I met a person who spoke 6 different languages. At one point I asked them which language their internal thoughts were in. Oddly enough, their answer was NOT their native language. I think they were as surprised as I was by that idea. Apparently, they had never really considered that before. They just heard the inner speech and processed like anyone would.
You think in the language that surrounds you the most at that time. As a German, who now lives in the US, and who also speaks other languages….I think in English because I have now lived over 10 years in a predominantly English speaking country
I tend to switch languages, I found that when I need to make plans or very organized activities I think in english. Although some times I realize that I am using English for other random things, like music or inner discussions with other self points of views
I once took an extensive course in Vietnamese language. The sounds of the vowels, diphthongs, tripthongs, some of the consonants, and tones were so different from what we were used to in English that the first 2 weeks of class consisted of nothing more than listening to, and to some extent reproducing, those sounds. No actual words were taught; just the sounds. I began having dreams where 2 Asian men, dressed in black suits and bowler hats, were engaged in a dialogue, conversing at length in Vietnamese, although I still had not learned 1 word of Vietnamese. Their speech was very clear, but I understood very little of it. I mentioned this to a classmate and found out that most members of the class were experiencing the same thing, although the men might be dressed differently. I don't know if that relates to this subject in any way, but I was vividly reminded of it.
The thing that happens to me is that I hear music in my head ALL DAY long. And I don't choose what it is. I *can* choose it, but it can spontaneously change. I wake up with a song in my head every morning. It might be something I'm listening to lately, but it doesn't have to be. I recall trying to do this when I was in 3rd grade. I couldn't afford the music I wanted and I trained myself to play it back for myself. It's gotten stronger and stronger as I've gotten older, to the point now that the music is nearly as audible as though I were hearing it for real. I don't know how common this is. Sometimes the song that manifests is some kind of clue to things that I ought to be paying attention to. And it'll stay in my head for days until I realize what it's telling me. Kinda creepy to be honest!
I thought I was the only one. The majority of my songs are ones I've not heard recently. Every single morning. I rather enjoy it I never thought to try and strengthen or develop it. Interesting.
So, if you've got time, I got questions. Does the music interfere with your day to day? Is the music void of lyrics or include lyrics? If they include lyrics, is it a verse, chorus, or the entire song? Are you a musician? Can you control what you're listening to? Do others in your family have the same 'condition'? I have more questions.
I'm autistic and I have kept talking to myself. In my mind, I've usually pictured a person I knew as being the listener to what I was telling myself. As if I was trying to explain something to them. I always retconned it as being speaking practice, due to my problems with speech, but honestly, I think I'm like the 5-year-old, just talking at someone whether they listen or not because it makes my thinking more focused to do so.
Incidentally, I don't experience a lot of internal speech unless I am barred from speaking out loud at work... And then I'm usually writing instead, as I am now.
My brother is autistic (no actual diagnosis as he doesn't want one, but he is text book) and he does this. It can be very frustrating when I feel like he is using me as a sounding board. He lived with me for a while and would follow me around the house talking about complex computer issues that sounded like a foreign language to me. I suggested he journal or use the recorder on his phone because it got to the place where I couldn't hear my own thoughts anymore, but he never took the advice. I think it was compulsive for him. He will also write essay sized texts and send 12 at once....and they are basically his own inner dialogue. Sometimes he starts texting in the middle of his thoughts and provides no context, so I have no idea what he is talking about. I've finally realized that he is just gathering his thoughts and he really doesn't care if I'm listening, so that makes it easier. If I'm busy I just ignore the texts or put him on speaker so I can finish what I'm doing. I keep thinking there has to be an easier way though? You sound very self aware, but he doesn't seem to be aware of what he's doing at all...even though I've told him several times.
I talk to imagined people in my head all the time too. Usually it's someone I have a conflict with. I'm ADHD and kind of figure I'm practicing conflict resolution since I'm not great at that. Sometimes I'll mouth things and make hand gestures while driving down the road...I must look crazy! Lol!
@Emil Sørensen when you are think-talking to this other-person-as-audience, do they ever talk back, or is it only one way. I'm also autistic and I hardly ever talk to myself out loud (my thoughts only become voiced if it is something I feel very strongly about). I have internal monologue but never internal dialogue. I usually just imagine that I'm talking to myself but occasionally imagine that the audience is a friend of mine. I can't imagine her reply to what I think. I can't imagine a conversation in real time and usually can't imagine conversations even if given days or weeks to do so (except for rare instances where I can imagine a very short snippet of conversation between two people, neither of whom are me, or even real people).
when having to solve a problem or make a decision about something quite often if you put your own self-talk to one side then your own mind will suggest a solution to you, it can be amazing as you were never even thinking along those lines originally!
I have been experiencing an incredible amount of what you describe. I naturally have little knowledge about much of anything other than stone work, gardening and writing music.. but after experiencing a traumatic event and spending nearly a year alone and broken, I found myself knowing things that I wasn't even ever interested in knowing. I do not ever "hear" voices but I live in a state of constant knowledge reception. I have been taken over several times in what I can only describe as being a temporary host of some other mind or entity. I'm not religious but these "others" that consume my entirety for several days have given keys or clues maybe that have led to me reading the Bible as if it had a different purpose and meaning altogether. The drive to utilize the modern ability of "knowledge right now" google research, seems to be a reoccurring theme with some of these "possessors". I use that word because I am often 110% possesses by the knowledge flow. so much so that I have quit being a part of this weird world. not in a scary guy kinda way at all, I just moved to the country built a house and started a farm. to which now I am preparing for an easy life of writing books till I cannot type anymore. knowledge comes to me out of the blue. Answers to questions I haven't asked but am always excited and greatful to know now. seriously, this knowledge is awesome, it's never vague or wrong. ever. I am putting the knowledge to good work healing people and pets. it's like I can read the issue the person/animal has, as clear as a billboard and it's usually always in the same mode of healing. helminth management/proper delivery systems for the cures. I know things that could make some people billionaires and I know things that could have current billionaires likely lynched in the streets. .. but the visions and knowledge shares are always prompting me toward kindness and compassion. never once have I received a thought that was perverse or dangerous. I know things about the human body and our microbiome that could literally save billions of lives and that is the subject of all the current flow of knowledge. I know that the real answer to the question leaving speaker (with respect) is found in the research of fringe scientists dedicated to unraveling of the amazing manipulative and influencial effects of our microbiome herd. these protozoa and worms are, as revealed to me, the culprits of nearly all world health issues, diseases and (future) cures. for fun I now decypher old writings and can read code like it's written in crayon. only once did I even use a key. (lesser key of solomon). It took me all of 3 hours to uncover the rosacrucean secrets on accident really as I was looking into some bits of knowledge gleaned, regarding one cure for all cancers. I wouldn't make that up. it's the steam inhaled from the vinca rosea vine. or madagascar periwinkle as commonly known. it's what is used as primary ingredient in chemotherapy, only they missed one major part of the recipe, to inhale the vapors rather than inject copious amounts the toxins into the patients weak body. they are accidently doing it wrong and hurting people. cancer is all about an imbalance of the meat eater helminths 110% of the time. many cancers can be easily cured in less than a month with even less intrusive herbal vapors. this kills the life cycle of these pests and therefore ends heavy load of reproductive cancer causing cretins. OK I'm tired of writing now but I haven't even shared 5% here of the inventions and cool stuff that is happening to my mind and body after this amazing journey has started. I don't get online much but if you are interested in a health revolution/curious how to transmute elements and other into gold/what is really happening in the human body/mind. text me 541 251 3690 Uriel
Because of the danger of growing up on fishing boats, I trained myself early on to not think with words, to quiet the mind, and abolish stream of consciousness. Observe and act...quickly!
@LEVEL UP1000 Nope, you just think it's Chinese, if you knew for sure you'd have to understand (i.e speak) Chinese But since you don't, you're just psychotic, nothing to worry about... much
This interests me because my son is autistic. It seems that he has trouble accessing and expressing language, but his vocalizations are like a “stream of consciousness.” He can understand language perfectly well. In fact, he knows multiple languages. Very interesting indeed.
I'm autistic, too. The autistic brain doesn't naturally do social stuff (including conversation). Any thoughts involving words will be monologue, or just a few sparse words. It takes time to learn how to use words in the way that most people do.
I often feel like much of the voices in my head.. well the ones that aren't heard by my inner ear as being in my own voice.. are just memories. Seems like echos of conversations I overheard, partially/vaguely overheard, or thought I overheard at some point in the past of my daily life. Sometimes when I'm feeling really anxious, fearful, and/or ashamed, I feel like I'm hearing the thoughts of other people thinking badly about me. Those times are rough because even though I tell myself it's really just _me_ thinking badly about me, I can't stop reacting to it as if it is someone else's thoughts. I've almost never heard an auditory hallucination that sounded clearly from outside of my physical body. I'm glad that is extremely rare. When that happens it goes beyond being an interesting or annoying oddity and becomes outright scary and disturbing!
That's very similar to what I experience. I always feel like those voices are judging me and it can become quite distressing. It can ultimately make me really ill, but never to the point of having hallucinations like schizophrenia. I talk to people with schizophrenia fairly regularly and discuss their experiences which is how I can tell the difference.
It happens when you use drugs , it opens something non physical that really does truly exist but we are not made to have powers and even if we had the choice to have these powers 90% of us would not want to be able to hear others thoughts or other beings in other dimensions , when you drug yourself you wrongfully open a dimension inside your head that you weren’t suppose to open because the soul has not prepared you mentally to handle it, so people go crazy because they open a gate where other identities can comunícate with you and only you because this is the magic of gods given consciousness.
I am a meditator. A part of my practice is to notice my inner conversation. This inner conversation gets in the way of directly experiencing life, in that it is a facsimile of life and not the actual natural experience. It is a left brain activity that pulls me out of "Reality". Of course, inner dialogue is useful at times, but it shouldn't become the dominant experience, if one wants to live a peaceful and natural life.
Your comment is maybe too broad. Inner conversations may be problematic if people get "trapped" in set ways of thinking. Also it's problematic if the thoughts are negative or overly critical (of one's own self or of others or just in general) or overly distractible (taking a person outside of experience, so to speak). Meditation can help suspend such thought patterns (which is beneficial) but it's not the inner conversation itself that's the barrier .... it's the nature of the inner conversation.
I can only recall hearing a voice once and it was just one word. It was my own voice shouting "Here!" from the bathroom 15 meters away from me after I had talked aloud to myself saying "where are my keys?" I didn't know I knew where I had left them. They were in the bathroom
I question that. How can anyone have a thought without language happening in the brain. It's not that you don't have voices, it';s just you are unaware of them.
I remember a thought process i had when i was 3 or 4 and that thought process lacked words and was a fully grown adults mentality...much more knowledgeable than i was and it was observing and concerned about what i was doing. When i think about where that thought process came from i can recognize it as being the exact same thought process that exsists within my mind today. It doesnt age. Maybe my conscience itself..the difference is that now there are many many more of these thought processes that exist within my mind, some are helpful some are hurtful.
@@enochannor6550 just above my ears and a little forward is where I hear my inner voice. I describe it as me. Though it's by definitely not like my physical voice. Good question. The back of your head is where the visual cortex is. I would describe myself as as introverted as well. Sorry for butting in.
@@angelinarobert622 when I binned Orange is the new black I had all the accents of the main characters and it was so confusing doing something simple like cooking breakfast and my thoughts slipping and sliding into a range of American accents (I'm Australian).
Sophie Vasiliadis Actually that is how people process new language to assimilate into their conscience. I'm gonna sound nuts but hear me out.. Might I recommend trying to find shows with a deeper message than that putrid show? Have you watched Buffy The a vampire Slayer at all? The show is so rich and complex your subconscience and your conscience brain can feed on each episode and each season in ways that would shock the typical viewer. There are layers upon layers of personal growth that can be had by watching the characters grow and develop over the years. I discovered it as a middle aged housewife and found that I could identify with or recognize the characters in my own life. It allowed me to gain knowledge of people who drove me nuts and gives me a lot stuff to digest about my own reactions to things.
How can I tone down my inner speech ? I find myself engaged in conversation all the time, and it has several bad effects. 1. I miss what people around me say when I am not focusing specifically on them. 2. I can't fall asleep for most the time, as my inner voice will run off, most the time going on about things I done wrong in the past. So I have to fall asleep watching something etc... like this video.
You have to approach it with the attitude that you can accomplish this, that it is possible, that's first. Next is try to get behind your streams of speech and choose where exactly you want to take it, have the control over it, and believe that you can control what you think about. Random ideas will come often and naturally, but now youll have the power over them, you can cancel it or give power to it. But its your choice, you have the power, remember that.
Tell yourself that you'll come back to review/assess some of the stuff you've done, said or whatever, sometime later the coming week, or any time you'd want. It's time to switch off now and sleep. Priorities. I'm sure your inner voice would significantly calm down; the subconscious aspect of you would create that space and let you be. Kind of like how people say affirmations, the difference is YOU being very clear about what you truly want.
I use ear plugs and then wear headphones to listen to a film or something on you tube to fall asleep ..sometimes when I've fallen asleep before what I'm listening to has finished the silence then wakes me up so I have to put something else on otherwise I'll be listening to myself reliving all kinds of stressful stuff
Funny, because reading is one of the things that makes ppl master the inner voice. Fortunally I realized this early, end up mastering by the age of 12 despise the fact I had no idea of what was the voice in my head aside from the fact that I had one. Go figure....
Your experience makes perfect sense after watching the video. Reading to yourself is literally that. You recognize the words on the page as signifying speech sounds and you tell it to yourself
Fascinating! I self-talk frequently. I self-yell, aloud, at myself, usually when I do something that is not going the way I want. I even tell the items I touch in my tasks to help me to refocus, and get the job finished correctly. I do not self-condemn.
This was such a great lecture! Okay, so in January (2023), I was independently thinking about the inner dialogue. Obviously you know about the "voice" inside your head that you "hear" when you are just thinking but not speaking (inner dialogue) (I put voice and hear in quotations because I understand that it is not technically auditory since it does not pass through the ears which is the source for interpreting sounds). I did ask myself, "Where does that 'voice' originate in the brain?" After watching your lecture on your studies and findings, I began to also think the inner dialogue may not originate from one specific area of the brain, per se (as you pointed out so lovely), but rather a systematic function between the different structures of the brain. However, I then wanted to expand on my thoughts by asking could the inner dialogue originate in other areas of the brain (outside of what your studies have found) depending on the situation that is present for the individual (emotional thoughts (limbic system), stress thoughts (HPA Axis), high functioning thoughts (frontal lobe), etc.)? Do you think there may be some truth to the inner dialogue not originating from just one area (a systematic function) especially since our brain has almost 100 billion neurons and close to 10,000 connections each? And lastly, is there a link between the inner dialogue and consciousness? I am interested in your thoughts? Thank you!
My lay understanding from having researched is that it’s about movement from the sensory cortices to the prefrontal cortex. I only have thoughts in words in my head, I have no other sensory experience personally. You may find looking into aphantasia interesting. It’s a fairly new field of study.
I think you should check whether there's a connection between the inner voice experiment, and Libet experiments, because the way I experience it, there's a spontaneous usually mischievous and psychopathic voice and a system to negate that voice, the voiced literally debated
Dear slide presenters and web designers, please stop using blinding white backgrounds. Screens are not print. If you must print your slide deck, use your print options. ;)
PongoXBongo PXB, ow you see that is interesting as I have great difficulty reading dark background and much prefer the White backgrounds with dark text. I wonder if anyone has done a study on this as I have noticed many ppl in both camps? It might even be a genetic preference.
Funnily you often get the advice that you should use white to keep it "simple and professional". I always use very light grey hues though, since it's much easier on the eye
@@robinfantley6782 RF, since I wrote my comment I discovered I have an astigmatism in one of my eyes that gives slight double vertical lines (but not horizontal - weird). I suspect this might have something to do with my preferences. A lot of my work mates (we are all comp. sci. programming ppl) do prefer the dark with light aspect. Be well RF (especially with this C Virus floating around).
The most interesting question about thought is, "How is it generated?" Does it arise from a non-verbal (pre-verbal?) intuition that becomes "dressed up" in language by some process in the brain before you become aware of it? Or does it arise already dressed up in language? In any case, you do not know what your next thought will be until it pops into your head. The idea of "agency" in this process is highly questionable in my opinion.
Interesting question regarding agency. I guess it kind of depends on what you identify with as yourself. I have experienced thought in the sense of contemplation that was not attached to words. Plus, I expect that most people who've played sports requiring very fast reflexes - tennis, sparring - have had their body react in an intelligent way before they were able to think about what was happening. In the latter case, it felt as if my body was its own separate entity.
We have thoughts at a fraction of a second which is to fast for or conscious mind. There must be a "decision-making process" that determines which of those thoughts will be ones that we become conscious of and enter monologue (whether that is in language or something else). I've never heard of such a process in neuropsychology. It would still be "you" bit the subconscious "you".
Years ago I was lying on my bed inhaling nitrous oxide and in the quiet I heard a conversation. I realized the conversation was in my head and started listening. Then one voice said, “Shhh he heard us,” and they stopped talking.
What about the concept of a ‘higher’ self? It seems from my perspective that I often have a thought and then there is usually a secondary, contradictory thought or addition to that thought which then spurs on other thoughts that kinda go back and forth to the original thought to try to work out if said original thought is valid or worth further entertaining/storing. I also wonder if people who have done various psychedelics might have more consciousness surrounding meta-cognition. Personally, after my experience with psychedelics I’ve found that I am much more aware of this internal dialogue/ various layers of thoughts/ the river of thoughts that are continuously happening.
I found myself pausing the video so I could say out loud to Mr. Fernyhough how much I could relate to what he was saying. I've had the creepy experience of hearing my name called in a loud whisper just as I was dozing off to sleep. I've wondered if auditory hallucinations were caused by bodily processes bubbling up through the brain into consciousness - like Scrooge's bit of undigested beef.
One thing that fascinates me is when my voices would say stop talking when I was just thinking. I would tell them that I was not talking, but thinking. That it was not the same as speaking. They would completely ignore me when I said that, but later continued to judge me for thinking. I would give them examples of what is was like thinking and speaking. They would stay quiet, but then they would continue to press me to stop thinking. With time, what I learn is that the part of my brain that was in destructive mode, wanted to create stress and anxiety so it would record it in my nervous system, so when this force in my brain wanted to induce anxiety and stress in me, it already have as part of memory.
I find that deliberate auditory thoughts, whether being internal dialogue or being some other sound, can be anywhere on the scale from planned/controlled, to with a bit more effort being improvised with minimal input, in other words being surprising.
If someone who was born deaf has auditory hallucinations, I wonder how they register and interpret that speech as language, having never heard the association b/t sound and words. Any thoughts/explanations on this?
luvisacigarette8 I've been wondering the same thing, would it instead be language through visual things? Such as pictures, actions etc. like what if their "sound" is visual...
luvisacigarette - The research I've seen is in alignment with logic of a developing brain. People who were BORN deaf aren't capable of auditory hallucinations, because the auditory system never developed. It would be like going to a house where all the wires for electricity are present but they were never connected to the individual outlets and switches. The brain will repurpose the neurons that would have been have been used to build the auditory system. When a baby is born they have capacities, the more stimulus they receive the greater the development of a particular sensory system. By the time a child reaches three, neurons that haven't found "a job" are pruned and die.
I had always wondered similarly...when I think to my myself, I hear my own voice speaking to me internally. What does a person with no hearing function perceive when they do same?
Interesting, then, that I seem to have two streams of consciousness. When they are both going, one of them is specifically using speech, the other is a more abstract process that acts as a guide, dialogue partner, or is specifically aware of how the speech side is thinking. For example, if I'm thinking about something, sometimes I become aware of the string of thoughts I'm having, separately, while having them. It's hard to be accurate when describing this, as that second stream of consciousness is very abstract, never using words, only thinking raw thought. The speech side will shut down any time I'm listening to speech, and if I start to use the speech side, I can no longer pay attention to whomever is talking. When I'm playing videogames, I'll often be using only the abstract side during the more intense moments, and the speech side will come back when I have to specifically work something out. It's also why I have a hard time doing something that requires logical thought if there is any speech going on outside of my head. It's also why I have a hard time speaking over someone in a conversation, as I can't speak if I'm using that part of the brain to listen (that's my understanding anyway).
I used to hear voices in my head, one specific one was that of a woman I met while working at a sandwitch shop. The voice would sound like her voice. I would hear her at random times for more than a decade. After a while I started believing that they were talking to someone else and for some reason I was overhearing, but it was never a conversation, just a word or a sentence. I don't believe that my mind was making it up. I've had so many unusual experiences that I can't be so dismissive about this. I'll go even further and suggest that there are a type of people that can communicate with others without the person being aware that they are having a conversation with someone else.
I cannot say I've experienced expanded inner speech beyond thinking of how to communicate what I want to say/type. When looking up the term "expanded inner speech", several places said this was mostly used when thinking intently about a problem. When I think intently, I do not think in words, I think in images. The longer and more intently that I think on the same problem, the more detailed the images become. At some point I'm working with a many dimensional image that has no analog in the real world. I can get some pretty bizarre images. They're always static, in that they don't visually move, but they can still have "movement" in that I can see interactions without having to animate the interactions. The interactions are implicit from the many-dimensionality of the image I am perceiving. It gets stranger yet. As I manipulate the image, it's like I can simultaneously see all of the interactions changing at the same time, new interactions being created and prior interactions going away. This allows me to make logical changes without having to step through everything. Once I am happy with the solution I have created with the image, I then have to set down the arduous path of converting that image into language in order to explain Converting the image in my head to something concrete can take awhile, but I can generally solve complex novel issues very quickly with this method. There is a few downsides. I've used this method all of the time since as far back as I can remember. It has a lot of overhead. It takes a long while to initially create these images in my head, making me slower for simple issues. The benefit doesn't really show until the problem to be solved is beyond a certain complexity. Another is that it can burn me out very quickly. In a one hour stretch of intense thinking, I can be spent for the rest of the day, barely capable of forming coherent sentences without a few mistakes or having a "brain fart", difficultly walking and pretty much anything spatially involved.
Benjamin Cronce thank you for elucidating your inner experiences. This topic is exceptionally fascinating to me. I have a very deep relationship with the inner workings of my brain.
Hey! This sounds fascinating. I can imagine a multidimensional image in the sense of prodding some aspects of a scene in my head. I can push a change or an event to a new localised pocket of "3d space" which can be expanded and explored. In essence, exploring 3d slices of an n-dimensional space. I don't do this type of thinking often as it can get incoherent and messy, but I'm interested in a practical example where you apply this mental imaging technique!
As a youngster I realized that the words in my head were preceded by images. Those images were again preceded by a feeling. Not an emotion, but a feeling. So the feeling comes first and eventually ends up as an internal dialogue. I also observe in myself an internal dialogue that is not outspoken to myself, and another one that is outspoken to myself. At some point, I can decide to "outspeak" it to myself when it is not yet outspoken. This is all still all internal. When I have to perform a difficult task, I have to coach myself and only then I give voice to the dialogue and other people can hear me. Dear Charles Fernyhough, I miss some depth in the sense that it all boils down to neurology in your approach. What warrants that that is the only way to look at it? I see a bias there. What is thought? What is awareness? An interesting angle here would be to go back to the story of the tower of Babylon, and that that was the time when people could no longer understand each other. According to Emmanuel Velikovsky that had to do with the influence of Mercury, the god - or the principle - that has to do with communication. Interesting to ponder about that and see where that may lead. To come back to my first statement: Some years ago, I read somewhere: "Images come before words, and feelings come before images". (Exactly as I had concluded myself as a youngster) "If we forget about the feelings that precede the images and if we forget the images that precede the words, communication becomes very difficult". Mr. Charles, try to see what I wrote as a whole. perhaps it gives you some food for thought, or better, some food for imaging, or better still, some food for feeling. I believe Descartes blinded us when he said: "I think, therefore I am". It is very one-sided. He could also have said: "I perceive, therefore I am" or: "I feel, therefore I am". Oh, and there is this too: I read somewhere that the American indians said: "White man is crazy - he thinks thoughts come from the head. Everyone knows that they come from the heart". Please chew on all this a bit and look inside yourself first.
There's a whole spectrum from just being aware and present with no thoughts or impressions or images to outward social speech with all the variants mentioned in the presentation more. I wish he would have included pure awareness. All thought and speech arises from it.
Agreed, i feel a big part of my inner experience is missing from that presentation. I noticed that the main time I experience inner speech is when I want to express my thoughts to someone else. So the beeper experiment would probably light up my inner speech because of the need to express myself in written or spoken form.
i imagine athena maybe got that question from her father "what are you doing?" what sort of conversations could you influence in a child by starting it off in life of with different questions? what spectrums could we see?
I agree, maybe the source of inner voice inside our head is what we hear as children. Maybe even some of the tyrannical things like "you should have done this"
I speak 5 languages and speak to myself constantly, as well as translate everything in any given language , I do it as an intellectual exercise as well as self entertainment... speaking to mysel has always been my thing ,,,after all I love myself...most natural awareness
Sometimes, after I have seizures, for up to a couple days when I'm talking to whoever is with Me, My speech is more like the thoughts or internal dialog out loud. As I consider an answer, I'll talk thru it to Myself outloud. I find this video interesting since I'd like to find some neurological study groups to volunteer for. ... I'm not Sarah, I am on her phone tho and She is the one usually with Me while I'm " thinking out loud while trying to converse. She's quite a patient and nice person.
I'm thinking religion, as a setting of behavior and world view, plays a huge part in it. If someone has a strong religious background, maybe the voices and visions will be very influenced by their values, manifesting in the shape of what they believe, in the codes they understand and value.
My dad still does it and he's 72. He's always done, and funny enough he doesn't KNOW he's doing it. We used to tell him he did it, and he didn't believe us, until we set up a tape deck (this was a LONG time ago) and recorded him working. It's funny he doesn't think he does it.
Thankyou Charles.listening to this again after being through a fairly severe PTSD experienced has helped to put the inner dialogues into.perspwctive.i had forgotten about the hearing voices association,will look for the app if it is still available.
Most of inner speech is tied to a brain network called the Default Mode Network, which is commonly referred to as the "ego" of even "superego" ...here inner speech is often tied to thinking about other people; we carry representations of other people who in a sense become the "superego" by which our "ego" is concerned about = inner speech, or even a dialogue between these superegoic representations as others.
I get ideas and thoughts, but not words that see or hear, unless I am purposely thinking, I.e, not doing anything but focusing on that thought process. I always figured inner voice meant the ideas floating through, but it sounds like people actually have sounds they hear in conversation format, weird to me. I have had a few random auditory hallucinations usually murmurs or calling out hey etc and when very tired or about to sleep. I wonder how many people who don’t hear in their head also have aphantasia (don’t see images, or low images in head when thinking etc?), or if my interpretation of inner speech because I feel I am not literally hearing voices is actually the same as someone else but they describe it as voices?
When i was 17, I learned that most people think this way. My teacher sat me down to figure out why my essays were just a stream of conclusions and we realized that we each had a completely different mode of thinking. After that, I taught myself to use language to slow my thoughts. But I don't recommend it if you're getting along fine now; sometimes it gets out of hand and makes it harder to fall asleep
Finally, It's nice to know that we are all the same. However some of us are more Tuned-In than others. I truly believe that we all have precognition (knowing what's going to happen before it does.)
One way to simplify the answer you are looking for is to call the voices : tones in charge of certain behaviors and /or actions. Kind of a file for relatable thoughts to intentions.
Taking resting state data in the experiment with the beeps is really clever. It actually made me think of the practice of recording audio "silence" for a few seconds to get the background noise profile of the recording space for later procedural removal in the audio post-production environment. How neat! 🤓
From about 12:00 to 12:50 he displays a revised diagram showing transition from social speech to private speech to internal speech and arrows back from inner to private speech. I would have added addition arrows from private speech back to social. If a person is engaging in private speech and they are interrupted by someone entering the room or moving closer or responding to the private speech there are two possible reactions. They may apologize for being too loud and then retreat back to inner speech, or they may apologize for not including the other person and convert to social speech. (or they might not apologize but an apology is a common method of alleviating the embarrassment caused by having been discovered talking to oneself in a society where that is thought of as a bit crazy.)
I speak 2 languages fluently. I suppose I could improvise a dialogue in those 2 languages, or I could improvise an inner dialogue in 1 of those languages, yet I do not do that. I do not have an inner dialogue. I have an inner monologue. I am not thinking in sentences in the brain to anyone. I am, simply, thinking in sentences, thinking a story, thinking of a problem, thinking up replies to people I've been communicating with. Yet, I am never thinking those conversations as talking to another person. I am, simply thinking in sentences. And I do not hear any voices either. I am not hearing myself. I am, simply, generating thoughts put into words and sentences.
It would be very interesting if you did the same studies for your theories in the east or other places on the planet where there are war zones and individuals had not been subjected to ad - mass materialistic values, just a inner thought. Big things have very small beginnings.
I usually think visually, and only resort to speech to allocate memory when time constraints force me to lose the critical focus required to think visually. Sound takes on the format of melodic music without words. My inner speech is loudest when I am anxious or in need of approval. When I came to terms with what I know and what I don't, and literally embraced the idea that seeing is believing, my inner voice almost completely became irrelevant. It becomes a very extroverted form of expression when people, ideas, or philosophy puts constraints on my perspective.
I spend alot of time alone after work and i constantly talk to myself in my head and never physically say a single word and it weirds me out but think its interesting
It is my experience that one can actually create auditory hallucinations through the protocols found in 'Tulpamancy.' When I say my experience, I mean I personally engaged the protocols to determine if I could have experiences similar to other people who have also pursued creating a 'tulpa.' I was successful. The protocols, in essence, was repetitiously rehearsing a dialogue between self and 'other' until it became automatic. It is more than that, one also assigned a concept of mind, and list attributes that this other has, and in effect, after a certain threshold of engagement, 'other' comes online- for lack of a better term.
@D R Curiosity, mostly. Hypothetically, if a healthy mind can create auditory hallucinations through protocols, could someone who has uncontrolled hallucinations learn this skill to decrease negative experiences from mental health? That would make this protocol very useful. It corelates also to Jung's Active Imagination, technique, which allowed him to help his clients become more in tune with their subconscious mind, interacting with it in real time. Author Napoleon Hill, author of the book "Think and Grow Rich," offered the 'Invisible Counselors' technique, chapter 13, which again, is a variance of this protocol. If anyone can engage this process without the use of substance, I would recommend this over ayahuasca, or DMT. CE5, prayer, these techniques- they may be the same thing.
I remember the very first thought that came to my mind. I was held by someone in a hall was and suddenly I felt a claud cleared from my head and I discovered “Me” and I thought “This is me!” And felt so so happy, and after that referred to that moment as: “..since I know my self”. I believe I was about 8 or 9 months old. And yes I do remember some things from that time.
It's curious when I pay attention to my thoughts that they are very inconsistent. Only a surface layer. Something like the way light reflects patterns on the outside of a soap bubble.
I read a personal essay in the New Yorker about talking to oneself. The author wrote that his wife told him “like most people,” she NEVER talked to herself, and I literally didn’t understand. How did other people think? I wondered. It turned out that he meant OUT LOUD.
I have a history of psychosis. I was hearing voices over a decade ago. I had a long and hard recovery and since have done consciousness/unconciousness work. I also have a history of hearing loss. I often have experiences that seem paranormal or 6th sense. I wonder if they are telepathic, remote viewing, psychic or clairvoyant, empathic, telepathic at long distance. I also don't know if these experiences are purely my perception or maybe even mental illness, and only my internal conversation is elevated. I experience "synchronicities" often. 10 or more times a day. Sometimes I am paranoid my experience is humanmade, as the experiences seem far too coincidental. This experience sucks and I can't turn it off. I also suspect if my experience is truly 6th sensed that others experiencing psychosis, schizophrenia etc. also have elevated capacities for these conciousness experiences. I also am in doubt that the spuritual psychology stuff is real, like telepathy, though I am beginning to believe more often. I just don't understand the experience I am having or discerning what it is or how to be responsible with this experience. I also feel or sense being extremely powerful with this experience. I did not know Mel had this experience in the movie and believe it or not, moments before Mel was reintroduced in this video it crossed my mind to refer to him as I was typing this. Maybe the speaker mentioned a que that I unconciously picked up on......
@Andy Matteo If you think you have capabilities it means you do. You limit yourself when you place belief that something cannot be real. If you look at the sentences you wrote it will indicate this. Only a fraction of the population will ever know what 'elevated capacities' are. Meaning the pure act of discovery of the phenomenon points to an ability to have it. All Telepathy is present in the lives who know about it. Not one present life displays telepathy without prior exposure to it. Go to tree, they are easier to talk to. Old Druid. They use to communicate through trees. Celtic legends talk about it. Spiritual Psychology is real to a degree. The Spiritual is real the psychology of it cannot be understood by those who have not lived or are in a Spiritual life. They can claim about the inner origins of the mind using machines and tests and some fraudlent based science but they which prostitute their mind out to machines will never understand or yeild the ability to comprehend the mind world view to prove to themselves that they know nothing about the Spiritual Self for they worship machine more than they worship their own minds.
My very pedestrian way of looking at this goes as follows: Everything that is going on in our consciousness is a creation of the massive virtual machine that has is sections to visual, auditory, tactile, and sensory productions. What we call 'perceiving' is actually just giving material to the virtual machine so that the images created correspond to the reality of the outside world so that it serves our existence. Pictures are created feature by feature as the neural flow goes from visual cortex to visual cortex (and back again). We can see very real things with our eyes closed. The machine is good at what it does. Equally, the auditory material is processed so that a simulation of it is created in the auditory area. Did you know that you actually have to LEARN to hear sounds? In the Japanese language, there is no 'r'. Late learners mix it with 'l' so that 'next slide please' becomes 'next ride reese'. The machine's syntax cannot handle the 'l'. So if we hear our inner talk, there is a malfunction somewhere probably in the dopaminergic system that helps us to understand the difference from 'calibrated' information with relevance to the outside world versus the content that it creates independently. Like what happens in delusions and hallucinations related to disease states and intoxications. The only world we have access to is an image created by our brain. We mistake it for reality. That's the problem.
Does anyone has several levels of inner speech? I have a main one, but in the background I am thinking other stuff. If I concentrate I can access at least three levels. But mostly I just use one and a second one to think about things I have to do or want to do, while the primary is concentrated in the task, For example right now I am thinking in what I am answering here and in the background I am thinking what I am going to do after I finish writing this.
Working as an academic, writer and storyteller, my life is very much about words, yet I find that when it comes to the “stream of consciousness” aspect of thinking, or just everyday life thoughts, I do not generally feel like I am thinking in words or sentences. Words are what I am using to attempt capture something which exists more as existing or emerging patterns and intutions about connections between these patterns. They’re mental images in the neurological sense, not necessarily visual images although it can be - it includes any aspect of sense memory, but also has emotional value and at times a conceptual or structural component, which tends to be more felt than explicit. Writing I often know something is coming - into consciousness first and then in translation words - I know the direction of it, I intuit it’s bearing, tone and direction and perhaps what it is a response or reaction to, but words are generally downstream. I said translation but it’s partly inaccurate. Translation is deliberate and consciously selective, which is a process of word usage that’s pretty far downstream from the initial coming into words. There is a preconscious selectivity that I rely on. Going by the stream of consciousness thing, I can go down that stream with words as they happen and pursuing or not pursuing associations as they speed by. I consider that raw material, and the most important part of it. It has inherent selectivity. It is a voice from a perspective BUT it exists before the words and my thinking is THAT not the words. As I sit here, years of experience guides and shapes language on the page, but I am pretty far gone in a world of concepts and in trying to recall the feeling of semi-oblivious creationg. My thoughts are generally not words, except if I am thinking about what to say or write and thus working with a word component. ANd the things that I feel like I have to capture in creative or generative writing is essentially NOT about words because there is too much there to narrate. Clearly what is said about anything represents a selection driven by some impulse, intuition, urge or even a desire to manipulate something. If I enter a mental marketplace as ME different things will stand out in experience than if I am there as say a child character. The selection is character. The selection is theme. The selection comes from the need or motivation that drives the plot or that life situation. Long story short I find that while language may come easily when I am in the middle of the mainly sensory, emotional, divergent stream, and there is great pleasure in squeezing it out with a feeling of precision or strong evocation of that which is important to experience BUT generally “wording”l, when it comes from there (and not functional, technical, codified, functionalistic language of which there appear to be as endless of a boring supply as there are boring people in administration and souldestroying amounts of boring written files about stuff) is work. IT is heavy lifting. It is something that risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater in the very act of naming it. It is a secondary aspect of initial thought and feeling. I always felt like I sensed or intuitively knew more about people and situations than could be easily put into words or even more into acceptable words. I think we all remember being a child and knowing that there was stuff you’d be unable to explain to adults, so you just gave up trying and took the rap or whatever. It’s kind of a lonely place to be. I sometimes speculate that a large portion of my life has been devoted to putting things into words that I felt lonely about seeing or understanding. In making THAT relatable, maybe I feel like I am making myself understood, where I would sometimes feel alienated or lost in the rush of everyday experience. Writing for me is an act of remembering and asserting that which would be otherwise invisible and consequently - forgotten. But it is not words first. Whenever it is, real writing dries up fast, reproducing itself with no connection to deeper drives or emerging truths. It’s just formal coding at that point. Staring at a page as if it holds the answer. Toying with words rather than foundational, experiential premises. An analytic rational exercise hoping to eke out relevance, but never transcending itself. I do not hear voices either btw. If anything I feel characters as some kind of vibe or attitude with a certain feel. I taught myself to draw at a young age, and when shaping characters I would always somehow feel them them first. See them in my minds eye. Their attitude, their expressions their behaviour and body style and how this was evidence of or an extension of their personalities and motivations and assumptions about the world. This might dictate how they spoke, if they did, but also, I think, downstream from what they just WERE. As I write this, I am realising that maybe I partly did in answer to a perceived challenge for me in feeling as natural with written characters as I would with drawn ones. Ironic how one can spend an entire life on words mainly because of all the things that are NOT words.
I have so many questions! I visualize way way more than I ever speak or hear. I’m also fluent in American sign language and all words have a picture in my head.
Some people gave no inner monologue at all, some can't visualise (aphantasia). Some people don't have either! There's videos about it on RUclips. It is fascinating.
I doubt that. My brother thinks with internal monolouge and has ordinary level of imagination. I have hyperfantasia and my inner monologue almost non existent. I only think in visuals and emotions. There should be a genetic predisposition to forming an internal monologue. We grew up in the same family but our information processing works differently
At 20:23, you did avatar dialogue where your voice speaks through you. It is a common experience. What to look for when you see others do it is, spontaneous, third person language, different voice tones, different mannerisms, and the human has no clue it happened. As for your daughter's invisible friend, that is her voice speaking through to her human explaining how the human world works. If you have question on how the voices, a.k.a. avatars, work, see my blog. Thanks for the talk.
I have studied this with myself and for me, it seems that I get the thought then say it to myself in my head but it doesn't have to be said. I have been working on just settling for the first impulse thought before I put it into words to myself. I find myself doing it but soon I am talking my thoughts in my head again but it isn't really needed.
💚❤ Quantum Mechanics plays a role in the process of speech. As far as "hearing voices" I think Understanding Auditory Verbal illucinations on a deeper level would go far. Progress has been made but more could be done. More depth breadth and understanding needs to be applied to these topics. ❤💚
I'm curious to know whether people born deaf who hear voices can understand what they're saying. More importantly, how does this internal process develop in those born deaf, or in those who for other reasons don't develop language?
Just out of curiosity, do you have perfect pitch or better than average musical recall (as best you know) ? Do you create or perform music or are you more just a listener ?
That you have no internal voice is fascinating to me. My inner voice is fantastic in helping me go through anything from personal issues to work challenges (I'm a researcher). Back when I was a student, talking to myself was a great way to make sure I understood concepts, etc. So like you, I can't even imagine how weird it mush be to not have an internal dialogue.
I'm perfectly happy without noise in my head. I have thoughts too,just not with words,they are just a feeling...more abstract..with more visual aspects. No language.
@@torokgigi7807 When you read, you don't "hear" the words in your mind? I mean, even if you experienced reading as though you were watching a movie, wouldn't you hear the characters speaking?
@@torokgigi7807 This is fascinating. I wish I knew what to ask you so I could understand how you think, but I'm so used to words in my head that I don't even know where to begin. Oh, one thing... Do you remember your dreams? Do you have conversations in them? With or without words? I hope you don't mind my curiosity, but this really is interesting.
Children are programmed by evolution to learn at a phenomenal speed so they try things out repeatedly that an adult would find boring because the child is building up its database of actions and responses so it can improve its ability to predict and control ie it is calibrating its actions. So when a child talks to itself, that talking is exercising the system, giving the opportunity to further refine the utterances and the ability to produce sentences to utter. The fact that there may be no one there to listen is irrelevant, the system needs exercise in order to develop and refine it. Later those refinements will be tested in actual communication with another person, leading to adjustments where the refinements are wide of the mark. Try to take a child away from the frantic learning experience and you will provoke a hostile reaction because they are programmed to learn rapidly. I think this is why they wake up early full of excitement, and resist going to bed.
I asked my friend, who is deaf, who does her inner voice sound like is she can’t hear? And her answer was: she sees it like a type writer in her head. Isn’t that just neat?! I hear different voices/accents, depending on what I’m thinking about
When my mother (who can see and hear) reads, she doesn't have any imagery or sounds in her mind. She says she sees the words streaming in a mental space behind her eyes
Anyone ever have a dream where your talking to someone and the other person says a hilarious joke that you never heard before? That's the moment I was both impressed by the dream world and also incredibly frightened
Kinda, but more frustrating. Thirty years ago, when I was writing and selling jokes, I would occasionally wake up laughing at a hilarious joke, write it down on my notepad. In the morning, the note was sooo prosaic and 100% not funny. I would have written something like "kitchen sink" or "loaf of bread."
Alan Bregović Hey ... I read the majority of your comment and think to myself “yep, gotta igmore the voices and do what I have to do. After all we are adults and have to be responsible.” I reflect in that moment how motivation works etc. ... then BAME, I get to the end .... WAIT WHAT!?!? 😬 This is actually a great comment. Thanks!
I have several times, when waking up, "heard" three knocks on the door; but the three knocks have different pitches, which is impossible if they were real knocks. On one of these occasions, I also dreamed of a crowd of kids, and "heard" them all talking at once, which was a confused murmur rather than anything I would call speech.
I've thought about this because I spend a lot of time by myself. What am I supposed to do stop thinking? People say if you talk to yourself that makes you crazy.. that only children have imaginary friends and that's normal but when you grow up you need to stop or else you're insane.. that's stupid.. is your mind supposed to go blank if you're alone? Is that normal? Also, it's funny I'm more talkative when I'm alone and I'm pretty quiet around other people. Because my whole life it seems like all other people ever do is judge me and make me feel bad no matter what I say so I don't like talking to them. So when I'm around really talkative people usually I'm quiet and they're really talkative. But im not talking back to them. So now it's interesting because are they talking to themself? If I'm not responding and they just go on talking isnt that the same as being alone and pretending someone is there listening? They're pretending I'm listening.. their mind is wandering and they're vocalising their thoughts.. same thing that I do when I'm alone.. these are the kinds of things I think about when I'm around other people and they're talking and I'm not..
I don’t hear voices outside my head, I hear the voice inside my head and I’m aware that it’s my own voice , it thinks randomly for me, it chooses what to throw at me randomly too
I have the longer internal dialogue and argue with myself alot and sometimes when I'm on my own I have heard some one call my name or say something that I didn't quite catch also if I think of a sentence or phrase someone says I can hear it in their voice the brain is amazing I also have a gender issue and when I'm feeling feminine my internal voice turns feminine too and the interesting bit is I very Rarely talk to myself out loud but when I was riding my motorbike everyday with the helmet on being closed in and sound dampened I found myself talking out loud to myself quite often I also have full conversation with the cat internal and out loud just thought I'd share in case you find it interesting
Soviet psycholinguists' (Vygotsky's, Luria's and Kolcova's) ideas about evolution of consciousness in humans and development of consciousness in toddlers are both profound and under-appreciated in the Western world. I honestly wish that some of Vygotsky's methodology was used in the more mainstream study of human consciousness. Unfortunately in the philosophy of contemporary Cognitive Science there appear to be 2 extremes: One where the term "consciousness" is used as a collective term for everything that happens in the human brain (such as Glasgow's Consciousness Scale), and another, - where consciousness is defined as an extremely narrow process, such as for example Julian Jaynes's "knowing that I know" or "awareness of awareness". In my opinion, it would be more objective to study social, developmental and linguistics aspects of consciousness during the cortical pruning stage through direct observation, with a heavy emphasis on social aspect, which is precisely the route early Soviet psycholinguists have taken. Vygotsky's main achievement was demonstration of just how indispensable early linguistic instructions are to the normal development of consciousness in infants, and the role of internalised language in our ability to form "complex concepts" or words without referents like "mass", "volume", "velocity" and so on.
This is great. I don't know if anyone else has noticed that US English is what seems like, New speak from 1984 and I find it really worrying because without vocabulary, it's well nigh impossible to think in the abstract, which, of course, was exactly what the Ministry of Truth was doing in Orwell's book. I have developed a bad habit of commenting before I have watched the whole program but I think it's because I am experiencing 'Senior Moments' lol, which makes me think I'll forget what I wanted to say.
I met a person who spoke 6 different languages. At one point I asked them which language their internal thoughts were in. Oddly enough, their answer was NOT their native language. I think they were as surprised as I was by that idea. Apparently, they had never really considered that before. They just heard the inner speech and processed like anyone would.
You think in the language that surrounds you the most at that time. As a German, who now lives in the US, and who also speaks other languages….I think in English because I have now lived over 10 years in a predominantly English speaking country
I don't speak 6 language but I can tell you the reason to speak in other languages that is not you native language is to practice conversations
Not anyone
I don't have an internal monologue.
I think only in visuals and emotions
People are different, more different than you imagine
I need a beeper to help me I a lot of evil Falllow me
I tend to switch languages, I found that when I need to make plans or very organized activities I think in english. Although some times I realize that I am using English for other random things, like music or inner discussions with other self points of views
I once took an extensive course in Vietnamese language. The sounds of the vowels, diphthongs, tripthongs, some of the consonants, and tones were so different from what we were used to in English that the first 2 weeks of class consisted of nothing more than listening to, and to some extent reproducing, those sounds. No actual words were taught; just the sounds. I began having dreams where 2 Asian men, dressed in black suits and bowler hats, were engaged in a dialogue, conversing at length in Vietnamese, although I still had not learned 1 word of Vietnamese. Their speech was very clear, but I understood very little of it. I mentioned this to a classmate and found out that most members of the class were experiencing the same thing, although the men might be dressed differently. I don't know if that relates to this subject in any way, but I was vividly reminded of it.
Did you master the viatnamese language?
Very interesting!!! So many people had dreams of 2 men in conversation ? Were the sounds you listened to presented by 2 mens voices?
The thing that happens to me is that I hear music in my head ALL DAY long. And I don't choose what it is. I *can* choose it, but it can spontaneously change. I wake up with a song in my head every morning. It might be something I'm listening to lately, but it doesn't have to be. I recall trying to do this when I was in 3rd grade. I couldn't afford the music I wanted and I trained myself to play it back for myself. It's gotten stronger and stronger as I've gotten older, to the point now that the music is nearly as audible as though I were hearing it for real. I don't know how common this is. Sometimes the song that manifests is some kind of clue to things that I ought to be paying attention to. And it'll stay in my head for days until I realize what it's telling me. Kinda creepy to be honest!
Me too
@@nlholla glad I'm not the only one.
I thought I was the only one. The majority of my songs are ones I've not heard recently. Every single morning. I rather enjoy it I never thought to try and strengthen or develop it. Interesting.
Did you not know God used to be a DJ when he was younger, maybe Jesus has been using his decks?
So, if you've got time, I got questions.
Does the music interfere with your day to day?
Is the music void of lyrics or include lyrics? If they include lyrics, is it a verse, chorus, or the entire song?
Are you a musician?
Can you control what you're listening to?
Do others in your family have the same 'condition'?
I have more questions.
I'm autistic and I have kept talking to myself. In my mind, I've usually pictured a person I knew as being the listener to what I was telling myself. As if I was trying to explain something to them.
I always retconned it as being speaking practice, due to my problems with speech, but honestly, I think I'm like the 5-year-old, just talking at someone whether they listen or not because it makes my thinking more focused to do so.
Incidentally, I don't experience a lot of internal speech unless I am barred from speaking out loud at work... And then I'm usually writing instead, as I am now.
Maybe you should picture a very lovely being that you don’t want to annoy so much with your continuous stream of speech
My brother is autistic (no actual diagnosis as he doesn't want one, but he is text book) and he does this. It can be very frustrating when I feel like he is using me as a sounding board. He lived with me for a while and would follow me around the house talking about complex computer issues that sounded like a foreign language to me. I suggested he journal or use the recorder on his phone because it got to the place where I couldn't hear my own thoughts anymore, but he never took the advice. I think it was compulsive for him. He will also write essay sized texts and send 12 at once....and they are basically his own inner dialogue. Sometimes he starts texting in the middle of his thoughts and provides no context, so I have no idea what he is talking about. I've finally realized that he is just gathering his thoughts and he really doesn't care if I'm listening, so that makes it easier. If I'm busy I just ignore the texts or put him on speaker so I can finish what I'm doing. I keep thinking there has to be an easier way though? You sound very self aware, but he doesn't seem to be aware of what he's doing at all...even though I've told him several times.
I talk to imagined people in my head all the time too. Usually it's someone I have a conflict with. I'm ADHD and kind of figure I'm practicing conflict resolution since I'm not great at that. Sometimes I'll mouth things and make hand gestures while driving down the road...I must look crazy! Lol!
@Emil Sørensen when you are think-talking to this other-person-as-audience, do they ever talk back, or is it only one way. I'm also autistic and I hardly ever talk to myself out loud (my thoughts only become voiced if it is something I feel very strongly about). I have internal monologue but never internal dialogue. I usually just imagine that I'm talking to myself but occasionally imagine that the audience is a friend of mine. I can't imagine her reply to what I think. I can't imagine a conversation in real time and usually can't imagine conversations even if given days or weeks to do so (except for rare instances where I can imagine a very short snippet of conversation between two people, neither of whom are me, or even real people).
when having to solve a problem or make a decision about something quite often if you put your own self-talk to one side then your own mind will suggest a solution to you, it can be amazing as you were never even thinking along those lines originally!
David interesting, I'll have to try that sometime .
That's interesting that our own thoughts can surprise us. Where are those thoughts coming from?
I have been experiencing an incredible amount of what you describe. I naturally have little knowledge about much of anything other than stone work, gardening and writing music.. but after experiencing a traumatic event and spending nearly a year alone and broken, I found myself knowing things that I wasn't even ever interested in knowing. I do not ever "hear" voices but I live in a state of constant knowledge reception. I have been taken over several times in what I can only describe as being a temporary host of some other mind or entity. I'm not religious but these "others" that consume my entirety for several days have given keys or clues maybe that have led to me reading the Bible as if it had a different purpose and meaning altogether. The drive to utilize the modern ability of "knowledge right now" google research, seems to be a reoccurring theme with some of these "possessors". I use that word because I am often 110% possesses by the knowledge flow. so much so that I have quit being a part of this weird world. not in a scary guy kinda way at all, I just moved to the country built a house and started a farm. to which now I am preparing for an easy life of writing books till I cannot type anymore.
knowledge comes to me out of the blue. Answers to questions I haven't asked but am always excited and greatful to know now.
seriously, this knowledge is awesome, it's never vague or wrong. ever. I am putting the knowledge to good work healing
people and pets. it's like I can read the issue the person/animal has, as clear as a billboard and it's usually always in the same mode of healing. helminth management/proper delivery systems for the cures.
I know things that could make some people billionaires and I know things that could have current billionaires likely lynched in the streets. .. but the visions and knowledge shares are always prompting me toward kindness and compassion. never once have I received a thought that was perverse or dangerous.
I know things about the human body and our microbiome that could literally save billions of lives and that is the subject of all the current flow of knowledge. I know that the real answer to the question leaving speaker (with respect) is found in the research of fringe scientists dedicated to unraveling of the amazing manipulative and influencial effects of our microbiome herd.
these protozoa and worms are, as revealed to me, the culprits of nearly all world health issues, diseases and (future) cures. for fun I now decypher old writings and can read code like it's written in crayon. only once did I even use a key. (lesser key of solomon). It took me all of 3 hours to uncover the rosacrucean secrets on accident really as I was looking into some bits of knowledge gleaned, regarding one cure for all cancers. I wouldn't make that up. it's the steam inhaled from the vinca rosea vine. or madagascar periwinkle as commonly known. it's what is used as primary ingredient in chemotherapy, only they missed one major part of the recipe, to inhale the vapors rather than inject copious amounts the toxins into the patients weak body. they are accidently doing it wrong and hurting people. cancer is all about an imbalance of the meat eater helminths 110% of the time. many cancers can be easily cured in less than a month with even less intrusive herbal vapors. this kills the life cycle of these pests and therefore ends heavy load of reproductive cancer causing cretins. OK I'm tired of writing now but I haven't even shared 5% here of the inventions and cool stuff that is happening to my mind and body after this amazing journey has started.
I don't get online much but if you are interested in a health revolution/curious how to transmute elements and other into gold/what is really happening in the human body/mind. text me 541 251 3690 Uriel
Because of the danger of growing up on fishing boats, I trained myself early on to not think with words, to quiet the mind, and abolish stream of consciousness. Observe and act...quickly!
@@SidekickSam24 They come from the devil. Don't listen to David. He's a satanist and he's trying to convert you!
Just kidding.
I speak three languages and get inner speech randomly in all three.
@LEVEL UP1000 Nope, you just think it's Chinese, if you knew for sure you'd have to understand (i.e speak) Chinese
But since you don't, you're just psychotic, nothing to worry about... much
@LEVEL UP1000 Have you heard a lot of Chinese somewhere?
@Chris W then lat do you know which language it is?
@Chris W how*
Bloody cool isn't it? 👍😉
I believe this is why multi lingual is so important! ... It opens our minds and our lives to think in other languages too
True. It's fascinating to use different concepts to describe the same thing. To see the similarities and differences between two languages.
Yes it definitely changes how you think when you're thinking in a different language
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This interests me because my son is autistic. It seems that he has trouble accessing and expressing language, but his vocalizations are like a “stream of consciousness.” He can understand language perfectly well. In fact, he knows multiple languages. Very interesting indeed.
Search about Dr. Temple Grandin. Her early childhood was similar.
I'm autistic, too. The autistic brain doesn't naturally do social stuff (including conversation). Any thoughts involving words will be monologue, or just a few sparse words. It takes time to learn how to use words in the way that most people do.
I often feel like much of the voices in my head.. well the ones that aren't heard by my inner ear as being in my own voice.. are just memories. Seems like echos of conversations I overheard, partially/vaguely overheard, or thought I overheard at some point in the past of my daily life.
Sometimes when I'm feeling really anxious, fearful, and/or ashamed, I feel like I'm hearing the thoughts of other people thinking badly about me. Those times are rough because even though I tell myself it's really just _me_ thinking badly about me, I can't stop reacting to it as if it is someone else's thoughts.
I've almost never heard an auditory hallucination that sounded clearly from outside of my physical body. I'm glad that is extremely rare. When that happens it goes beyond being an interesting or annoying oddity and becomes outright scary and disturbing!
That's very similar to what I experience. I always feel like those voices are judging me and it can become quite distressing. It can ultimately make me really ill, but never to the point of having hallucinations like schizophrenia. I talk to people with schizophrenia fairly regularly and discuss their experiences which is how I can tell the difference.
It happens when you use drugs , it opens something non physical that really does truly exist but we are not made to have powers and even if we had the choice to have these powers 90% of us would not want to be able to hear others thoughts or other beings in other dimensions , when you drug yourself you wrongfully open a dimension inside your head that you weren’t suppose to open because the soul has not prepared you mentally to handle it, so people go crazy because they open a gate where other identities can comunícate with you and only you because this is the magic of gods given consciousness.
I am a meditator. A part of my practice is to notice my inner conversation. This inner conversation gets in the way of directly experiencing life, in that it is a facsimile of life and not the actual natural experience.
It is a left brain activity that pulls me out of "Reality". Of course, inner dialogue is useful at times, but it shouldn't become the dominant experience, if one wants to live a peaceful and natural life.
Your comment is maybe too broad. Inner conversations may be problematic if people get "trapped" in set ways of thinking. Also it's problematic if the thoughts are negative or overly critical (of one's own self or of others or just in general) or overly distractible (taking a person outside of experience, so to speak).
Meditation can help suspend such thought patterns (which is beneficial) but it's not the inner conversation itself that's the barrier .... it's the nature of the inner conversation.
That beeper study sounds like a great way to improve self-awareness.
@Ummer Farooq how zo?
Yeah I would have loved to be a part of it
If my inner speech developed from the way adults spoke to me when I was a toddler, that explains quite a bit.
Jason Brunet especially in a traumatic assault in dysfunctional house....🤔
This guy repeated everything he said at least four times.
@@jermsbestfriend9296 repetition leads to mastery, or ocd
@@jermsbestfriend9296 so that the message he wishes to convey is received the way he intended.
It explains everything. Its the key to understand social fear as well.
I can only recall hearing a voice once and it was just one word. It was my own voice shouting "Here!" from the bathroom 15 meters away from me after I had talked aloud to myself saying "where are my keys?" I didn't know I knew where I had left them. They were in the bathroom
wtf that's terrifying
yep clairaudience
I question that. How can anyone have a thought without language happening in the brain. It's not that you don't have voices, it';s just you are unaware of them.
Funny..its true...
I remember a thought process i had when i was 3 or 4 and that thought process lacked words and was a fully grown adults mentality...much more knowledgeable than i was and it was observing and concerned about what i was doing. When i think about where that thought process came from i can recognize it as being the exact same thought process that exsists within my mind today. It doesnt age. Maybe my conscience itself..the difference is that now there are many many more of these thought processes that exist within my mind, some are helpful some are hurtful.
very interesting talk...
I'm deeply introverted... I spend more time in my life talking in my head than to other people.
I have a question. Does the voice in your head sound little? Almost like it's in the back of your head?
@@enochannor6550 just above my ears and a little forward is where I hear my inner voice. I describe it as me. Though it's by definitely not like my physical voice. Good question. The back of your head is where the visual cortex is. I would describe myself as as introverted as well. Sorry for butting in.
@@angelinarobert622 does it change accent according to the accents of characters in movies/books/tv that you'vec recently watched/read?
@@angelinarobert622 when I binned Orange is the new black I had all the accents of the main characters and it was so confusing doing something simple like cooking breakfast and my thoughts slipping and sliding into a range of American accents (I'm Australian).
Sophie Vasiliadis Actually that is how people process new language to assimilate into their conscience. I'm gonna sound nuts but hear me out..
Might I recommend trying to find shows with a deeper message than that putrid show? Have you watched Buffy The a vampire Slayer at all? The show is so rich and complex your subconscience and your conscience brain can feed on each episode and each season in ways that would shock the typical viewer. There are layers upon layers of personal growth that can be had by watching the characters grow and develop over the years. I discovered it as a middle aged housewife and found that I could identify with or recognize the characters in my own life. It allowed me to gain knowledge of people who drove me nuts and gives me a lot stuff to digest about my own reactions to things.
How can I tone down my inner speech ? I find myself engaged in conversation all the time, and it has several bad effects. 1. I miss what people around me say when I am not focusing specifically on them. 2. I can't fall asleep for most the time, as my inner voice will run off, most the time going on about things I done wrong in the past. So I have to fall asleep watching something etc... like this video.
You have to approach it with the attitude that you can accomplish this, that it is possible, that's first. Next is try to get behind your streams of speech and choose where exactly you want to take it, have the control over it, and believe that you can control what you think about. Random ideas will come often and naturally, but now youll have the power over them, you can cancel it or give power to it. But its your choice, you have the power, remember that.
Same here
Tell yourself that you'll come back to review/assess some of the stuff you've done, said or whatever, sometime later the coming week, or any time you'd want. It's time to switch off now and sleep. Priorities.
I'm sure your inner voice would significantly calm down; the subconscious aspect of you would create that space and let you be. Kind of like how people say affirmations, the difference is YOU being very clear about what you truly want.
I use ear plugs and then wear headphones to listen to a film or something on you tube to fall asleep ..sometimes when I've fallen asleep before what I'm listening to has finished the silence then wakes me up so I have to put something else on otherwise I'll be listening to myself reliving all kinds of stressful stuff
The reason you "talk to yourself" (even silently) so much is because you are such a good listener.
After having a MELAS syndrome stroke like episode in 2013. My inner voice ceased. It was the loniiest feeling.
The voices in my head didn't start until I was told to stop reading out loud and to read to myself.
Funny, because reading is one of the things that makes ppl master the inner voice.
Fortunally I realized this early, end up mastering by the age of 12 despise the fact I had no idea of what was the voice in my head aside from the fact that I had one.
Go figure....
Your experience makes perfect sense after watching the video. Reading to yourself is literally that. You recognize the words on the page as signifying speech sounds and you tell it to yourself
Great perception sir
Fascinating!
I self-talk frequently. I self-yell, aloud, at myself, usually when I do something that is not going the way I want. I even tell the items I touch in my tasks to help me to refocus, and get the job finished correctly. I do not self-condemn.
i also
Looks like a good cluster of routines to me.
You think 'self yelling' is not self condemning?
@@nataliebutler yes . The self yell is to be my own cheerleader.
@@nataliebutler
Natalie,
Correcting errors is good. Correcting your own errors is called winning You beat them.
This was such a great lecture! Okay, so in January (2023), I was independently thinking about the inner dialogue. Obviously you know about the "voice" inside your head that you "hear" when you are just thinking but not speaking (inner dialogue) (I put voice and hear in quotations because I understand that it is not technically auditory since it does not pass through the ears which is the source for interpreting sounds). I did ask myself, "Where does that 'voice' originate in the brain?" After watching your lecture on your studies and findings, I began to also think the inner dialogue may not originate from one specific area of the brain, per se (as you pointed out so lovely), but rather a systematic function between the different structures of the brain. However, I then wanted to expand on my thoughts by asking could the inner dialogue originate in other areas of the brain (outside of what your studies have found) depending on the situation that is present for the individual (emotional thoughts (limbic system), stress thoughts (HPA Axis), high functioning thoughts (frontal lobe), etc.)? Do you think there may be some truth to the inner dialogue not originating from just one area (a systematic function) especially since our brain has almost 100 billion neurons and close to 10,000 connections each? And lastly, is there a link between the inner dialogue and consciousness? I am interested in your thoughts? Thank you!
My lay understanding from having researched is that it’s about movement from the sensory cortices to the prefrontal cortex.
I only have thoughts in words in my head, I have no other sensory experience personally. You may find looking into aphantasia interesting. It’s a fairly new field of study.
I think you should check whether there's a connection between the inner voice experiment, and Libet experiments, because the way I experience it, there's a spontaneous usually mischievous and psychopathic voice and a system to negate that voice, the voiced literally debated
Dear slide presenters and web designers, please stop using blinding white backgrounds. Screens are not print. If you must print your slide deck, use your print options. ;)
"Genius", shut up and learn something.
PongoXBongo PXB, ow you see that is interesting as I have great difficulty reading dark background and much prefer the White backgrounds with dark text. I wonder if anyone has done a study on this as I have noticed many ppl in both camps? It might even be a genetic preference.
Funnily you often get the advice that you should use white to keep it "simple and professional". I always use very light grey hues though, since it's much easier on the eye
@@pspicer777 I prefer the dark w/light letters
@@robinfantley6782 RF, since I wrote my comment I discovered I have an astigmatism in one of my eyes that gives slight double vertical lines (but not horizontal - weird). I suspect this might have something to do with my preferences. A lot of my work mates (we are all comp. sci. programming ppl) do prefer the dark with light aspect. Be well RF (especially with this C Virus floating around).
Thank you for your work! I have tremendous admiration and gratitude for you and your colleagues!
The most interesting question about thought is, "How is it generated?" Does it arise from a non-verbal (pre-verbal?) intuition that becomes "dressed up" in language by some process in the brain before you become aware of it? Or does it arise already dressed up in language? In any case, you do not know what your next thought will be until it pops into your head. The idea of "agency" in this process is highly questionable in my opinion.
I think thought occurs too quickly for language or agency
Interesting question regarding agency. I guess it kind of depends on what you identify with as yourself. I have experienced thought in the sense of contemplation that was not attached to words. Plus, I expect that most people who've played sports requiring very fast reflexes - tennis, sparring - have had their body react in an intelligent way before they were able to think about what was happening. In the latter case, it felt as if my body was its own separate entity.
We have thoughts at a fraction of a second which is to fast for or conscious mind. There must be a "decision-making process" that determines which of those thoughts will be ones that we become conscious of and enter monologue (whether that is in language or something else). I've never heard of such a process in neuropsychology. It would still be "you" bit the subconscious "you".
Intent, perhaps?
Perhaps not dressed up, but clarified
At last a theory of mind that we all should be aware of all the time. Thank you
The voices in my head speak Spanish. I have no idea what the hell they are saying.
so learn Spanish
They are saying, "If you wish to continue in English, press one."
Yo quiero taco bell
La sigo queriendoooooo
God is Spanish ..?
Years ago I was lying on my bed inhaling nitrous oxide and in the quiet I heard a conversation. I realized the conversation was in my head and started listening. Then one voice said, “Shhh he heard us,” and they stopped talking.
Ahaha, good ol' no2. It's neat that you heard conversation. From what I recall of past experiences, I primarily heard very loud white/pink noise.
Hilarious..its real tho..
What about the concept of a ‘higher’ self? It seems from my perspective that I often have a thought and then there is usually a secondary, contradictory thought or addition to that thought which then spurs on other thoughts that kinda go back and forth to the original thought to try to work out if said original thought is valid or worth further entertaining/storing. I also wonder if people who have done various psychedelics might have more consciousness surrounding meta-cognition. Personally, after my experience with psychedelics I’ve found that I am much more aware of this internal dialogue/ various layers of thoughts/ the river of thoughts that are continuously happening.
meow meow that is the inner lord. Our lord and God. Ask and yee shall receive, seek and yee shall find.
@0oohnegative can you tell more about how you perceive your inner monologue? Do you have a blog or something?
I found myself pausing the video so I could say out loud to Mr. Fernyhough how much I could relate to what he was saying. I've had the creepy experience of hearing my name called in a loud whisper just as I was dozing off to sleep. I've wondered if auditory hallucinations were caused by bodily processes bubbling up through the brain into consciousness - like Scrooge's bit of undigested beef.
My mom feels the same... So I am here to know the reasons behind it...
One thing that fascinates me is when my voices would say stop talking when I was just thinking. I would tell them that I was not talking, but thinking. That it was not the same as speaking. They would completely ignore me when I said that, but later continued to judge me for thinking. I would give them examples of what is was like thinking and speaking. They would stay quiet, but then they would continue to press me to stop thinking.
With time, what I learn is that the part of my brain that was in destructive mode, wanted to create stress and anxiety so it would record it in my nervous system, so when this force in my brain wanted to induce anxiety and stress in me, it already have as part of memory.
I find that deliberate auditory thoughts, whether being internal dialogue or being some other sound, can be anywhere on the scale from planned/controlled, to with a bit more effort being improvised with minimal input, in other words being surprising.
If someone who was born deaf has auditory hallucinations, I wonder how they register and interpret that speech as language, having never heard the association b/t sound and words. Any thoughts/explanations on this?
luvisacigarette8 I've been wondering the same thing, would it instead be language through visual things? Such as pictures, actions etc. like what if their "sound" is visual...
You are correct, deaf people perceive language visually and 'mentally see' the signing actions.
Disembodied noises
luvisacigarette - The research I've seen is in alignment with logic of a developing brain. People who were BORN deaf aren't capable of auditory hallucinations, because the auditory system never developed. It would be like going to a house where all the wires for electricity are present but they were never connected to the individual outlets and switches. The brain will repurpose the neurons that would have been have been used to build the auditory system. When a baby is born they have capacities, the more stimulus they receive the greater the development of a particular sensory system. By the time a child reaches three, neurons that haven't found "a job" are pruned and die.
I had always wondered similarly...when I think to my myself, I hear my own voice speaking to me internally. What does a person with no hearing function perceive when they do same?
Interesting, then, that I seem to have two streams of consciousness. When they are both going, one of them is specifically using speech, the other is a more abstract process that acts as a guide, dialogue partner, or is specifically aware of how the speech side is thinking.
For example, if I'm thinking about something, sometimes I become aware of the string of thoughts I'm having, separately, while having them. It's hard to be accurate when describing this, as that second stream of consciousness is very abstract, never using words, only thinking raw thought. The speech side will shut down any time I'm listening to speech, and if I start to use the speech side, I can no longer pay attention to whomever is talking. When I'm playing videogames, I'll often be using only the abstract side during the more intense moments, and the speech side will come back when I have to specifically work something out. It's also why I have a hard time doing something that requires logical thought if there is any speech going on outside of my head. It's also why I have a hard time speaking over someone in a conversation, as I can't speak if I'm using that part of the brain to listen (that's my understanding anyway).
I used to hear voices in my head, one specific one was that of a woman I met while working at a sandwitch shop. The voice would sound like her voice. I would hear her at random times for more than a decade. After a while I started believing that they were talking to someone else and for some reason I was overhearing, but it was never a conversation, just a word or a sentence. I don't believe that my mind was making it up. I've had so many unusual experiences that I can't be so dismissive about this. I'll go even further and suggest that there are a type of people that can communicate with others without the person being aware that they are having a conversation with someone else.
the voice in my mind has a voice in its mind, all rather confusing
Tell them both to shut up.
Life goes on
infinite regress
@LEVEL UP1000 thats wat u think?come on mate
Hey youve got a fun & funny sense of humor ::: A sign of good mental health ...( it seems to me !)
Voices?
those guys are my friends!
@Stevo Devo how do you know they're not?
Friends and enemies and yourself
leave us, i mean, his friends alone
Its when they stop being your friends is when you are losing your mind.
Source: been there, done that
I cannot say I've experienced expanded inner speech beyond thinking of how to communicate what I want to say/type. When looking up the term "expanded inner speech", several places said this was mostly used when thinking intently about a problem. When I think intently, I do not think in words, I think in images. The longer and more intently that I think on the same problem, the more detailed the images become. At some point I'm working with a many dimensional image that has no analog in the real world.
I can get some pretty bizarre images. They're always static, in that they don't visually move, but they can still have "movement" in that I can see interactions without having to animate the interactions. The interactions are implicit from the many-dimensionality of the image I am perceiving.
It gets stranger yet. As I manipulate the image, it's like I can simultaneously see all of the interactions changing at the same time, new interactions being created and prior interactions going away. This allows me to make logical changes without having to step through everything. Once I am happy with the solution I have created with the image, I then have to set down the arduous path of converting that image into language in order to explain
Converting the image in my head to something concrete can take awhile, but I can generally solve complex novel issues very quickly with this method. There is a few downsides. I've used this method all of the time since as far back as I can remember. It has a lot of overhead. It takes a long while to initially create these images in my head, making me slower for simple issues. The benefit doesn't really show until the problem to be solved is beyond a certain complexity. Another is that it can burn me out very quickly. In a one hour stretch of intense thinking, I can be spent for the rest of the day, barely capable of forming coherent sentences without a few mistakes or having a "brain fart", difficultly walking and pretty much anything spatially involved.
Benjamin Cronce thank you for elucidating your inner experiences. This topic is exceptionally fascinating to me. I have a very deep relationship with the inner workings of my brain.
Hey! This sounds fascinating. I can imagine a multidimensional image in the sense of prodding some aspects of a scene in my head. I can push a change or an event to a new localised pocket of "3d space" which can be expanded and explored. In essence, exploring 3d slices of an n-dimensional space.
I don't do this type of thinking often as it can get incoherent and messy, but I'm interested in a practical example where you apply this mental imaging technique!
Try coconut oil, it's a good brain fuel
As a youngster I realized that the words in my head were preceded by images. Those images were again preceded by a feeling. Not an emotion, but a feeling. So the feeling comes first and eventually ends up as an internal dialogue. I also observe in myself an internal dialogue that is not outspoken to myself, and another one that is outspoken to myself. At some point, I can decide to "outspeak" it to myself when it is not yet outspoken. This is all still all internal. When I have to perform a difficult task, I have to coach myself and only then I give voice to the dialogue and other people can hear me. Dear Charles Fernyhough, I miss some depth in the sense that it all boils down to neurology in your approach. What warrants that that is the only way to look at it? I see a bias there. What is thought? What is awareness? An interesting angle here would be to go back to the story of the tower of Babylon, and that that was the time when people could no longer understand each other. According to Emmanuel Velikovsky that had to do with the influence of Mercury, the god - or the principle - that has to do with communication. Interesting to ponder about that and see where that may lead. To come back to my first statement: Some years ago, I read somewhere: "Images come before words, and feelings come before images". (Exactly as I had concluded myself as a youngster) "If we forget about the feelings that precede the images and if we forget the images that precede the words, communication becomes very difficult". Mr. Charles, try to see what I wrote as a whole. perhaps it gives you some food for thought, or better, some food for imaging, or better still, some food for feeling.
I believe Descartes blinded us when he said: "I think, therefore I am". It is very one-sided. He could also have said: "I perceive, therefore I am" or: "I feel, therefore I am". Oh, and there is this too: I read somewhere that the American indians said: "White man is crazy - he thinks thoughts come from the head. Everyone knows that they come from the heart". Please chew on all this a bit and look inside yourself first.
Why does your comment not have more likes? Thank you!
There's a whole spectrum from just being aware and present with no thoughts or impressions or images to outward social speech with all the variants mentioned in the presentation more. I wish he would have included pure awareness. All thought and speech arises from it.
Agreed, i feel a big part of my inner experience is missing from that presentation. I noticed that the main time I experience inner speech is when I want to express my thoughts to someone else. So the beeper experiment would probably light up my inner speech because of the need to express myself in written or spoken form.
This was simply wonderful ❤️
i imagine athena maybe got that question from her father "what are you doing?"
what sort of conversations could you influence in a child by starting it off in life of with different questions? what spectrums could we see?
I agree, maybe the source of inner voice inside our head is what we hear as children. Maybe even some of the tyrannical things like "you should have done this"
The inner voice that says negative (or overly positive) things is the destructive force throughout humanity's history.
Really interesting speech, with a really god-awful powerpoint.
I speak 5 languages and speak to myself constantly, as well as translate everything in any given language , I do it as an intellectual exercise as well as self entertainment... speaking to mysel has always been my thing ,,,after all I love myself...most natural awareness
Sometimes, after I have seizures, for up to a couple days when I'm talking to whoever is with Me, My speech is more like the thoughts or internal dialog out loud. As I consider an answer, I'll talk thru it to Myself outloud. I find this video interesting since I'd like to find some neurological study groups to volunteer for. ... I'm not Sarah, I am on her phone tho and She is the one usually with Me while I'm " thinking out loud while trying to converse. She's quite a patient and nice person.
Fascinating and truly ambitious to take on Man, Woman, God + the Universe. I do hope it all works out well.
I'm thinking religion, as a setting of behavior and world view, plays a huge part in it. If someone has a strong religious background, maybe the voices and visions will be very influenced by their values, manifesting in the shape of what they believe, in the codes they understand and value.
My dad still does it and he's 72. He's always done, and funny enough he doesn't KNOW he's doing it. We used to tell him he did it, and he didn't believe us, until we set up a tape deck (this was a LONG time ago) and recorded him working.
It's funny he doesn't think he does it.
I see this as breakthrough material! Bravo!
"Fernyhough? Funny like I'm a clown? I amuse you?"
Imagine deaf people could never hear their mother’s or fathers voice. That is really sad, I suddenly feel very blessed and very fortunate.
Excellent, so insightful and encouraging, giving hope and understanding
where not existed...
Happy 😊 valentines 💝 day let compassion be your compus blessings to all ! !
Thankyou Charles.listening to this again after being through a fairly severe PTSD experienced has helped to put the inner dialogues into.perspwctive.i had forgotten about the hearing voices association,will look for the app if it is still available.
Most of inner speech is tied to a brain network called the Default Mode Network, which is commonly referred to as the "ego" of even "superego" ...here inner speech is often tied to thinking about other people; we carry representations of other people who in a sense become the "superego" by which our "ego" is concerned about = inner speech, or even a dialogue between these superegoic representations as others.
Very interesting seminar by Dr. Fornyhoigh...
Here now because I don’t have an inner monologue...and I just found out last weekend that most people do and I am 1000% baffled by all this
And, if you talk to yourself (which I do all day long if I am alone), it would be impolite not to respond - to not answer yourself.
I get ideas and thoughts, but not words that see or hear, unless I am purposely thinking, I.e, not doing anything but focusing on that thought process. I always figured inner voice meant the ideas floating through, but it sounds like people actually have sounds they hear in conversation format, weird to me. I have had a few random auditory hallucinations usually murmurs or calling out hey etc and when very tired or about to sleep. I wonder how many people who don’t hear in their head also have aphantasia (don’t see images, or low images in head when thinking etc?), or if my interpretation of inner speech because I feel I am not literally hearing voices is actually the same as someone else but they describe it as voices?
do you think "what should I wear today?" that is your inner voice
When i was 17, I learned that most people think this way. My teacher sat me down to figure out why my essays were just a stream of conclusions and we realized that we each had a completely different mode of thinking. After that, I taught myself to use language to slow my thoughts. But I don't recommend it if you're getting along fine now; sometimes it gets out of hand and makes it harder to fall asleep
Finally, It's nice to know that we are all the same. However some of us are more Tuned-In than others. I truly believe that we all have precognition (knowing what's going to happen before it does.)
One way to simplify the answer you are looking for is to call the voices : tones in charge of certain behaviors and /or actions. Kind of a file for relatable thoughts to intentions.
Taking resting state data in the experiment with the beeps is really clever. It actually made me think of the practice of recording audio "silence" for a few seconds to get the background noise profile of the recording space for later procedural removal in the audio post-production environment. How neat! 🤓
From about 12:00 to 12:50 he displays a revised diagram showing transition from social speech to private speech to internal speech and arrows back from inner to private speech. I would have added addition arrows from private speech back to social. If a person is engaging in private speech and they are interrupted by someone entering the room or moving closer or responding to the private speech there are two possible reactions. They may apologize for being too loud and then retreat back to inner speech, or they may apologize for not including the other person and convert to social speech. (or they might not apologize but an apology is a common method of alleviating the embarrassment caused by having been discovered talking to oneself in a society where that is thought of as a bit crazy.)
I speak 2 languages fluently. I suppose I could improvise a dialogue in those 2 languages, or I could improvise an inner dialogue in 1 of those languages, yet I do not do that. I do not have an inner dialogue. I have an inner monologue. I am not thinking in sentences in the brain to anyone. I am, simply, thinking in sentences, thinking a story, thinking of a problem, thinking up replies to people I've been communicating with. Yet, I am never thinking those conversations as talking to another person. I am, simply thinking in sentences. And I do not hear any voices either. I am not hearing myself. I am, simply, generating thoughts put into words and sentences.
It would be very interesting if you did the same studies for your theories in the east or other places on the planet where there are war zones and individuals had not been subjected to ad - mass materialistic values, just a inner thought. Big things have very small beginnings.
Lawrence of Arabia
I usually think visually, and only resort to speech to allocate memory when time constraints force me to lose the critical focus required to think visually. Sound takes on the format of melodic music without words. My inner speech is loudest when I am anxious or in need of approval. When I came to terms with what I know and what I don't, and literally embraced the idea that seeing is believing, my inner voice almost completely became irrelevant. It becomes a very extroverted form of expression when people, ideas, or philosophy puts constraints on my perspective.
I spend alot of time alone after work and i constantly talk to myself in my head and never physically say a single word and it weirds me out but think its interesting
It is my experience that one can actually create auditory hallucinations through the protocols found in 'Tulpamancy.' When I say my experience, I mean I personally engaged the protocols to determine if I could have experiences similar to other people who have also pursued creating a 'tulpa.' I was successful. The protocols, in essence, was repetitiously rehearsing a dialogue between self and 'other' until it became automatic. It is more than that, one also assigned a concept of mind, and list attributes that this other has, and in effect, after a certain threshold of engagement, 'other' comes online- for lack of a better term.
@D R Curiosity, mostly. Hypothetically, if a healthy mind can create auditory hallucinations through protocols, could someone who has uncontrolled hallucinations learn this skill to decrease negative experiences from mental health? That would make this protocol very useful. It corelates also to Jung's Active Imagination, technique, which allowed him to help his clients become more in tune with their subconscious mind, interacting with it in real time. Author Napoleon Hill, author of the book "Think and Grow Rich," offered the 'Invisible Counselors' technique, chapter 13, which again, is a variance of this protocol. If anyone can engage this process without the use of substance, I would recommend this over ayahuasca, or DMT. CE5, prayer, these techniques- they may be the same thing.
I remember the very first thought that came to my mind. I was held by someone in a hall was and suddenly I felt a claud cleared from my head and I discovered “Me” and I thought “This is me!” And felt so so happy, and after that referred to that moment as: “..since I know my self”. I believe I was about 8 or 9 months old. And yes I do remember some things from that time.
It's curious when I pay attention to my thoughts that they are very inconsistent. Only a surface layer.
Something like the way light reflects patterns on the outside of a soap bubble.
I read a personal essay in the New Yorker about talking to oneself. The author wrote that his wife told him “like most people,” she NEVER talked to herself, and I literally didn’t understand. How did other people think? I wondered. It turned out that he meant OUT LOUD.
Very interesting structure of Speech.
I have a history of psychosis. I was hearing voices over a decade ago. I had a long and hard recovery and since have done consciousness/unconciousness work. I also have a history of hearing loss. I often have experiences that seem paranormal or 6th sense. I wonder if they are telepathic, remote viewing, psychic or clairvoyant, empathic, telepathic at long distance. I also don't know if these experiences are purely my perception or maybe even mental illness, and only my internal conversation is elevated. I experience "synchronicities" often. 10 or more times a day. Sometimes I am paranoid my experience is humanmade, as the experiences seem far too coincidental. This experience sucks and I can't turn it off. I also suspect if my experience is truly 6th sensed that others experiencing psychosis, schizophrenia etc. also have elevated capacities for these conciousness experiences. I also am in doubt that the spuritual psychology stuff is real, like telepathy, though I am beginning to believe more often. I just don't understand the experience I am having or discerning what it is or how to be responsible with this experience. I also feel or sense being extremely powerful with this experience. I did not know Mel had this experience in the movie and believe it or not, moments before Mel was reintroduced in this video it crossed my mind to refer to him as I was typing this. Maybe the speaker mentioned a que that I unconciously picked up on......
@Andy Matteo If you think you have capabilities it means you do. You limit yourself when you place belief that something cannot be real. If you look at the sentences you wrote it will indicate this. Only a fraction of the population will ever know what 'elevated capacities' are. Meaning the pure act of discovery of the phenomenon points to an ability to have it. All Telepathy is present in the lives who know about it. Not one present life displays telepathy without prior exposure to it.
Go to tree, they are easier to talk to. Old Druid. They use to communicate through trees. Celtic legends talk about it. Spiritual Psychology is real to a degree. The Spiritual is real the psychology of it cannot be understood by those who have not lived or are in a Spiritual life. They can claim about the inner origins of the mind using machines and tests and some fraudlent based science but they which prostitute their mind out to machines will never understand or yeild the ability to comprehend the mind world view to prove to themselves that they know nothing about the Spiritual Self for they worship machine more than they worship their own minds.
My very pedestrian way of looking at this goes as follows: Everything that is going on in our consciousness is a creation of the massive virtual machine that has is sections to visual, auditory, tactile, and sensory productions. What we call 'perceiving' is actually just giving material to the virtual machine so that the images created correspond to the reality of the outside world so that it serves our existence. Pictures are created feature by feature as the neural flow goes from visual cortex to visual cortex (and back again). We can see very real things with our eyes closed. The machine is good at what it does. Equally, the auditory material is processed so that a simulation of it is created in the auditory area. Did you know that you actually have to LEARN to hear sounds? In the Japanese language, there is no 'r'. Late learners mix it with 'l' so that 'next slide please' becomes 'next ride reese'. The machine's syntax cannot handle the 'l'.
So if we hear our inner talk, there is a malfunction somewhere probably in the dopaminergic system that helps us to understand the difference from 'calibrated' information with relevance to the outside world versus the content that it creates independently. Like what happens in delusions and hallucinations related to disease states and intoxications.
The only world we have access to is an image created by our brain. We mistake it for reality. That's the problem.
25:40 When we read something to ourselves on demand, was any region implicated in “hearing” it?
Does anyone has several levels of inner speech? I have a main one, but in the background I am thinking other stuff. If I concentrate I can access at least three levels. But mostly I just use one and a second one to think about things I have to do or want to do, while the primary is concentrated in the task, For example right now I am thinking in what I am answering here and in the background I am thinking what I am going to do after I finish writing this.
Working as an academic, writer and storyteller, my life is very much about words, yet I find that when it comes to the “stream of consciousness” aspect of thinking, or just everyday life thoughts, I do not generally feel like I am thinking in words or sentences. Words are what I am using to attempt capture something which exists more as existing or emerging patterns and intutions about connections between these patterns. They’re mental images in the neurological sense, not necessarily visual images although it can be - it includes any aspect of sense memory, but also has emotional value and at times a conceptual or structural component, which tends to be more felt than explicit. Writing I often know something is coming - into consciousness first and then in translation words - I know the direction of it, I intuit it’s bearing, tone and direction and perhaps what it is a response or reaction to, but words are generally downstream.
I said translation but it’s partly inaccurate. Translation is deliberate and consciously selective, which is a process of word usage that’s pretty far downstream from the initial coming into words. There is a preconscious selectivity that I rely on. Going by the stream of consciousness thing, I can go down that stream with words as they happen and pursuing or not pursuing associations as they speed by. I consider that raw material, and the most important part of it. It has inherent selectivity. It is a voice from a perspective BUT it exists before the words and my thinking is THAT not the words. As I sit here, years of experience guides and shapes language on the page, but I am pretty far gone in a world of concepts and in trying to recall the feeling of semi-oblivious creationg.
My thoughts are generally not words, except if I am thinking about what to say or write and thus working with a word component. ANd the things that I feel like I have to capture in creative or generative writing is essentially NOT about words because there is too much there to narrate. Clearly what is said about anything represents a selection driven by some impulse, intuition, urge or even a desire to manipulate something. If I enter a mental marketplace as ME different things will stand out in experience than if I am there as say a child character. The selection is character. The selection is theme. The selection comes from the need or motivation that drives the plot or that life situation. Long story short I find that while language may come easily when I am in the middle of the mainly sensory, emotional, divergent stream, and there is great pleasure in squeezing it out with a feeling of precision or strong evocation of that which is important to experience BUT generally “wording”l, when it comes from there (and not functional, technical, codified, functionalistic language of which there appear to be as endless of a boring supply as there are boring people in administration and souldestroying amounts of boring written files about stuff) is work. IT is heavy lifting. It is something that risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater in the very act of naming it. It is a secondary aspect of initial thought and feeling.
I always felt like I sensed or intuitively knew more about people and situations than could be easily put into words or even more into acceptable words. I think we all remember being a child and knowing that there was stuff you’d be unable to explain to adults, so you just gave up trying and took the rap or whatever. It’s kind of a lonely place to be. I sometimes speculate that a large portion of my life has been devoted to putting things into words that I felt lonely about seeing or understanding. In making THAT relatable, maybe I feel like I am making myself understood, where I would sometimes feel alienated or lost in the rush of everyday experience. Writing for me is an act of remembering and asserting that which would be otherwise invisible and consequently - forgotten.
But it is not words first. Whenever it is, real writing dries up fast, reproducing itself with no connection to deeper drives or emerging truths. It’s just formal coding at that point. Staring at a page as if it holds the answer. Toying with words rather than foundational, experiential premises. An analytic rational exercise hoping to eke out relevance, but never transcending itself.
I do not hear voices either btw. If anything I feel characters as some kind of vibe or attitude with a certain feel. I taught myself to draw at a young age, and when shaping characters I would always somehow feel them them first. See them in my minds eye. Their attitude, their expressions their behaviour and body style and how this was evidence of or an extension of their personalities and motivations and assumptions about the world. This might dictate how they spoke, if they did, but also, I think, downstream from what they just WERE. As I write this, I am realising that maybe I partly did in answer to a perceived challenge for me in feeling as natural with written characters as I would with drawn ones.
Ironic how one can spend an entire life on words mainly because of all the things that are NOT words.
I have so many questions! I visualize way way more than I ever speak or hear. I’m also fluent in American sign language and all words have a picture in my head.
This is fascinating! We hope the talk helped in understanding some of those experiences!
Some people gave no inner monologue at all, some can't visualise (aphantasia). Some people don't have either! There's videos about it on RUclips. It is fascinating.
_The way we speak to our children become their inner voice._
Pretty much
I doubt that.
My brother thinks with internal monolouge and has ordinary level of imagination.
I have hyperfantasia and my inner monologue almost non existent. I only think in visuals and emotions.
There should be a genetic predisposition to forming an internal monologue.
We grew up in the same family but our information processing works differently
No it is not
False
At 20:23, you did avatar dialogue where your voice speaks through you. It is a common experience. What to look for when you see others do it is, spontaneous, third person language, different voice tones, different mannerisms, and the human has no clue it happened. As for your daughter's invisible friend, that is her voice speaking through to her human explaining how the human world works. If you have question on how the voices, a.k.a. avatars, work, see my blog. Thanks for the talk.
I have studied this with myself and for me, it seems that I get the thought then say it to myself in my head but it doesn't have to be said. I have been working on just settling for the first impulse thought before I put it into words to myself. I find myself doing it but soon I am talking my thoughts in my head again but it isn't really needed.
💚❤ Quantum Mechanics plays a role in the process of speech.
As far as "hearing voices"
I think Understanding Auditory Verbal illucinations on a deeper level would go far.
Progress has been made but more could be done.
More depth breadth and understanding needs to be applied to these topics.
❤💚
I'm curious to know whether people born deaf who hear voices can understand what they're saying. More importantly, how does this internal process develop in those born deaf, or in those who for other reasons don't develop language?
I can never listen to the voice in my head because that song I can't get out of my head keeps drowning it out.
Just out of curiosity, do you have perfect pitch or better than average musical recall (as best you know) ?
Do you create or perform music or are you more just a listener ?
@@howard5992 Terrible pitch and 0 musical recall. Listener.
Absolutely fascinating and helpful 👍🏼🙏
This is fascinating
I have zero internal verbal voice.i can't even imagine how weird it must be to have a voice..words...in my own head.
That you have no internal voice is fascinating to me. My inner voice is fantastic in helping me go through anything from personal issues to work challenges (I'm a researcher). Back when I was a student, talking to myself was a great way to make sure I understood concepts, etc. So like you, I can't even imagine how weird it mush be to not have an internal dialogue.
I'm perfectly happy without noise in my head.
I have thoughts too,just not with words,they are just a feeling...more abstract..with more visual aspects.
No language.
@@torokgigi7807
When you read, you don't "hear" the words in your mind? I mean, even if you experienced reading as though you were watching a movie, wouldn't you hear the characters speaking?
@YY4Me133 no.I don't hear characters' voices.
@@torokgigi7807
This is fascinating. I wish I knew what to ask you so I could understand how you think, but I'm so used to words in my head that I don't even know where to begin.
Oh, one thing... Do you remember your dreams? Do you have conversations in them? With or without words?
I hope you don't mind my curiosity, but this really is interesting.
Thanks
Children are programmed by evolution to learn at a phenomenal speed so they try things out repeatedly that an adult would find boring because the child is building up its database of actions and responses so it can improve its ability to predict and control ie it is calibrating its actions. So when a child talks to itself, that talking is exercising the system, giving the opportunity to further refine the utterances and the ability to produce sentences to utter. The fact that there may be no one there to listen is irrelevant, the system needs exercise in order to develop and refine it. Later those refinements will be tested in actual communication with another person, leading to adjustments where the refinements are wide of the mark. Try to take a child away from the frantic learning experience and you will provoke a hostile reaction because they are programmed to learn rapidly. I think this is why they wake up early full of excitement, and resist going to bed.
I asked my friend, who is deaf, who does her inner voice sound like is she can’t hear? And her answer was: she sees it like a type writer in her head. Isn’t that just neat?! I hear different voices/accents, depending on what I’m thinking about
When my mother (who can see and hear) reads, she doesn't have any imagery or sounds in her mind. She says she sees the words streaming in a mental space behind her eyes
Anyone ever have a dream where your talking to someone and the other person says a hilarious joke that you never heard before? That's the moment I was both impressed by the dream world and also incredibly frightened
Kinda, but more frustrating. Thirty years ago, when I was writing and selling jokes, I would occasionally wake up laughing at a hilarious joke, write it down on my notepad. In the morning, the note was sooo prosaic and 100% not funny. I would have written something like "kitchen sink" or "loaf of bread."
i hear voices ,but i ignore them and carry on with the killing
Alan Bregović Hey ... I read the majority of your comment and think to myself “yep, gotta igmore the voices and do what I have to do. After all we are adults and have to be responsible.” I reflect in that moment how motivation works etc. ... then BAME, I get to the end .... WAIT WHAT!?!? 😬 This is actually a great comment. Thanks!
I have several times, when waking up, "heard" three knocks on the door; but the three knocks have different pitches, which is impossible if they were real knocks. On one of these occasions, I also dreamed of a crowd of kids, and "heard" them all talking at once, which was a confused murmur rather than anything I would call speech.
Creepy Creepy
I've thought about this because I spend a lot of time by myself. What am I supposed to do stop thinking? People say if you talk to yourself that makes you crazy.. that only children have imaginary friends and that's normal but when you grow up you need to stop or else you're insane.. that's stupid.. is your mind supposed to go blank if you're alone? Is that normal? Also, it's funny I'm more talkative when I'm alone and I'm pretty quiet around other people. Because my whole life it seems like all other people ever do is judge me and make me feel bad no matter what I say so I don't like talking to them. So when I'm around really talkative people usually I'm quiet and they're really talkative. But im not talking back to them. So now it's interesting because are they talking to themself? If I'm not responding and they just go on talking isnt that the same as being alone and pretending someone is there listening? They're pretending I'm listening.. their mind is wandering and they're vocalising their thoughts.. same thing that I do when I'm alone.. these are the kinds of things I think about when I'm around other people and they're talking and I'm not..
I don’t hear voices outside my head, I hear the voice inside my head and I’m aware that it’s my own voice , it thinks randomly for me, it chooses what to throw at me randomly too
Advised to watch this as a family member hears voices from Ghosts but she also sees them and feels them, not only an inner voice. Interesting though!
I have the longer internal dialogue and argue with myself alot and sometimes when I'm on my own I have heard some one call my name or say something that I didn't quite catch also if I think of a sentence or phrase someone says I can hear it in their voice the brain is amazing I also have a gender issue and when I'm feeling feminine my internal voice turns feminine too and the interesting bit is I very Rarely talk to myself out loud but when I was riding my motorbike everyday with the helmet on being closed in and sound dampened I found myself talking out loud to myself quite often I also have full conversation with the cat internal and out loud just thought I'd share in case you find it interesting
Ri,, always has something interesting on its networks...
Soviet psycholinguists' (Vygotsky's, Luria's and Kolcova's) ideas about evolution of consciousness in humans and development of consciousness in toddlers are both profound and under-appreciated in the Western world. I honestly wish that some of Vygotsky's methodology was used in the more mainstream study of human consciousness. Unfortunately in the philosophy of contemporary Cognitive Science there appear to be 2 extremes: One where the term "consciousness" is used as a collective term for everything that happens in the human brain (such as Glasgow's Consciousness Scale), and another, - where consciousness is defined as an extremely narrow process, such as for example Julian Jaynes's "knowing that I know" or "awareness of awareness". In my opinion, it would be more objective to study social, developmental and linguistics aspects of consciousness during the cortical pruning stage through direct observation, with a heavy emphasis on social aspect, which is precisely the route early Soviet psycholinguists have taken. Vygotsky's main achievement was demonstration of just how indispensable early linguistic instructions are to the normal development of consciousness in infants, and the role of internalised language in our ability to form "complex concepts" or words without referents like "mass", "volume", "velocity" and so on.
"Hear the voices in my head
I swear to God it sounds like they're snoring"
- Harvey Danger, "Flagpole Sitta"
WhiteCamry dank
This is great. I don't know if anyone else has noticed that US English is what seems like, New speak from 1984 and I find it really worrying because without vocabulary, it's well nigh impossible to think in the abstract, which, of course, was exactly what the Ministry of Truth was doing in Orwell's book. I have developed a bad habit of commenting before I have watched the whole program but I think it's because I am experiencing 'Senior Moments' lol, which makes me think I'll forget what I wanted to say.
I do the same thing, comment before I listen to the whole thing
I always say I dont think in speech its to slow
Instead I think in abstract concepts like pictures or shapes.
Am I weird ?