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Comment by johnchristopher | Hacker News Reader

Wait a minute... I thought I had internal monologue because I can hear myself speaking thoughts and myself talking to myself (it's like talking out loud but in your head) but reading some of the comments here it seems like people have multiple inner voices and that's what they mean by internal monologue ? I don't have inner voices, there's only me up there (and I do a lot of self pitying and most of the monologue is on a rail and I do dialogue but it's role playing, not other voices with their own mind).

Do most people mean "multiple voices" when they say "inner monologue" ?

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> Do most people mean "multiple voices" when they say "inner monologue" ?

You will find different conceptualizations of this phenomena, but generally speaking it is very prolific to treat mind (term used imprecisely) as comprised of many sub-parts (sub-personalities/voices/selves/states). You can treat them as separate, functional patterns of behavior with their own agendas, feelings, beliefs, etc. The fun part is that you can engage them and talk to them, eg. you can talk to your Inner Child (you will feel it as separate and feel its child like nature) or your Lazy part or any part you recognize as a bigger pattern. You can even talk to your Sorrow, Silence, Energy of Being (as opposed to doing), etc. You can talk to parts of yourself which were dormant or disowned/repressed (eg. Anger, Romantic Self,...). You can talk to your demonized, aggressive Inner Critic.

The changes which occur due to shift in perspective which results from such dialogues are... beyond the scope of this comment. ;)

edit: Seems I am late for the party, but definitely for a treat here (including the article). (I do Voice Dialogue for a living, which is a practical method of meeting those different parts of ourselves.)

> You can treat them as separate, functional patterns of behavior with their own agendas, feelings, beliefs, etc.

Wow.

I have seen television shows and art that treat humans as the amalgam of a faceted personality where each facet is depicted by a separate character (representing, I assumed, the embodiment of that fact), but I had never considered this might be demonstrative of the way people might actually think (or think they think).

It is a very good mapping of the state of affairs in our minds to assume this multitude of selves and experiencing them as they show up is very intimate and deep. A sudden shift in perspective when you realize it works like this blows people's minds away and is enormously freeing (I try not to exaggerate).

I am myself partial (with multiple reasons) to Voice Dialogue perspective as presented by Sidra and Hal Stone in their work, but you will find this perspective of multitude in many places, reaching back to antiquity - theoretical, practical, with neuroscience following.

The concept as described in the article is totally foreign to me. Would there be some upside of trying to awaken some additional inner voice? Is that even possible?

I can easily speak in my mind, but it's just me, and I'm in total control. There are no other personas. I of course sometimes get spontaneous thoughts, sometimes even very unwanted ones, but they are my thoughts and I can easily dismiss them. I don't do dialogues in my mind, and there's no critique or negative feedback, just self-reflection. Thoughts in my mind do not keep me awake at night. I don't feel like I'm missing anything really.

I would be very careful talking about personas, masks (this brings needless conversations). The most gentle way of describing it all is to talk about energies. You can be in a child-like playful energy, you can be in a 'focused on the task at hand, not minding emotions/people at all' energy. You can be in a (much discussed here) critical, judgmental energy directed towards you or others. You may or may not have access to your sensual/sexual energies.

So it is more about realizing these highly different kinds of energies or modus operandi are accessible to you (more easily than you can imagine) and finding out what status they have (Can I enjoy this kind of energy? Is it too strong in me, demonized, out of control? Unknown to me, dormant? Am I afraid of it?)

You seem (from my perspective and only from reading your comment) to be highly identified with a self which likes to be much in control and in Voice Dialogue (see below) is called Protector/Controller.

Once you realize nature of this process (many energies inside you) you can literally _talk_ to them (including Protector/Controler - being very important voice), but this is not required. Voice Dialogue is a method where one person talks with energies/voices of another person, but you may spend your whole life without any need to talk to your energies, simply being in this or that energy, where need be. However, from my experience, doing Voice Dialogue has a tremendous impact on a person - it is a complete shift, a very real phasic transition. Even getting in touch with this perspective (by reading a book about it or hearing about it) can make this shift happen.

As in the very article linked here - this will differ person to person. Even in Voice Dialogue, focused on conversation (to put it simply) you will encounter energies or people who operate more easily with images, some not very talkative, and so on. However, the strange point still stands - one can literally talk with your Inner Child and you can feel it.

This might seem a strange perspective, but throughout the years I have only met with curiosity and only twice (?) wtih total 'I reject it. Get away from me.' Some people fear that this view might disintegrate them, where in fact it has a great integrative character. Some may fear it. So you simply can talk to this part which fears it... and the fun begins.

I hope I somehow stayed on the point replying to your questions.

Thanks for the comprehensive reply, sounds intriguing.

Have you tried changing your inner voice to some one else's voice? I'm usually have 1 primary voice but I can synthesize anyone's voice. For example, if I'm reading something that I know was written by a woman my brain automatically makes up a female voice for it.

Yes, when role playing conversations or thinking about someone talking I have their tone and speech patterns but I am the one writing the dialogue (borrowing on their way of phrasing sentences). On that note, I can't picture their own inner monologue but I have never tried that.

When reading fiction I have different tones for people but it's barely noticeable. I read without sub vocalizing much (reading too fast for that but I can pause it to enjoy the scene or the writing or the experience of reading, it depends).

I too make up voices for female and male authors of tweets, blog posts, articles, comments, etc. but it's automatic and they aren't discernable unless I have heard the person then it'll always be their voice.

And there's a huuuuuge bias because the default is a male voice with all of my stereotypes attached to it.

> I don't have inner voices, there's only me up there

I don't have "me" up there most of the time. Usually only when (a) I'm reading to myself or (b) if I'm practicing/going over a conversation or 'debate' on a concept. Otherwise my mind is usually quiet.

I do envy you I think. I am always there except when daydreaming or in the zone (reading, mind wandering, etc.).

Then again what would I think what is "me" if I didn't have that constant 'observation of the world (outer and inner)' ?

Maybe I don't have inner dialogue but anxiety is eating my mind (anxiety as in: being aware of the world all the time, observing it all the time) and it gives an illusion of monologue/being ?

One disadvantage is a general lack of small talk ability: someone says something, and I'm like "…".

Your description above is very similar to how I would describe things, yet I have no problem with small talk.

I don't, but I can imagine another voice if needs be; I can imagine some people crafted their internal monologue to be like that. I mean at some point my inner monologue was entirely in English (not my native language), and I spent a lot of time thinking in the style of writing a post on the forum I was active on at the time. I think it's a helpful tool to think outside of your own self (that's the best phrasing I can come up with at the moment).

I think that's where a lot of blogging, livejournaling, tweeting etc comes from as well - it's a way to channel an internal monologue.

I do feel being different when thinking and writing in English but I don't know if it changes my personal traits or inclinations. I read once about how it has an impact though: being more or less assertive, funny or polite. But I wonder if theses changes aren't just an illusion due to the fact that it does change (limit more often than increase) our range of expressions (as in expressing emotions, conveying meaning through the way you craft a message, think McLuhan's medium is the message).

When I am trying to piece how someone else think/would react/feel, when I am trying to be empathic I do not rely on roleplaying that person and I do not write sentences I would listen to with their own tone. It's an analytical process. (But I am pedantic with the definition of empathy and compassion).

> I spent a lot of time thinking in the style of writing a post on the forum I was active on at the time

My inner monologue (which can be a dialogue in the sense that when I ponder things I tell myself "what if I do that ?" for instance) is a part what defines me as an individual. It's me but not completely me (it misses the unconscious, as in what I don't have in mind at the moment and what I don't know about myself.. I don't have full knowledge of who I am or why I do things I do).

Interesting - I experience the opposite in that I can only hear imagined “dialogues” involving other people, but have no inner voice of my own. My emotional priorities dictate what the imagined drama is about and, to be sure, this is a whole lot of self-pity … but the voices have distinct identities and sounds, and none of them are “me”.

Is it like you are listening to a radio talk show? And you have feelings based on what you hear? Or is "you" all of the voices? Are you actively playing the different parts or are they autonomous ?

Yes like listening to a radio talk show or a scene in a play — the participants are sometimes real people I know or imagined people. They seem autonomous but when I think about the context of the whole scene, it’s often transparently and cringeworthily based on whatever concern I have —- “this week on the radio hour! A dialogue demonstrating that none of the participants appreciate Luke. Next week: everyone coming to the realization, in their own way, that this thing Luke came up with is the most brilliant thing ever! Stay tuned”

It's fascinating !

Do you have some intrusive thoughts, like things you can't help thinking about and that you can't tune out ?

Do you control when those plays are happening or is it all the time ? Maybe in the background of your mind, like conversations in a cafe when you don't focus on it, and only when you decide to pay attention to it you do hear the conversation and the words ?

I wonder if in your case it's some kind of imagination going unbridled and you getting in the spectator's chair and in my case I don't have that kind of imagination anymore (or not the kind that invokes(?) those voices) and it has been tuned out/repressed for such a long time that there is now only one voice - mine - that I can hear ?

I also wonder what "listen to your inner voice" means to different people.

And the role schizophrenic thoughts played in our culture (`hearing voices`). Is there a connection ?

Hm... multiple voices would be inner dialog, not monologue.

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