When you think to yourself, do you imagine yourself talking to someone?
February 20, 2025 10:05 PM Subscribe
I have a strange problem. I struggle to think thoughts privately to myself in my own head without imagining that I'm speaking to someone I know. I feel uneasy about this.
There are two aspects I feel uneasy about.
Outside in:
In the past when I've been in relationship with people who, in retrospect, I didn't want to be in relationship with, my thoughts were distorted by them, like the gravitational lensing from a black hole. I didn't like this.
Inside out:
It feels strange to have all these conversations in my head with people and then really talk to them. I would rather just talk to them when I talk to them and not imagine talking to them so much. I don't like what I'm carrying from those imagined conversations into the real relationships.
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I don't know if I have done this my whole life. I don't remember. I don't know if other people do this. I haven't asked them.
I do talk directly to myself, but this is a small percentage of my overall thoughts. I sometimes talk to a faceless, generic or hypothetical person. Kind of like the person I'm talking to right now as I'm writing this post.
I have non-verbal or partially verbal thoughts where I'm not really talking. But that kind of thinking is limited in its powers. Good for figuring out how to navigate the menu of a website. Not good for figuring out the truth of the universe.
There are two aspects I feel uneasy about.
Outside in:
In the past when I've been in relationship with people who, in retrospect, I didn't want to be in relationship with, my thoughts were distorted by them, like the gravitational lensing from a black hole. I didn't like this.
Inside out:
It feels strange to have all these conversations in my head with people and then really talk to them. I would rather just talk to them when I talk to them and not imagine talking to them so much. I don't like what I'm carrying from those imagined conversations into the real relationships.
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I don't know if I have done this my whole life. I don't remember. I don't know if other people do this. I haven't asked them.
I do talk directly to myself, but this is a small percentage of my overall thoughts. I sometimes talk to a faceless, generic or hypothetical person. Kind of like the person I'm talking to right now as I'm writing this post.
I have non-verbal or partially verbal thoughts where I'm not really talking. But that kind of thinking is limited in its powers. Good for figuring out how to navigate the menu of a website. Not good for figuring out the truth of the universe.
Ha! My whole life I have not only thought as if I am talking to someone, but I often think out loud, having an imaginary conversation with some imagined listener. I have done this at least since I was in my early teens.
I'm also a writer, and have found over the many years of my life that I am not very inspired when writing in a diary, but that I can pour out reams when I'm writing letters. I've only ever met one person in my life who could keep up with me in the matter of letter-writing.
I've decided this is just how I am. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one.
posted by Well I never at 10:21 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]
I'm also a writer, and have found over the many years of my life that I am not very inspired when writing in a diary, but that I can pour out reams when I'm writing letters. I've only ever met one person in my life who could keep up with me in the matter of letter-writing.
I've decided this is just how I am. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one.
posted by Well I never at 10:21 PM on February 20 [4 favorites]
I absolutely do this, with an enormous variety of people in my life. Sometimes it's in the context of an imagined person (usually a person in my real life) asking me how I felt about something that happened to me, or how I handled something, and I've found it really helps to process some things by explaining it all to an imagined person. Or I find myself giving advice about something I've been through to an imagined person, and have actually found some intense breakthroughs there. Sometimes if I find myself repeating the same conversation with an imagined person (someone in my real life), it makes me realize a thing that is bothering me, or can unearth the real cause of some negative feelings. Heck sometimes I've had full conversations in scenarios that have never happened and never will happen, which I think is one way I have processed very difficult feelings about something totally unrelated to that scenario.
I think I've always assumed that most other people did these things, to some extent. Maybe it's way to compartmentalize my thoughts so they're less of a massive constant swirl? I also don't know how long I've been doing it either (definitely for as long as I can remember), and can't say that it's the only way that I think my thoughts. But I apparently find it very useful – and have never thought of it as a problem.
posted by Molasses808 at 10:48 PM on February 20 [5 favorites]
I think I've always assumed that most other people did these things, to some extent. Maybe it's way to compartmentalize my thoughts so they're less of a massive constant swirl? I also don't know how long I've been doing it either (definitely for as long as I can remember), and can't say that it's the only way that I think my thoughts. But I apparently find it very useful – and have never thought of it as a problem.
posted by Molasses808 at 10:48 PM on February 20 [5 favorites]
Best answer: I would say that most of the time I am just having a conversation with myself, but some percentage of the time I'm imagining talking with some other person.
To validate your concerns a little bit, I have on a few occasions (that I know about or realized!) gotten mixed up thinking I had actually had a real conversation about something with someone, when I had only been mentally rehearsing it with myself. Perhaps with a little bit too much realism!
On another tack, it appears that 5-10% of the population does not have an inner voice at all. There is even a name for this: anendophasia. Here is a research paper on the topic.
Given that this rather extreme variation of "inner voice" applies to such a large percentage of the population, there are probably quite a lot of other rather normal variations in how the inner voice works, perhaps similar to what you are describing. My guess is that you fall well within the spectrum of normal, or perhaps in the realm of slightly unusual or different from the norm, but not in a way that is truly concerning or any such thing. More along the lines of (at most) kind of a mild quirk.
Supporting this, here is an interesting recent research paper that explores various aspects of everyday inner dialogue (in contrast to most previous research, which tends to concentrate only on its relation to mental illness and such). One classification they use is "dialogic, condensed, and other people" - confirming my thought that having this inner dialogue with "other people" quite a normal and usual type of thing. (Though if you look at the list of questions they use, I am not sure they are describing exactly the type of thing you do - definitely close, though, if not the same. Also, this is a newly developed list of survey questions, so it is quite possible they are missing some fairly common varieties or specifics of people's inner voices.)
If you look at Table 5 in that study, you'll see the frequency of the various modes of inner voice in their study populations. It looks like about 35% people have the "inner voice with other people" rarely or more, 22% have it sometimes or more, and 2.6% use this mode very often or all the time.
That is a smaller percentage than the other modes they identify - for example "dialogic", meaning holding a dialogue with yourself, is used very often or all the time by about 23% of the respondents.
So holding the inner dialogue with other people is less common than that, but still - common enough!
posted by flug at 11:25 PM on February 20 [11 favorites]
To validate your concerns a little bit, I have on a few occasions (that I know about or realized!) gotten mixed up thinking I had actually had a real conversation about something with someone, when I had only been mentally rehearsing it with myself. Perhaps with a little bit too much realism!
On another tack, it appears that 5-10% of the population does not have an inner voice at all. There is even a name for this: anendophasia. Here is a research paper on the topic.
Given that this rather extreme variation of "inner voice" applies to such a large percentage of the population, there are probably quite a lot of other rather normal variations in how the inner voice works, perhaps similar to what you are describing. My guess is that you fall well within the spectrum of normal, or perhaps in the realm of slightly unusual or different from the norm, but not in a way that is truly concerning or any such thing. More along the lines of (at most) kind of a mild quirk.
Supporting this, here is an interesting recent research paper that explores various aspects of everyday inner dialogue (in contrast to most previous research, which tends to concentrate only on its relation to mental illness and such). One classification they use is "dialogic, condensed, and other people" - confirming my thought that having this inner dialogue with "other people" quite a normal and usual type of thing. (Though if you look at the list of questions they use, I am not sure they are describing exactly the type of thing you do - definitely close, though, if not the same. Also, this is a newly developed list of survey questions, so it is quite possible they are missing some fairly common varieties or specifics of people's inner voices.)
If you look at Table 5 in that study, you'll see the frequency of the various modes of inner voice in their study populations. It looks like about 35% people have the "inner voice with other people" rarely or more, 22% have it sometimes or more, and 2.6% use this mode very often or all the time.
That is a smaller percentage than the other modes they identify - for example "dialogic", meaning holding a dialogue with yourself, is used very often or all the time by about 23% of the respondents.
So holding the inner dialogue with other people is less common than that, but still - common enough!
posted by flug at 11:25 PM on February 20 [11 favorites]
My thinking process seems similar to yours (especially that last explanation), and when I need to think things through I have to journal them. It takes a little getting used to to be your own audience on paper/screen but comes quickly, I think.
posted by lokta at 12:49 AM on February 21
posted by lokta at 12:49 AM on February 21
I have talked to myself when I'm alone for my whole life.
Whenever I know that I am going to have a real conversation with someone in which I will need to convey information, and this is important and I know that I will have a limited window to make myself understood, I rehearse the conversation over and over in advance, putting my thoughts in order, and finding the best way to say what I need to say.
I also have imaginary conversations that are not related to any real upcoming encounters, for similar reasons -- usually I am explaining my position on some issue to an imaginary interlocutor, partially as a way of releasing my frustrations about something, and partially so that if I ever do have a conversation about this issue I have a "plan" for what I think are the most important things to say and how to say them.
I am definitely guilty of overthinking and overplanning, and this urge is both part of the problem (anticipating a conversation in advance) and part of the solution (over multiple iterations I try to rein in my tendency to overcomplicate things, add too much detail, assume too much about what the other person is going to say, etc.).
I don't do this with upcoming conversations that are just for enjoyment. I have previously felt myself drifting into this mode while daydreaming about a person that I had a crush on, and had to rein that in hard -- when I was a teen I had a long-distance relationship for a couple of months which fell apart as soon as we started meeting in meatspace again, because during the long-distance period we had communicated only through text chat, and I had imagined a person who diverged completely from the real person. I really don't want to fall into that trap again.
Overall, I don't think that this behaviour is a problem -- it's how I process my thoughts. I know I'm not neurotypical. I only worry about it when I think my neighbours have seen me talking to myself, and then I pretend that I was talking to an unseen cat the whole time.
posted by confluency at 1:29 AM on February 21 [7 favorites]
Whenever I know that I am going to have a real conversation with someone in which I will need to convey information, and this is important and I know that I will have a limited window to make myself understood, I rehearse the conversation over and over in advance, putting my thoughts in order, and finding the best way to say what I need to say.
I also have imaginary conversations that are not related to any real upcoming encounters, for similar reasons -- usually I am explaining my position on some issue to an imaginary interlocutor, partially as a way of releasing my frustrations about something, and partially so that if I ever do have a conversation about this issue I have a "plan" for what I think are the most important things to say and how to say them.
I am definitely guilty of overthinking and overplanning, and this urge is both part of the problem (anticipating a conversation in advance) and part of the solution (over multiple iterations I try to rein in my tendency to overcomplicate things, add too much detail, assume too much about what the other person is going to say, etc.).
I don't do this with upcoming conversations that are just for enjoyment. I have previously felt myself drifting into this mode while daydreaming about a person that I had a crush on, and had to rein that in hard -- when I was a teen I had a long-distance relationship for a couple of months which fell apart as soon as we started meeting in meatspace again, because during the long-distance period we had communicated only through text chat, and I had imagined a person who diverged completely from the real person. I really don't want to fall into that trap again.
Overall, I don't think that this behaviour is a problem -- it's how I process my thoughts. I know I'm not neurotypical. I only worry about it when I think my neighbours have seen me talking to myself, and then I pretend that I was talking to an unseen cat the whole time.
posted by confluency at 1:29 AM on February 21 [7 favorites]
I feel uneasy about this.
Two complementary (as opposed to opposing) methods for dealing with that:
1. Accept that this is how your mind works. Whether it's normal or not doesn't matter. Neither does whether it's how your mind has worked before, or how it will keep working in future. It's how it works now, and that's OK.
2. When you actually are talking with somebody else, pay close attention to what distinguishes that experience from that of talking with the (hopefully mostly useful) model of them you maintain inside your own head. That way, you won't waste years of your life being upset at people for things they never said and don't believe; that "gravitational lensing" you've already noticed goes outward as well as in.
that kind of thinking is limited in its powers. Good for figuring out how to navigate the menu of a website. Not good for figuring out the truth of the universe.
As somebody who has gone through psychosis and come out the other side, I can also advise that all thinking is limited in its powers. The universe has more truths available than any of us is ever going to figure out. Latching onto even one of those truths can bring on a rush of unparalleled pleasure, and trusting that feeling alone to be a reliable guide as to what's true and what's not is an error.
In fact it's pretty much the same kind of error as the one we make by mistaking our inner model of somebody else for the whole person they actually are. This is exactly why deliberately building the skill of paying close attention to the bleedin' obvious outside our skulls is so worthwhile for anybody who is even slightly curious about what goes on inside them.
posted by flabdablet at 1:35 AM on February 21 [5 favorites]
Two complementary (as opposed to opposing) methods for dealing with that:
1. Accept that this is how your mind works. Whether it's normal or not doesn't matter. Neither does whether it's how your mind has worked before, or how it will keep working in future. It's how it works now, and that's OK.
2. When you actually are talking with somebody else, pay close attention to what distinguishes that experience from that of talking with the (hopefully mostly useful) model of them you maintain inside your own head. That way, you won't waste years of your life being upset at people for things they never said and don't believe; that "gravitational lensing" you've already noticed goes outward as well as in.
that kind of thinking is limited in its powers. Good for figuring out how to navigate the menu of a website. Not good for figuring out the truth of the universe.
As somebody who has gone through psychosis and come out the other side, I can also advise that all thinking is limited in its powers. The universe has more truths available than any of us is ever going to figure out. Latching onto even one of those truths can bring on a rush of unparalleled pleasure, and trusting that feeling alone to be a reliable guide as to what's true and what's not is an error.
In fact it's pretty much the same kind of error as the one we make by mistaking our inner model of somebody else for the whole person they actually are. This is exactly why deliberately building the skill of paying close attention to the bleedin' obvious outside our skulls is so worthwhile for anybody who is even slightly curious about what goes on inside them.
posted by flabdablet at 1:35 AM on February 21 [5 favorites]
I would rather just talk to them when I talk to them and not imagine talking to them so much.
One thing that helped me as a much younger man was deliberately making up a kind of internal cartoon character to use for that. Albert was a horribly irascible old drunk, not at all pleasant company but well worth keeping around because despite being permanently drunk he was pretty damn sharp and had no hesitation whatsoever in calling me on self-serving bullshit.
He was loosely based on a real guy I'd hung out with a few times, but only loosely. My internally constructed Albert was so much drunker and crankier than the real one that keeping the two of them completely distinct stayed easy. I always thought of mine as a kind of personal performance art project for an audience of one.
Albert and I eventually parted ways after he worked out how to get control of my speaking voice, which proved embarrassing on a couple of occasions; most people don't seem to be anywhere near as accustomed to being called on bullshit as I'd become by that stage, and a few friendships got temporarily dented. But on the whole I look back on the Albert years with some fondness.
posted by flabdablet at 1:55 AM on February 21 [5 favorites]
One thing that helped me as a much younger man was deliberately making up a kind of internal cartoon character to use for that. Albert was a horribly irascible old drunk, not at all pleasant company but well worth keeping around because despite being permanently drunk he was pretty damn sharp and had no hesitation whatsoever in calling me on self-serving bullshit.
He was loosely based on a real guy I'd hung out with a few times, but only loosely. My internally constructed Albert was so much drunker and crankier than the real one that keeping the two of them completely distinct stayed easy. I always thought of mine as a kind of personal performance art project for an audience of one.
Albert and I eventually parted ways after he worked out how to get control of my speaking voice, which proved embarrassing on a couple of occasions; most people don't seem to be anywhere near as accustomed to being called on bullshit as I'd become by that stage, and a few friendships got temporarily dented. But on the whole I look back on the Albert years with some fondness.
posted by flabdablet at 1:55 AM on February 21 [5 favorites]
I have imaginary conversations in my head all the time. Sometimes with people who don't exist (e.g. an imaginary therapist), sometimes with people I know. Sometimes it's because it's a person I can imagine talking to about that topic, sometimes it's a person with a view I oppose and I'm having mental arguments, and so on. I never imagine their responses, I only hear my own voice.
This is definitely not my only mode of thinking, but it is quite a dominant one.
It can be annoying, it can feel obsessive and repetitive and I don't necessarily want to think about that person, but I just accept it as normal and not something I can or should change. I'm pretty sure I've done this my whole life.
posted by snarfois at 2:49 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]
This is definitely not my only mode of thinking, but it is quite a dominant one.
It can be annoying, it can feel obsessive and repetitive and I don't necessarily want to think about that person, but I just accept it as normal and not something I can or should change. I'm pretty sure I've done this my whole life.
posted by snarfois at 2:49 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]
I should add, I don't think these conversations have much bearing on my real life relationships or interactions with those people. When I actually converse with them, the conversations don't follow the path they do in my thoughts. I guess they help me with my mental preparation, but everybody have their own ways to be mentally prepared when meeting someone.
The imaginary conversations certainly reflect how I feel about those people, and if they're someone I haven't seen for a long time or only rarely, they do become an artificial representation of that person. But I wouldn't say they "get in the way" of me relating to that person as a real human being, or listening to and honestly responding to what they say, when I do meet them.
posted by snarfois at 3:02 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]
The imaginary conversations certainly reflect how I feel about those people, and if they're someone I haven't seen for a long time or only rarely, they do become an artificial representation of that person. But I wouldn't say they "get in the way" of me relating to that person as a real human being, or listening to and honestly responding to what they say, when I do meet them.
posted by snarfois at 3:02 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]
I do this, but nowadays less. When I was younger I would sometimes feel a strong connection to a person but it was based on conversations I had in my head; they didn't reciprocate at all, and why would they? I never had trouble distinguishing these 'head friendships' from reality but I could see how, if left unchecked, that could happen. This caused me distress; once I realized what was happening I learned to moderate it. Mostly I practiced a sort of 'mindfulness' or 'presence', getting myself out of my head; meditation can help with this. You'll have to find your own path.
Mostly now my head voice is just me, speaking to no one in particular, but I have a regular therapist and sometimes I speak to them, in my head, which is like therapy but much cheaper!
I don't think any your behavior (or mine) is weird or unusual but it is hard to talk coherently about, our head experiences are so personal and idiosyncratic! I say as long as you know what's real and what ain't and you ain't hurting nobody, you're fine.
posted by Admiral Viceroy at 4:26 AM on February 21
Mostly now my head voice is just me, speaking to no one in particular, but I have a regular therapist and sometimes I speak to them, in my head, which is like therapy but much cheaper!
I don't think any your behavior (or mine) is weird or unusual but it is hard to talk coherently about, our head experiences are so personal and idiosyncratic! I say as long as you know what's real and what ain't and you ain't hurting nobody, you're fine.
posted by Admiral Viceroy at 4:26 AM on February 21
I do this all the time! Like a lot of the folks above, sometimes it is a paperdoll of a particular person, sometimes it is a completely imaginary person. I find it much easier to think through complex feelings/concepts/situations if I am explaining them to someone, and an imaginary someone works just fine.
The danger is really only in starting to believe that your head-version of a real person is anything like an actual representation of them and then being surprised or upset when the real person behaves in unexpected ways. This is pretty easy to avoid if you are aware of it.
posted by restless_nomad at 4:33 AM on February 21 [2 favorites]
The danger is really only in starting to believe that your head-version of a real person is anything like an actual representation of them and then being surprised or upset when the real person behaves in unexpected ways. This is pretty easy to avoid if you are aware of it.
posted by restless_nomad at 4:33 AM on February 21 [2 favorites]
I think this is entirely normal, and describes the way I do a lot of my thinking. Sometimes the internal talk can be a way of processing points of disagreement I have with a specific person. It's never a dialogue though - I don't make up words in someone else's voice. It's more a series of mini monologues where I'm refining and expressing my position on something. Often the result of all this gets distilled down to a couple of paragraphs in an email, or leads to me raising a point in a work meeting or something.
posted by pipeski at 4:55 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]
posted by pipeski at 4:55 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]
That is exactly the way my brain works. I am constantly saying things to other people that I think they need to hear. I think it's my brain practicing for an actual conversation that I will probably never be brave enough to have in reality. For whatever reason, I am very averse to conflict.
I didn't realize this was happening until I took up meditation. After a few years of training my brain I started to notice it happening constantly. When I notice I just let it go, let the "conversation" drop in mid-word. My brain used to feel a desperate need to finish the conversation, or at least the sentence, but it's gotten over that and now it just lets things go. And often they come back a few minutes later and as soon as I notice I let them go again. Mediation is like that, a continuous circle of focusing, drifting, noticing, releasing, focusing....
It's just brain training, nothing mystical or magic about it. And it teaches your brain stay in reality. So if you get wound up about about something happening out in the world after a bit you notice that whatever it is isn't in the room with you, so it's not it's not in your reality at the moment. You let go of being wound up and maybe get on with your day or maybe think about what you can actually do to fix that thing.
A recent book said that we have a panic button in our head that biology/evolution intended to be pushed a few times a year and due to news and social media we now push that button dozens of times a day. Of course that's shit for our mental health. Meditation is one tool for putting a little shield over the button so you don't push it so often.
posted by Awfki at 5:56 AM on February 21 [4 favorites]
I didn't realize this was happening until I took up meditation. After a few years of training my brain I started to notice it happening constantly. When I notice I just let it go, let the "conversation" drop in mid-word. My brain used to feel a desperate need to finish the conversation, or at least the sentence, but it's gotten over that and now it just lets things go. And often they come back a few minutes later and as soon as I notice I let them go again. Mediation is like that, a continuous circle of focusing, drifting, noticing, releasing, focusing....
It's just brain training, nothing mystical or magic about it. And it teaches your brain stay in reality. So if you get wound up about about something happening out in the world after a bit you notice that whatever it is isn't in the room with you, so it's not it's not in your reality at the moment. You let go of being wound up and maybe get on with your day or maybe think about what you can actually do to fix that thing.
A recent book said that we have a panic button in our head that biology/evolution intended to be pushed a few times a year and due to news and social media we now push that button dozens of times a day. Of course that's shit for our mental health. Meditation is one tool for putting a little shield over the button so you don't push it so often.
posted by Awfki at 5:56 AM on February 21 [4 favorites]
All of my thinking is conversational. I'm either telling myself what to do, or making up imaginary conversations where I'm telling things to other people, making up their responses, and then having feelings about the made-up script I wrote for them. Sometimes I talk to myself in the first person and sometimes the third person. When in third person, sometimes it's me talking about myself, sometimes it's me imagining another person talking to me. If I try to start thinking without this like conversation pattern, I will very quickly convert to mental talking to or about myself.
Conversely, I cannot visualize things. If I try to visualize "an apple" I just imagine the essence of an apple. I get no picture of an apple. I can imagine that it is red or green, shiny or not, whatever. But I don't see it. I can try to see, say, the w shaped bottom of the apple and see a bit of that, or the stem and leaf, but not the whole apple. I thought I was just really bad at visualization-based strategies like mediation and visualizing success, but if I cannot visualize an apple I certainly cannot visualize myself successfully completing a challenge. I can talk to myself about it though!
posted by fennario at 6:20 AM on February 21
Conversely, I cannot visualize things. If I try to visualize "an apple" I just imagine the essence of an apple. I get no picture of an apple. I can imagine that it is red or green, shiny or not, whatever. But I don't see it. I can try to see, say, the w shaped bottom of the apple and see a bit of that, or the stem and leaf, but not the whole apple. I thought I was just really bad at visualization-based strategies like mediation and visualizing success, but if I cannot visualize an apple I certainly cannot visualize myself successfully completing a challenge. I can talk to myself about it though!
posted by fennario at 6:20 AM on February 21
The danger is really only in starting to believe that your head-version of a real person is anything like an actual representation of them and then being surprised or upset when the real person behaves in unexpected ways.
Besides the "real person behaves in unexpected ways" thing I think another danger is that if you have arguments with someone else entirely in your own head, the real person doesn't know what you're unhappy about or choosing to compromise about or whatever. That's a trap I fall into, like I imagine a whole decision-making process in my head with someone, anticipate (often quite accurately) what their position would be, and then decide based on that - but then the other person doesn't actually know about my concerns or my decision-making process.
Also I think you can sometimes sort of pre-filter your experiences? Like, I had a fairly intense experience recently and in the immediate aftermath I spent a fair amount of time thinking about how I would tell someone else about what happened... I'm not sure if that was very productive!
So, yeah, I think this kind of conversational thinking is within the range of normal (certainly I do it a lot) but it has its pitfalls (probably other ways of thinking have their pitfalls too).
posted by mskyle at 7:16 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]
Besides the "real person behaves in unexpected ways" thing I think another danger is that if you have arguments with someone else entirely in your own head, the real person doesn't know what you're unhappy about or choosing to compromise about or whatever. That's a trap I fall into, like I imagine a whole decision-making process in my head with someone, anticipate (often quite accurately) what their position would be, and then decide based on that - but then the other person doesn't actually know about my concerns or my decision-making process.
Also I think you can sometimes sort of pre-filter your experiences? Like, I had a fairly intense experience recently and in the immediate aftermath I spent a fair amount of time thinking about how I would tell someone else about what happened... I'm not sure if that was very productive!
So, yeah, I think this kind of conversational thinking is within the range of normal (certainly I do it a lot) but it has its pitfalls (probably other ways of thinking have their pitfalls too).
posted by mskyle at 7:16 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]
It's so hard for me to imagine anybody not doing this! I get what you're saying about having your view of the world being distorted by negativity, and I've learned there are certain people that I can have an inner dialogue that stays either positive or neutral, so I default to them until I can trust someone new or suspect.
I would rather converse with a friend in person, but if they're not around, inner conversations can be a rehearsal and reminder of what I'd like to talk about when I see them. It can be a surprise and a delight when the actual exchange goes in directions I didn't anticipate.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:31 AM on February 21
I would rather converse with a friend in person, but if they're not around, inner conversations can be a rehearsal and reminder of what I'd like to talk about when I see them. It can be a surprise and a delight when the actual exchange goes in directions I didn't anticipate.
posted by BlueHorse at 10:31 AM on February 21
Before I started reading it, I was sure that The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes was going to be some kind of Eric Von Daniken-level nonsense - but now I’m 80% of the way through it, I’m totally bought in.
Turns out that the story of how we came to incorporate the voices that we hear in our minds as elements of our own experience - rather than the (welcome or otherwise) voices of external authority figures - is essentially the story of our becoming modern conscious human beings.
Strongly recommended.
posted by Puppy McSock at 11:09 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]
Turns out that the story of how we came to incorporate the voices that we hear in our minds as elements of our own experience - rather than the (welcome or otherwise) voices of external authority figures - is essentially the story of our becoming modern conscious human beings.
Strongly recommended.
posted by Puppy McSock at 11:09 AM on February 21 [1 favorite]
I’m pretty similar to you, but not only that - I’m an external processor, which means that I have to have conversations with people in order to figure out my own thoughts.
It causes a lot of problems when I’ll be throwing out ideas to see what feels right and makes sense, and people will take those as important things that I’ve said and will stand by forever.
I really enjoy being able to have mental models of people that I can converse with when they’re gone.
posted by wheatlets at 12:10 PM on February 21
It causes a lot of problems when I’ll be throwing out ideas to see what feels right and makes sense, and people will take those as important things that I’ve said and will stand by forever.
I really enjoy being able to have mental models of people that I can converse with when they’re gone.
posted by wheatlets at 12:10 PM on February 21
You might find it interesting to know that in coding, this is sometimes used as a deliberate strategy to help you work through problems called rubber duck debugging.
posted by foxfirefey at 3:49 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]
posted by foxfirefey at 3:49 PM on February 21 [1 favorite]
Fascinating. This got me to think about how I think. I think I think visually. For example, when I am planning my day, I visualize driving to the store, going down the soda aisle, grabbing diet coke, going to get eggs in that aisle, then loading the car with bags of groceries, driving to CVS and visualizing what aisle I need to go down to get the shampoo, etc. I even visualize where I am going to park in the lot. If I have to return an item, omg, I plan that out visually and conversationally in my head. I plan a response for any response they might have other than "yes".
I have conversations with people in my head if I know I am going to be actually having the conversation. I visualize it and preplan it. I think I got that from sports where I try to visualize proper technique. I know for my trading, I think about what I am going to do in different situations so that if any of those events happen, I act rather than react. I call it game planning.
It does not strike me as anything but normal to think like you do. Having conversations with people in your head certainly seems reasonable way to work through things. I see it as being like a dream where you may be working things out subconsciously. Sounds a bit like day dreaming if I understand you correctly.
How do you stop it? I would say first you have to recognize you are doing it in the moment. Then when you say to yourself, Self, I am having one of those conversations again, have something else you preplan to think about. Every time it starts and you recognize it, think about going to the beach or about sleeping in a hamock in the country. Whatever to distract you.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 4:40 PM on February 21
I have conversations with people in my head if I know I am going to be actually having the conversation. I visualize it and preplan it. I think I got that from sports where I try to visualize proper technique. I know for my trading, I think about what I am going to do in different situations so that if any of those events happen, I act rather than react. I call it game planning.
It does not strike me as anything but normal to think like you do. Having conversations with people in your head certainly seems reasonable way to work through things. I see it as being like a dream where you may be working things out subconsciously. Sounds a bit like day dreaming if I understand you correctly.
How do you stop it? I would say first you have to recognize you are doing it in the moment. Then when you say to yourself, Self, I am having one of those conversations again, have something else you preplan to think about. Every time it starts and you recognize it, think about going to the beach or about sleeping in a hamock in the country. Whatever to distract you.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 4:40 PM on February 21
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posted by Redstart at 10:17 PM on February 20 [7 favorites]