What does inner voices have to do consciousness or sentience?
My grandfather used to be fascinated by it, he'd say that I'd gone to my secret garden and that it was ok to leave me alone. Even after recovering my hearing years later, I kept this habit (whether it's good or bad is debatable). Over the years I developed a better hang of it and I can now trigger it mostly at will. The level of introspection that came with all this is rather hard to explain, though for all my quirks, I don't regret it one bit.