Do you have an internal monologue?

[xerx]

Constructing sentences makes me tired. I think in pretty pictures.

[Creepy-female]

No. When some verbal communication isn't needed, I tend to go by feel, by overlays of some mood or experience. It's quite frustrating, actually. The latest existential question will be pressing to be answered, literally pressing, on the skull, like a weight, and all my mind can come up with is vague disconnected washes of color. It's like trying to put something together that keeps breaking or growing.

The exception is expletives.

[Gilly]

I didn't realize that other people didn't...o_O

[Rubicon]

No. When some verbal communication isn't needed, I tend to go by feel, by overlays of some mood or experience. It's quite frustrating, actually. The latest existential question will be pressing to be answered, literally pressing, on the skull, like a weight, and all my mind can come up with is vague disconnected washes of color. It's like trying to put something together that keeps breaking or growing.

The exception is expletives.

Mmm.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

Yes, I almost always think in words. That's why I have to meditate constantly, or I go insane and start believing all my thoughts. I think very pure and absolutely.

It's unfortunate somewhat but it's how my brain was wired. I get these direct channels from God to write stories that raise everybody's spirits , like 16type adventures. However, I have to do LOTS of meditation to harness and focus my power otherwise it's like 'god anything can happen so what's the point?' and I just become stuck. I have an idealistic/writer type brain.

I can make my brain function in other ways but it always 'snaps back' to the original programming.

[silverchris9]

OF COURSE. I have a permanent interior monologue, which I frequently externalize by talking to myself. But yes. I sort of assumed that all people think in language, and if not in language then in associations.

No. When some verbal communication isn't needed, I tend to go by feel, by overlays of some mood or experience. It's quite frustrating, actually. The latest existential question will be pressing to be answered, literally pressing, on the skull, like a weight, and all my mind can come up with is vague disconnected washes of color. It's like trying to put something together that keeps breaking or growing.

I can relate to this, but I feel like even this happens in words. But the words are loose fits for the meaning which I suppose I understand on some level that's not verbal but that struggles or wriggles into words as much as possible.

[crazedrat]

yeah i usually have an internal monologue. i think in words when im on autopilot. when im thinking hard i think in words that tell images what to do or call up certain images, then the next word modifies that image. if im studying i think mostly in words, unless i'm trying to connect the information with the rest of what i know. if i'm doing something physical then i think in images.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

meditation, meditation, meditation, meditation, meditation. Then, all your thoughts will be pure and righteous and true and divine. You will be a direct channel for God itself, but only if you are very discipline with the meditation.

I only do it for about 20 minutes a day but I need to do it more, really- man always should be meditating. And listening. To what is really going on, not ego chatter.

It is the key to everything. Om!

[crazedrat]

problem with meditation is it's very lazy

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

Not really. It's concentrated effort. You can't just be 'doing nothing' and meditating, although it looks that way to your objective tarnished overly image-focused american mcdonalized brain! (No offense or anything ;p)

Besides there really is nothing to go out 'and do' anyway. It's all an illusion and trap, so why not just do what your true self/soul says to do. Maybe it says 'go to work and be active' but I highly doubt it. The ego loves to think in competition and gain/loss and like there's something to 'prove.' Most likely your soul seeks love and truth and gay faggy ideal wizardry!

Also you can work on your body while you meditate too. Meditation isn't a cessation of action. The true gurus are in a meditative state constantly.

[crazedrat]

Not really. It's concentrated effort. You can't just be 'doing nothing' and meditating, although it looks that way to your objective tarnished overly image-focused american mcdonalized brain! (No offense or anything ;p)

if you focus on the moment around you, you'll notice alot of things need doing. there are many real processes at work. comparing meditation with focusing on our momentary reality, the form of concentration is the same, but it's being directed toward something different. meditation : nothing :: the moment : real and useful. really, meditation is an immitation of normal functioning. granted you can improve EEG coherence by meditating if you're not thinking properly. And I do think the vast majority don't think properly. But I don't like the idea of walking away from life and being in constant meditation.

Besides there really is nothing to go out 'and do' anyway. It's all an illusion and trap, so why not just do what your true self/soul says to do. Maybe it says 'go to work and be active' but I highly doubt it. The ego loves to think in competition and gain/loss and like there's something to 'prove.' Most likely your soul seeks love and truth and gay faggy ideal wizardry!

no, we do definitely exist. we exist, and there are things to do.

Also you can work on your body while you meditate too. Meditation isn't a cessation of action. The true gurus are in a meditative state constantly.


Yes, try concentrating on something real like a true guru

.

[Creepy-female]

Most likely your soul seeks love and truth and gay faggy ideal wizardry!

I'm so in love with you the silhouettes of Lisa Frank stickers are radiating from my eyes like laser beams or disco lighting. Let's make snow angels in white glitter and be campy narcissistic drag queens.

[marooned]

I often have an internal monologue particularly when I'm imagining conversations or scenarios where talking would be used or when I'm simply fleshing something into words in my mind. However, when it comes to concepts, those are often in flowing images and I might have trouble trying to find the words to give to the images and then feel like I can't really communicate what I see. I see the first as left brain processes and the second as right brain processes. Although I think I'm a little more right brained than left, both of these kinds of processes are often going on at once. I generally think of the images as the more pure form of whatever it was originally (probably because they feel like the meaning of the concept) and the words may come later when ideas are being fleshed out -- the words give them a layer of crude flesh, and then I seem to go over them again and again with more images leaking out the sides. In general I am a shitty verbal communicator/conversationalist (okay, maybe I'm a little better than I give myself credit for). I guess it's that I prefer to gradually write them out than actually try to talk to others. Talking to others in real-time sometimes just doesn't work very well and I end up listening much more than talking.

[1981slater]

[Creepy-Diana]

.

[Trevor]

Of course you have internal monologue, Snegledmaca. Because you're Negative-Narrator-Irrational, if I ever saw one. INTp most likely.

[Brilliand]

I do a lot of thinking by arguing with myself in words, but occasionally I just make a connection intuitively (sometimes there's a picture associated, sometimes it's just a sense of connection), and perhaps berate myself for trying to put it into words (though when trying to communicate with someone else, I often find to my frustration that I can't put it into words - even if I used words to express it to myself a few hours ago).

I see this as similar to Loki's answer.

[Satan]

i'm not sure?

i don't "pronounce" words in my head .. but sometimes there can be a kind of uncontrolled verbalness inside my head... but that's just ilke smoething to direct ...

[Brilliand]

i'm not sure?

i don't "pronounce" words in my head .. but sometimes there can be a kind of uncontrolled verbalness inside my head... but that's just ilke smoething to direct ...

Ha ha... I occasionally stop and carefully pronounce one of the words in my head. It doesn't happen often, though. And you probably use mental words less than I do overall...

[The Exception]

I.e. do you think in words? (Not when you're preparing to say something to someone, or writing, or having an argument with someone in your head - just normally, when you're by yourself, and you don't have a need to communicate externally.)

Constantly

[Zola]

I thought about this through internal monologue while I was at the swimming pool today. I very often think about things in a talking way when I'm alone and what I'm doing is automatic (like swimming, playing Tetris, or having trouble sleeping), as if I am explaining it to someone else (or making a forum post), and also make up scenarios where I imagine what the interlocutor and I talk about. It never turns out to be like that, however.

It's amusing to read someone else describe exactly how your thought process works.

[ArchonAlarion]

I never think in words, Only images and videos.

And blurs of sound.

Although sometimes I have an image of text.

It usually looks like the text is written on a glass panel that slowly floats across screen, giving me the choice to select and decompress/apply it.

[somavision]

I never think in words, Only images and videos.

And blurs of sound.

Although sometimes I have an image of text.

It usually looks like the text is written on a glass panel that slowly floats across screen, giving me the choice to select and decompress/apply it.

Is this true?
That's very interesting.

I thought about this through internal monologue while I was at the swimming pool today. I very often think about things in a talking way when I'm alone and what I'm doing is automatic (like swimming, playing Tetris, or having trouble sleeping), as if I am explaining it to someone else (or making a forum post), and also make up scenarios where I imagine what the interlocutor and I talk about. It never turns out to be like that, however. I agree with what Brilliand and Loki said.

This is similar to how I think about stuff. Sometimes as well though I will talk to differenet deities I have invented or parts of my mind or make up mantras.

The most usual things that my internal monologue says though is
"where am I"
"what am I doing here"
"where should I be"
"what time is it"
"what am I thinking about"
"what am I doing"
It is not rare for these thoughts to spill over into the external world though.

[ArchonAlarion]

yar it be true matey.

[ArchonAlarion]

I thought about this through internal monologue while I was at the swimming pool today. I very often think about things in a talking way when I'm alone and what I'm doing is automatic (like swimming, playing Tetris, or having trouble sleeping), as if I am explaining it to someone else (or making a forum post), and also make up scenarios where I imagine what the interlocutor and I talk about. It never turns out to be like that, however. I agree with what Brilliand and Loki said.

I do the same thing...

what enne are you?

[sema sahin]

People don't...?

[ArchonAlarion]

Okay, I think you are correct ollobollo. I do this to an extreme degree, so I assumed it was enneagram related (6 self examination and using internal monolouges as a way to let out the need to convince), but perhaps it's simply a personal quirk of mine.

[pluie]

i mostly think in a combination of feelings, more or less, and images. however, i sometimes find myself thinking in the form of a monologue, but usually it is more difficult than not for me to think that way. i've wondered if people think that way, too. (:

[munenori2]

I never think in words, Only images and videos.

And blurs of sound.

Although sometimes I have an image of text.

It usually looks like the text is written on a glass panel that slowly floats across screen, giving me the choice to select and decompress/apply it.

This is your brain on drugz.

[FDG]

The more the stuff I'm thinking about is day-to-day and trivial, the more I think in words. As the matter gets more complex, I switch to pictures and, how can I say, "cogs and connections".

[Simon Ssmall]

I.e. do you think in words? (Not when you're preparing to say something to someone, or writing, or having an argument with someone in your head - just normally, when you're by yourself, and you don't have a need to communicate externally.)

My brain never shuts up. However I think usualy in words and pictures, sometimes only words but I do it constantly almost every free minute I get my brain wanders off somewhere.

[Creepy-male]

My brain never shuts up. However I think usualy in words and pictures, sometimes only words but I do it constantly almost every free minute I get my brain wanders off somewhere.

This.

@OP: and sometimes "normally" I can wander into actually having a dialogue with someone in my head. That's the main way my thoughts even get organized: having to explain something to "someone" and make myself clear. At times they can speak back to me, which is happening more frequently, but I think that's a result of having more close connections and people I feel I "get".

EDIT

And I tend to think in visual analogies when I'm trying to process something complex. But that would be when I'm learning, not when I'm just thinking to myself.

[Not A Communist Shill]

Apparently people would be astonished to see the Venerable Bede reading quietly to himself because it was commonly held that those who read had to speak while reading...that's what this thread made me of .

I think through words and images and feelings and would be surprised to find that are other ways of being.

[DirectorAbbie]

I often think in words. Sometimes in pictures. Sometimes in charts. Sometimes in exclamation points and colors; that's when I spew gibberish.

[energystar]

...

[DirectorAbbie]

Come to think of it I believe its my actually a debate between my feelings and my brain. They never agree!

Yeah; feelings are so illogical.

[Singu]

I usually have either an internal monologue, or some random song playing in my head. Sometimes, I am singing along whatever that pops in to my head to that song/music...

[xkj220]

I rarely internally verbalize my thoughts.