimes I even feel like I'm the other person talking to myself, except not myself because I'm in their place.

Also, not really the same, but the past year I've been having issues where I get tired and my mind wanders off into stream of consciousness rambling, except even more incoherent. At least my internal monologues vaguely make sense, but the mind-wandering has zero logic to it.

 

[Unfocused]

I know what you mean, I think it's natural for people to do so, in one way or another.

I tried explaining this to a [real] girlfriend once and she thought it was weird.

I LOLd.

 

[Lobster]

Ha! Anyone who does this is completely insane! *Starts muttering to himself* Insane I tell you! *Goes to buy matches*

 

[Eejit]

I rarely feel like I'm talking to someone when I'm thinking. Only if I'm rehearsing a conversation or argument really.

 

[Remus]

I always feel like I'm talking to someone when I'm thinking. It's kind of like I'm explaining myself or justifying things to them. Sometimes I feel like it's my dad, or a friend, or sometimes it just feels like the general world, or some sort of audience to my life.

You're talking to god. *trollface jpg*

I tried explaining this to a [real] girlfriend once and she thought it was weird.

She is most likely either lying or is unaware of when she is doing it herself. I'm fairly certain that everyone has an "internal monologue".

 

[Pi Mu Rho]

A monologue would be too slow.

 

[Solaris]

What I think Dan is talking about is the ego, the illusion of self.

Your thoughts and beliefs create something that has no meaning in reality, a separate thing which is what you call 'you'.

You think it is the origin of your thoughts, and also that which listens to them.

However there is no you to think things. No thinker. Only the thoughts themselves.

Just as there is no you experiencing the world, but just the experience itself.

 

[Dan]

It wasn't the internal monolgue part that I thought might be strange. I know people have thoughts, it was the impression of talking to someone else, having a one sided conversation of sorts that might be unusual.

I don't buy the Solaris explanation, I mean sure, existentialism works as a conceptual understanding of the universe, but it doesn't really make any kind of predictions about the thoughts in your head or the impressions that you get. It's not like the theory of gravity where you can point to it and say this explains these phenomenon that I see and experience, except in the most general sense that you can point to it and say this explains (really just describes) the fact that I exist.

 

[Yorick]

What I think Dan is talking about is the ego, the illusion of self.

Your thoughts and beliefs create something that has no meaning in reality, a separate thing which is what you call 'you'.

You think it is the origin of your thoughts, and also that which listens to them.

However there is no you to think things. No thinker. Only the thoughts themselves.

Just as there is no you experiencing the world, but just the experience itself.

How ****ing profound.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

I have a loud, loud non-stop inner monologue that never seems to navigate from extremes. But by now, I'm sure you all know this.

How ****ing profound.

Can't tell if you're being sarcastic, but I think Solaris put it really ****ing well. Helped me understand and my parents are Psychoanalysts.

 

[Naudian]

I definitely have conversations, but they're mostly one-sided. I will often answer questions that had no lingual input from the "other," just the impression of a thought/question.

I also prepare lines for conversations I plan to start or expect to start, and sometimes play out both sides of the convo for a bit.

And then there's the kind that just narrates my actions, usually while I'm working or doing stuff by myself. It's funny because my monologue will say things like "We should put this over here" or "No we don't want that to happen." We? lol okay, voice in my head...that's cool I guess.

Also, Solaris is pretty much right about the self being an illusion, a construct of experiences, which are themselves a construct of something. I like the idea that it all has something to do with light, or electro-magnetism, that our experiences of the senses and mind are essentially sculpted patterns of light. Kind of beside the thread topic but whateva whateva

 

[Raziaar]

I have monosyllabic monologues with my internal monocle sporting self about mononucleosis.

 

[Bad^Hat]

I definitely have conversations, but they're mostly one-sided. I will often answer questions that had no lingual input from the "other," just the impression of a thought/question.

This is what I meant, really. When I say I have "an interview" with myself, I'm not really asking any questions, just responding to the impression of one. Nor am I really talking to an interviewer, or an audience, or a camera, it's just the vague idea of that scenario I guess.

I also "rehearse" a line in my head when I want to speak to someone, which can be problematic because sometimes I'll over think it and it messes up my inflection when I finally say it. There's not really any way for it to sound completely natural after a certain point. :S

 

[YROC]

Oh god I thought I was actually ****ing insane.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

I literally talked to myself on the entire drive home from work today. It felt good, I argued two separate sides. I'll briefly feel insane after something like this, but then realize it isn't actually hurting me or anyone else around me - so **** it. I don't get into heat enough debates with myself to drive recklessly, so party on, Wayne.

 

[AtomicSpark]

I talk to myself out loud.

 

[KiplingsCat]

I do this all the time. Sometimes it can almost even be two sided. Just now I was weighing up the pros and cons of two different options in my head and I found myself saying to myself "Well what do you think?"

I'm pretty weird though. I shouldn't be used as a yardstick for sanity, OP.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

Sanity, lol

 

[99.vikram]

I'm pretty weird though. I shouldn't be used as a yardstick for sanity, OP.

I'm pretty sure all of us believe we're slightly eccentric, with a streak of genius.

Also, monologues -- yes. Concious, unconcious, one sided, two sided, friendly, belittling, debating weighty issues or pondering the insignificant. Done them all, and I know at least a couple of other people with complicated internal lives.

The one that really makes me worry for my sanity though, is that sometimes I add a little flourish to my actions or speeches, a little dash of style or a quick expression to show what I'm thinking. An act put on for an audience of zero.

 

[KiplingsCat]

I'm pretty sure all of us believe we're slightly eccentric, with a streak of genius.

Nah, I'm just eccentric.

The one that really makes me worry for my sanity though, is that sometimes I add a little flourish to my actions or speeches, a little dash of style or a quick expression to show what I'm thinking. An act put on for an audience of zero.

Yes, I do this too and I'm always worried people will catch me at it and think I'm mentally subnormal.

 

[Sulkdodds]

You have to be rich to be eccentric. Don't put on airs, peasants.

Anyway, maybe? I don't know. To the extent that my 'train of thought' ever becomes coherent or focused enough to sound like speech I don't think I factor in 'other people' or audiences, rather simply rambling or musing like it was into a microphone (all utterance is for an audience, but no specific one here). I occasionally rehearse things that I am going to say if I wish to come out with a long and well-formed sentence without verbal hiccups (which is fun), but only to myself.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

I think you're insane without some kind of internal monologue, or otherwise just very stupid.

How ****ing profound.

I laugh quite often at these types of statements from certain members. Humor in ******dickery I call it.

How ****ing profound.

 

[Smoke]

Yes. definite yes.

 

[15357]

I have occasional outbursts of short phrases or part-sentences like "I wonder why?" or "What have we done?" without any thought. Naturally they puzzle people near me.

Internally, I dunno. I kind of think of it as a practice for talking to someone else, like rehearsing something you'd like to say. It's extremely one-sided, at any rate.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

relevant:

Spoiler

 

[Krynn72]

I found that I talked too much, so I started ignoring myself and not responding anytime I asked myself something. I figure if I just ignore myself, I'll go away.

 

[BabyHeadCrab]

I should try that.

 

[kazsymonds]

You know, when your train of thought just kind of runs along on its own when you aren't doing anything. I think most people have this right? Anyways when my mind goes on like that, I always feel like I'm talking to someone when I'm thinking. It's kind of like I'm explaining myself or justifying things to them. Sometimes I feel like it's my dad, or a friend, or sometimes it just feels like the general world, or some sort of audience to my life. I tried explaining this to a [real] girlfriend once and she thought it was weird. Anyone else know what I'm talking about?

I wonder if it's left/right brain communication going on. It also kind of sounds somewhat familiar to the third man phenomenon that you've probably read about, although less real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Man_factor

Yes.

I also spend a lot of my time walking through something before actually doing it.

For example, I pretend I'm at a job interview and start telling myself the answers. Sometimes I get carried away and my lips start moving like I'm talking to myself.

I too am quite introverted. I'm also an only child, and I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

EDIT: Obviously the job interview example is done in the weeks leading up to a job interview, not just for the sake of it...