Internal Monologue Puns

I wondered whether INTJs would happen too have internal monologue more often than not.

I learned that most people have an inner monologue and I couldn't believe it. I couldn't comprehend that people say words to themselves in their minds, almost like rehearsing sentences before they come out. Or that people talk themselves through ideas and such, internally.

I researched and researched and found that having ADHD can effect the ability to have an inner monologue. I don't know if this is the case with me, but I could only assume because I am an adult with adhd who never has had internal conversation with myself or internal words.

I want to include that yes, I have a conscience, meaning that I know right from wrong.

Anyone else with adhd who has this, or should I say doesn't have this? Ask me anything. I'm just as intrigued as those with one.

Yeah, yeah, dialogue is nice and all... but have you heard of our lord and saviour, internal monologue? Holy. Crap. When it hits, it really freaking hits.

My absolute favourite are the POVs of characters who are conflicted or repressed in some way. Those who normally keep it together well enough, but then some unexpected event finally pushes them into this internal freakout spiral. And suddenly they are running around with the kind of self-talk that would make a therapist blush. And of course we, the readers, get to watch it from the front seat: a character picking at their own half-healed wounds until, finally, the fog parts for a second and we get a glimpse of what they keep hidden from anyone, even themselves.

And sure, it may have taken three solid pages of angst to get there and it wasn't even a direct confession and they are already rushing to deny it in the very next sentence, but it's already too late. Dear character, we have seen it. We have seen you - who you really are, truly, deep down. We now know you better than you know yourself.

I swear on my soul that as a writer, there is no feeling in the world quite like thinking that you may have managed to capture such a moment. This is why I love fanfiction so, so much: without an upper word limit, there is more opportunity to really delve into the psyche of each character. The very best bits of internal monologue I have ever read have been fanfiction and you can pry all those angsty, dramatic, slow-paced pieces from my cold dead hands.

Of course, except for angst there are so many delicious, delicious uses for internal monologue. I would like to give honorary mentions to:

• The quiet character who is secretly hilarious, but it takes getting into their head to witness all the snark.

• Those “oh shit” moments when something finally clicks and the character realises they've been doing it all wrong (For example: “oh shit, this thing I've believed my whole life is complete nonsense!” or “oh shit, I really do love that guy!” or “oh shit, the murderer is still in the house!”)

• The times when you watched a scene through the eyes of one character, and then you get transported into the POV of another, and their read on the situation is so completely different it may as well have been a parallel universe.

What are your favourite things about internal monologue? Are there any moments of internal reflection or conflict that you have been dying to write, or to read?

Also, if you ha

So, I have a bit of a problem with constant internal monologue. No matter what I do, it doesn't go away. Attempting to focus on breathing while meditating results in an almost hilarious onomatopoeia of a breathing sound. Has anyone else had to deal with this problem?

I was talking on another sub Reddit about how some people don’t have an inner monologue and it made me wonder about fanfic readers. For me personally I can picture an entire scene in my head with voices for each character and everything. Even if the characters speak another language in their source material, I can construct my best guess as to what they sound like in English. So my question is for those who do not have an inner monologue or cannot picture things in their head, does this effect your enjoyment when you read fan fiction? I can’t imagine reading fanfic without my current mental abilities being able to see and hear the story in my head.

"Identity disturbance is a term used to describe incoherence, or inconsistency, in a person's sense of identity. This could mean that a person's goals, beliefs, and actions are constantly changing.

It could also be that the person takes on personality traits of people around them, as they struggle to have and maintain their own identity."

ENTPs with their PoLR fi find a lot of difficulty pinpointing their emotions and expressing personal preference. From this and the self expressive nature of high fi users I think it's reasonable to conclude varying levels of fi determine a person's awareness of their identity? It's interesting cause I saw a thread earlier where multiple ENTP's claimed they have BPD, which Identity Disturbance is a symptom of. Hell ENTP's are even the top voted for Most likely to have BPD on PDB being known as a "social chameleon"

Which leads me to the question, do you have a little voice in your head that narrates the events that take place in your life? Like in the game LiS where Max gives little insights after every conversation like a thought bubble. In this Wikipedia Article, internal monologue is credited to a decent sense of self (or lack thereof) Using this info, my little hypothesis is that most of your answers will be a no.

We're talking about the presence of an internal monologue BTW, it doesn't have to be on 24/7, so feel free to answer and give insights!

like an imaginary voice in your head that you can hear
or you imagine what it sounds like if you could hear it
and you sort of use the voice throughout your flow of consciousness?

that is all

If so tell me what experiencing this is like. Is it constant? How does this help and/or torment you? Does this voice get louder and quieter? If so when? Can you control it? Do you ever drown out voices/noises and listen to your inner voice instead? And is this where the idea of the stereotypical anime fighting scenes comes from?

Do you talk to yourself in your head and say 'we' instead of 'i'? Like, I will think 'I don' t really wanna watch this. But I can't be bothered to find the remote. ' and then my next thought is 'no, come on, we need to find you something good to watch so you can actually focus on the telly and enjoy it.'

Apparently it's not a common thing to have. I never knew this. My mind is blown right now.

Ok so like a lot of people with ADHD, I have an extremely active internal monologue. I'm talking 24/7 conversation in my head, often with multiple different thought strands or a song going on in the background. I hate it. I wish I could just literally stop thinking for once in my life. Honestly, my ADHD as a whole isn't that bad. I'm able to focus on things enough that I can get by without medication, I'm not hyperactive most of the time, and through a lot of practice my executive functioning, mainly my ability to organize and keep track of things, has improved substantially. However, it is this incessant "voice" in my head that basically represents everything negative in my life. It gives me anxiety, it distracts me, it gives me terrible auditory processing because it's so loud that it basically drowns out external talking, and it makes it so hard to sleep.

Here's the cherry on top: medication doesn't help. I have tried all of the main types of medication including adderall, ritalin, strattera, and vyvanse. I'm currently on vyvanse and I continue to take it because it helps with the auxiliary symptoms like motivation, organization, etc. but the main problem is still there. It's gotten to the point where I'm genuinely questioning whether I even have ADHD. I thought the entire point of the medication is that it "clears" your mind so you can focus, but if anything it just makes my thoughts faster. My friend recently got an ADHD diagnosis 2 years after me and the first thing he said was that the adderall calmed him down and made him way more relaxed. I'm starting to feel guilty because it feels like I'm just taking drugs instead of actual medication. I'm definitely impulsive, not in the sense that I don't think but because I have very poor self control so I often end up taking way more than my prescribed dose which of course makes me feel even worse about myself.

I really need some advice/support on this as I don't know what to do. I'm going to start a meditation regimen set up by my therapist, so I'm really hoping that helps with the racing thoughts, but I really want to continue using my meds as my quality of life when I'm on them is much better. I'm really hoping that someone who has had a similar experience and can offer me advice on this sees this as it is really frustrating to deal with right now.

Some people do and some don't

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Hi all, long-time lurker here :)

I recently learned that it is pretty common for people to have (or not have) an internal monologue.

Do you think that the presence or absence of an internal monologuemay be related to the usage/development of specific cognitive functions ?

My one literally never stops talking to the point where I can't sleep sometimes. Either that or it plays music constantly the second I wake up to when I sleep. Some days I can handle it. But other days, it's like there's a character in my head. I know, I sound insane. But do I?

Recently I have learned that people have different “form” of thoughts: some hear an internal monologue when they think, some see their thoughts in words, some only have abstract, non-verbal thoughts.

My question is, for ADHDers with racing thoughts, what are your thoughts like?

For example, I only have non-verbal thoughts, and when I am in my own head, my thoughts travel so fast that it might be gone before I have the time to formulate the language to describe them. But for ADHDers who have internal monologues, are the monologues going much faster than that of a neurotypical? For ADHDers who can see their thoughts in words, does it look like a quick roll of subtitle (but maybe on 2x speed)?

INTJ here, I was looking into the topic of "inner monologue" And I came across something interesting. I got to thinking about Se users randomly.

Here is some of the data I collected so I could back up my Ni idea:

Some people on quora spoke about how they don't have an inner monologue and I was like "no way," (in my mind of course)

One person said "Though I don’t “hear” the words before I write them, I have no problem expressing most thoughts. But these thoughts almost never take the form of language until I sit down to write or start talking."

Another person said "  I don’t have an internal monologue in the sense that I don’t ever have thoughts in the form of words in my head unless I make a conscious effort to do this e.g. when writing anything down or thinking about what is the best way to communicate an idea to other people."

Then I went on another website...

-"No. Never had that," Vadermaulkylo responded. "If I’m asked to do something I don’t wanna do, I just get kinda frustrated but that’s about it. I don’t really think to myself.”

-"I don’t have any conscious thought about what I’m feeling, or any stream of dialogue describing it to myself. I just feel it. It’s like the inner dialogue is the middle man in my head, who just isn’t there."

My niece is a picky eater and I just wish I better understood things from her perspective. She eats some healthier fruits and vegetables but mostly prefers calorie-dense foods.

She enjoys eating chicken but will not eat chicken that I've grilled because of the grill marks or she'll eat a slice of ham but won't touch that outer layer of it.

I'm curious, what is your monologue when you're presented with a food you won't eat? Does being served grilled chicken with grill marks trigger a survival response? A distrust? Any and all help appreciated!

I know Mauler and Rags aren’t the biggest fans, and that it’s one of the reasons they don’t like anime, which can definitely overdo it (although it might have to do with directly transitioning manga to the screen).

Anyway, what are your guys thoughts on it? And if you’re for it, how do you think it should be used?

I often see comments in a variety of the WOT subs that one of the big difficulties in adapting the series to television is that it's not possible to translate the book characters internal thoughts to screen. I'm a fan of Dexter (both old & new) and one of my favorite parts of the series are his internal monologues. They never confused me or made me think "why are they telling me this instead of showing me?" They actually enhanced my enjoyment and understanding.

So why can they not do this in WOT? (This is a serious question as I am not familiar with the process of making of tv show - please don't just answer "cuz the writers are incompetent or stupid." I'm curious if there are legitimate technical reasons beyond that as to why they aren't using this method to enhance character development.)

I recently discovered that not everyone has an internal monologue, my partner being one of them. He also has Aphantasis (the inability to create mental images).

I, however, basically have conversations with myself nonstop. It gets pretty exhausting and leads to tons of overthinking and anxiety. I'm so curious to how thoughts work for those who don't have internal monologues. Does it make you overthink less? Are you less anxious? What happens in your head when your laying in bed at night? Is it just...silence? I feel like that would drive me mad, but sometimes my own thoughts are deafening.

Minds make no sense to me.

TL;DR: I do have some thoughts that automatically appear as words, but those verbal/auditory thoughts are rare unless I'm reading, and the majority of my internal experience is pictures, feelings, concepts. I'm floored (and quite jealous) that so many people have this, and I'm dying to hear about YOUR internal cognitive experience, especially if it's minimally verbal like mine!

I’m super curious about this right now, as I’m reading Dr. Barkley's book and he has an awesome in-depth explanation of internal voice and how it's an integral executive function. I'm triggered. I don't have an internal "monologue."

I get most of my cognitive clarity out of writing (which is probably why I can be long-winded). If I’m not writing or speaking out loud, I’m not processing.

Because of this, my conscious thoughts are often challenging to recognize. I CAN have internal words, but they come automatically verbally formed only about 5% of the time, except when I'm reading. The other 95% are abstract concepts I would have to then translate manually if I need to use words, which feels like pulling loose Lego blocks out of the air and attaching them to each other while hoping they make sense together and that they form a structure that at least resembles the concept inside my head. So there’s like, more steps and layers in between the thought and the words.

I am curious about the prevalence of this co-occurring with ADHD. Apparently we can have ADHD and have an internal monologue. Probably the reverse is true, too, people with no internal monologue and no ADHD. Fascinating executive function. I wonder what the stats would be if we could poll everyone.

QUESTION for those of you who do have an automatic internal monologue: What percentage of your (conscious) thoughts do you think are automatically verbally formed? Is it like, every thought you notice comes in as words? Or do you feel yourself actively creating those words?

*For me, I can CREATE those words in my head, but it's definitely usually an active effort to do so. Actually, I usually have to imagine I’m talking to someone (and it’s usually arguing, which I suspect is because conflict is the only thing stimulating enough for my brain to be able to create verbal thoughts automatically around it).

QUESTION for those of you who don’t have such a strong automatic thought-monologue: Do you think we can practice it and actually develop it more? I would love to develop a verbal self-coaching dialogue in my head. I’m worki

I was talking to one of my aqua friends and he just said that he doesn't think much he just "does" things. And he's a very good person so it just surprised me that he isn't a good person on a decision basis. Is this an aquarius thing or unrelated? Could this just be because he didn't want to explain himself though?

Hmmm I need to test this. Might be on to something... If you're not sure please ask questions before answering as you can't change answer

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Bonus points: If you like talking to yourself what does that normally look like?