I have no internal voice whatsoever. AMA

[Anonymous]

LOL, everyone, think of your grandma. Now think of the house you grew up in. Now your first kiss.

No one just thought in words, OP. No one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL, everyone, think of your grandma. Now think of the house you grew up in. Now your first kiss.

No one just thought in words, OP. No one.

This is true. I saw images. If you asked me to describe the images I would try and put words to them and share it with you. But the original thought itself was an image.

I think many thoughts occur this way. They are rooted in some type of sensation - visual, emotional etc…

[Anonymous]

I have an inner voice that tells me not to post on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand either. Do you have thoughts? When you go about making a decision do you mull it over in your head? I don’t get it. Please explain.

The best way I can try to explain it is like I don't need to translate my thoughts into English words. I understand my thoughts without words and skip a step - I skip elucidating (?) the thoughts to myself. Probably similar to how athletes play sports. I imagine they often don't talk through in their heads in words how to, for example, kick the ball in soccer, they just know to do it and kick it.

But if I need to mull over something, I sometimes talk it over out loud. Really, I talk to myself a lot. I might be cooking and speaking out loud like:

"Okay, I need that spice. . . Ok got it. Where's the knife, oh there it is. This isn't sharp enough, I will get another. . ."

If your thoughts are not comprised of words then what are they comprised of? Are you talking about your subconscious?

90% of human behavior day to day is subconscious. This is when a conscious behavior becomes a habit and we no longer need to be effortful in the task. We complete without conscious effort or thought. Conscious effort, such as a new recipe or new task, requires thought. But it too with enough practice can become a subconscious behavior. Is this what you mean?

Honestly, I'm not sure.

But, there are 2 things I can do subconsciously. And I wish to recreate that effect on other areas of my daily life. At any time, I can guess the time within 5 minutes of accuracy, without seeing the time for hours or all day yet, and I can guess what DH spent on groceries, doesn't matter what he bought, big or small shop, without seeing what's in the bags or knowing his list or even thinking of items within 5-$10. For guessing the time, I see a clock in my head sort of spinning and stopping at the correct time. For groceries, no idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's 100% spontaneous.

This is sort of freaking me out as a concerto, op. Are you ever surprised by what you do or say? Are you married? If so, how did you decide to do that? What kind of work do you do?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have an inner voice that tells me not to post on DCUM.

Me too but I often ignore her to my own detriment

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's 100% spontaneous.

This is sort of freaking me out as a concerto, op. Are you ever surprised by what you do or say? Are you married? If so, how did you decide to do that? What kind of work do you do?

I am sometimes surprised by what I say. I have no filter. Thank God I'm pretty normal lol!

I'd rather not say my job, but I write a lot. Probably better than speaking a lot

[Anonymous]

OP, I don’t think you get that…this is how thoughts work.

When it’s time to get ready for work, I don’t think words in my brain: IT’S TIME TO GET DRESSED. I head to the closet. As I do, images of what I have or what I need to do that day start to come to my mind.

[Anonymous]

God, I talk to myself non-stop, all day. Not really, but often enough. It's how I think and process. Done it all my life, and it is so weird, I know. Wonder if I could get hypnosis and make it stop?

[Anonymous]

I talk to myself in my head and out loud. I hear songs a lot too. It's exhausting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had no internal words when I was a kid -- I thought in thoughts, not words. Then as a teen I started translating my thoughts into words. I prefer thinking in thoughts. : (

If you didn’t have words then what were your thoughts comprised of? Were they not in a language? Do you mean feelings? Feelings do not require words although we try and use words to articulate them so that we may communicate our feelings via language.

The language was thoughts. Not feelings -- thoughts, in my brain. Then as a teen, I started translating my thoughts into words. Now I think in words.

[Anonymous]

Do you dream? My husband is like this and does not dream (or at least never had any recollection of a dream). I think it’s so weird!

[Anonymous]

Dp here. The way I explain it is that I sometimes think in pictures or other elements. Like, how do you use words to describe a tune? I could try to describe what I'm seeing but it's so difficult. I'm willing to make the translation for somebody else but for my own thoughts I just continue to dive into my mind.

I do think I'm words though as well. It's a bit confusing though because I do math for a living and a key concept in math is definitions which is literally putting words to a concept. It may be a concept that is generally known or agreed upon which may make the "definition" sound confusing. But being able to put it to an image makes sense.

[Anonymous]

Goodness, have you guys not seen the research on this? This is a thing. Some people don’t have an inner voice. That’s what OP is describing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Goodness, have you guys not seen the research on this? This is a thing. Some people don’t have an inner voice. That’s what OP is describing.

Then why would anyone give a shyt enough for her to do an AMA?