Lonely people's brains are different due to excess of imaginary social contact

After spending a lot of time alone (mostly during quarantine - ironically in NYC, a place I moved to in March given it&#x27;s lower barrier of entry to all things social), as someone who pulls more to the side of introvert but can be socially functional in group settings, I&#x27;m pretty sure that being alone with less social contact causes me far less stress and anxiety. So in other words, I&#x27;m finding that although there are benefits to being social, the fact that I&#x27;ve saved boat loads of money and have less stress from worthless small talk seems like an ideal way to live. Which sucks, because I&#x27;ve also realized that networking is the only true &quot;hack&quot; in essence to get past the drudgery of coding interviews &#x2F; otherwise opaque career ladders.<p>I delineate my introvert &#x2F; extrovert brain by classifying people I deem &quot;interesting enough to talk to&quot; and &quot;people I&#x27;d rather not talk to&quot;. For this reason, work interactions always seem to go better than off hand social interactions. If someone is condescending or rude then I&#x27;d just rather not waste time talking to them. At this point in my life I don&#x27;t really feel it&#x27;s worth the effort to force social interaction in either direction, some people like you others won&#x27;t - dating also gets easier if you take this approach.<p>Something I&#x27;m curious of is if &quot;lonely&quot; brains are less healthy? Also, for reference - the best point of comparison for social anxiety in my case is analogous to why I don&#x27;t see the point in fancy cars. I drive a 2001 nissan, but I never worry about where I park it, if it gets dented or worry about someone keying it. If I drove a lambo, I&#x27;d constantly be worried (even subconsciously) about this kind of thing.

I would consider myself pretty lonely, and I do have a very prominent inner monologue. A normal day I have dozens of imagined debates, presentations or conversations on varying topics. Some particular topics have been on the docket for years at a time, before enacting them in real life (finally clearing them away).<p>The intensity seems to vary based on my mood and wether I&#x27;m alone. I went on a week long roadtrip with some friends, and realised after a day or two that I wasn&#x27;t thinking nearly as much. It was as if I couldn&#x27;t. Even if I wasn&#x27;t with them for a few hours. My regular dark hole of &quot;I&#x27;ll just work for 50 years and then die alone&quot; was not accessible, even if I tried.<p>I&#x27;ve also had almost the same exact feeling when on a pretty strong acid trip, not being able to hear my inner monologue. That time it was more scary, but also really interesting and relaxing. Microdosing LSD brought most of that feeling back (not sure if placebo though), making me more focused and less sad.<p>I&#x27;m guessing getting to that state is a part of what mediation is all about, but I haven&#x27;t really figured that out yet.

When I was younger I couldn&#x27;t stand loneliness. I couldn&#x27;t stand staying in on Friday night. Fear of missing out, even if I didn&#x27;t even know what was I exactly missing out would burn too strong. Now in my 30s I love being alone. I can even go camping by myself in the wilderness alone, or hit a bar (pre-covid of course) by myself and not only be happy that way, but prefer it too. Sometimes I would go out by myself a few hours beforehand before meeting up with friends, to get that &quot;I am doing things alone&quot; fix.<p>I am not sure what changed and I became this way. I didn&#x27;t work towards it or strive for it, I just grew older I guess. So I came up with a theory. Not even a theory, more like an opinion...<p>That when we are younger we rely on society to survive. Without a support cycle, the elements will overtake us, and our animalistic instincts light up. Our identity is tied to our social circle. But as we get more confident and more comfortable with who we are, that deep fear of loneliness decreases. I am more alone now but less lonely.

Since the last few weeks, I have been having a lot of imaginary conversations with my friends. Sometimes I actually tend to act them out: for example nodding my head every now and then or lip syncing. Or that I am usually awake for an hour while in bed because I cannot end the imaginary conversation. Is it normal to have these conversations all the time?

As far as I can tell, nothing is said in the article or in the paper about causality.<p>The researchers suggest that lonely people&#x27;s thoughts are directed inwards due to a lack of social experiences, and this is what alters the brain. But I wonder how many people just have brains like this, and feel lonely as a consequence?

I get all my imaginary social contact by listening to podcasts.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Parasocial_interaction" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Parasocial_interaction</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;knowyourmeme.com&#x2F;photos&#x2F;1273792-me-irl" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;knowyourmeme.com&#x2F;photos&#x2F;1273792-me-irl</a>

This resonates with me as someone that spends a lot of time alone. I also find that I tend to view social interactions that I do have as more significant than the others involved if they&#x27;re not also loners. I have to remember that most people go to lunch with others, have small gatherings, etc fairly often (outside the pandemic times). It&#x27;s not generally as memorable or significant to them. I&#x27;ll think back fondly on an evening dinner party and remember every detail, friends that go to such things every weekend remember them less significantly. I also sometimes think of people I haven&#x27;t spoken to in a long time as still being relevant to me, and have to remember they likely don&#x27;t think of me at all - I don&#x27;t mean that in a self deprecating or sad way. It&#x27;s been a good thing to be aware of, sometimes someone will cross my mind and I&#x27;ll do a sort of social inventory and file them away as &quot;dormant&quot; lol

This was one of the most validating things I’ve read lately. I am normally extremely outgoing and due to current circumstances I’m more or less a shut in. I’ve been acting out in my brain social interactions. Despite actively chatting and calling people with my friends who are in relationships or quarantined with family, they have trouble following what in my current mental state makes sense. It’s happened at work as well, which is remote right now, and I was actually given a call to see if I was mentally ok.<p>Just seeing some preliminary findings about this makes me feel so much more valid in what I’ve been going through.<p>At the risk of being crude, Fuck loneliness

&gt;The study compared the MRI scans of people who said they “often” feel lonely with the scans of people do not report feeling that way.<p>I&#x27;m curious about how a sizeable fraction of the population &quot;lacking inner thought&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.psychologytoday.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;blog&#x2F;pristine-inner-experience&#x2F;201110&#x2F;not-everyone-conducts-inner-speech" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.psychologytoday.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;blog&#x2F;pristine-inner-exper...</a> throws off that figure.<p>It raises a disturbing question: what feelings can&#x2F;cannot be had if you not the conscientiousness to experience it?

The older I get the more I noticed a need for exclusion. At this point if I get a girls number, if anything is off about her I&#x27;ll almost immediately delete it.<p>I recognize the wrong person can derail my entire life.<p>Took alot of pain to get to this point. It&#x27;s better to few friends than those who will bring harm

This headline immediately made me think of the &quot;tulpa&quot; concept I came across a few months back.<p>It&#x27;s basically creating an imaginary friend, except &quot;different&quot; somehow?<p>Tried to find a decent representative article or video, but didn&#x27;t really feel comfortable linking to any of them.<p>The biggest impression I got from looking into the concept was that these people were profoundly lonely.

I can&#x27;t tell if I can trust this site or not, because it looks like one of those fake news site created to generate ad clicks. But I guess pretty much all the local news site look like this now. Sad state of the web we are living through.<p>Also interesting to note that the lead photo for loneliness in this article makes it seem all sexy and desirable.

I talk to myself almost daily. This is very beneficial. I am not an introvert, neither am I &quot;mental&quot;. There&#x27;s always some debate or presentation going on. Sometimes I&#x27;m singing in front of a 50k-person audience. Doing this actually makes me super-confident in real life. I basically simulate &quot;stage-fright&quot;, as well as rebuttals to common arguments; and in real-life, I have no stage freight, and I have great rebuttals!<p>I call this &quot;pre-stressing&quot;. Similar to how concerete is pre-stressed. &quot;It is substantially prestressed during production, in a manner that strengthens it against tensile forces which will exist when in service.&quot;. See <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Prestressed_concrete" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Prestressed_concrete</a>.

&gt; This network is responsible for a wide range of mental processes that take place when the brain is at rest. These processes are often referred to as the “inner voice”, or the “self.”<p>Now I am wondering if my &quot;aphantasia&quot; also explains why I rarely feel lonely.<p>Could it be that people who are able to see and hear their friends in their mind are more likely to miss them?

Explains the elaborate backstories folks create about their cats.

When I was living alone for a few years I would speak out my thoughts rather than in my head. That lead to having conversations with my self and then having conversations with fictional characters. I think also being alone increased anxiety and heightened sense of fear. I always wondered if this would have lead to a form of schizophrenia in the long term if I kept living alone.

<i>The study compared the MRI scans of people who said they “often” feel lonely with the scans of people do not report feeling that way.</i><p>This feels like a faulty approach. There is a world of difference between being alone and feeling alone. You can feel alone without being alone, for example. I am wrapping up my fifth military deployment and as such have spent a considerable amount of time actually alone compared to other adults. From numerous points of observation some adults are more capable of performing, and even possibly appreciating, time apart from other adults more than others. Some people simply cannot handle it and literally go crazy.<p>If the study does not account for such a foundational distinction I can’t, in good faith, consider the results valid. This distinction is hard to appreciate until you have been alone for an extended period and observed differences of performance relative to other people.

For those who want details, here&#x27;s the link to the Nature Communications paper (downloadable PDF).<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41467-020-20039-w" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nature.com&#x2F;articles&#x2F;s41467-020-20039-w</a><p>Also note loneliness is defined here as &quot;perceived social isolation&quot;.<p>To me, loneliness exists when there&#x27;s a Δ between one&#x27;s need for social interaction and the actual social interaction one gets. To close the gap, one can adjust either parameter or both: either lower one&#x27;s expectations, or increase actual interaction, or both.<p>The socially well-adjusted introvert generally comes out ahead in most situations due to the ability to regulate both parameters.

&gt; “In the absence of desired social experiences,” the authors write, “lonely individuals may be biased towards internally directed cognitions,” as if “to fill the social void.”<p>This sounds like a line Igor or Morgana would say in Persona 5.

“Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born.<p>—Nikola Tesla

The relationship between the Default Mode Network and a rich inner life seems like a reasonable enough connection, as does the relationship between DMN activity and loneliness.<p>What would be fascinating to me is an exploration of causality.<p>Can feelings of loneliness be increased by an upregulation (dTCS) of Default Mode Network activity? Can they be reduced by a downregulation? Can either of those be performed without substantially changing the subjects conscious qualia or internal states?<p>This will be really interesting to watch in a few years.

This is one of the most validating discussions I&#x27;ve read in a while. I think of myself as shy, lonely, maybe a little autistic. I grew up very alone as an only child, and would make up games or role play with myself to pass time in the evenings after school.<p>As I grew older, I had many poor social experiences. I felt that the social sphere was dominated by callous, insensitive jerks who talked louder, or whoever had the wittier comeback when being egged on, and I was hurt many times, and I most likely hurt others as well! I started to resent interactions with most people, thinking that most people aren&#x27;t well intentioned or are unaware. I didn&#x27;t want to have small talk or banter, because I was interested in random trivia and deep emotional experiences, which don&#x27;t have a place in many social situations or seem to interest much people. Obviously I have also found quite a few people who were graceful in this regard, such as the few close friends I still have.

&gt; For example, they are more likely to call up past memories and ponder future scenarios. This may be a mechanism to help them escape from their loneliness.<p>and<p>&gt; “In the absence of desired social experiences,” the authors write, “lonely individuals may be biased towards internally directed cognitions,” as if “to fill the social void.”<p>I would say they have this exactly backwards. The act of conjuring up these desired scenarios while not being in such a situation &#x27;creates&#x27; the feeling of loneliness. So the sequence as I see it is: person likes company, person has free time to ponder and imagines social situations, then feels lonely. I also recall interactions and play out future possible situations or memories. I don&#x27;t however long for them, rather it&#x27;s usually more analytical as what should I do if that should come to pass or what could I have done differently&#x2F;better. It&#x27;s not that I want to be in those situations. I do miss diversity of activity alone or socially.

A lot of the comments seem to be discussing social anxiety, which is not the same as loneliness. In my late-teens and early-20s I was extremely anxious in social situations but I did not feel lonely. Social anxiety, and the isolation that often results from it, can contribute to a person feeling lonely but the two concepts are not synonymous.<p>As I understand it, loneliness is a psychological state that results when a person feels deprived of meaningful contact with other humans. Very few people can maintain their sanity and well-being completely cut off from their fellow humans (the proverbial hermit living contently in the wilderness with only himself for company is a rare phenomenon) but how much and what type of social contact an individual needs to maintain their equilibrium varies wildly.<p>So, it is impossible to determine how lonely a given person is only by looking how much time they spend alone or how anxious they are in social situations.

Delusional coping mechanisms seem to be a pretty rampant aspect of loneliness. You see it a lot in the homeless population. But it also effects anyone who spends too much time alone.<p>Reminds me a lot of bush-fever, where you&#x27;ve been living out in the woods for so long you start to get a bit nutty. Highly recommended life experience btw.

It&#x27;s interesting to consider this within the context of societal rights of passage involving extended solitude such as the walkabout in Aboriginal culture. You basically have a situation where the community invested in an activity that grew this part of the brain. I&#x27;m wondering if it also explains deification of animals in many primitive cultures where solitude was more common because there were fewer people and more opportunities for solitude.

I appreciate my loneliness. For me, even though I feel bad, that feeling of loneliness has become my normal and it feels like I&#x27;m in my &quot;safe space&quot;.

Does anybody else refer to themselves as &quot;you&quot; and &quot;we&quot; more often than &quot;I&quot; or &quot;me&quot; during their inner monologues?

I think loneliness is generally a negative, and I&#x27;m glad it&#x27;s finally getting the scientific attention it deserves. It&#x27;s especially important to heed articles like these for us computer-types, who are inclined towards working and living alone. Yes, its good to be alone to recharge, but watch for the negative signals and schedule a social activity into your day&#x2F;week!

Talking (as opposed to quietly thinking) is the best tool at your disposal to keep sanity. If you live alone do it.

I don&#x27;t consider myself lonely.<p>However, I sometimes find myself getting wrapped up in hypothetical, imaginary social situations (especially when lying awake in bed) - usually reacting angrily.<p>Not sure what that&#x27;s about.

Every day, I think about the brilliant humans sharing their knowledge on the internet. As someone with virtually no social interaction, it&#x27;s the pleasure of learning that keeps me going!

A book on this interesting subject: <i>Loneliness: Human Nature and the Need for Social Connection by John T. Cacioppo and William Patrick</i>.

I think we&#x27;ll gradually evolve from a social species like chimpanzees to a solitary one like tigers and orangutans.

&gt; “In the absence of desired social experiences,” the authors write, “lonely individuals may be biased towards internally directed cognitions,” as if “to fill the social void.”<p>At least in my experience, those &quot;internally directed cognitions&quot; create a level of detail in expressed ideas which attract others to converse more with me.<p>Did I just figure out that I&#x27;m the Kwisatz Haderach, or don&#x27;t most people do this?

VR

Article seems to be conflating subjective feelings of loneliness with being alone.