Thinking Without An Internal Dialogue?

[King Merk]

Reading this absolutely blew my mind.

I’ve always assumed everyone has an internal monologue... Do you? 

https://ryanandrewlangdon.wordpress.com/2020/01/28/today-i-learned-that-not-everyone-has-an-internal-monologue-and-it-has-ruined-my-day/

[Spaceofawareness]

I was speaking to my wife a few months ago and she was telling me how she struggles with the critical voice inside her head. She is a highly motivated person, so it makes sense that she would be so motivated having an internal critic constantly pushing her forward.

i mentioned to her that, I don’t really have that. She was shocked. I can and do have internal dialogue, thoughts, random ramblings inside my head. But, it is not constant, and it is very rarely critical.

i think different people have different levels and degrees of internal dialogue. There is also a particular disorder where some people can’t have any inner voice, including imagining sounds internally. It also exists for visual imagery, called aphantasia, where some people have no ability to visualise internally.

Our brains have two halves, the left half is verbal, the right half is non verbal and more intuitive. It might be that certain individuals have developed more along this right brain intuitive path than the left verbal brain path.

[seeking_brilliance]

How do deaf people think? (deaf from birth) 

Edited January 31, 2020 by seeking_brilliance

[seeking_brilliance]

Oops wrong thread

Edited January 31, 2020 by seeking_brilliance

[Nahm]

@King Merk Indeed. From that article... “Maybe you are all just a figment of my imagination”... Notice the monologue is of self referential thinking. What if the author inspected to see if it is he / she which is the figment of imagination? Inner monologue would soon run it’s course. (Samadhi) Like Byron Katie says, inspect every, single, thought. 

[Farnaby]

11 hours ago, King Merk said:

Reading this absolutely blew my mind.

I’ve always assumed everyone has an internal monologue... Do you? 

https://ryanandrewlangdon.wordpress.com/2020/01/28/today-i-learned-that-not-everyone-has-an-internal-monologue-and-it-has-ruined-my-day/

This reminds me of when I told a friend of mine about my constant inner-dialogue. He's a very relaxed person who doesn't seem to worry much. He told me that maybe I have a hyperactive mind and I was as shocked as you are to find out that some people seem to not have this constant internal monlogue. 

Most people I know, however, do have it, it just varies in intensity. Since I meditate more often, I don't get inmersed in never-ending thought stories as often, but the internal monologue is still there. 

Like you, I'd be interested in knowing if there are people who don't talk with themselves inside their heads lol. 

[Muhammad]

Wow it's so interesting to her about other what goes on other people's minds... But you never have any access to that, you could only imagine how others think/feel using your own mind. (As far as i know). I had a teacher in highschool who was really smart, had degrees in university, fluently talked several languages, was a great teacher and had an extraordinary ability to concentrate. But he has "dyschronometria" this basically means that he doesn't have a perception of time, he can't tell if a minute had passed or an hour, and he dose not know what "far" or "close" means. He could walk miles for several hours in the wrong way and it will not occur to him that something is wrong. He can sit and look at nature for hours, and he is so present in the moment that he dose not know what boredom means. He had never experienced that. It's interesting if he has an inner dialogue. I can ask him. I will be funny if his respond will be like: "what? You talk with yourself?!" 

Edited January 31, 2020 by Muhammad

[King Merk]

@Muhammad okay, not perceiving time is an absolutely mind fuck as well. I’d be very interested in finding out if he had an internal dialogue. Like can’t even fathom not “knowing” time. My life is build on time. Literally. Build around schedules, dates, events, etc. 

Us “normal” people who do have an internal dialogue probably seem batshit crazy to those who don’t?

Never thought about how odd the whole notion of “I hear a voice inside my head that I attach a self identification to” really is. Lol 

[King Merk]

@Farnaby I feel you. Meditation and mindfulness has definitely helped slow down my inner dialogue as well. It’s much quieter “in here” now days

 

@Spaceofawareness thats interesting about your wife. When I was younger I had a very critical self dialogue. I’d “whip myself into shape” mentally. Which helped me be very ambitious at an early age but I also found this to be very damaging at the same time.

Now days my inner dialogue is more akin to that of a motivation speaker. More like “I’m a bad motherfucker who can do whatever I set my mind to”. I’m my biggest hype man? never really realized this until I read your comment.

The left to right brain is also interesting. When I was younger I was much more verbal. Everything had to “make sense” to me in a logical manner. Now it’s much more emotional/intuitive. I go with what “feels right” even if it doesn’t make sense to my logical mind. Interesting. 
 

Are y’all more logical or intuitive thinkers? Or both? I would think striking a balance between the two would be optimal. But maybe that’s just my bias. 

[King Merk]

4 hours ago, seeking_brilliance said:

How do deaf people think? (deaf from birth) 

That’s a mindfuck I’ve been entertaining for years. As well as asking what it is to “think” in the first place.

What is the nature of thought? What’s the difference between visual thoughts vs auditory thoughts vs emotional thoughts etc. 

[seeking_brilliance]

@King Merk even bigger mindfuck, how did Helen Keller think? And learn to read and write? 

[Forestluv]

This area is super interesting to me. Thanks for sharing the article, It had a new twist and revealed an assumption I had. . . 

I assumed that everyone had this "internal dialog" of a thought story in their mind. A person has this internal thought story, yet there can be "gaps" in the thought story. For example, someone could temporarily get in a "flow state" where they are simply being - such as a flow state while skateboarding or playing the trumpet. No thoughts just being.

About a year ago, I met someone who told me he hadn't had a thought for about a year. It wasn't some guy bragging about his meditative prowess. There was something going on that I couldn't put my finger on and it challenged my idea of "thinking".

If I would describe my experience, it would be that there is an internal narrative of thoughts. It's not like a literal sound like listening to music. Yet I don't know of a better way to describe it than an internal narrative or "voice". For example, I may be walking in nature and I may be thinking about my work or plans for the weekend. . . .So when this person said he no longer had "thoughts", I was bewildered. How could one possibly survive without "thoughts"?

One thing I started contemplating is "what is a thought?". Not intellectually, in direct experience. Then stuff started arising. A month later, I was having a conversation with a woman without "thinking". There was simply direct speaking happening. There was no filter and thoughts like "Maybe I shouldn't mention that I've been in therapy, because I would look bad. Maybe I should talk about how I do yoga". That background thinking wasn't there. There was simply just speaking. It was weird. At one point, she went to the restroom and then the thinking returned "she seems like a nice person. She travels a lot. Maybe we could go on a trip together". This internal dialog had a different essence that pure speaking and changed my relationship with thinking.

Another space I've entered is "thinking" in images, not words. I went into deep yin yoga space and images, not words, appeared. It was sorta an internal story, yet not like thought stories. Was this imagery "thinking"? Sorta. I wonder if this is how some people usually "think". Or perhaps it is how animals like dolphins "think". 

[Commodent]

49 minutes ago, Serotoninluv said:

I assumed that everyone had this "internal dialog" of a thought story in their mind.

In my experience most beliefs and thought stories are strictly non-verbal. I can still my inner monologue pretty much on command but beliefs and ideas will still be running under the surface. So stilling the conscious mind really changes very little. The hard part is dealing with that which is "under the hood".

[Myegolikestacos]

Wow aphantasia also just blew my mind and it's common most people don't find out they have it till after age 30 

 

Edited February 25, 2020 by Myegolikestacos