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I don't have a voice in my head. When I learnt from reddit discussions that most people experience their inner thoughts as an inner monologue, I was flabbergast

I don't have a voice in my head. When I learnt from reddit discussions that most people experience their inner thoughts as an inner monologue, I was flabbergasted. If I heard a voice, I would think I was going insane. I think that's pretty normal. A quick poll of the other three people in the room reveals that none of us experience an 'inner voice'. It's more like a stream of associations, some of which might involve vocalised words, others might involve images, sounds, or recalled emotions. Sometimes the associations are sequential, sometimes they are parallel. Steven Pinker refers to this as 'mentalese'. Edit: also, this: http://xkcd.com/610/ http://xkcd.com/610/

sliverstorm 14y ago
I'm pretty sure the "inner voice" is just a metaphor to describe a concept. I, too, do not hear a voice echoing in my head as if God was speaking inside my skull. I have a train of thought that I could directly translate to spoken words, but is not actually in words. It is more abstract; I shuffle around ideas. Sometimes I will speak aloud to myself when I'm trying to disassociate to find a new viewpoint, but that's about as far as the inner voice goes. Of course, this could potentially be less typical than I usually assume. I've noticed writing notes to work through my thoughts is ridiculously limiting, because my train of thought goes 2-10x faster than I can write or draw. I've always wondered about that, because it seems to be a popular method for brainstorming.
- pm215 14y ago
  I tend more towards inner monologue, but it's not 'the voice of God', it's like I constantly talk to myself, only not out loud. On the other hand I can't visualise images internally at all. I think it's fascinating how we all have basically the same brain hardware but can end up with remarkably different inner experiences.
- Raphael 14y ago
  It sucks that writing is slower than thinking, but it has to be done because thoughts are fleeting. You need enough notes to remember later or trigger recreate roughly the same idea.
- LilValleyBigEgo 14y ago
  No, it's not just a metaphor. A majority of people literally read their thoughts to themselves using the part of their brain that processes heard speech. The pool of people you're drawing from are all nerds who are here reading this stuff. Of course they have quiet thoughts. It's been my experience that there are two kinds of people in this regard: There are those who process their thoughts with the speech portion of their brain and those who do not. Those who do are usually second-handers; people who depend on other people to form their opinions for them; who depend on the input of their peers to form their own thoughts. They need to hear their thoughts in a voice as if hearing them from a peer in order for them to be rational thoughts. People who think independently and objectively tend to think using mental associations and imagery.
- philh 14y ago
  > I'm pretty sure the "inner voice" is just a metaphor to describe a concept. Amusingly, as someone with an inner voice, I used to think the same thing about the mind's eye. I couldn't visualise anything with it, and I asked someone else and he couldn't do it either, so I decided probably no one could do it. Since then I've realised that the people who talk about visualising things are... y'know, actually visualising things. It turns out that some people do and some people don't.
  - sliverstorm 14y ago
    Huh. I figured much the same way with mind's eye; much like my thoughts, I "visualize" in a very abstract fashion. I don't see the object, I just know it. So there are in fact people, who see it?
    - sillysaurus 14y ago
      I figured much the same way with mind's eye; much like my thoughts, I "visualize" in a very abstract fashion. I don't see the object, I just know it. So there are in fact people, who see it? I do. I don't really know what to say about it, so if you have any specific questions, feel free. I'll try to explain what it's like. Example: when I see a math expression x times y, I mentally see a rectangle with side length labeled "x" and perpendicular labeled "y". So understanding (x+h)*(x+h) = x^2 + 2xh + h^2 was totally natural for me. It's not abstract symbols to me, it's pictures in my head. I see a tiny square in the upper right labeled "h^2", and a big square in the lower left labeled "x^2", and two rectangles along the edges labeled "xh". I never memorized the derivatives of sine or cosine. I just figure them out whenever I need them. Takes a half second or so. Basically, when I need to know a derivative like sine, in my mind I pull up a function plot of sine. I look at the origin (x=0,y=0) and visually see that it passes through the origin and slopes upwards. So I know "when it starts out, sine is already sloped upwards, and as it goes along it slopes less and less, so therefore its derivative starts out as some large positive quantity and decelerates, which is exactly how cosine behaves. So the derivative of sine is cosine." For the derivative of cosine it's similar. I pull up its graph in my head and go "oh, it starts out with zero slope, but then as it goes along it slopes downwards, so it has a negative derivative. Sine starts out at zero, and negative sine would slope downwards as it goes along, so the derivative of cos is -sin." The process isn't as clearly separated as the words I'm using though. When someone's talking with me about a program's architecture or about a design concept, I picture nodes in my head representing the components of the program. If he mentions a module, I create a new node and label it. If he says it interacts with another module, I draw a connecting line. Eventually I'll have a mental picture of the full system as we're talking. I usually have a crisp mental picture of each function I write, before I write it. Not individual lines of code; just a clear understanding of its structure, the steps it will perform, and all possible side effects. My favorite time is just before I nod off to sleep. Laying there with my eyes closed, a dark "hallway" seems to form in front of me, and I start to float forwards through it. Shapes begin to emerge toward me out of the blackness, and I morph them into animals or goblins or whatever I feel like molding them into. Sometimes I lose control and my mind generates horrifying faces or misshapen bodies. I see all of this with the same clarity as waking vision, and the colors are just as vivid. But it's a very narrow field of view, as if I can't see more than a spotlight's width at a time.
- guizzy 14y ago
  As someone with a very dominant "inner voice", I have to say that, at least to me, it is exactly as having a voice echoing in my head, constantly. More precisely, I happen to think exclusively in dialogues. I imagine talking to a person, and I hear the conversation I would have with that person in my head, and their counterpoints. It gets tiring. Recently I've taken up drawing; when I draw my head is finally quiet.
  - mindcrime 14y ago
    More precisely, I happen to think exclusively in dialogues. I imagine talking to a person, and I hear the conversation I would have with that person in my head, and their counterpoints. I'm pretty much the same way. I'm not sure I'd say I exactly "hear" my "inner voice" but my thinking is definitely dominated by "spoken word" stuff. Of course, I also talk to myself out loud sometimes, when working on a hard problem. Not sure how "normal" that is, but I can't say I really care a whole lot either.
    - bosky101 14y ago
      same here. also when i read or type something, i hear my 'inner voice' speak it out. funny, as i type this out - the voice goes exactly in the same speed that i type, in a sort of coaxing comforting way. maybe has something to do with teachers dictating, and me jotting them down throughout schooling. i'm curious what happens in peoples minds when the sign goes from red to green at a crossing/signal. some people almost always need to hear a honk or someone moving ahead of them before they realise it's already green and being ahead means you may not get that visual cue you would if you were further behind. it would be interesting to see what techniques f1 racers or 100 metre sprinters use to get their minds to tell their bodies to 'get off the block'.
  - mcantelon 14y ago
    I know that feeling about drawing getting your mind out of the inner dialog. Meditation is probably the same.
  - Natsu 14y ago
    I mostly do that too, but I can switch. For example, to trying to process everything visually, perhaps wandering through familiar places in my mind (or listening to familiar voices/songs). Or you can turn it all off and focus entirely on your senses themselves. This can be interesting when, for example, you imagine something in contact with your body as a part of yourself. Do that to your car, for example, then you start to pay more attention to exactly how your wheels grip the road and you have a more intuitive feel for where every part of the car is in relation to you.
- dcfindlay 14y ago
  It's a metaphor, but only just. I talk to myself in my head, but only at the end of a thought process once I've formed some ideas and I'm trying to crystallise them into an argument that sounds right. Like others have said here, if you switch to thinking in English too early on you cripple yourself -- it's just too slow and linear for dealing with multiple threads, relationships and associations, which our minds are brilliant at. Like you suggested, I also think in spoken words when I'm questioning myself, playing devil's advocate. "Why does that matter?" "Is such and such really the case? Prove it." "You're ignoring some really important factor over here." I find thinking AND trying to record stuff frustrating. If I'm dictating to a recorder I'll always speak in fragments of sentences, or talk ridiculously fast if I'm on a train of thought, because I can feel the next three or four links & associations coming, and I'm scared of losing them while I finish the one I'm currently talking about. Of course, being scared of losing them pretty much guarantees that you do. Regarding the "inner voice", I find it's always self-directed. I can keep thinking, but choose to talk or not talk in my head. I suppose, if ever you get words in your head that aren't self-directed, pay very close attention.
- svachalek 14y ago
  Pretty interesting topic and responses. For one more data point, I can create an internal voice and/or images but neither happens by default. If I need to verbalize my thoughts I often have a practice conversation in my head, to see how it comes out in words. I also find it very easy to not think about anything, mind blank and just taking the world in, which seems to be considered a "weird" ability in some circles.
  - robbiep 14y ago
    I am very similar to you
- nitrogen 14y ago
  I'm pretty sure the "inner voice" is just a metaphor to describe a concept. I have both a strong inner voice (which is not perceived as a "voice of God" but more like speaking without uttering) and a weaker mind's eye, and a mind's ear (I can listen to songs I know with what seems like perfect reproduction, though it's definitely perceived as internal rather than external in origin). I also have peripheral awareness of other inputs into my thought process. I sometimes have ideas present themselves all at once, as though several words are silently present in the back of my consciousness, or as abstract notions, or as connections between components in a system. In the end, though, my thoughts don't feel "official" until I've serialized them into a linguistic stream, or at least given the mental images a good "look". This makes reading slower, as I have to read the words at roughly a spoken pace, but I still experience vivid imagery, and occasionally wonder how I ended up back in my house when I take a break from a really good book ;-). For me, writing is definitely slower than thought. When I first attack a problem, dozens of concepts, edge cases, and other considerations will "come at me" from all corners of my mind. For me writing my ideas down isn't about brainstorming, but calming the storm. I'm curious what my mental model of my mental model looks like in terms of neuronal connections. I'm also curious how many people are curious about their own thought processes. This discussion thread on HN has been very interesting, as we've seen comments from many different types of minds, all capable of expressing in verbal form their different ways of perceiving thought.
- path411 14y ago
  By writing do you mean typing? While I don't have the same kind of need to work out my thoughts, typing is a relief over writing as I can type significantly faster than I can write or even speak. Allowing me to express myself much closer to the speed of my thoughts provides much better productivity.
gwern 14y ago
This whole discussion reminds me very strongly of http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ 's example about the 1800s debate about whether people could actually visualize things mentally or whether that was just a metaphor.

sliverstorm 14y ago

I'm pretty sure the "inner voice" is just a metaphor to describe a concept. I, too, do not hear a voice echoing in my head as if God was speaking inside my skull. I have a train of thought that I could directly translate to spoken words, but is not actually in words. It is more abstract; I shuffle around ideas. Sometimes I will speak aloud to myself when I'm trying to disassociate to find a new viewpoint, but that's about as far as the inner voice goes. Of course, this could potentially be less typical than I usually assume. I've noticed writing notes to work through my thoughts is ridiculously limiting, because my train of thought goes 2-10x faster than I can write or draw. I've always wondered about that, because it seems to be a popular method for brainstorming.

pm215 14y ago
I tend more towards inner monologue, but it's not 'the voice of God', it's like I constantly talk to myself, only not out loud. On the other hand I can't visualise images internally at all. I think it's fascinating how we all have basically the same brain hardware but can end up with remarkably different inner experiences.
Raphael 14y ago
It sucks that writing is slower than thinking, but it has to be done because thoughts are fleeting. You need enough notes to remember later or trigger recreate roughly the same idea.
LilValleyBigEgo 14y ago
No, it's not just a metaphor. A majority of people literally read their thoughts to themselves using the part of their brain that processes heard speech. The pool of people you're drawing from are all nerds who are here reading this stuff. Of course they have quiet thoughts. It's been my experience that there are two kinds of people in this regard: There are those who process their thoughts with the speech portion of their brain and those who do not. Those who do are usually second-handers; people who depend on other people to form their opinions for them; who depend on the input of their peers to form their own thoughts. They need to hear their thoughts in a voice as if hearing them from a peer in order for them to be rational thoughts. People who think independently and objectively tend to think using mental associations and imagery.
philh 14y ago
> I'm pretty sure the "inner voice" is just a metaphor to describe a concept. Amusingly, as someone with an inner voice, I used to think the same thing about the mind's eye. I couldn't visualise anything with it, and I asked someone else and he couldn't do it either, so I decided probably no one could do it. Since then I've realised that the people who talk about visualising things are... y'know, actually visualising things. It turns out that some people do and some people don't.
- sliverstorm 14y ago
  Huh. I figured much the same way with mind's eye; much like my thoughts, I "visualize" in a very abstract fashion. I don't see the object, I just know it. So there are in fact people, who see it?
  - sillysaurus 14y ago
    I figured much the same way with mind's eye; much like my thoughts, I "visualize" in a very abstract fashion. I don't see the object, I just know it. So there are in fact people, who see it? I do. I don't really know what to say about it, so if you have any specific questions, feel free. I'll try to explain what it's like. Example: when I see a math expression x times y, I mentally see a rectangle with side length labeled "x" and perpendicular labeled "y". So understanding (x+h)*(x+h) = x^2 + 2xh + h^2 was totally natural for me. It's not abstract symbols to me, it's pictures in my head. I see a tiny square in the upper right labeled "h^2", and a big square in the lower left labeled "x^2", and two rectangles along the edges labeled "xh". I never memorized the derivatives of sine or cosine. I just figure them out whenever I need them. Takes a half second or so. Basically, when I need to know a derivative like sine, in my mind I pull up a function plot of sine. I look at the origin (x=0,y=0) and visually see that it passes through the origin and slopes upwards. So I know "when it starts out, sine is already sloped upwards, and as it goes along it slopes less and less, so therefore its derivative starts out as some large positive quantity and decelerates, which is exactly how cosine behaves. So the derivative of sine is cosine." For the derivative of cosine it's similar. I pull up its graph in my head and go "oh, it starts out with zero slope, but then as it goes along it slopes downwards, so it has a negative derivative. Sine starts out at zero, and negative sine would slope downwards as it goes along, so the derivative of cos is -sin." The process isn't as clearly separated as the words I'm using though. When someone's talking with me about a program's architecture or about a design concept, I picture nodes in my head representing the components of the program. If he mentions a module, I create a new node and label it. If he says it interacts with another module, I draw a connecting line. Eventually I'll have a mental picture of the full system as we're talking. I usually have a crisp mental picture of each function I write, before I write it. Not individual lines of code; just a clear understanding of its structure, the steps it will perform, and all possible side effects. My favorite time is just before I nod off to sleep. Laying there with my eyes closed, a dark "hallway" seems to form in front of me, and I start to float forwards through it. Shapes begin to emerge toward me out of the blackness, and I morph them into animals or goblins or whatever I feel like molding them into. Sometimes I lose control and my mind generates horrifying faces or misshapen bodies. I see all of this with the same clarity as waking vision, and the colors are just as vivid. But it's a very narrow field of view, as if I can't see more than a spotlight's width at a time.
guizzy 14y ago
As someone with a very dominant "inner voice", I have to say that, at least to me, it is exactly as having a voice echoing in my head, constantly. More precisely, I happen to think exclusively in dialogues. I imagine talking to a person, and I hear the conversation I would have with that person in my head, and their counterpoints. It gets tiring. Recently I've taken up drawing; when I draw my head is finally quiet.
- mindcrime 14y ago
  More precisely, I happen to think exclusively in dialogues. I imagine talking to a person, and I hear the conversation I would have with that person in my head, and their counterpoints. I'm pretty much the same way. I'm not sure I'd say I exactly "hear" my "inner voice" but my thinking is definitely dominated by "spoken word" stuff. Of course, I also talk to myself out loud sometimes, when working on a hard problem. Not sure how "normal" that is, but I can't say I really care a whole lot either.
  - bosky101 14y ago
    same here. also when i read or type something, i hear my 'inner voice' speak it out. funny, as i type this out - the voice goes exactly in the same speed that i type, in a sort of coaxing comforting way. maybe has something to do with teachers dictating, and me jotting them down throughout schooling. i'm curious what happens in peoples minds when the sign goes from red to green at a crossing/signal. some people almost always need to hear a honk or someone moving ahead of them before they realise it's already green and being ahead means you may not get that visual cue you would if you were further behind. it would be interesting to see what techniques f1 racers or 100 metre sprinters use to get their minds to tell their bodies to 'get off the block'.
- mcantelon 14y ago
  I know that feeling about drawing getting your mind out of the inner dialog. Meditation is probably the same.
- Natsu 14y ago
  I mostly do that too, but I can switch. For example, to trying to process everything visually, perhaps wandering through familiar places in my mind (or listening to familiar voices/songs). Or you can turn it all off and focus entirely on your senses themselves. This can be interesting when, for example, you imagine something in contact with your body as a part of yourself. Do that to your car, for example, then you start to pay more attention to exactly how your wheels grip the road and you have a more intuitive feel for where every part of the car is in relation to you.
dcfindlay 14y ago
It's a metaphor, but only just. I talk to myself in my head, but only at the end of a thought process once I've formed some ideas and I'm trying to crystallise them into an argument that sounds right. Like others have said here, if you switch to thinking in English too early on you cripple yourself -- it's just too slow and linear for dealing with multiple threads, relationships and associations, which our minds are brilliant at. Like you suggested, I also think in spoken words when I'm questioning myself, playing devil's advocate. "Why does that matter?" "Is such and such really the case? Prove it." "You're ignoring some really important factor over here." I find thinking AND trying to record stuff frustrating. If I'm dictating to a recorder I'll always speak in fragments of sentences, or talk ridiculously fast if I'm on a train of thought, because I can feel the next three or four links & associations coming, and I'm scared of losing them while I finish the one I'm currently talking about. Of course, being scared of losing them pretty much guarantees that you do. Regarding the "inner voice", I find it's always self-directed. I can keep thinking, but choose to talk or not talk in my head. I suppose, if ever you get words in your head that aren't self-directed, pay very close attention.
svachalek 14y ago
Pretty interesting topic and responses. For one more data point, I can create an internal voice and/or images but neither happens by default. If I need to verbalize my thoughts I often have a practice conversation in my head, to see how it comes out in words. I also find it very easy to not think about anything, mind blank and just taking the world in, which seems to be considered a "weird" ability in some circles.
- robbiep 14y ago
  I am very similar to you
nitrogen 14y ago
I'm pretty sure the "inner voice" is just a metaphor to describe a concept. I have both a strong inner voice (which is not perceived as a "voice of God" but more like speaking without uttering) and a weaker mind's eye, and a mind's ear (I can listen to songs I know with what seems like perfect reproduction, though it's definitely perceived as internal rather than external in origin). I also have peripheral awareness of other inputs into my thought process. I sometimes have ideas present themselves all at once, as though several words are silently present in the back of my consciousness, or as abstract notions, or as connections between components in a system. In the end, though, my thoughts don't feel "official" until I've serialized them into a linguistic stream, or at least given the mental images a good "look". This makes reading slower, as I have to read the words at roughly a spoken pace, but I still experience vivid imagery, and occasionally wonder how I ended up back in my house when I take a break from a really good book ;-). For me, writing is definitely slower than thought. When I first attack a problem, dozens of concepts, edge cases, and other considerations will "come at me" from all corners of my mind. For me writing my ideas down isn't about brainstorming, but calming the storm. I'm curious what my mental model of my mental model looks like in terms of neuronal connections. I'm also curious how many people are curious about their own thought processes. This discussion thread on HN has been very interesting, as we've seen comments from many different types of minds, all capable of expressing in verbal form their different ways of perceiving thought.
path411 14y ago
By writing do you mean typing? While I don't have the same kind of need to work out my thoughts, typing is a relief over writing as I can type significantly faster than I can write or even speak. Allowing me to express myself much closer to the speed of my thoughts provides much better productivity.

gwern 14y ago

This whole discussion reminds me very strongly of http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ 's example about the 1800s debate about whether people could actually visualize things mentally or whether that was just a metaphor.