[sageikosa]

I sometimes talk to myself or to hypothetical instances of other people I know. I try to do this quietly at times since I know it might not be perceived favorably by others. Mainly I do this to verbally externalize thoughts and force them back into my auditory memory (deliberately), hopefully reinforcing or bolstering a position I want to take or a course of action I need to take later.

I hope I never lose track that I am initiating those conversations...I'm old enough to be well past the standard age for developing schizophrenia...but if I did lose track, I at least have my atheism to fall back upon and my memory of having read through Jaynes a couple of times.

[mettamage]

I do the same thing. I'm actually inspired by trying to talk to hypothetical instances of other people. I never did that. I normally talk to myself and to a lesser extent to my past self (when I was younger it would be my future self, but I'm currently in 'the future').

If there's a real person around I just talk to the real person, and on non-shy days this could easily be a stranger. It could make me annoying, but I also like to listen if it's about the same topic.

To me this all seems perfectly normal. My reasoning is that by activating more brain areas (i.e. Broca & Wernicke) and preferably also the pre-motor and motor cortices by moving (so walk while talking to yourself), the brain can make more connections to the content you're thinking about. That's just my hunch though.

[sageikosa]

A lot of decisions where I work are made in meetings with at least 4 or more people. The practice "conversations" are just that... practice. Dialog is more my thing than a perpetual debate club, so I'm practicing being persuasive to authorities rather than defaulting to combative against others with different stories to tell.

[sevensor]

> I try to do this quietly

If you hold a mobile phone to your ear, nobody will give you a second look.

[iagooar]

Unless you get a real call while doing so.

[jacquesm]

"Please hold while I get the other line"

(what should really worry you is if you hear 'ok.')

[jonsterling]

Just make sure your phone is charged, since you'll look like a real douche if there's an emergency and you need to call police/ambulance with your dead phone that you've just been talking on...

[petke]

Sounds a bit like like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging