What is it for?
It’s so you can pick nice clothes to wear in the morning. Imagine how horrible your outfits would be without it.
Off topic, but this is the best Lemmy comment section I’ve ever read through: really diverse, mostly civil, super interesting and insightful.
I’m by no means a medical expert, so just a stab in the dark here - our brains constantly process all sorts of information. Whether that’s memories, input from your various senses, or a million other things. During that process, your brain is also trying to make sense of it all (“Why?”, “What does it mean”, “How?”, etc).
Our ability to communicate and express language is intertwined in this process, which of course is what gives you the perception of dialog. So in essence, I think its just our brains trying to make sense of… its process of making sense, if that makes sense?
On a side note, I’m practically dosing myself with semantic satiation with how many times I’ve used “sense” here (that last one being more tongue-in-cheek)…
To freak us out when we’re a little bit too high…
Not everyone does, I’ve had a lot of conversations with a lot of people on this topic.
People’s thought processes range from monologue to dialog to narration to silence to images to raw concepts without form.
I personally do not have a constantly running monologue, but rather have relatively short bursts of thought interspersed with long periods of silence.
I don’t have one at all. Spent ages thinking that it was just a figure of speech, but when I found out I became fascinated by it.
The current theory is that at some early point in our evolution we literally had a voice in our head, not unlike how some forms of schizophrenia present.
It’s called the bicameral mind.
https://gizmodo.com/did-everyone-3-000-years-ago-have-a-voice-in-their-head-510063135
In my day to day life it makes little difference however, despite being an avid reader and writer I struggle tremendously to read aloud.
I don’t know for sure but I suspect it is connected.
In my day to day life it makes little difference however, despite being an avid reader and writer I struggle tremendously to read aloud.
Thanks, I actually wanted to post that as a question. I would have thought that reading silently would be harder.
I worked as a typesetter for years. I have a rather speedy reading pace (it isn’t inate, rather through practice)… but I do wonder if not having to ‘hear’ words changes the rhythm of reading.
I’m also fascinated if other folk perform accents in their head whilst reading? Do different characters sound different or is there one ‘voice’ that acts as a narrator?
Mine seems to appear when I’m not on auto-pilot. If I’m heating a can of soup, there’s no real thought. I’m probably thinking about other things while carry out simple steps. If I can’t find something, it’ll pop in and say, “Where did I leave that?” Or maybe something like, “I should call Mom cause it’s New Year’s Day.” Another is, “I’m glad I remembered my umbrella,” when in rain. But I don’t have monologue about putting on my shoes or locking my door. Those are mechanical tasks while I think about something else in an abstract fashion.
Yeah this is similar to my experience. Some stuff gets done without that monologue, but I’m not completely without it.
I always find this conversation fascinating and it makes me wonder in what other ways people may experience the world differently.
I do have a constant internal monologue. Every word I read is spoken in my mind. My thought process is, to my awareness, me talking things out in my head.
Yeah, I also “hear” the words in my head as I read them, and that goes for everything.
I kinda wish I thought in shapes and colors though. While my imagination is okay, I get the feeling it’s not as… vivid or Shar as others imaginations are.
Chomsky would say that the original purpose of language is to structure thought, with communication being solely secondary. (Or something like this, I don’t recall it word-by-word.)
If that’s correct, then internal monologues are simply a result of your brain processing your thoughts.
I think one key in the success of our species is the ability to plan ahead and mentally simulate what will happen before actually doing it.
Doing this with language is not very different from imagining what will happen when doing a physical action.
Speak for yourself! I have internal stereologue.
Peasant…Go quadraphonic or go home!!!
In my experience, it’s for 2 things:
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Witty comebacks half an hour after the discussion is over and you’re on your way back home.
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Overanalyzing every stupid decision and mistake you have ever made.
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Pretty sure I read once that some people don’t.
I am super confused what an internal monologue is as I’m fairly certain I don’t have one.
If I did, I feel like it would annoy the shit out of me.
I think I think differently than most. I have a very active internal monologue but when it comes to visual thought I can very easily overlay my thoughts onto my vision. Almost like a diagram or writing something on something but in my head only. I feel that if I was smarter I would be able to do something with it.
Consider looking into what was formerly called Asperger’s. I resonate strongly with what you’re saying and recently found out in my 30s, that I’m autistic. I have a good sense of humor and decent social skills so I never even thought to check, but 1) turns out I knew jack shit about what autism actually is, and 2) the ADHD was actually hiding quite a bit of it. If you have questions or want resources feel free to dm me.
I’m somewhat similar, but I’m also extremely easily distracted. I can’t hold multiple things in my mind for longer than two or three steps ahead. And then anything that comes along to break me out of it and I’m just done. It’s super frustrating, especially because I have the kind of mind that bounces different perspectives around all the time. It’s like I just want to reach out and grab a thought to think it through thouroughly before I get to the next but… nope
because it keeps me sane and level headed.
Because sometimes the rubber ducky would be embarrassed at the questions I ask so I ask me the questions first.
Truly nobody knows, it’s an open research question. And to complicate matters more we know (as others have mentioned here) that everyone doesn’t think in the same way.
We do actually know quite a bit about the Internal Monologue and other forms of intrapersonal communication.
There isn’t one single use for it or benefit of it (in the same way water has many uses)
