Thought monitoring

[voider]

@Alonzo I sometimes have an internal dialogue, sometimes not. It really depends on what I'm doing. If I want a coffee as described, I see the coffee as an image in my mind or as the experience of drinking coffee, and then just do it. Actually, I might already be doing something before the thought even fully forms in my head ... Which I suppose is analogous with Se and not thinking things through, but really, when I want to do something, for example pick something up, I'm already doing it before I've even consciously registered it as "I am going to pick this up now". Not that others have that sort of internal dialogue, but usually, my decisions are made in my brain before I've even... decided to make a decision? Lol.

The only times I actually have an internal dialogue, I'm not actually talking to my own self. I'm imagining responding to a post on a forum, or arguing with another person in my head. I need to have a discussion with someone that's not me, for me to flesh out my thoughts into actual words. Even in my thoughts, I need to extrovert them and bounce them off something else. (Like how I'm responding so much now, after writing a one-liner, because I have a prompt now, and beforehand the prompt was somewhat lacking.) When making an actual important decision, I feel like something is missing if I just try to decide in my head, and I need to write it down or talk to someone in order to actually be able to see it in the world and make sense of it as something that has an actual impact as opposed to the amorphous nonexistence of thoughts.

[Alonzo]

@Alonzo I sometimes have an internal dialogue, sometimes not. It really depends on what I'm doing. If I want a coffee as described, I see the coffee as an image in my mind or as the experience of drinking coffee, and then just do it. Actually, I might already be doing something before the thought even fully forms in my head ... Which I suppose is analogous with Se and not thinking things through, but really, when I want to do something, for example pick something up, I'm already doing it before I've even consciously registered it as "I am going to pick this up now". Not that others have that sort of internal dialogue, but usually, my decisions are made in my brain before I've even... decided to make a decision? Lol.

lol That's amazing, and to a lesser degree, I can relate. Because Se is an unconscious function for me, it just happens/manifests on its own, and it can definitely come off rather impulsive. Like when I've been in arguments where there is a great amount of physical distance between myself and someone else, and in a flash, my nose is almost touching theirs, without ever realizing I made the decision to get in their face. lol It's like I just acted without thinking, as if I had been possessed by some force. It BLOWS. MY. MIND that there are folks who can consciously live in that kind of active/willful space, most of the time. There is something so magnificent to me about being fully aware of the power one possesses to simply ACT.

The only times I actually have an internal dialogue, I'm not actually talking to my own self. I'm imagining responding to a post on a forum, or arguing with another person in my head. I need to have a discussion with someone that's not me, for me to flesh out my thoughts into actual words. Even in my thoughts, I need to extrovert them and bounce them off something else. (Like how I'm responding so much now, after writing a one-liner, because I have a prompt now, and beforehand the prompt was somewhat lacking.) When making an actual important decision, I feel like something is missing if I just try to decide in my head, and I need to write it down or talk to someone in order to actually be able to see it in the world and make sense of it as something that has an actual impact as opposed to the amorphous nonexistence of thoughts.

YES, well said. Most of my internal dialogue is directed outwardly, at people/places/things outside of myself, though I will occasionally address myself > "why did you do that stupid shit?" lol But it's still from a place of extroverting a thought, just towards myself. The desire to get the words/thoughts "out" in order to make sense of them is probably why extroverted thinking is often associated with list making, rules, regulations, etc....

Tangentially, what happens to you when your Fi is powerfully hit/engaged? I think my inner dialogue shuts down temporarily, like it's paralyzed by some feeling (whether mild to wild, sad to mad) and can't really process anything else at the moment.

[voider]

... in a flash, my nose is almost touching theirs, without ever realizing I made the decision to get in their face.

I've done this too. The one time I can vividly remember was a conscious decision to trap the person I was arguing with because he was evading my questions and refusing to explain himself, which I was not having. It worked, I looked like an asshole, but I got what I wanted in the end, and the argument was solved, lol.

Tangentially, what happens to you when your Fi is powerfully hit/engaged? I think my inner dialogue shuts down temporarily, like it's paralyzed by some feeling (whether mild to wild, sad to mad) and can't really process anything else at the moment.

It's more like a yoyo, or an elastic band for me. The further someone pushes, the further it will spring back, but because it's elastic it won't break, and it's prone to constant fluidity and susceptible to change. It's the closest I can come to explaining creative Fi. Although you might get slapped in the face with it if you push too hard, there's also the chance that you might change my mind. It's very situational.

With regards to what happens with my inner dialogue... Well, in discussions, there's never any inner dialogue, there's just outer dialogue. If someone ends up giving a very good argument and I can't come up with a counterargument, you'll see me trying to paraphrase it in order to understand it better and how it fits within my own understanding.

But in some situations, when I'm just really fucking mad or disgusted with someone, or extremely giddy, yeah, the inner dialogue just completely shuts down, and is replaced with that feeling only. I don't think paralyzed is the right word for me... more like hyperfocused? It's not that I cannot process anything else in the moment, it's that I don't want to. For example, someone gets me really mad, and in my head I'm actively choosing to disregard what I would normally consider (am I yelling at them, will this hurt them, will this hurt our relationship) because I want to express that feeling of anger more than I care about upholding some Fi standard I've set for myself. I'm actively choosing not to give merit to any other feeling or rule for behavior I usually abide by other than what is most predominant for me at the moment. Same goes for really happy. I won't stop myself from being giddy just because someone wants to be a downer (IRL this doesn't come across as assholeish as it sounds, please trust me, I know to rein it in when someone's feeling really bad about important things).

[Alonzo]

But in some situations, when I'm just really fucking mad or disgusted with someone, or extremely giddy, yeah, the inner dialogue just completely shuts down, and is replaced with that feeling only. I don't think paralyzed is the right word for me... more like hyperfocused? It's not that I cannot process anything else in the moment, it's that I don't want to. For example, someone gets me really mad, and in my head I'm actively choosing to disregard what I would normally consider (am I yelling at them, will this hurt them, will this hurt our relationship) because I want to express that feeling of anger more than I care about upholding some Fi standard I've set for myself. I'm actively choosing not to give merit to any other feeling or rule for behavior I usually abide by other than what is most predominant for me at the moment. Same goes for really happy. I won't stop myself from being giddy just because someone wants to be a downer (IRL this doesn't come across as assholeish as it sounds, please trust me, I know to rein it in when someone's feeling really bad about important things).

YES. Unsurprisingly, you articulated it better than I could. I thought paralyzed or "stuck" because, in those instances, it's like I can't do anything else but hyper focus on whatever that feeling is. And being hyper focused on any emotion is...on one hand, seductively intoxicating, but on the other, weird and discombobulating for me, which is probably why I think to use words that imply a certain dread. lol Talking about this reaffirms to me why it's cognitively preferable for logical types to deprioritize our emotional processing, because it's one of the few areas in my life where I might potentially feel like a punk ass bitch (because I can't handle it). lol It's the hyper focusing on bad feelings, especially, that feels like being imprisoned inside your own personal hell. The few times in my life where I've been there, it became apparent to me how some folks don't make it out alive because they can't bear the intensity.