I have no inner monologue and I have aphantasia (can’t see images in my mind without tremendous effort).
I can think in detail about what I’m going to say, but at least for me it feels more like “motion” in my brain. When it comes to things like calculations or decisions, it’s like waiting for an old browser to load - there’s something going on in the back but I only have access to that information after a decision is made.
I used to be in therapy and “what was your line of thought in that moment?” Is a difficult question for two different reasons depending on the situation. In some cases, I may literally not know why I did something. In other cases, the level of consideration was so deep that putting into words is a Herculean task.
I’ve read online that it’s possible to force an inner monologue by training your brain to work more slowly and intentionally, but I have no interest in that
Genuienly, thank you for explaining to me what … it is like.
I didn’t mean to be rude, putting things the way that I did, but, in retrospect, … seems like I was.
So for that, I apologize.
Does… like what I am doing right now, typing out a sentence before hitting ‘post’… does that I guess ‘feel’ different than this kind of “motion” you describe?
Of course, the physical act of engaging your digits to actually type is one thing, as would be literally writing down a note…
Sorry, I am just… at a total loss to attempt to comprehend this at a level beyond … well the closest analogy I can think of is martial arts.
I trained for 10 years, got a black belt, and somewhere around year 7ish… it stopped being somewhat like RD Jr Sherlock Holmes logically narrating his own plan in his head… and became much more ‘instinct’, maybe like the ‘motion’ you describe… processing is going on, I could maybe give you a description of 30 seconds or a minute after a very short bout, but … semantic processing is simply too slow, at a certain point, ‘instinct’ takes over.
Now I don’t know if that sounds crazy or not, but that’s my … closest thing I can think of to what you are describing.
Another possible comparison is myself taking 3 years of Spanish.
By year 3, I was actually ‘thinking’ in Spanish, when hearing or trying to formulate Spanish. Whereas before that, English. Now that I’m significantly out of practice of that, I no longer ‘think’ in Spanish.
Maybe that is somewhat analagous to the effort you would have to undertake to have an inner monologue in any language?
I have no inner monologue and I have aphantasia (can’t see images in my mind without tremendous effort).
I can think in detail about what I’m going to say, but at least for me it feels more like “motion” in my brain. When it comes to things like calculations or decisions, it’s like waiting for an old browser to load - there’s something going on in the back but I only have access to that information after a decision is made.
I used to be in therapy and “what was your line of thought in that moment?” Is a difficult question for two different reasons depending on the situation. In some cases, I may literally not know why I did something. In other cases, the level of consideration was so deep that putting into words is a Herculean task.
I’ve read online that it’s possible to force an inner monologue by training your brain to work more slowly and intentionally, but I have no interest in that
Genuienly, thank you for explaining to me what … it is like.
I didn’t mean to be rude, putting things the way that I did, but, in retrospect, … seems like I was.
So for that, I apologize.
Does… like what I am doing right now, typing out a sentence before hitting ‘post’… does that I guess ‘feel’ different than this kind of “motion” you describe?
Of course, the physical act of engaging your digits to actually type is one thing, as would be literally writing down a note…
Sorry, I am just… at a total loss to attempt to comprehend this at a level beyond … well the closest analogy I can think of is martial arts.
I trained for 10 years, got a black belt, and somewhere around year 7ish… it stopped being somewhat like RD Jr Sherlock Holmes logically narrating his own plan in his head… and became much more ‘instinct’, maybe like the ‘motion’ you describe… processing is going on, I could maybe give you a description of 30 seconds or a minute after a very short bout, but … semantic processing is simply too slow, at a certain point, ‘instinct’ takes over.
Now I don’t know if that sounds crazy or not, but that’s my … closest thing I can think of to what you are describing.
Another possible comparison is myself taking 3 years of Spanish.
By year 3, I was actually ‘thinking’ in Spanish, when hearing or trying to formulate Spanish. Whereas before that, English. Now that I’m significantly out of practice of that, I no longer ‘think’ in Spanish.
Maybe that is somewhat analagous to the effort you would have to undertake to have an inner monologue in any language?
A bit late to the party.
Thank you for your comment, I have always wondered how does you experience not having an inner monologue. You did put it in a very comprensoble way!