Do you have an inner monologue? What is it like?

[Geoff]

Do you have an inner monologue? I had always thought they were universal, that everyone has themselves talking in their head.. like a voice over, or a second "me" that we can hear.

It comments on our lives and shares them with us, it's us, and not us.

Do you have one? What is it like? Is this an "introvert" thing?

Mine : INTP
What's it like : Like a second voice.. usually rational but occasional emotional, screaming at me.
Is it always there : YES!

 

[ReadingRainbows]

Mine: INFJ
What it sounds like: A very monotone adult voice that I think I'd sound like at age 35 or older.
What it says: It narrates what I am doing and how I really feel. All the words and phrases I cannot verbalize, my inner voice over is saying in my head. It is my true self
Also - I never view my life in my head from my own perspective. I always view it from the perspective of the person I'm in love with at that point's perspective.

 

[ceecee]

Yes. All. The. Time. Mine almost always says movie lines that correspond with the situation.

 

[Phantonym]

I've always thought that it's universal as well.

Yes, I do have inner monologues. Well, technically, I am all alone in my head since it's my own voice that won't shut up. Most of the time it's horribly self-absorbed, all about me, me, me; commenting on my own reactions to either internal or external stimuli. Occasionally, when it manages to break free from the ego loop, it won't shut up about the rest of the world. Other times there's fighting, it's like one part of me takes a firm stance on some issue and another part argues against it. It's like piecing together an intricate puzzle and in order to do so, there has to be more than one sides of "me" while in reality I'm still all alone in my head. I hope any of this makes sense.

And yes, it has been and presumably always will be THERE.

 

[Salt n' pepper]

All the time. The credits never stop rolling. And a lot of the times, I bring the monologue outside and I just keep talking to myself like whomever I'm speaking to is in the room. It's all very weird. I guess I think better when I talk, my thoughts become more clear to me, and so I reason out loud.

But that's a little different from another type of inner monologue, the commentator or the unconscious self that brings things into the light by voicing it inside my head, without me even thinking about it/noticing it, consciously. Maybe that's ones constant perception, sometimes feeling like it needs to comment on some things. Heck do I know.

 

[sculpting]

totally.

ENFP
It is like a second voice. My musings/ponderings/wonderings on a topic in my mind tend to be almost sub-vocal-like a babbling brook or like humming a tune. "Hmmmm, hmmmm, nananana,hmmmmmm....." But once a subject is up for a decision, I distinctly have a voice.

It sets up an inner conversation. Like it takes Te and Fi and trades sides back and forth, weighing the options. It is never highly emotional oddly.

 

[Oaky]

I have no proper inner monologue. I mostly think in images (or video simulation). Basically imagination. However, I do speak to myself many times. I would say the inner monologue only comes up when I converse with people.

 

[Ming]

Hell Yes!

It's the opposite me. Everything I say; he doesn't say. Everything I don't say, he says it. It basically screams out the other side.

So when I think of 'I'm the coolest' the voice will go 'Yea right, look at yourself in the mirror.'

Basically it degrades me. It really doesn't have a specific tone though..

 

[ragashree]

Hmmm... I would really like to know how this works for all the people who've answered yes to this question. Whose is the voice? Does it sound like your own, coming directly from your own consciousness, or more like a separate personality or other entity providing a commentary from outside? I'm getting a sense of both here so far. Maybe it's different for different people.

 

[Phantonym]

It sets up an inner conversation. Like it takes Te and Fi and trades sides back and forth, weighing the options. It is never highly emotional oddly.

Yes, exactly, it is about weighing the options, picking things apart and looking at them from different angles to get a good overview. For me it can get very emotional, an inner battle so to speak.

 

[sammy]

Hmm, I'm not even really sure what an inner monologue is.

edit: I think I am mostly like Oakysage with this whole monologue thing. I need a sidekick to share these thoughts or imaginations with. I tend to think in musical lyrics and images as well. At times, scents, and physical sensations will also serve to tell me what I'm thinking.

 

[wolfy]

Typically my inner monologue is only really apparent to me when I am thinking about some idea. The voice is mine and the interaction can be in various ways. Just the voice, two voices discussing, or one voice and a kind of feeling/images/sensations as a response and some other ways too. Other times I have no inner monologue, just a sense of myself and my environment.

Actually I just had this really long internal monologue while I was in the bath thinking about this old Zen proverb Not the flag, not the wind; mind is moving. That got interrupted by a Guns and Roses song Mr Brownstone I'd heard today which made got me thinking about how the song and proverb could go together.

 

[Snow Turtle]

I'm convienced most people have an inner monologue, especially when people are brought up reading silently to themselves. It's probably just you commenting on reality in your own head.

Still... You sometimes pretend it's a 'higher/different perspective' person.

Kai: Jibber Jabber
Inner Kai: Yeah.... You do realise that plan is kind of flawed?
Kai: Hmm. You do have a point. Uhhh need to change plan.

It's all those people who talk to themselves.

 

[StephMC]

See signature.

(In a posh English accent) "And the male approaches the female with a puffed out chest to display his dominance..."

 

[Moiety]

"That's not right...and regarding that other thing - was it always like that or is it historically incoherent?"

 

[JocktheMotie]

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51wCy89Rn6Q"]Inner Monologue[/YOUTUBE]

It is, for better or worse, very similar to this. Although I don't think mine is as depressing

 

[disregard]

No. I have thoughts, but I'm not one to have a monologue inside my head. I don't talk to myself in my head, I think about things. I talk to people.

 

[gromit]

Sometimes I will get a word or phrase stuck in my head which shows up when I'm not thinking of anything, like Jolly Rancher (that was a serious one for a couple weeks) or the graaaaaaand poooooobahhhhh. When my grandfather died several years ago I was just saying Grandpa. Grandpa. Grandpa. in my mind, over and over.

Usually, though, it's just amorphous blobby thoughts and images and concepts or feelings or sensations. I don't think I think in words, only when I'm trying to communicate or write in my journal. Or sometimes I will describe things to myself, like people's mannerisms on the subway, or looking out the window on a train trip, describing the scenery, like how the trees are reaching their tender-budded tips, how the ground is still soft and dark from the recent rain, how the wind rubs against the skin of the water like a wrinkled mirror... as though I'm telling myself a story of what I am seeing.


Somehow it reminds me of this:
[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLPUmYiVgbw&"]Harold Crick[/YOUTUBE]

 

[Laurie]

I really am not sure what my inner monologue is like. I've answered people's questions flippantly before "Yes, my inner voice talks" but thinking about it more I'm really not sure if that's how it works. It actually changes, sometimes it's just thinking, I do a lot of internal thinking. A lot of whys. I also sometimes can do a two part thing, talking to myself, but it is not that as often as it is just thinking.

I'm still not sure the answer is correct because I have no baseline to compare it against.

 

[Mole]

Do you have an inner monologue?

Yes I have an inner monologue and I call it self-talk.

But what is most interesting I have learnt to turn it off.

And then suddenly there is no self-talk and there I am, wide awake but no self-talk. The world is completely the same, but no self-talk.

It is a pleasant almost ecstatic state, but when I start to do something the self-talk starts up again all by itself.

And I find it refreshing and relaxing to turn my self-talk off for a while.

Also I have learnt to express my self-talk during the day and I call this self-expression.

Fortunately I like my self-talk and when I express it, it comes out as humorous and warm. And during the day people smile and laugh at my self-expression.

And when I tire of self-expression, I come home and turn it off for a while for a rest.

However sometimes my self-expression runs away with itself and people call me a soliloquist. I rather like the word soliloquist, but I do try to watch myself and the other person so that my self-expression won't run away with itself - at least not too often.