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by Loeffelmann 989 days ago
What do you imagine a inner monologue to be like?
1 comments

A voice in my head that narrates thoughts.
Let's say you've heard someone say "A voice in my head narrates thoughts". What happens next inside your head?

I, for example, may produce something like the following sequence of internally represented words and non-words "A voice narrates... [imagines what it can feel like] Does it feel external to [non-verbal reference to conversation partner]? It doesn't work like that [implied reference to myself] [pause for introspection] I produce words. It's not like someone else narrates thoughts in my head. [stop producing words to check that] I just think, and one thing leads to another and that's why it's hard to stop the sequence of the words being produced by me and it's not because I can't stop some intrusive voice inside my head" and so on and so forth.

Phonetic realization of the words isn't important if I don't specifically concentrate on it.

Are your thoughts or ideas ever in language before you say or write them?

I think this is the same misunderstanding as “the mind’s eye” https://x.com/stuartjritchie/status/1708871999924179024?s=46

I can narrate them if I want to, but I have to choose to. I don't have the narrator constantly in my head, my default state is "no narrator".
My guess is that’s how everyone works. But we’ll never really know. It’s all analogies like wine tasting notes.
I know plenty of people who constantly have narrated thoughts and find it very hard to stop them.
I believe they are just explaining the same thing with a different analogy. Can you stop thinking thoughts? “Narration” is a metaphor.