
Today I learned that not everyone has an internal monologue - LiamPa
https://insidemymind.me/2020/01/28/today-i-learned-that-not-everyone-has-an-internal-monologue-and-it-has-ruined-my-day/
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LukeBMM
Came up a few days ago (at a different url, oddly) and the comments are worth
looking through.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22193451](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22193451)

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CarelessExpert
Not that odd, this has turned into a veritable meme in the last week or two...
you'd have to live under a rock to have not seen this hit Reddit, HN, Twitter,
or some random blog recently.

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falcolas
I browse all three, and didn’t see this pop up myself. I’m glad it popped up
again.

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philwelch
So I think I deliberately trained myself out of having an internal monologue.

I don't have an internal monologue most of the time, but I can definitely turn
one on and off when I choose to. I also have a distinct memory related to
this. I think I was a teenager at the time, and I don't remember what I was
thinking about, but my train of thought got stuck because I couldn't remember
the right word for a specific concept. Then I realized--wait a minute, I know
what I'm trying to think about even if I don't have the word for it, which
means I don't need to use words to think about things! So I stopped using
words to think about things.

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leto_ii
Could this simply be a misunderstanding of what an internal monologue is?

Is there any science behind this?

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LargoLasskhyfv
Since that other thread seems dead now...

I'm one of those people. And from my point of view it would be a terrible
burden to have to have that. Because at my speed (or broadness) of thought i
imagine i'd have to wind up/fast forward that voice to an incredibly shrill
voice, and even then it would be insufficient by several orders of magnitude.
It would be like trying to press a river trough a straw. I'm just wondering
about how common/uncommon this is. After reading the other thread(s) it
'seems' like the (sub)vocalizers are the majority?

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adonese
Fun fact: i do think while i'm asleep! my friends were shocked when i first
told them about that. I don't know how to describe it, but i can think, alter
my dream, reason about things, etc--and i used to do math and solve coding
problems too.

the worst part is that my dreams are too tough. when i'm sad or something
things get very rough on my dreams because everything seem so real.

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jrs235
Lucid dreaming. I have done it too.

Sadly, I haven't remembered my dreams in a long time.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=lucid+dreaming](https://www.google.com/search?q=lucid+dreaming)

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benmmurphy
I'm surprised that some people can't do it at all. I learnt to read aloud
first, then read silently which I always remember doing by sub-vocalisation. I
would have thought if you could read by sub-vocalisation then you could talk
to yourself. Possibly, other people read without sub-vocalisation which I
suspect would allow you to read faster.

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downerending
Guess I don't, though I do often hear a "speaker" when reading text.

Also usually can't recognize faces using System 1. Which means I often don't
see someone I know until they've long-since decided that I'm ignoring them.
:-/

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cjjp
I had no idea. This has blown my mind almost as much as when I simultaneously
discovered that aphantaisa was a thing and that I have it. The biggest thing
to come to grips with was the realisation that others don't have it!

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downerending
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia)

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thelazydogsback
I wonder if those people w/o the internal Don Pardo can actually sleep. I wish
I could turn mine off...

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dunefox
And here I always thought I was the only one who basically has a permanent
narrator.

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mcphage
Interesting... assuming that everyone else is the same as you is common, but
assuming that they aren’t is odd. What made you think that nobody else did?

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dunefox
Idk, I always tended to do that, like talking to myself about topics in order
to get a better grasp - it's like self-rubber-ducking. When I asked several
people about that, they said they don't do that so I extrapolated. :P

