For me there's two separate participants, a 'talker' and a 'listener'. My mind identifies more with the talker, because that's the one that has agency. Since there are two participants, both of which are me, I talk in 1st person plural ('we've got to do ...', 'we thought about this earlier'). I stopped being afraid of being alone after I started having an internal dialogue around the age of 11, since having a second participant in the conversation meant I was always in company.

Edit: Wow, looks like there's a lot more diversity in this than I was expecting

Sometimes the monologue is so loud I end up accidentally vocalising (whispering) it. I think it might be partially caused by the fact I have ADHD and a monologue like this is a way to keep my brain stimulated (thought wise, but also socially) when there's no input from the outside.

I don't have one...

I think plenty of people are like that too. Would you say you spend most of your time while conscious in the present? Because for me, this internal dialogue causes me to ignore my surroundings and consequentially I end up spending a large part of my waking hours ignoring my actual surroundings.

My base thoughts are non-verbal. Sometimes I describe it like shapes in a hyperdimensional vector space.

My internal monologue is basically just practicing translating these base thoughts into language, to explain concepts to others.

My mind is mostly pretty quiet. My internal monologue is used for figuring stuff out and making observations/giving myself a warning (ie: that person is lying). It doesn’t narrate anything. I only speak first person with myself. I have difficulty remembering my internal monologue so I’ve made it a habit to write down my observations and then synthesize them. Also my internal monologue is quiet and any kind of noise interrupts it.

It depends, if it's a problem I'm trying to solve, if it's a presentation that I'm going to do, if I need to communicate with someone. Like I thought about responding this, while trying to observe how it works.

Normally there are a lot of monologues happening at the same time and I'm probably listening to music too, so I'm like 30 seconds thinking about something, pass to another something and then the good part of the music comes. I took ADHD meds once and damn, this completely disappeared hahahaha.

But, depending on the thing, if it's a concept I'm trying to tackle, normally it's just me alone passing through it, its ramifications, consequences, basis, etc. If I'm trying to talk to someone, I like to imagine them and interact with myself playing as them. Sometimes it's like yours, two of me separated from me "debating".

My internal monologue is constant. Unless I'm using my language processing capacity for something else (e.g. listening to a podcast or reading text) then my brain is full of verbal diarrhoea. I'll count each step on my way up a staircase just to fill the dead air in my head.

Mine is just constant words. Constant narration of everything. With occasional music breaks, because there's always pop music going through my head too.

Same lol

Explain

I hadn't thought about it much, but mine is just first person, same as the way I type or talk. In fact I think much of my internal monologue is actually pretend or planning conversations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4Gs4Jw_ePI

I'd say that's a pretty reasonable summary. I mean, I can think about the future and the past of course, and I can stress about them both too, but none of that takes the form of a dialogue, nor does it have any sense of participants. There's just my thoughts, in the moment, about the future and what might happen.

This analogy started to feel particularly accurate for my own experience when I started learning a second language. I realised that I wasn't learning what one word meant in another language, but instead, attaching the two words to a deeper idea/concept. It means that I'd often understand what I was hearing, but even when I was listening in my new language, I didn't automatically have the translation to my native language (English).

And my thoughts/internal experience is like that. I can pull the words out to describe the thing, but the actual thought itself, the concept that I'm using the word to describe is where I would say my thoughts naturally sit

I probably shouldn't answer this tbh.

I have three main "voices", plus a couple of situational ones. As you say, a talker that's mostly "me", my conscious self. A listener that isn't just a listener that's essentially my subconscious throwing up images and memory in response to my conscious self. Then there's the other self, the third thoughts, the meta mind, whatever you want to call it.

That third voice is observing the "conversation", and making commentary and corrections as needed. Like "that's not how that really happened" when images flash up that are nebulous. Or "no, that's not who you want to be, stop being a dick" when my conscious self is under stress. Or "go fuck yourself" when thoughts triggered by mental health issues come up.

Plus, and this isn't some kind of bullshit DID¹ thing, I have fictional characters in my head. There's this thing I do when I write or DM where I kinda spool up a virtual machine in my head where a character "lives". These aren't real entities, they aren't split off from me, they're just a construct that's useful. They can be "deleted", they don't take over, nothing like that.

I can, however, have conversations with them if I do a bit of mental prep work to sort of fake forget that it's just my imagination playing a game with itself. I used to participate in some Mastodon writing prompt hashtags and I'd sort of interview my characters with them sometimes surprising me with what they said. Alas, the instance I used shut down without warning, and I didn't have a recent backup, so I lost most of it.

While I was writing that paragraph, one of my characters got switched on for a second and grumped at me. I know it's not a person, it's all imagination. But it is a fucking trip anyway.

Yeeeears ago, I was running a game. It included a deity coming back to life. During the process, I had been wrapping my head around what they'd be like, and one of the players had communed with the deity a good bit. During a session, the player had their character call on the god to manifest. My ass just started talking as the deity. Full on zero conscious control over what came out. It felt creepy but cool. This imaginary part of myself took over, my voice changed, I stood up and moved around, but none of it was "me". My conscious mind was starting to freak the fuck out a little because it felt like the imaginary thing was taking over.

That wasn't the last time it happened, but I've never been able to make it happen. Well, not to that degree anyway.

I guess what I'm saying is that my internal monologue isn't a monologue. Shit gets loud up in here.

Edit: ¹

My bullshit DID thing, I don't mean that did isn't real. I mean that it isn't me pretending to have DID or some other dissociative disorder. People do that, and it's fucking weird

I don't have one. No sound and no detailed images.

Me too. In fact my stream before this was "Jesus this is taking so long to load wtf. I should take this as a sign to go to bed. Oh... My meds wore off. I'm thinking ALL the words again. Man I'm glad people can't hear my thoughts. Well, it probably would've made the ADHD diagnosis easier. Oh hey, it finally loaded!"

Anyone else having hella load times on Lemmy lately or is it just my app or instance? Lol

The amount I relate to this is... A lot lol. Down to that deiety thing. Not exactly that but I have a knack for just letting IDK what take over sometimes. Friend in a crisis and I have no idea how to help? Sit back and jet it happen.

The human brain is wild!

My monologue hums.. And when there's some event /work/(or anything like late for a bus or work or something), it starts narrating the environment and condition with counting repetations(like steps, seconds) sometimes counting up and sometimes oscillatiory count(like in evens; 1-2--1-2--1-2--1...)

This sounds psycho or sociopathic.

Usually pretty normal but I have a problem where I look at something & start relating it to other things & then like 30 seconds later I am thinking about war crimes. It was already bad before 2023. Most vivid images I have ever "seen" & they can happen while driving. It reminds me of how I used to be more imaginative as a child. Except that was fun.

I have been limiting coffee intake which helps but I do kind of enjoy being pissed off & constantly visualizing maps so sometimes I do it on purpose which leads to Deliberate Site Vandalism since I can't direct that energy at anyone around me.

So I guess I also have two mode. Snide narrator who is very uncharitable to me & The Visions.

Yep, you got me! That must be exactly what it means!

Its only there if I need to work out something for talking about with somebody or for a written output, but generally my thoughts are visual or concepts without language attached.

Just one monologue. The voice is completely different from my RL voice.

Are you familiar with Aphantasia by any chance?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

Edit: In case anyone finds out through this comment, remember that discovering this does not change anything about your life or who you are. It's just that most others work differently to what you used to think.

Mine is constantly going off all the time, like I'm preparing an argument of some sort (which usually has nothing to do with what I need to be doing) and need to process all the information I can over and over again to make sure everything lines up. If someone talks for more than 5 seconds my own internal monologue kicks in until the person stops or like 30 seconds pass and I realize it distracted me. Makes it difficult to read as well, and on bad occasions it can last for hours. The only time this doesn't happen is if I'm intensely focused on something like a self-driven programming project.

When I'm not thinking about anything, it just plays music, all the time.

When I'm thinking, it's kinda like the reasoning of an LLM, it talks about possible ways to solve something, how things could end, and says things like "oh right, if I do X, I need to do Y".

The strangest thing is that despite me being italian, most of my inner monologue is in english, especially when I'm playing games or programming; and it's not in my voice, it's a generic male voice that kinda sounds like Morgan Freeman.

Mine is very chaotic. It's basically me fighting off OCD thoughts combined with maladaptive daydreaming.

I don’t have one. Ask me anything.

Interesting. I expected everyone's internal voice would mirror their real one

Now I'm curious, have you studied/speak any other language? If you learned later, what would you say was the comparative difficulty? I ask since it seems the dominance english in my internal monologue clouds what I intend to say some times

What are the videos of

Wow, that's really sophisticated. I don't think my mind would have the capacity/bandwidth to play a totally independent, second active participant

Ah I see, that sounds similar to me then

Depends on what I'm doing. It's usually one voice, but if I'm trying to think through something or if my ADHD is turned up, I get what I call "the committee." For thinking through something, different perspectives all chime in, and I like to imagine it like some kind of round table debate. I "talk" with myself through ideas, and sometimes I change my mind about what I do because ultimately I know the most sensible talking point is the right one.

If my ADHD is behind it, though, then it's more like a room full of people all pointing out different things at the same time. One's complaining that the noise outside is too loud. Another's distracted by the birds out the window. Another voice is debating what I should eat next (even if I'm not hungry.) Yet another is trying to remember the lyrics to a random song. Then the "responsible adult" of the group is trying to get everyone else to STFU and focus on the task at hand.

I find that caffeine goes a long way in getting the committee to chill and listen to each other. It's not too surprising that stimulants get them all in line, but it's still interesting to experience.

Sounds like Inside Out lol

I learned (am learning) Spanish later in life and it has actually been quite interesting because of this. I have aphantasia, so no mental images either, and I've always described my thinking and thoughts as being about the concepts and ideas of words, with the words something that I can summon if I need to.

And learning Spanish via translation and memorisation was really painful, and honestly, not enjoyable. I eventually stumbled across the comprehensible input method, which doesn't try and translate your target language to another language. It just builds up from scratch, you learn from simple words and sentences, with strong visual support and repetition etc, getting more complex the more exposure to the language you get. And this method clicked with me. I'm only at B1 or so with Spanish, but I can listen to a native speaker and understand them, but if you asked me what they said, I would have to then convert what I heard to English after the fact.

I've often said that it worked because both English and Spanish attach words to the behind the scenes concepts, and I'm mapping to that.

Yep, very familiar :)

I have aphantasia!

In fairness, I have a weird capacity that's the opposite of aphantasia. Some people can't picture things in their minds, the same way some people don't have an inner voice. I call my thing hyperphantasia.

When I'm reading a book (or writing something), I can see and hear things as they're described to the extent that I stop perceiving the real world fully. If the author describes smells, I sometimes get those. It's a very immersive experience beyond what I've seen other people describe as their inner imagery. I've even gotten hints of feelings on skin if I'm deep enough and the descriptions are right.

I know I'm not the only person that experiences things that way, but it does seem to be rare based on responses when I talk about it online.

If I'm awake late at night, thinking of an uncomfortable conversation I need to have with someone I can have an entire conversation with them in my head knowing mostly how they'll reply and the best response to it.

I guess it's like I'm two people talking 1 is me the other is me with that other person's personality.

Other times it's like my anxiety is giving me a hidden vision to scare me slightly at the look of my phone on the edge of the table falling over, and I instantly decide to move it.
I guess that part is why I'm afraid of heights, cause my Anxiety tells me I'm going to fall.
Also why I can't watch Horror movies, my anxiety latches onto those gruesome deaths and spends decades reminding me of it when I'm in a similar looking area.

Do you feel like you're missing out on it?

How do you make peace with complicated decisions?

How do you motivate yourself?

Did you ever feel like you could answer someone in a different way?

My internal monologue is usually just like a commentary of my own voice, or at random times I just talk it out loud cause I find it nice to just speak, but I can mimic others people voices in my internal monologue if I felt like it; sometimes, my mind never talks at all and uses visual to think which what I do most of the time, it's quite peaceful to have a break from the noise.

80% song lyrics, 10% how I would respond if I wanted to invite conflict, 5% random shit, 5% schemes/ideas.

It keeps telling me to feign the emotions and facial expressions that is most suitable for the conversation.

Since I can remember, It’s helped me learn appropriate facial expressions for different occasions; by watching other people. My wife says that my inner voice is dark, and not normal for others.

I honestly don’t understand why others are happy, sad angry et al.

For me, well its a pre-verbalization of anything I am about to do or say.

Even typing this out I am speaking each word.

If I am getting into bed, I think "I need to do xyz".

sometimes its inquisitive, such as when I debate over choices ranking them over each other, or when I am processing what someone says or does.

"Why did they do that? It could be this or that".

When I was younger I had developed a minor personality split in order to compensate for neglect and bullying. They were nice to talk to, and helped me processs emotions and feel not alone. They merged back into my main personality sometime in highschool.

That movie is so relatable