4 ms·

Being aphantasic (aphantastic?) and anauralic, the "inner voice" and "mind's eye' stuff really fascinates me. My first thought is always that hearing voices in

by t-3 4y ago

Being aphantasic (aphantastic?) and anauralic, the "inner voice" and "mind's eye' stuff really fascinates me. My first thought is always that hearing voices in my head would make me question my sanity, but I suppose you must be used to it if that's your normal mode of cognition? From your description, the different "brains" are not under your control, and you just 'harvest' the fruits of their thoughts?

alar44 4y ago
No one "hears voices". Do you read out loud? Probably not, it's the same thing.
- t-3 4y ago
  Then why do they describe it as an "inner voice"? People have told me they literally feel emotions, and literally see imagery in their heads, so I assumed that they also literally heard their thoughts when they use the same language to describe it. I don't do any of those, so I wouldn't know at all, that's why I asked.
  - alar44 4y ago
    Because that's the closest way to describe it. I'm nearly certain that people who think they don't do this are just being overly pedantic.
    - t-3 4y ago
      I definitely don't visualize. I definitely don't have independent thoughtlines that "chatter" in my head. If we are all doing the same thing, the descriptions of what we're doing should be similar, but they're not.
      - sudosysgen 4y ago
        I'm curious, what happens if you were to close your eyes for a 30 minute+? If you start seeing stuff, patterns, etc..., It's similar to how my mind's eye works.
        t-3 4y ago
        If there's light, I see the back of my eyelids, if the light is moving I might see patterns like in a cloud or jesus-in-toast kinda thing. I've only ever mentally visualized once while high on opiates (surprisingly hallucinogens don't make me visualize, even when I get visual effects).
    - doctor_eval 4y ago
      It is a phenomenon that has been studied a few times, but I don’t have any references handy. I find it fascinating, and difficult to empathise with since it’s far removed from my personal experience, but most of all I think it’s important to listen when people tell us their subjective experience; that’s all we have.
- towaway15463 4y ago
  I’m not sure that’s accurate. When I read and subvocalize I do have the sensation of “hearing” the voice in my head. Same for thinking. It’s more like remembering what someone said though since there isn’t an actual external source. For example I can read a sentence in Sean Connery’s voice but it’s more like remembering what he sounds like but transferred to the words I’m reading. My own inner voice does have a unique sound to it too, not quite the same as my speaking voice though.
- loudouncodes 4y ago
  I absolutely have an inner voice. I’m ‘hearing’ it right now as I plan out what i’m saying to you. https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/aug/21/science-little-voice-head-hearing-voices-inner-speech https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/aug/21/science...
  - alar44 4y ago
    Right. I don't believe anyone lacks that capacity. It's very en vogue to have mental problems and it's the perfect one to have because it's 100% unprovable.
jason-phillips 4y ago
> My first thought is always that hearing voices in my head That's not an accurate interpretation. In my case, I think "fully formed thoughts in rapid succession, sometimes colliding and in competition with one another" is more accurate. However, sometimes it does resemble a conversation as you start to reason through scenarios using game theory. Seeing your other comment, it isn't just seeing imagery in my mind's eye, although that's possible, it's the ability to quickly construct fully formed models as well as receive a rapid series of fully formed thoughts almost faster than I can do anything with them, which is where practice in managing that firehouse of information becomes useful. So you don't experience any of this? The speed at which my brain works is probably faster than yours. The synapses supposedly fire faster. To me it's kind of a superpower that allows me to do amazing things for people, so I obviously have fun with it. But I have learned how to manage it and maximize the potential.
- t-3 4y ago
  > So you don't experience any of this? The speed at which my brain works is probably faster than yours. The synapses supposedly fire faster. To me it's kind of a superpower that allows me to do amazing things for people, so I obviously have fun with it. But I have learned how to manage it and maximize the potential. I think you're right. I've often found that I'm way slower than others when it comes to coming up with answers on the spot (except for mental math, where lack of visualizing seems to be a major advantage for some reason - I think I just don't get confused as easily). I'm really bad at conversation and not witty at all, but I often find that I get to better answers in less than time overall, but my time to first answer is a lot longer.
  - jason-phillips 4y ago
    I believe everyone is a genius at something, to quote Jay-Z. In some ways what I have is a disability. My nervous system can easily get overstimulated with too much information, which precipitates an adrenaline dump that shuts down my body. Speaking in front of crowds, looking at all those faces with all that information bombarding me, will do it. So it definitely has downsides which I know that I have to avoid.
bena 4y ago
It's more like remembering a conversation than actually hearing. I know what I sound like to myself. I know what other people sound like to me. I've heard probably millions of voices in my lifetime by now. So I can basically imagine a conversation between myself and others or an entirely fictitious entity. And it's like a memory that never happened. (I mean, as much as any memory actually happened.)
- t-3 4y ago
  I often use conversation with an "other" to think through concepts by the "explaining to a five year old method", so that's not really strange to me, but the voices don't come into it. I'm not sure how to quite describe it, but my thoughts only take the form of language when I try to express them, before that they are very abstract and unrelated to language or senses.
daniel-cussen 4y ago
So you're simply unusually sane. Can't even hallucinate in two-dimensional projections like most people--they usually have like a marker for "imaginary" that all imaginations are dyed with. It looks like a ghost in a movie. And they're not actually that careful with the marker, everyone's telling them to believe in their dreams ie let the dye bleed out, but then shrinks are like "delusions of grandeur" or what's the other one, one old word for this was in fact "fantasia" (from the Latin with an "f" because Romans themselves adopted it from the Greek with a "ph" because it's a great word. I forget the word but including that word, as in movie by Disney Fantasia) meaning thinking things that aren't true. But like seeing them, in gray, like ghosts. Ghosts as portrayed in movies are actually a highly realistic view of the common man's imagination from the first person. That's what it looks like to them, so you know. They're usually people because that's what matters most is people spesh the face that's like who they are in a 2D projection, they're imagined because the real person is not there anymore, they're not colored in first because that's work for their limited imagination, plus it interferes with the "imaginary" marker, plus they generally don't realize they're not seeing things colored in, that's something the movie producer only realizes because he's trying to sell tickets. Also because in white societies the last image the living have of the dead are their paleness--in white societies primarily, so Europe and Asia which dominate cultural exports--so they are imagined as they were last seen. That will always be the latest version of their face. . Then there's what I call "macro-phantasia" which is like, like a video game with perfect graphics at this point. It is a gift and a curse. As though there were a difference between gifts and curses. Overboard. . Because in fact aphantasia prevents you from certain forms of harm, like imagining yourself in terrible places as people are wont to threaten you with. Threats of like "place worse than you can imagine" that's so you turn your imagination on to the max, and harm yourself in your own imagination to coerce yourself to their bidding with no proof it ever happened. If you can't imagine that, guess what, police interrogation is a waste of time even for the policeman on time-and-a-half, you didn't cooperate and that's it, or the gang-land interrogation equivalent, what side you're on is in this case irrelevant. It helps against coercion. . Aphantasia. Curse and a gift.

by t-3 4y ago

alar44 4y ago

No one "hears voices". Do you read out loud? Probably not, it's the same thing.

t-3 4y ago
Then why do they describe it as an "inner voice"? People have told me they literally feel emotions, and literally see imagery in their heads, so I assumed that they also literally heard their thoughts when they use the same language to describe it. I don't do any of those, so I wouldn't know at all, that's why I asked.
- alar44 4y ago
  Because that's the closest way to describe it. I'm nearly certain that people who think they don't do this are just being overly pedantic.
  - t-3 4y ago
    I definitely don't visualize. I definitely don't have independent thoughtlines that "chatter" in my head. If we are all doing the same thing, the descriptions of what we're doing should be similar, but they're not.
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      I'm curious, what happens if you were to close your eyes for a 30 minute+? If you start seeing stuff, patterns, etc..., It's similar to how my mind's eye works.
      - t-3 4y ago
        If there's light, I see the back of my eyelids, if the light is moving I might see patterns like in a cloud or jesus-in-toast kinda thing. I've only ever mentally visualized once while high on opiates (surprisingly hallucinogens don't make me visualize, even when I get visual effects).
  - doctor_eval 4y ago
    It is a phenomenon that has been studied a few times, but I don’t have any references handy. I find it fascinating, and difficult to empathise with since it’s far removed from my personal experience, but most of all I think it’s important to listen when people tell us their subjective experience; that’s all we have.
towaway15463 4y ago
I’m not sure that’s accurate. When I read and subvocalize I do have the sensation of “hearing” the voice in my head. Same for thinking. It’s more like remembering what someone said though since there isn’t an actual external source. For example I can read a sentence in Sean Connery’s voice but it’s more like remembering what he sounds like but transferred to the words I’m reading. My own inner voice does have a unique sound to it too, not quite the same as my speaking voice though.
loudouncodes 4y ago
I absolutely have an inner voice. I’m ‘hearing’ it right now as I plan out what i’m saying to you. https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/aug/21/science-little-voice-head-hearing-voices-inner-speech https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/aug/21/science...
- alar44 4y ago
  Right. I don't believe anyone lacks that capacity. It's very en vogue to have mental problems and it's the perfect one to have because it's 100% unprovable.

jason-phillips 4y ago

> My first thought is always that hearing voices in my head That's not an accurate interpretation. In my case, I think "fully formed thoughts in rapid succession, sometimes colliding and in competition with one another" is more accurate. However, sometimes it does resemble a conversation as you start to reason through scenarios using game theory. Seeing your other comment, it isn't just seeing imagery in my mind's eye, although that's possible, it's the ability to quickly construct fully formed models as well as receive a rapid series of fully formed thoughts almost faster than I can do anything with them, which is where practice in managing that firehouse of information becomes useful. So you don't experience any of this? The speed at which my brain works is probably faster than yours. The synapses supposedly fire faster. To me it's kind of a superpower that allows me to do amazing things for people, so I obviously have fun with it. But I have learned how to manage it and maximize the potential.

t-3 4y ago
> So you don't experience any of this? The speed at which my brain works is probably faster than yours. The synapses supposedly fire faster. To me it's kind of a superpower that allows me to do amazing things for people, so I obviously have fun with it. But I have learned how to manage it and maximize the potential. I think you're right. I've often found that I'm way slower than others when it comes to coming up with answers on the spot (except for mental math, where lack of visualizing seems to be a major advantage for some reason - I think I just don't get confused as easily). I'm really bad at conversation and not witty at all, but I often find that I get to better answers in less than time overall, but my time to first answer is a lot longer.
- jason-phillips 4y ago
  I believe everyone is a genius at something, to quote Jay-Z. In some ways what I have is a disability. My nervous system can easily get overstimulated with too much information, which precipitates an adrenaline dump that shuts down my body. Speaking in front of crowds, looking at all those faces with all that information bombarding me, will do it. So it definitely has downsides which I know that I have to avoid.

bena 4y ago

It's more like remembering a conversation than actually hearing. I know what I sound like to myself. I know what other people sound like to me. I've heard probably millions of voices in my lifetime by now. So I can basically imagine a conversation between myself and others or an entirely fictitious entity. And it's like a memory that never happened. (I mean, as much as any memory actually happened.)

t-3 4y ago
I often use conversation with an "other" to think through concepts by the "explaining to a five year old method", so that's not really strange to me, but the voices don't come into it. I'm not sure how to quite describe it, but my thoughts only take the form of language when I try to express them, before that they are very abstract and unrelated to language or senses.

daniel-cussen 4y ago

So you're simply unusually sane. Can't even hallucinate in two-dimensional projections like most people--they usually have like a marker for "imaginary" that all imaginations are dyed with. It looks like a ghost in a movie. And they're not actually that careful with the marker, everyone's telling them to believe in their dreams ie let the dye bleed out, but then shrinks are like "delusions of grandeur" or what's the other one, one old word for this was in fact "fantasia" (from the Latin with an "f" because Romans themselves adopted it from the Greek with a "ph" because it's a great word. I forget the word but including that word, as in movie by Disney Fantasia) meaning thinking things that aren't true. But like seeing them, in gray, like ghosts. Ghosts as portrayed in movies are actually a highly realistic view of the common man's imagination from the first person. That's what it looks like to them, so you know. They're usually people because that's what matters most is people spesh the face that's like who they are in a 2D projection, they're imagined because the real person is not there anymore, they're not colored in first because that's work for their limited imagination, plus it interferes with the "imaginary" marker, plus they generally don't realize they're not seeing things colored in, that's something the movie producer only realizes because he's trying to sell tickets. Also because in white societies the last image the living have of the dead are their paleness--in white societies primarily, so Europe and Asia which dominate cultural exports--so they are imagined as they were last seen. That will always be the latest version of their face. . Then there's what I call "macro-phantasia" which is like, like a video game with perfect graphics at this point. It is a gift and a curse. As though there were a difference between gifts and curses. Overboard. . Because in fact aphantasia prevents you from certain forms of harm, like imagining yourself in terrible places as people are wont to threaten you with. Threats of like "place worse than you can imagine" that's so you turn your imagination on to the max, and harm yourself in your own imagination to coerce yourself to their bidding with no proof it ever happened. If you can't imagine that, guess what, police interrogation is a waste of time even for the policeman on time-and-a-half, you didn't cooperate and that's it, or the gang-land interrogation equivalent, what side you're on is in this case irrelevant. It helps against coercion. . Aphantasia. Curse and a gift.