[Epholys]

Wow, these questions are really interesting, I've never thought about it!

For my favorite songs, I can recall it perfectly... But I don't hear it at all as if I was hearing it in real life. In fact, I don't know how to describe how vivid it is. Maybe I don't hear it at all? But I can sing these songs (out loud) without a problem.

However, I seem to be incapable of changing some elements about it. I can't seem to be able to make it faster, slower, change the singer, or the instruments. But, when I sing it out loud, I can of course modify it.

For "Happy birthday" (well, in my native language), it's really weird. Because I don't have a specific song in mind, I can follow the words, the tune, but I don't "feel" the voice of a specific singer. And I'm incapable to change this recall to different voices, like children or grown men. But if I listen to a version sung by these people, I can recall it after (until I forget).

Thanks again for these questions, I was aware of my lack of inner voice, my difficulties of a "inner sight" (that's a whole other can of worms), but I never applied this interrogations to a "inner hearing".

[thinkingemote]

I got and adapted the questions from a survey about these issues but I've been trying to get the question right as we tend to use language which presupposes things.

I like this one as it asks to form an image and asks about clarity. The image is about hearing. So it crosses both parts.

Another example would be to form an image of a telemarketer on the telephone. Change the accent. Introduce line distortion.

For me it's in the middle. Happy birthday is clear to visualise and I can follow the tune. it's not very vivid but it's like I'm singing to myself with my mouth shut. I don't have a mental "visual" image of the song by default. When changing it the imagery appears a bit more but the focus is on the sound. I can easily change it to children's voices, the unix greybeards is more difficult as it requires me working out what they would sound like including spatial echoes from the auditorium. I find the resulting image (which is clearer than the children) is amusing.

[Epholys]

Ha, interesting! I don't have the control you have on my inner hearing. For a song I love, I can like sing along with my mouth shut, not only the voices, but also the instruments. Strangely, it's hard to have the complete song at the same time (voice + instruments), but I suspect it's more of a skill issue, as I seem to be able to do it faintly.

I'm not envious of the people who have an inescapable inner voice. I think it would hinder my thoughts, the speed of it, and the ability to think abstractly. It's not totally baseless, because I can force myself to have an inner voice, but it's a conscious effort. Sometimes useful if I need to clarify my thoughts. On the same note, not having a inner voice makes it really difficult sometimes to put my emotions and thoughts into words.

But I'm really jealous about anyone that can clearly conjure images, "videos", and sounds in their mind, I feel like I have a big disadvantage if I want to learn to draw, 3D model, or play an instrument.

[im3w1l]

People speak of these things in term of identity, but I wonder how true that is. I could easily imagine (pun intended) these are more akin to skills, that can be improved with practice.

Actually now that I think about it, I do know that this is a well-known phenomenon in the chess world. Newcomers are unable to to play blind-chess. But experienced players say that they gradually learned how to do it. How it started as a really blurry picture of just a small part of the board, and how they gradually got better at remembering and visualizing the whole board at the same and were able to play full games with a blindfold.