
The thoughts running through our heads are more varied than we might suppose - hhs
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190819-what-your-inner-voice-says-about-you
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funkjunky
Practice meditation long enough and you will know what a shitshow the mind is
at any given second. Go even further, and you'll start to pick up on the shit-
tornado the subconscious mind is.

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gwern
Fulltext of the 2013 article about rates varying 0-100%:
[https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/2013-hurlburt.pdf](https://www.gwern.net/docs/psychology/2013-hurlburt.pdf)

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kalado
In my opinion, the conscious thoughts you have are just echoes of your mind.
When you "talk to yourself" you already know what you are going to say, you
might as well just stop as soon as you notice doing that.

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fzeroracer
For me, that's never been true at all. Imagine your thoughts being like a
barrel full of fish. Vocalizing your thoughts is then akin to reaching down
into that barrel and plucking out the exact fish you were looking for.

Now if you wanted to describe the the color and species of said fish, it's
easier when you're holding it rather than attempting to do so while it's
swimming around with every other fish.

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benj111
Paradoxically, if you want to find something, it helps if you say it, so its
easier to find the fish if you're already talking about it.

[https://theweek.com/articles/476117/talking-yourself-
secret-...](https://theweek.com/articles/476117/talking-yourself-secret-
finding-missing-car-keys)

~~~
kalado
Makes sense. Our brain is an interconnected mess that self activates different
path of neurons. So if you try to remember where you put your keys, saying the
word, looking at an image of keys or hearing junbling keys might lead to the
memory of where you put your keys.

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barking
I watched a youtube video where a passerby was being vox-popped for tv about
football. He says something to the interviewer and you can see a lightbulb go
on in his head and he then looks at the camera and says "that's actually a
good point". The interview went viral because it was such a funny moment.

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whitepoplar
Do you have a link?

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versk
maybe this:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEz5GfZUnBU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEz5GfZUnBU)
went viral in ireland for the accent and the novelty of seeing a city centre
addict being interviewed about football on tv. The point where he strats
realizing he is making a coherent point starts around 50 seconds in.

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barking
Yes that's the one, well done for finding it!

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personlurking
>unsymbolised thinking, a trickier concept to get your head around, but
essentially a thought that doesn’t manifest as words or images, but is
undoubtedly present in your mind.

I've always been good at producing mental white noise (or TV static), for lack
of a better term. I wonder if it's actually unsymbolised thinking. When I'm
not actively thinking, there's just a massive wall of static. In these
moments, I'm not thinking of nothing but I'm also not thinking of something.

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hamster-wheel
I've noticed this effect after a really good movie or book. I can almost
"feel" my brain thinking, ticking over and assembling meaning from what I've
just seen (and can even sense "eureka!" moments), despite having no conscious
awareness of the thoughts themselves (just TV static).

It also seems to happen more with foreign films, perhaps as they require an
extra layer of subconscious analysis to parse the message by separating it
from its cultural shell.

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KhoomeiK
Might be interesting to build a mobile app similar to the beeper mentioned in
the article—maybe add a notes tab for users to write down their thoughts. I
could see possible benefits including increased mindfulness and ability to
live in the moment.

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acollins1331
Because nothing says living in the moment than writing down what you are
thinking into your smartphone for later!

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inform880
I feel like this article is trying too hard. I've kept a journal with thoughts
from the day for years.

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kalado
The best thing to take away from that article is just how much difference
there is in type and frequency of how people think.

We all assume that our inner lifes are similiar and it's always interesting to
me to discover new facets of personal differences.

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inform880
I see. I didn't really think about that, my line of thought has always been
that there's no one like me so of course there's deep differences between how
people think.

Is this where the "millennial snowflake" idea comes in?

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kalado
Did you really think that the fundamental way your mind works must be
different or just what you think and/or how you approach a topic?

If it's the first, yeah, that's a pretty entitled snowflake perception of
yourself.

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inform880
It's not that I think I'm specifically different, I think that everyone
"thinks" differently, and I incorrectly assumed everyone thinks like that.

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pwinnski
Sometimes it seems as if everybody thinks differently, but then popular trends
(or politics) seem to show the opposite, and personal interactions with some
people suggest very little thinking at all.

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ta1234567890
For anyone wanting to understand thought and the way we acquire knowledge, I
would highly recommend the book The Tree of Knowledge
([https://www.amazon.com/Tree-Knowledge-Biological-Roots-
Under...](https://www.amazon.com/Tree-Knowledge-Biological-Roots-
Understanding/dp/0877736421))

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rthomas6
I have a fairly consistent meditation practice, and sometimes when I'm tired,
my "inner voice" contains, in addition to random snippets of half-formed
thoughts, snippets of languages that I don't speak. Usually Spanish. Has
anyone else experienced this? What's up with that?

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rdlecler1
Reflecting on my own though it, it’s mostly wordless—images, wordless but
coherent brain states, even physical money Harrie states, all anchored by a
key frame word here and there.

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momentmaker
there are two types of thoughts: active and passive

passive thought probably makes up 80% of our day

