Type and Stream of Consciousness

[Rusal]

I’m curious. Let’s say you decide to exercise alone with an hour-long walk, what does your inner monologue sound like while walking? The true one you get when it’s you and no the hassles of the day doing the talking. Here’s an excerpt of what mine can be like:

“So The Age of Innocence is on Netflix now. Fine addition. Oversatisfaction of the senses in times of generalized hardship. Main character can’t really experience feelings because of this. Or was that idealization? Same thing, really- LOOK AT THAT NICE DECOR IN THAT CAFÉ ON THE CORNER I’ll WALK EXTRA TO IT I JUST WANT TO FEEL THE VIBE IT EVOKES SO MUCH- and what’s with the fairytale-like string chord in the closing music of the last scene? Because it’s a bit disorienting if it’s a case of double-framing, one for the audience and the other internally for the character. The Godfather III has something similar going on– OH LOOK THAT HOUSE HAS PINE TREES IN THE BACKYARD, THEY EVOKE SO MUCH- “

[Adam Strange]

What is an inner monologue?

Just joking. On walks, I sometimes listen to audiobooks on my phone. Other times, I just experience my surroundings with occasional analysis. "That retaining wall should have had better structural support." "This street is about five degrees off North." "The architects of that building were able to make a new building look old and ugly from day one." "That squirrel is playing chicken with cars. I wonder what its level of consciousness is? Does it understand that cars are driven by people, and that the driver's consciousness extends to making decisions to either avoid or run over the squirrel? Probably, it does understand that." "This property is clearly an island of township surrounded by city. I wonder how the owners arranged that?"

Riding a bike produces a very different dialog. That one is more experiential. "Wind in my face." "Bike needs more stabilization and forced control." "Avoid potholes." "Balance, no hands." "Fly."

[Nunki]

My inner monologue is generally quite bitchy. I'm glad no one else can hear it (at least I don't think anyone else can hear it). As far as producing a faithful rendition of it goes, that I can't do, because I don't have a good enough memory for details. That's just as well, because, aside from my inner voice being a huge bitch, it's also very boring and drives me nuts. This is in contrast to the other people who live in my head. You know, those internal voices that suddenly utter random nonsense. I've learned that if I try to decipher their words, they often prove to be onto something good. They have also led me to speculate that somewhere in my head every person in the world exists and that my overall thoughts are constructed out of them as a Bach fugue is constructed out of numerous simultaneous melodies.

[grumpyvic81]

I’m curious. Let’s say you decide to exercise alone with an hour-long walk, what does your inner monologue sound like while walking?

Assume this is hard uphill walking or its not exercise for me. So with that in mind, my "inner monologue" is like... "move this way" "move that way" and variations of that, but its really nonverbal for the most part.

If it's just walking without making focused exercise out of it, then I have a few random fragments of thoughts here and there like a couple of little clouds on an otherwise clear blue sky

[FreelancePoliceman]

I don’t have an inner monologue — at least, not in the sense that I imagine a voice in my head. My thoughts aren’t usually verbal.

When I’m trying to think about what to do, I’ll at times imagine talking to someone else and having a rapidfire argument weighing the pros and cons of each possibility. But this isn’t what I do “normally”, and most of this “communication” is non-verbal; usually the only words I actually imagine are unimportant — “well”, “generally,” “ah...”, and so on, which I think I do to give myself time to think.

The rest of the time my inner experience is like a sequence or stream of images, sensations, associations, and other thoughts of a sort which I can’t think how to describe. The best way to explain how I experience it is as if I’m standing in a river while thoughts flow around me. When “I” feel like doing it I can immerse myself in the stream, or pick out a particular thought from it, or throw it back when I’m finished with it.

I’ve heard people discuss before the concept of “intrusive thoughts”, or feeling that their thoughts are unwanted. This isn’t something I relate to. Thinking is for me an active process: a thought can “come upon me”, but its presence is only announced by a change of feeling in the “water”. Unless I actively choose to take it out and to think it, it slips past and dissolves in the stream.

[SaveYourself]

My inner monologue is usually framed as though I'm talking to someone. Like if I am thinking about what my type is, for example, I would imagine someone questioning me about it and then me explaining to them why I came up with the type I think I am. Or the other day I was thinking about clothes so I was thinking about describing my style to someone, how I came up with the style, what rules I follow etc. Helps me figure stuff out and spot inconsistencies.

I will also imagine a conversation where I'm talking to someone as though I'm already my ideal self / have already achieved the goal I've set out to do and explain to them how I did it as a way of crystallizing how to get from a to b. If I'm mulling over a political / philosophical issue, that will be framed as a debate as well (usually going back and forth between an explanation of my stance and a logical break down of it so I can again check for inconsistencies).

I do all this whilst walking around. I'm usually always thinking about personal development and what my identity is. Sometimes I'll get obsessed with some film or political issue and think about that for a while. That's 90% of my internal thoughts. I'm often too wrapped up in these to pay attention to stuff like whether or not I'm taking the quickest route or whether I remembered to get all the stuff I needed for today or whether I'm on time lol.

[Rebelondeck]

For 25 years, I ran 100 km per week and the most refreshing runs were when I thought about and noticed absolutely nothing. Even when I walk, of which I do a lot, I tend to go blank. My ESE spouse seems to not be able to take a step without thinking or talking about something, and noticing and pointing out just about everything - and after long walks with her, I seem to need a nap......

a.k.a. I/O

[Northstar]

What is an inner monologue?

Just joking. On walks, I sometimes listen to audiobooks on my phone. Other times, I just experience my surroundings with occasional analysis. "That retaining wall should have had better structural support." "This street is about five degrees off North." "The architects of that building were able to make a new building look old and ugly from day one." "That squirrel is playing chicken with cars. I wonder what its level of consciousness is? Does it understand that cars are driven by people, and that the driver's consciousness extends to making decisions to either avoid or run over the squirrel? Probably, it does understand that." "This property is clearly an island of township surrounded by city. I wonder how the owners arranged that?"

Riding a bike produces a very different dialog. That one is more experiential. "Wind in my face." "Bike needs more stabilization and forced control." "Avoid potholes." "Balance, no hands." "Fly."

I can relate to this, although my "inner monologue" is mostly non-verbal. When it is verbal, it's weighing pros and cons, posing questions to myself, or reprimanding and commanding.

On a long drive, walk, or some other activity that frees my mind from the current task it's usually reflecting on something that had previously happened an analyzing it from the different angles I can think of.

[Rusal]

Just as what you have stated here, a part of my walk would be "static noise" too. I only tried to piece together what type of thoughts come to me. By stream of consciousness and inner monologue we don't mean a line of cohesive discourse inside our head, but an attempt to put whatever it is into words. So it's interesting (type-wise) that Adam would notice a defective construction and I'd register places by the vibe they give out.

Something that I've aslo noticed is that these walks are many times full of "aha!" moments followed by "I'm going to put that on paper when I get back", but these thread-thin connections are gone when I actually sit down and start fumbling with language.

I will also imagine a conversation where I'm talking to someone as though I'm already my ideal self / have already achieved the goal I've set out to do and explain to them how I did it as a way of crystallizing how to get from a to b. If I'm mulling over a political / philosophical issue, that will be framed as a debate as well (usually going back and forth between an explanation of my stance and a logical break down of it so I can again check for inconsistencies).

I do all this whilst walking around. I'm usually always thinking about personal development and what my identity is. Sometimes I'll get obsessed with some film or political issue and think about that for a while. That's 90% of my internal thoughts. I'm often too wrapped up in these to pay attention to stuff like whether or not I'm taking the quickest route or whether I remembered to get all the stuff I needed for today or whether I'm on time lol.

This happens to me a lot, actually. The difference is sociotype, I guess: you talk about personal development whilst the perfect conversations I have in my head with people I know revolve about resonating with them on the subject of human experience in dialogues that are right on cue (and so perfectly cohesive and coherent), as if we were in theater play.

[grumpyvic81]

I can relate to this, although my "inner monologue" is mostly non-verbal. When it is verbal, it's weighing pros and cons, posing questions to myself, or reprimanding and commanding.

On a long drive, walk, or some other activity that frees my mind from the current task it's usually reflecting on something that had previously happened an analyzing it from the different angles I can think of.

lol commanding like?

And yeah I partially related to @Adam Strange 's stuff (minus the musings on the squirrel)

[Northstar]

lol commanding like?

"Stop this, don't do it!", "That's enough sitting, MOVE AND ACT NOW!"

[silke]

It's a mixture of setting short-range goals, moving from past to the future that those are at least somewhere in the range of what I want to achieve, with periodic switches to a thoughtless state of random sensory perceptions like listening to a plane flying overhead or watching the clouds pass by or grass waving around in the sunlight, and the neverending conflict between the stuff I've learned from various lectures and podcasts and the world that I can observe around me, which on a rare occasion will click together in cohesion but most often it leaves a kind of tangled mess due to unresolved contradictions.

[grumpyvic81]

"Stop this, don't do it!", "That's enough sitting, MOVE AND ACT NOW!"

ok yeah I do that too

[grumpyvic81]

and the neverending conflict between the stuff I've learned from various lectures and podcasts and the world that I can observe around me, which on a rare occasion will click together in cohesion but most often it leaves a kind of tangled mess due to unresolved contradictions.

O_o interesting btw

[Rusal]

...pass by or grass waving around in the sunlight, and the neverending conflict between the stuff I've learned from various lectures and podcasts and the world that I can observe around me, which on a rare occasion will click together in cohesion but most often it leaves a kind of tangled mess due to unresolved contradictions.

I don't want my comments here to turn into a rosary of 'hey, same with me', but, hey...

I’ve heard people discuss before the concept of “intrusive thoughts”, or feeling that their thoughts are unwanted. This isn’t something I relate to. Thinking is for me an active process: a thought can “come upon me”, but its presence is only announced by a change of feeling in the “water”. Unless I actively choose to take it out and to think it, it slips past and dissolves in the stream.

From what I gathered from watching my thought process, thoughts have a pre-verbal and a verbal stage. If we were to analyze intrusive thoughts I wouldn’t say people who have them suffer from a malfunction in their active selection stage (verbal), but that the “waters” (let’s say impression, non-verbal) you loosely speak of have gone from windless to brave.

In meditation, for example, ‘non-verbal impressions’ don’t personally feel like disturbance, but if they move up stage to verbalization, meditation can be said to have failed. Yet it’s very obvious that trauma can affect a person so much that they go from impression to impression of a thought without actually “thinking”.

I’d say give it time and perhaps you’ll relate in the end.

[FreelancePoliceman]

I don't want my comments here to turn into a rosary of 'hey, same with me', but, hey...




From what I gathered from watching my thought process, thoughts have a pre-verbal and a verbal stage. If we were to analyze intrusive thoughts I wouldn’t say people who have them suffer from a malfunction in their active selection stage (verbal), but that the “waters” (let’s say impression, non-verbal) you loosely speak of have gone from windless to brave.

In meditation, for example, ‘non-verbal impressions’ don’t personally feel like disturbance, but if they move up stage to verbalization, meditation can be said to have failed. Yet it’s very obvious that trauma can affect a person so much that they go from impression to impression of a thought without actually “thinking”.

I’d say give it time and perhaps you’ll relate in the end.

I’m not sure I follow. Are you saying I’m not thinking? Or that my thoughts don’t mature to a mature state?

I can relate to the trauma bit, actually. When I’ve felt really shaken it’s seemed like my conscious self stopped existing for a time and “I” lost control over my thought process. Thoughts appeared in flashes, somewhat like images, but I wasn’t able to respond — again, “I” didn’t seem to exist for that time, if that makes sense. I didn’t have self-awareness; it wasn’t just these “images” I couldn’t control but my entire sense of myself as a person.

I’m not sure if this is what you’re talking about.

[Number 9 large]

I usually solved problems in my head or sometimes emotions ive been burying surface and take over. Sometimes putting me in a bad mood. But usually its a good way to get over them also. I get really lost in thought sometimes. Like shower thoughts.

[ouronis]

Usually, I'm fantasizing about something (like if I'm in the woods I might start thinking about native Americans and what their life must've been like or if I see a colorful rock I'll try to guess how it was made and I'll start thinking about the world millions of years ago and geologic processes), breaking down a life situation, arguing with myself about some random thought, or just thinking about the mechanics of whatever I'm doing.

[Rusal]

I can relate to the trauma bit, actually. When I’ve felt really shaken it’s seemed like my conscious self stopped existing for a time and “I” lost control over my thought process. Thoughts appeared in flashes, somewhat like images, but I wasn’t able to respond — again, “I” didn’t seem to exist for that time, if that makes sense. I didn’t have self-awareness; it wasn’t just these “images” I couldn’t control but my entire sense of myself as a person.

You seem to have been pretty shaken by whatever happened to you at the time. But even after that phase is finished, I’d label “intrusive thought” the tinge that remains and that can be traced to an experience even after you’ve more ore less healed. So it’s a “mood” that can color moments or everything, you know like the feeling you get when you know you’ve forgotten something but don't know what, and only after a while you can trace what is causing it. Not really the starter kick of a thought process but can become one. In meditation you can see it more clearly because what it basically is is teaching yourself to spot that intrusiveness in its inception. I see it as a nonverbal impulse that becomes frustrating only when you verbalize it (where you make it real and more powerful?) and it exists and affects you before actively engaging it. Perhaps more related to the notion of repressed memories for the sake of discussion, but they can intrusive.

[Sol]

from the point of strong functions the "true you" is when you meet problems and solve them successfully - as there you rely on best in you. but not when you on a rest

also "true you" is when you are among friends, as there you are more cincere to express yourself by valued regions

[Tallmo]

I can relate to the trauma bit, actually. When I’ve felt really shaken it’s seemed like my conscious self stopped existing for a time and “I” lost control over my thought process. Thoughts appeared in flashes, somewhat like images, but I wasn’t able to respond — again, “I” didn’t seem to exist for that time, if that makes sense. I didn’t have self-awareness; it wasn’t just these “images” I couldn’t control but my entire sense of myself as a person.

I think this is an accurate description of what happens when Ego consciousness gets shaken. Unconscious intrusions happen immediately. Same thing happens in dreams where the Ego is totally gone and the unconscious can take total control. One can sometimes have a similar experience early in the morning just after waking up. Strange pictures appear in the mind just by themselves. (and also just before falling asleep)

[The Reality Denialist]

You don't want to go there as I have only served the most sensible parts of myself here and it borders insanity already.

[thegreenfaerie]

You don't want to go there as I have only served the most sensible parts of myself here and it borders insanity already.

I want to go there