this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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I think something like 40% of people don't have an internal monologue at all, so...
Metacognition and usage of an inner monologue have nothing to do with each other. I don't need to talk myself through things to conceptualise.
That whole thing sounds made up. No one hears voices in their head unless they are schizo or under the influence
I can play back music in my head when I'm bored or watch an entire movie. Sometimes even just with my eyes open. And I don't think I have those disorders but who knows
I think I'm just hung up on semantics of it.
I can certainly conjure visuals from data in memory, I can play music back like you said and even change the notes and sounds like a MIDI file being played with a soundfont, but it's not like a movie where there's a slightly reverb'd version of my voice in my head dictating out thoughts involuntarily as a voice. Thoughts are thoughts, they're a separate data type to me than audio or visuals.
A line of thought to me is a sequence of concepts represented by some unknown malleable fuzzy data structure in my brain, not an .MP3 file playing like what "internal narrative" seems to indicate.
At any moment a thought can be cast to another data structure like an image or video or audio, but it's not anything but a thought until I make the choice, likewise this isn't limited to just memories but imagination in equal amounts. I can just as well conjure visuals that aren't real and/or events that didn't happen and experience them in equal amounts and clarity. This is what I understand as daydreaming. But it's not exactly like watching a film, or even to the level of vividness of an actual sleepy-time dream.
I'm very much known by my peers IRL from interactions there and my comments on the interwebz for philsophizing and intellectualising as well and often been told by people as a kid and young adult that I have a very vivid imagination if I share some idea in my head, and it wasn't even an insult I'm pretty sure haha!
Thoughts as its own data structure, not associated with a language or words, sounds so interesting and yet so foreign to me
Tbh that sounds much, much cooler than anything I have experienced in my own head.
I find the breadth of difference in how consciousness displays from person to person endlessly fascinating. For me, my head is full of constant chatter and background music. I have often described it as many interconnected trains of thought, and the best real example I can give is this portion of a Tame Impala song. I can hone in on any one thought or hop aboard that train but it is easy to get disracted and find myself on a different track. I've been told this is ADHD actually lol. Most of my deliberate thinking to myself is just a line of words, sometimes repeated compulsively. I am not a visual thinker at all, but I can visualize if I choose to do so deliberately. Again, it's way too easy to get sidetracked and the visualizations are fuzzy unless I'm meditating or half asleep. It is interesting to note though that in a half asleep state I can achieve something closer to a sequence of semi-related fuzzy conceptualizations, as you describe.
I love to philosophize too, mostly because it's basically my default mode, something I can literally never turn off, only choose to ignore, like a constant dripping tap. I would have majored in philosophy in college if there was any money in it. But I have never been told I have an active imagination lol I would love to be able to trade perceptions with people momentarily. What an eye opening experience that would be. What a difference it would make in the world.
Sounds like you may be part of that 40%. The majority of people seem to have an inner voice and can create visuals and imagine sounds. Even auditory hallucinations are quite common.
One should never assume everyone's inner reality is the same as their own.
I appreciate the input. I responded to another comment here in this same thread and I'd like to hear your thoughts as well: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/18751476