[INFP] Am I the only one having imaginary conversations?

[stalemate]

I do the laugh at a funny memory thing, but no mental conversations ever.

Maybe it is because I don't really think in words.

 

[angelhair45]

I do the laugh at a funny memory thing, but no mental conversations ever.

Maybe it is because I don't really think in words.

Interesting. I think in words and abstract images. When I am remembering a funny memory, it's usually a conversation. Is your memory an image?

 

[stalemate]

Interesting. I think in words and abstract images. When I am remembering a funny memory, it's usually a conversation. Is your memory an image?

No, it is hard to explain. We had a thread here not long ago about do you think in images or something. I think it might have been in the bonfire...

Anyway, I just kind of think in ideas and I almost have lines between ideas in my head where I just follow along the lines from one to the next. I don't really have any words or images really. I can't describe it because it isn't like anything concrete at all.

Even recalling a conversation I don't replay the words in my head. I just recall it as a unit.

Oh and often times if I am speaking there is this total separation between the abstractness in my head and the noise coming out of my mouth. I will be aware that words are coming out and still be thinking of the abstract thing in my head and not thinking of words, not consciously. It is really a weird feeling. Usually after a couple of seconds my brain gets out of abstract weird land and gets in the moment of the conversation, but those few seconds are really odd.

 

[angelhair45]

No, it is hard to explain. We had a thread here not long ago about do you think in images or something. I think it might have been in the bonfire...

Anyway, I just kind of think in ideas and I almost have lines between ideas in my head where I just follow along the lines from one to the next. I don't really have any words or images really. I can't describe it because it isn't like anything concrete at all.

Even recalling a conversation I don't replay the words in my head. I just recall it as a unit.

I love hearing how other people think. My thoughts are very abstract and all over the place. A lot of times when I try to think about a certain conversation or situation in my head then everything really gets crazy. Sometimes I can direct my mind, and other times it just shows me stuff.

 

[stalemate]

Sometimes I can direct my mind, and other times it just shows me stuff.

Same here.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

I have conversations in my head all the time. A lot of it is constantly working through the semantics of how to articulate my thoughts. More often than not, my thoughts- as they occur to me- are too vague and cryptic to express off the cuff. I’d constantly be speaking in metaphors that wouldn’t be very intelligible to other people if I didn’t have imaginary conversations to translate them into everyday language.

Do you speak out loud?

Every once in a while I do this, if something occurs to me that I really want/need to remember. Saying it alound helps me remember it later.

Maybe I should make clear that (at least in my case) this is not about consciously practicing scenarios (like one might practice a job interview) or a method applied to discuss the pros and cons of an issue but something I slide into and only realize I am doing when I´m already way at it.

This is often the case for me too, though I do sometimes do it on purpose. It’s usually when some event happens in which I have a strong point to make but find myself unable to clearly articulate it- so it’s when I have something specific I want to focus on that I intentionally ‘practice’ talking about it in my head first. Otherwise it’s just random conversations I slide into because I’m not paying attention. [Although I have noticed they have some relevance to what’s going on in my life when I stop to reflect on it.]

 

[Glycerine]

I make up imaginary conversations and talk to myself.

 

[Virulence]

I screen dialogue and conversations that I write for stories by rehearsing them out loud to myself to make sure they sound good. This has gone as far as me waking up at 6 AM and talking to myself in a terrible fake Russian accent to gauge how it sounded for a scene.

I enjoy my brand of insanity.

 

[Pixelholic]

I just argue with myself, outloud.

Sometimes if I have to confront someone I imagine how it's going to pan out and what I'll say and what they'll say and usually I'm disappointed because it never pans out the way I imagined it would. (The only time it did, I got kicked out of my parents house, so maybe it's good that it doesn't?)

 

[OrangeAppled]

Yes, in fact, this is one of the only ways I tend to think in words - probably because it moves me to convert other types of thought into words so I can communicate my thoughts outloud at some point.

I imagine talking to someone else (a person I made up, a fictional person someone else made up, real people I know, real people I don't know who are dead or alive, etc), but of course it's really me. I will play devil's advocate with myself, explain things to myself to better understand them, and I'll just have imaginary conversations for pure amusement.

 

[Xenon]

Another 'all the time' here. When I was younger I used to do it with fictional characters (sometimes ones I'd imagined myself), but it's always real people now. They're much better than my real conversations, which almost always suck. I've always assumed that was why I did it so often, that if I had more satisfying interactions in real life I wouldn't do it as much. But reading all these replies, maybe that isn't the case.

 

[OrangeAppled]

Another 'all the time' here. When I was younger I used to do it with fictional characters (sometimes ones I'd imagined myself), but it's always real people now. They're much better than my real conversations, which almost always suck. I've always assumed that was why I did it so often, that if I had more satisfying interactions in real life I wouldn't do it as much. But reading all these replies, maybe that isn't the case.

Yes, to the bolded part....although, I thought one of the marks of introversion is finding your inner world more interesting than almost anything else, so I figured that is why the conversations in my imagination tend to be more interesting.

 

[strychnine]

I make up people in my head and talk to them all the time. When they make a brilliant comment I don't even attribute it to myself, it's the character's comment. They are like real people. My real-life conversations are very mundane and boring, and like above I used to think if I could make decent friends I would not resort to my head world so much. Turns out one friend is too much to ask for. I also talk aloud sometimes. It's fine when I'm alone, but sometimes I start talking to myself on the street and I don't even notice that people are looking at me until a few minutes have passed.

Does anyone else talk to inanimate objects and create their parts of the conversation?

EDIT: Oh btw I just realized this is in the NF forum. I don't think I'm an NF. Oh well .

 

[demimondaine]

all the time!

 

[Iriohm]

Hi NFs!

As i walked home from the supermarket yesterday I had a long talk with Mark Twain (well actually it was more of a monologue, I´m afraid) about the changes the 20th century brought us and what he would have liked and what he wouldn´t have liked. I tried to explain the magnitude of some events and developements and it suddenly struck me that I had no clue whether doing this is relatively normal or if I have gone mad some time ago.

I should add that I have had imaginary conversations with both fictional and real people, dead and alive, people I know and people I never met, since my teens.

Anyone else doing this?

I laugh at your insanity, for it approaches my own. I too carry out conversations inside my head, if you could call them that. They often feature a situation rather then a conversation, which I reenact with slight alterations (usually in the form of adding myself to the mix) to pleasing effect. Punishing evil-doers is a common one for me; explaining a confusing topic to someone less understanding is another. I once spent what must have been the better part of an hour teaching Data (from Star Trek) the facets of humor.

As for conversations in the stricter sense, well...that too, though they're usually between my three sub-personalities (which I've named, by the way).

 

[Eckhart]

I have imaginary conversations in my head sometimes too, but only with real persons I know

 

[paradox fox]

The conversations I have in my head are usually things that I plan on discussing with one of my friends. But I hardly ever bring it up in real life because I've already went through the conversation enough in my head. I have a really hard time keeping track of what I've actually said to someone, and I used to be so good at it!

Other imaginary conversations I have are related to stories and concepts I want to write about. But this stuff happens ALL THE TIME. So... you are not alone!!

If I stop to think about it, I feel completely insane. But who isn't?

 

[Queen Kat]

I used to have imaginary conversations with God when I was 14 (not out loud). He was kinda nice, but very sneaky at the same time. Nowadays I don't have imaginary conversations anymore. Yes, sometimes I wonder what someone would have said about something or someone, but I don't do that conversation thing.

 

[gromit]

Sometimes when I'm working through something in my mind I will talk myself through it (or mentally explain it to someone with whom I was recently discussing the topic). I think equally often when there are words in my mind, though, it's me talking to myself or me laughing to myself.

Also I will have imaginary conversations with people I find attractive, which often leads to imaginary... other things.

I don't think I have trouble keeping track of what is real and what is imagined though. I do have a little bit of trouble keeping track of dreams sometimes.

 

[strychnine]

The same happens to me. I find it hard to remember if I just imagined saying something to someone or it actually happened.
I also imagine stories. My characters have better conversations with each other than I get in real life, so I guess that is where it stems from.