The voices.....or lack of, in your head.

duvetdayss wrote: »

I read recently that there are two types of people: people with an internal dialogue who "hear" a voice in their mind and people who think visually, picturing words, colours, concepts. I'm definitely more speech-oriented, I'm not sure what the divide is. It's interesting to think that people carry on, unaware that the other type of thinking exists.

There are many "types" of people. Psychology likes to box individuals into categories, but the truth is that most people have their own unique internal processes.

Coopaloop wrote: »

Wow, that's so interesting. That's exactly how the girl in the video explained it, and that she sometimes talks to herself.

I never really talk to myself because there's no answering voice, as such. It's a vacuum. I will emphasize the words I want to say or the thoughts I intentionally want to process in my mind, but there's no conversation. It's simply firing them into the void and deciding whether the form is right.

Just wondering if you noticed that difference or when did you realise that about yourself?

I'm a stoner, and stoners ramble a lot in conversations. I noticed the difference when I was a teenager, although it was something that adults talked about before that. Still, when you're a kid, adults have all kinds of boring conversations, so it was easy to ignore.

I feel 'different' isnt the right word to use there, as it's obviously not different, just something I never came across before. For all I know it could be entirely common....

Ahh well, I have a shaking disorder, so feeling different is something I've had since I was 13... My mind being different was something I picked up when I was in primary school. The way that my mind recognized patterns of logic, and the better ways for me to learn/memorize were different to the majority of classmates (or what teachers told me).

My parents are teachers, so it was something that was identified and worked around from a relatively early age. My mother was a special needs teacher, so she knew that the problems I had learning from the traditional system wasn't due to intelligence or any similar inability, but rather a different way to process information. I tend to be more instinctual in my thinking than other people, with less need to have a definite process to follow.

Gynoid wrote: »

If you sit, close your eyes, concentrate on the experience of simply sitting and awareness of breathing, will it go on indefinitely that there are zero fluctuations in this inner mental void?

Not really. I've done various forms of meditation for years (to reduce my shakes). Thoughts, concepts, images do float across my consciousness, although they're without form or weight.

But yes, I can zone out my mind pretty well these days. When I was younger, it was harder. Not due to voices, but rather due to emotions. I'd get.. not panic attacks as such, but waves of strong emotions (anger, hate, fear, anxiety) when I was meditating that were usually connected to experiences I'd had recently. It's one of the reasons I've spent so much time working of emotional/state balance.

But I would imagine that fluctuations exist for everyone simply because being alive introduces distractions within our own states. The mind adapts.

Gynoid wrote: »

Even without weight or form they are still mental oscillations. Some people call everything that happens inside their head "thoughts" and may categorise them as voices, but states of emotion, kinetic perception, instinct, feelings, etc., they are also different varieties of mind modifications, and would thus fall in the same broad category. What I am saying really is that it would be very rare to have a state of no mental activity. Perhaps impossible . Just different types occur.

However, I didn't say that there was no mental activity. I'm always thinking. I said, for me, that there was no internal dialogue. That there is more of a focus on instinct, rather than following a process.

Stoners often do not dream.

I do. I've always had very vivid dreams (during my time as a smoker, or when I'm not smoking). I also used to sleep walk, and i do talk in my sleep, even holding conversations with other people (real people who speak to me while I'm asleep) in languages I never learned. I suspect sleeping brings me closer to the point where hypnosis kicks in.

Perhaps they do not experience as much mental oscillation when awake either. I know I did not in the long ago when I was one. More of a floating vagueness. More instinctual stuff, more detachment, more serenity but more illusion. Stoners often experience intense dreaming cycles if they take a break, as if the inner mental fluctuations were temporarily suppressed by the ganja. I think dreaming is beneficial.

No idea. Honestly, it's not something that we (my friends) tend to discuss... but I'd suggest that everyone dreams, it's just that their recollection is faulty. It takes work to remember dreams properly. Few people bother keeping a dream journal, or meditating to trace dream memories to expand the previous memory.

Gynoid wrote: »

I don't keep dream diaries as I am essentially lazy. But upon recall on waking I often trace the dream elements to their sources in real life from the previous few days, eg unexpressed emotions, nubs of undeveloped thoughts, glimpses caught in passing of imagery from which the mind then builds the dreams. It is interesting to see the brains poetic and creative editing powers as it has built the movies from supplied clips. Some but very rare dreams are different.

I played around with dream diaries about two decades ago, and find I can still remember most of my dreams because of that work done previously.

I see it as laying down pathways for the process, and then forgetting about it all... but the results are still being received.

Randle P. McMurphy wrote: »

Are people saying they hear an actual audible voice when they read or think about something.

This is the main problem with the subject I think - how we describe it. The internal monologue most of us have is one I am not sure can be really described as "hearing" a voice - but it is the description we use all the same.

So while I suspect there are people who this monologue - I think if anyone actually studied it they would have to be _really_ careful how they phrase the questions. We risk thinking people do not have it when in fact they just to not recognize the description.

Analogous to the "Blind Spot" - most people do not know they have it. Even if you tell people they have it - most will never see it. I have seen people refuse to believe there is one even.

Perhaps they are so accustomed to it that they simply are not even aware it is there even when you name it. Like that old joke where the old fish asks the kids "Hows the water for you today" and the kids ask "what's water?".