Alex A. Pagliuca: Few things in life have shocked me as profoundly as learning some people have no inner voice/monologue. I’ve always thought I was pretty good at putting myself in other’s shoes, but this is a thing, in literal terms, I can’t fathom, at all. Veritably alien to me www.sciencealert.com/we-used-to-t...

Few things in life have shocked me as profoundly as learning some people have no inner voice/monologue. I’ve always thought I was pretty good at putting myself in other’s shoes, but this is a thing, in literal terms, I can’t fathom, at all. Veritably alien to me www.sciencealert.com/we-used-to-t...

We Used to Think Everybody Heard a Voice Inside Their Heads – But We Were Wrongwww.sciencealert.com A mysterious new condition emerges.

I've got a whole chorus yelling at me, or singing, or humming, or whistling, or chattering away. They keep going lately until I write them into a story

To be any other way feels a little lonely

i tried an ADHD med that evened out mood swings a BIT, but ultimately made me more irritable on average because i couldn't hear my thoughts in the same way, specifically the "therapist voice" that helps keep me chilled and reminds me to stop masking from time to time.

also it's just easier to wrestle with your demons and intrusive thoughts when you can assign different voices to them and can hear them coming.

for me, at least, YMMV

Yes, mine is very much the same. From the second I open my eyes, until I fall asleep, my mind is loud. Might be music. Might be competing “voices.” The best way to whittle it down, for me, is reading or writing. After 10 min or so, it settles into one perspective I’m reading or writing.

Oh yes music too!! Always music. One of the unexpected side benefits of losing some of my hearing is that my brain always sort of forms stuff I can't hear very well into music

Other side benefits include pointing my deaf ear at annoying people talking to me

About 70% of days, a song or pieces of a song starts repeating the second I am conscious. It continues until I read or listen to something else. I post the songs with some regularity under #MysteryJukebox, because I’m trying to see if there are any patterns. It doesn’t seem like it.

Audited a class at a big acting studio once; teacher says "Everyone close your eyes, imagine hearing a favorite song." Couple minutes later, she picks me out of the entire class: "𝘠𝘰𝘶 weren't hearing the music, you were 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨, all that bopping and smiling." Short version: she was 𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮 wrong.

I absolutely, unequivocally hear all sorts of things in my head, constantly, and it's part of what makes me a better musician, a better writer, and a better actor. (Needless to say, I never went to another class with her again. Not a fan of smug 𝘢𝘯𝘥 incorrect pronouncements from alleged mentors.)

I share my mental jukebox with friends sometimes. My one friend the other day said that I must be out of quarters by now. Sadly, I am not. More songs randomly spring to mind for no real rhyme or reason. Some I haven’t heard for years, some are much more recent

In my case the songs are always relevant to something going on in my life, though sometimes I have to stop and really think about it

I have pretty strong synesthesia though and learned to accept my own internal weirdness years ago

I've discovered that the first note of the first song that pops into my head upon waking effectively kills any chance of remembering that night's dreams. I'm happy staying in the subconscious a bit, when it happens.

I don’t know if it’s a result of poor hearing but my brain has always done this with white noise. It makes voices sometimes too. When I was a kid I didn’t like vacuuming because I heard voices of people who weren’t there. My parents weren’t sympathetic, maybe assuming I made it up or was bananas?

I’m like a dog about the sound of the vacuum. I can’t get away fast enough. I get the physical sensation of anxiety and my brain goes into screaming mode. I’ve found I can handle it better with headphones and something to focus on, other than the sound of the vacuum. Seems an electric motor issue

I read once that we have the technology to make vacuums completely silent but people won’t buy them b/c when vacuums are quiet people think they aren’t working and I’ll die mad about this. Give me my quiet vacuum!!!

Get another one. (Sound-test it first.) There are brands that don't make that irritating noise.

Sounds to me like you are a fellow synesthete. Welcome!

Interesting! I feel that way about dental drills. The sound is like fingernails on a chalkboard. For vacuuming, now that I understand my brain is just creating meaning out of chaos, it doesn’t bother me anymore.

It's electric fans for me. All fans seem to be faintly broadcasting AM radios tuned to 1950s pop music. I wasn't even alive in the 50s!

For me it’s usually circus music. No idea why. Lol.

ok I really hate white noise (including fans and vacuums) but I'm gonna start trying to hear the music now

So this is actually a thing human brains do all the time- there was a study where they gave people recordings of white noise and told them it was a degraded recording of an old lecture and if they could listen and try and make out any words at all it would help. Folk came back with whole sentences.

I love doing that. When I can barely hear something and my mind turns the random, rhythmic sounds into a song playing just out of earshot.

Instant associations to other things, events,music, pictures. Constant situational description. Synesthesia also too adds to the texture.

I’ve a noisy brain via spicy neuro. My brain will repeat sounds if they’re rhythmic, and focus on sounds just at the edge of hearing. It makes songs stick, sometimes for days, especially if already catchy. I despise icecream trucks for their jingles, and car alarms because they’re a public nuisance.

YUP. It is loud in my head. Constant talking, music, quotes… it’s like walking into a particularly loud restaurant

i have zero inner monologue, never have, and am happy to answer questions! i do think it’s ridiculous to call it a “condition”

I agree about calling it a condition. It’s like saying blonde hair or green eyes are a “condition.” How do you know what you’re doing all the time? 😂 I don’t mean that flippantly. I just have a constant chatter of, “Do X, then do Y…” etc. If i’m unsure, it’s a conversation between perspectives

for me, it’s not like there’s not anything going on in my head, it’s just not a voice. my thoughts are very “loud” in that they’re constant and take up a lot of space, but i don’t “hear” them in a voice. they just exist. but i can imagine voices if i need to, like when i write.

also i definitely get music stuck in my head

i am jealous, tbh. my brain runs in circles and it quite literally keeps me up at night. XD

Are you good at visualizations? (My thoughts are 99.9% verbal and I’m not great at certain spatial tasks, which I assume are related.)

Same, and I’m TERRIBLE at visualization and spatial tasks.

I get lost in my own hometown, where I live, constantly

yeah i don't think visually. i can summon up mental images with great effort but they are weak and patchy. but i'm good at spatial tasks IN PERSON, aka nobody can pack a car full like i do, including my husband who when asked to "imagine an apple" sees a whole 3D orchard with dew drops etc.

Honestly curious: when you are working through a problem, are you vocalizing things? Thinking in writing or pictures? The diversity of the human brain is amazing!

none of the above! this article series is great:

Thinking Without Wordswww.psychologytoday.com Unsymbolized thinking is the experience of an explicit, differentiated thought that does not include the experience of words, images, or any other symbols. Many (perhaps most) people think unsymbolize...

This feels so outside the realm of my own experience, it is wild! Thank you for sharing! I will be on the lookout if I catch myself doing it (somewhere in the crowded restaurant of voices and noises in my own head)

I love that this article exists, because every time this comes up there's a zillion comments saying "some people don't hear a voice in their heads? It's so amazing they can live without having thoughts!" and it's hard not to feel just a wee bit insulted by that.

Post