If anyone has ever heard a voice talking to them inside their heads, they’re likely experiencing an internal monologue.
Internal monologue, also referred to as inner voice, is the process of hearing yourself talk in your head without speaking or implementing sounds.
Although this phenomenon is common, around five to 10 percent of individuals cannot hear their inner voice, according to Science Daily.
But after people opened up the fierce debate online, both groups of individuals found it baffling that the others’ minds operated with or without a constant voice.
Internal monologue, also referred to as internal dialogue, is the process of hearing yourself talk in your head without speaking or implementing sounds
The ability to have an internal monologue may develop at a young age through imaginary friends, experts say.
It can also form during private speech – speech spoken out loud without the intention of doing so.
During private speech, children acquire language skills and ponder their own thoughts while working by themselves or with others.
‘About 30 to 50 percent of people, according to psychologist Russell Hurlburt’s research, regularly think to themselves in internal monologues,’ therapist Kyle Killan told Psychology Today.
‘Inner or private speech is something most of us likely did as very young people seeking to develop our language skills, and later as a way of rehearsing information to successfully encode and retain working.’
Speakers who hear a voice inside their head – whether playing out conversations or going about daily activities – are experiencing a verbal form of internal monologue.
Not having an internal monologue has been described as having ‘quiet’ inside your mind, and rather than hearing a voice, people often think through impulses and imagery.
When discussing the age-old question, users on Reddit said that their internal monologue is like a constant chatter inside their minds, with one person writing: ‘Mine won’t shut up, all day, nonstop.
‘I often have trouble falling asleep because it won’t shut up.’
Another added: ‘Whole orchestras in my head,’ and a third said: ‘Mine never f***ing stops! It’s both a blessing and a curse.’
Others who experience an inner voice said it was like having a ‘little narrator in your head.’
Some people, who say they have a vocal inner monologue, expressed how they couldn’t fathom how others didn’t have any voice inside their minds at all.
Another user wrote: ‘I can’t work put how people don’t have a monologue.
‘Is it just quiet like an empty room? Also if you’re in an empty room what happens? Don’t you think?’
Those who don’t have a voice tried to rationalize their experience, with one Reddit user wading in: ‘Instead of processing thought through language, I process it through emotions and impulses.
‘When I see something cool, for example, my brain doesn’t say “That’s pretty cool,” but it feels it’s cool.’
Some people say that they have no inner voice, except for one particular scenario – while reading
And another inner monologue-less user said: ‘It’s not blank for me. It’s more pictures and clips of memories and synaptic firings that connect pieces together for me.
‘There aren’t any words.’
While another person described: ‘I have a constant stream of thoughts, but it’s not words. It’s like a web of interconnected images, memories, pieces of random information.
‘I come to conclusions and then I have to translate those thoughts into words.’
One person said that they have no inner voice, except for one particular scenario – while reading: ‘I have no inner voice! Not mine or anybody else.
‘The only exception is while I’m reading. I hear a voice then.’
Others, however, place themselves somewhere in the middle.
One person described having a vocal internal monologue only for certain thoughts: ‘I don’t have a constant voice in my head, it’s only for certain thoughts like if I’m playing out a conversation in my head or trying to comfort myself or trying to remember something or reading.
‘But I often do have fleeting bits of words here and there. Many (or maybe most, I’m not sure) of my thoughts don’t have actual internal words attached to them.
‘Usually just the thoughts that I’m being deliberate about have a monologue. If I’m going to brush my teeth I don’t have the conscious thought of words in my head saying «I’m going to brush my teeth.»‘
Meanwhile, some people also believe that language heavily influences your internal monologue.
One user on Reddit wrote: ‘Interestingly, my friend is Chinese but fluent in English and her internal monologue is in whatever language she is thinking in.
‘When she’s in China her internal monologue is in Mandarin but when she’s here in the UK with me her internal monologue is in English.’
Music and podcasts can also contribute to a conclusion of internal monologues, depending on how stuck they can get in someone’s mind.
At least 98 percent of music listeners usually get songs stuck in their heads when they pop up out of nowhere, according to Iris Reading.
One other way that Killan believes could determine who has an internal monologue is through visual imagery – the ability to create mental images of things like scenes, events, and concepts.
‘I found this explanation helpful because I think in terms of words, visual images, and music all day long, and it’s easy to perspective take on folks who are a bit «quiet» in there by relating to their use of images or their playing back a song in their heads, things I do, too,’ Killan said.
‘It’s helpful to think about their inner experience in visual terms, as while it might be quiet as the occasional cricket when it comes to words, it’s not a total void or vacuum in there.’
Experts from the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Copenhagen published a study on Science Daily last May of how an internal monologue can affect one’s verbal memory.
Postdoc and linguist Johanne Nedergård explained that some individuals think in pictures and translate them into words when they feel the need to say something.
Nedergård continued her explanation by saying some individuals describe their brain as a ‘well-functioning computer’ that cannot process thoughts verbally.
Hundreds of participants were in Nedergård and Gary Lubyan’s study – one half experiencing inner voice, and the other half not.
Each of them participated in four experiments that involved remembering words and switching between tasks.
As of now, the results have not been determined.
