I think a lot of people would reject this practice out of hand, without realizing that they do something very similar: imagining conversations with real people

I think a lot of people would reject this practice out of hand, without realizing that they do something very similar: imagining conversations with real people in which they project their own internal attitudes into other people's mouths. When the words that people direct to us inside our heads are emotionally powerful, it's often because they resonate with our own attitudes toward ourselves -- because it's actually us talking.