I used to think in images when I was really little (as well as a vocal inner monologue.) Certain words would elicit pictures in my head, sometimes of the thing itself, sometimes metaphorically as something else, or sometimes by picturing something that rhymed with or had a similar sound to the word it represented.
The images faded away as I learned to read, being replaced with images of written words. For a while it was like there were subtitles in my head whenever people talked.
Then, by about my teenage years, even the written words started to fade and my thinking became primarily “inner monologue.” I can remember a handful of the images I used to picture, but most of them have faded from my memory entirely. It makes me wonder if the images were like some kind of mental scaffolding to help me make sense of language when I was young, that my brain didn’t need anymore as it started to mature and understand the world better.
I have no inner monologue and I have aphantasia (can’t see images in my mind without tremendous effort).
I can think in detail about what I’m going to say, but at least for me it feels more like “motion” in my brain. When it comes to things like calculations or decisions, it’s like waiting for an old browser to load - there’s something going on in the back but I only have access to that information after a decision is made.
I used to be in therapy and “what was your line of thought in that moment?” Is a difficult question for two different reasons depending on the situation. In some cases, I may literally not know why I did something. In other cases, the level of consideration was so deep that putting into words is a Herculean task.
I’ve read online that it’s possible to force an inner monologue by training your brain to work more slowly and intentionally, but I have no interest in that
Genuienly, thank you for explaining to me what … it is like.
I didn’t mean to be rude, putting things the way that I did, but, in retrospect, … seems like I was.
So for that, I apologize.
Does… like what I am doing right now, typing out a sentence before hitting ‘post’… does that I guess ‘feel’ different than this kind of “motion” you describe?
Of course, the physical act of engaging your digits to actually type is one thing, as would be literally writing down a note…
Sorry, I am just… at a total loss to attempt to comprehend this at a level beyond … well the closest analogy I can think of is martial arts.
I trained for 10 years, got a black belt, and somewhere around year 7ish… it stopped being somewhat like RD Jr Sherlock Holmes logically narrating his own plan in his head… and became much more ‘instinct’, maybe like the ‘motion’ you describe… processing is going on, I could maybe give you a description of 30 seconds or a minute after a very short bout, but … semantic processing is simply too slow, at a certain point, ‘instinct’ takes over.
Now I don’t know if that sounds crazy or not, but that’s my … closest thing I can think of to what you are describing.
Another possible comparison is myself taking 3 years of Spanish.
By year 3, I was actually ‘thinking’ in Spanish, when hearing or trying to formulate Spanish. Whereas before that, English. Now that I’m significantly out of practice of that, I no longer ‘think’ in Spanish.
Maybe that is somewhat analagous to the effort you would have to undertake to have an inner monologue in any language?
I don’t have an inner monolog and I am still able to think about words. My thoughts are not comprised of words, but this does not hinder my ability to decide which ones to say before I say them.
same. my thoughts, when they have any form, are more tactile than anything else. i can’t visualize (have aphantasia), but still can move things around to ‘feel’ the shape of things internally, especially when trying to figure something out. it’s like doing a 3d puzzle but in the dark.
most of the time it is silent in here and the tactile stuff doesn’t happen, though.
I’m just a layman, but from the little I’ve read, the way people think is incredibly diverse. Vast majority of people think in some combination of words, images, speech and concepts but most people have a “primary” thinking method. Some people think only in speech, some only in text, some only in images, etc but they’re the minority.
Chads like myself remember thinking in the original language before that whole tower nonsense. Then two idiots kept speaking to me in English and I forgot the first language
I’ve had a voice babbling away in my head since I was four. Most of the time it says the stupidest stuff and then calls itself stupid for saying that stuff
There was this one time as a teenager I meditated so hard I somehow shut off my inner monologue and got to experience my thoughts directly, at least until I realized what I was seeing and got excited enough to disrupt the precarious meditative state that got me there. Never managed to replicate it since then.
I recall sitting still for a while at one point and momentarily loosing the ability to make out anything but a patchwork of colors from my vision. It’s fascinating, what the mind’s processing tells us about the world compared to the either low granularity or low field of view provided by each input. I’m pretty sure I was only able to process my peripheral vision during that experience, maybe due to the amount of detail?
I have known a some deaf people and from what they and their family told me, mos of them thought on images until they learned some kind of language.
Am I taking a meme to serious? Perhaps lol
I used to think in images when I was really little (as well as a vocal inner monologue.) Certain words would elicit pictures in my head, sometimes of the thing itself, sometimes metaphorically as something else, or sometimes by picturing something that rhymed with or had a similar sound to the word it represented.
The images faded away as I learned to read, being replaced with images of written words. For a while it was like there were subtitles in my head whenever people talked.
Then, by about my teenage years, even the written words started to fade and my thinking became primarily “inner monologue.” I can remember a handful of the images I used to picture, but most of them have faded from my memory entirely. It makes me wonder if the images were like some kind of mental scaffolding to help me make sense of language when I was young, that my brain didn’t need anymore as it started to mature and understand the world better.
No, this is actually a really interesting topic regarding cognitive development, neuroscience, and ‘what even is consciousness?’
Like, apparently, around a 1/3 to 1/2 of ‘normal’ people… don’t have an inner monologue.
They don’t have an experience of their own inner thoughts as … semantic sentences, an inner voice.
Presumably, such people would literally not be capable of thinking in detail about what they say, before they say it.
Or, maybe there is some… other kind of inner langauge of some other form?
???
I have no inner monologue and I have aphantasia (can’t see images in my mind without tremendous effort).
I can think in detail about what I’m going to say, but at least for me it feels more like “motion” in my brain. When it comes to things like calculations or decisions, it’s like waiting for an old browser to load - there’s something going on in the back but I only have access to that information after a decision is made.
I used to be in therapy and “what was your line of thought in that moment?” Is a difficult question for two different reasons depending on the situation. In some cases, I may literally not know why I did something. In other cases, the level of consideration was so deep that putting into words is a Herculean task.
I’ve read online that it’s possible to force an inner monologue by training your brain to work more slowly and intentionally, but I have no interest in that
Genuienly, thank you for explaining to me what … it is like.
I didn’t mean to be rude, putting things the way that I did, but, in retrospect, … seems like I was.
So for that, I apologize.
Does… like what I am doing right now, typing out a sentence before hitting ‘post’… does that I guess ‘feel’ different than this kind of “motion” you describe?
Of course, the physical act of engaging your digits to actually type is one thing, as would be literally writing down a note…
Sorry, I am just… at a total loss to attempt to comprehend this at a level beyond … well the closest analogy I can think of is martial arts.
I trained for 10 years, got a black belt, and somewhere around year 7ish… it stopped being somewhat like RD Jr Sherlock Holmes logically narrating his own plan in his head… and became much more ‘instinct’, maybe like the ‘motion’ you describe… processing is going on, I could maybe give you a description of 30 seconds or a minute after a very short bout, but … semantic processing is simply too slow, at a certain point, ‘instinct’ takes over.
Now I don’t know if that sounds crazy or not, but that’s my … closest thing I can think of to what you are describing.
Another possible comparison is myself taking 3 years of Spanish.
By year 3, I was actually ‘thinking’ in Spanish, when hearing or trying to formulate Spanish. Whereas before that, English. Now that I’m significantly out of practice of that, I no longer ‘think’ in Spanish.
Maybe that is somewhat analagous to the effort you would have to undertake to have an inner monologue in any language?
I don’t have an inner monolog and I am still able to think about words. My thoughts are not comprised of words, but this does not hinder my ability to decide which ones to say before I say them.
same. my thoughts, when they have any form, are more tactile than anything else. i can’t visualize (have aphantasia), but still can move things around to ‘feel’ the shape of things internally, especially when trying to figure something out. it’s like doing a 3d puzzle but in the dark.
most of the time it is silent in here and the tactile stuff doesn’t happen, though.
Hey I just posted about my head empty experience too.
I wonder if it’s like this for you too - when you forcibly visualize something like you described, does it “disable” your eyes?
For me, when I have to consciously imagine something it effectively replaces my actual vision whether my eyes are open or not
What if you are deaf and have aphantasia?
Do most people not, then?
I’m just a layman, but from the little I’ve read, the way people think is incredibly diverse. Vast majority of people think in some combination of words, images, speech and concepts but most people have a “primary” thinking method. Some people think only in speech, some only in text, some only in images, etc but they’re the minority.
Chads like myself remember thinking in the original language before that whole tower nonsense. Then two idiots kept speaking to me in English and I forgot the first language
I’ve had a voice babbling away in my head since I was four. Most of the time it says the stupidest stuff and then calls itself stupid for saying that stuff
There was this one time as a teenager I meditated so hard I somehow shut off my inner monologue and got to experience my thoughts directly, at least until I realized what I was seeing and got excited enough to disrupt the precarious meditative state that got me there. Never managed to replicate it since then.
I recall sitting still for a while at one point and momentarily loosing the ability to make out anything but a patchwork of colors from my vision. It’s fascinating, what the mind’s processing tells us about the world compared to the either low granularity or low field of view provided by each input. I’m pretty sure I was only able to process my peripheral vision during that experience, maybe due to the amount of detail?