Expert Article

Is Talking to Yourself Normal?

Understanding Your Inner Monologue

 

Ever realize you're talking to yourself? Thanks to a tweet by @KylePlantEmoji, the internet has been split into two types of people: those who talk to themselves and those who do not. Let’s see which one you are.  

What is an inner monologue? Well, an internal monologue is like an inner voice in your head that narrates and dictates your thoughts throughout your day. Do you hear your own voice reading these words in your head? If you do, then you have an inner monologue. Typically, responses to information come in two forms: auditory and visual—you will either hear your thoughts or see them. 

Now some of you may be thinking, ‘What? You talk to yourself in your head? I thought only crazy people do that,’ and you would be those without an inner monologue. Instead of hearing voices in your head, these people express their thoughts through visuals, imagery, metaphors, and themes.

 

To understand the basis of your own thought process, we must talk about:

•       Inner Monologue

•       Abstract Thoughts

•       Patterns of Thinking

 

Inner Monologue

 

As someone with an inner monologue, the narrator of my life lives in my head. When we watch movies or TV shows often, there is a narrative from the main character that explains how they feel, what they are thinking, and what they will do. The voice-over style narrative is conveying what it is like with an inner monologue. 

A researcher in consciousness science, Bernard Bars, explains an inner monologue as:

“Human beings talk to themselves every moment of the waking day. Most readers of this sentence are doing it now. It becomes a little clearer with difficult-to-say words, like ‘infundibulum’ or ‘methylparaben’”

Internal dialogue is a constant conversation with yourself about any and everything going on throughout your day. According to Bars, people experience an inner monologue 24/7, while they only converse in real conversations 10% of the day.

 

Having a constant dialogue playing out through your head is very tiring—not being able to escape your own voice drains you. You can never really relax, and you definitely can’t turn it off. Your inner monologue isn’t a voluntary conversation you have with yourself—it is something you can’t control. Even though our inner voice can be a motivator, it can be more damaging than helpful.

 

An inner monologue is exceptionally damaging for someone with social anxiety. Unfortunately, it is very common for them to have. People with social anxiety often mentally script out every conversation they have and play it back in their head once the conversation is over. For someone suffering from social anxiety, your inner monologue becomes negative self-talk. In the article ‘Is Our Internal Voice a Social Anxiety Friend or Foe?’, Kyle MacDonald (psychologist and expert on social anxiety) explains our inner voice feeds social anxiety because it amplifies any insecurity, feared outcome, or uncomfortable situation. Our internal monologue distorts reality sometimes and manifests something that was never there.

 

Abstract Thoughts

 

Now for most of us who have an inner monologue, you might be thinking well, how do other people think? People with abstract non-verbal thoughts use emotion, sound, imagery, feeling, and text when thinking. They have to actively convert their ideas into words when having a conversation, unlike someone with an inner monologue that speaks what they say in their head.

 

If someone said ‘Cow’ to a person who has abstract thoughts, their brain would process the information in the following way:

•       Picture a cow

•       See the word ‘Cow’

•       Hear a voice saying ‘Cow’

•       Hear a cow mooing

When thinking of heartbreak, instead of someone hearing the word several times in your head like someone with an inner monologue would, someone who thinks more abstractly would see a picture of a physical heart splitting open or the sound associated with a heartbreaking like stepping on eggshells. 

 

Linguistics Ph.D., Elena, from the University of Texas, explains that an inner language consisting of images must continuously work to translate imagery and metaphors into spoken word. For her, personal experiences will pop up in her head as a metaphor when thinking about different themes. When experiencing a change in fate, her inner language takes her to a memory she has of her grandmother displaying a whimsical persona and then immediately switching to a stern tone. Her personal experiences influence the way she thinks.

 

Patterns of Thinking

 

Very few people think only in an inner monologue all the time, the same way very few people only think through metaphors all the time. Our patterns of thought are on a spectrum. Verbal and visual thinking are linked. Usually, those with an explicit inner monologue also have strong mental visuals. The more aware you are of your thoughts, the more connected your verbal and visual thoughts will be.

 

Russell T Hurlburt, a professor at UNLV who studies internal language, found that 30-50% of people have an inner monologue. In his “Pristine Inner Experience” experiment, he played a beeping sound several times a day and asked people what was going on in their head right before hearing the sound. This research conveyed not only how many people have an inner monologue, but how unaware people are of their thought processes. People with an inner voice don’t know that people don’t think that way and vice versa. Hurlburt concluded that in order to communicate correctly, we need to understand how we think and how others think.

 

Part of the way we think has to do with our anatomy. Our Broca’s Area in our brain is activated when we talk out loud and when we use our inner voice, meaning it also controls auditory hallucinations. Auditory hallucinations occur when someone thinks they hear voices in their head. However, they don’t hear voices in their head. They hear their own voice. So, when someone has auditory hallucinations, it means that they cannot recognize their own voice in their inner monologue. 

 

It is essential to understand how we think and how thoughts differ between persons. It may be hard to imagine what the other may be like, but it will help us understand others’ work and creativity. 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Epting, Madison. “Some People Don't Have an Inner Monologue and I Am One of Them.” Medium, Data Driven Investor, 23 Apr. 2020, medium.com/datadriveninvestor/some-people-dont-have-an-inner-monologue-and-i-am-one-of-them-1c47a0e8b48a.

MacDonald, Kyle. “Is Our Internal Voice a Social Anxiety Friend or Foe?” Overcoming Social Anxiety and Shyness, 3 May 2015, overcomingsocialanxiety.com/internal-voice-social-anxiety-friend-or-foe/.

Monkey, Thought. Your Internal Monologue: Why People Talk to Themselves in 3 Minutes. YouTube, 2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JKh18nVaHg&feature=emb_title.

Soloducha, Alex. “What It's like Living without an Inner Monologue | CBC News.” CBCnews, CBC/Radio Canada, 6 Mar. 2020, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/inner-monologue-experience-science-1.5486969.

Staff, Matt. “Guy's Internal Monologue Discovery Ruins His Day.” Cheezburger, FAIL Blog, 10 Feb. 2020, cheezburger.com/10469893/guys-internal-monologue-discovery-ruins-his-day.

Stewart, Jessica. “People Have Discovered That Not Everyone Has an Inner Monologue and It Has Sparked a Dialogue Online.” My Modern Met, 4 Feb. 2020, mymodernmet.com/inner-monologue/.