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by saberdancer 1979 days ago
Not sure if it connected, but this internal monologue is another thing that I fail to understand. I think I do not have internal monologue, but this is especially hard to describe.

Perhaps there is some crossover between people who can't visualize and those who do not experience internal monologue.

Another aspect I've known for a long time is that I have bad "situational" memory. I have good trivia/history memory but very bad memory about personal situations or events. I am not sure about faces, I didn't really notice myself struggling with it but hard to really judge.
2 comments
TeMPOraL 1979 days ago
Makes me wish somebody would do a study of all these facets simultaneously and put the answers on a scatterplot.

For me, it is:

- 1-2 / 6 on the "mind's eye" scale

- perfectly working internal monologue; almost all of my conscious thinking involves me "hearing" sentences in my head (I don't experience actual auditory stimulus, but I can "hear" the words, the cadence, and sometimes even tone)

- good trivia/history memory

- bad situational memory, bad memory for people's names

- I can only recognize faces of people with whom I dealt for prolonged periods of time

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bonoboTP 1978 days ago
> perfectly working internal monologue; almost all of my conscious thinking involves me "hearing" sentences in my head (I don't experience actual auditory stimulus, but I can "hear" the words, the cadence, and sometimes even tone

Do you feel like it's always "you" who is actively saying the monologue, or is it being "dictated" from the outside, you are listening but not saying it internally? Perhaps by an imaginary friend, Jesus, aliens, gods, buddhas, whatever?

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TeMPOraL 1978 days ago
It's always just me. I never had an imaginary friend. I never felt a different entity speaking in my head. It's always my own voice in my head saying things or conversing with itself.
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alan_n 1978 days ago
Strangely I did not have a strong internal monologue when I was young. My thoughts were mostly "visual" unless reading. It is more 50/50 now, but I still "see" most of what I think/read if that makes sense.
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