For me there’s two separate participants, a ‘talker’ and a ‘listener’. My mind identifies more with the talker, because that’s the one that has agency. Since there are two participants, both of which are me, I talk in 1st person plural (‘we’ve got to do …’, 'we thought about this earlier’). I stopped being afraid of being alone after I started having an internal dialogue around the age of 11, since having a second participant in the conversation meant I was always in company.
Edit: Wow, looks like there’s a lot more diversity in this than I was expecting
My internal monologue is constant. Unless I’m using my language processing capacity for something else (e.g. listening to a podcast or reading text) then my brain is full of verbal diarrhoea. I’ll count each step on my way up a staircase just to fill the dead air in my head.
This is pretty close to my experience, including the counting.
I was surprised to learn that not everyone counts things like stairs automatically.
Sometimes the monologue is so loud I end up accidentally vocalising (whispering) it. I think it might be partially caused by the fact I have ADHD and a monologue like this is a way to keep my brain stimulated (thought wise, but also socially) when there’s no input from the outside.
For me the internal monologue is exactly the same as my ‘external’ monologue when I tell people about myself or do something together with someone and explain my actions. So it’s always first person singular, for example: “I’ve reflected on this multiple times but still don’t quite understand it”, “Okay, I need to turn right now” or “God I’m so freaking tired of this shit! I’m done. Fuck them all”. There’s no internal split and if I was saying what I’m thinking out loud in front of someone, it’d sound completely normal.
I think this is the closest to my experience. Maybe it has to do with the fact that I’ve been writing and expressing my opinions online for so long that I can “stream of consciousness” whatever I’m currently thinking into text
This is what I experience, and consider normal.
I’m surprised at the range of responses.
I don’t have one. No sound and no detailed images.
It’s layered.
At the base level it’s just a mix of a kind of old tv static and what sounds like a creek bubbling. It’s the pre-verbalization soup- textured with sub-thoughts, half-impulses, emotional currents. It’s noticeable background noise but not particularly loud.
Above that is another layer of multiple streams of wordage. Just kind of nonsensical whispers that flow around non-stop. Sometimes there are also impressions of images but nothing definitive. Emotional tones are strongest here.
Above that is the focused wordage, or the internal monologue. Usually it’s proposed point or observation by one “me” and counter-point or add-on by another “me”. There’s no set number of "me"s. Occasionally it’s a construct of some other people I know. Just tangential rambling in incomplete sentences mostly unless I am really trying to sort something out, then it’s more structured. There’s a part of my mind that seems to calculate the conclusion to what I am mentally verbalizing that is one step ahead of the words so often there isn’t a need to complete a thought. This is also where the music and images play.
There is one more layer above all that, the working space, when I really focus, all the other layers fade from consciousness, words are clear, sharp, and coherent and the back-and-forth feels more like a unified “me”, it’s also where I deliberately create and manipulate mental images, movies, concoct scenarios and music plays the clearest.
My mind is mostly pretty quiet. My internal monologue is used for figuring stuff out and making observations/giving myself a warning (ie: that person is lying). It doesn’t narrate anything. I only speak first person with myself. I have difficulty remembering my internal monologue so I’ve made it a habit to write down my observations and then synthesize them. Also my internal monologue is quiet and any kind of noise interrupts it.
I hadn’t thought about it much, but mine is just first person, same as the way I type or talk. In fact I think much of my internal monologue is actually pretend or planning conversations.
No monologue, no images, no sound. Just… concepts. It’s a bit weird.
Even weirder is that I can actually conjure images while asleep (or about to sleep, or barely just woke up).
I loved books as a kid, but never understood why people preferred them to movies where you could actually picture what is happening on the page. It took me until my mid 20s to figure out my experience was different to other people’s.
I can get lost in my imagination, it’s just not visual or auditory
I have the same. I believe it’s aphantasia, but I am self-diagnosed so I could be wrong.
Depends on what I’m doing. It’s usually one voice, but if I’m trying to think through something or if my ADHD is turned up, I get what I call “the committee.” For thinking through something, different perspectives all chime in, and I like to imagine it like some kind of round table debate. I “talk” with myself through ideas, and sometimes I change my mind about what I do because ultimately I know the most sensible talking point is the right one.
If my ADHD is behind it, though, then it’s more like a room full of people all pointing out different things at the same time. One’s complaining that the noise outside is too loud. Another’s distracted by the birds out the window. Another voice is debating what I should eat next (even if I’m not hungry.) Yet another is trying to remember the lyrics to a random song. Then the “responsible adult” of the group is trying to get everyone else to STFU and focus on the task at hand.
I find that caffeine goes a long way in getting the committee to chill and listen to each other. It’s not too surprising that stimulants get them all in line, but it’s still interesting to experience.
Sounds like Inside Out lol
That movie is so relatable
For me, well its a pre-verbalization of anything I am about to do or say.
Even typing this out I am speaking each word.
If I am getting into bed, I think “I need to do xyz”.
sometimes its inquisitive, such as when I debate over choices ranking them over each other, or when I am processing what someone says or does.
“Why did they do that? It could be this or that”.
When I was younger I had developed a minor personality split in order to compensate for neglect and bullying. They were nice to talk to, and helped me processs emotions and feel not alone. They merged back into my main personality sometime in highschool.
My monologue hums… And when there’s some event /work/(or anything like late for a bus or work or something), it starts narrating the environment and condition with counting repetations(like steps, seconds) sometimes counting up and sometimes oscillatiory count(like in evens; 1-2–1-2–1-2–1…)
Insults, low humor and slurs are screeched at full volume in the cadence and rhyme scheme of a one hit wonder song from thirty years ago and I just smartly choose to not externalize any of it.
Woah, you just listen to a lot of music
Mine is constantly going off all the time, like I’m preparing an argument of some sort (which usually has nothing to do with what I need to be doing) and need to process all the information I can over and over again to make sure everything lines up. If someone talks for more than 5 seconds my own internal monologue kicks in until the person stops or like 30 seconds pass and I realize it distracted me. Makes it difficult to read as well, and on bad occasions it can last for hours. The only time this doesn’t happen is if I’m intensely focused on something like a self-driven programming project.
Usually pretty normal but I have a problem where I look at something & start relating it to other things & then like 30 seconds later I am thinking about war crimes. It was already bad before 2023. Most vivid images I have ever “seen” & they can happen while driving. It reminds me of how I used to be more imaginative as a child. Except that was fun.
I have been limiting coffee intake which helps but I do kind of enjoy being pissed off & constantly visualizing maps so sometimes I do it on purpose which leads to Deliberate Site Vandalism since I can’t direct that energy at anyone around me.
So I guess I also have two mode. Snide narrator who is very uncharitable to me & The Visions.
