What it's like living without an inner monologue (2020)

I don&#x27;t have an inner monologue as I find it explained in many of these articles, in the sense that I don&#x27;t notice myself addressing myself with it. I would rather say I have a constant _dialogue_ with what I would describe as projections of people I know. I guess I must have developed that as a strategy to prepare for conversations, to evaluate how they might respond, but now it&#x27;s so automatic that it can be really annoying, and even with a lot of meditation exercise I haven&#x27;t managed to switch it off yet. There&#x27;s a lot of arguments going on between different &quot;people&quot; in my mind quite often, most of the time actually, each &quot;telling me their opinion&quot;. Which I know is simply me imagining how they might think of something.<p>I am also considering that this may be what people describe as &quot;different parts of themselves&quot;? In these sense that I sometimes find it hard to make a decision because I am &quot;still engaged in conversations around it inside me&quot;. It also feels sometimes like I am never alone: there are always lots of witnesses to anything I do.

&gt; &quot;I think most people are mistaken about it,&quot; said Hurlburt. &quot;People are hyper-confident. &#x27;Yes I have inner monologue.&#x27; And other people say, &#x27;No I don&#x27;t have a monologue.&#x27; And the chances are pretty good that both sides of the debate are mistaken.&quot;<p>I think this is the answer. I think it&#x27;s likely we&#x27;re all experiencing something similar, but we&#x27;re all describing it in different ways. People in the article who seem shocked at the idea of an internal monologue are getting hung up on this assumption that people are hearing an audible voice commenting on their every move, but I don&#x27;t think anyone is actually experiencing that unless they&#x27;re schizophrenic.<p>Some people reading this will say &quot;no, I really do hear a voice!&quot; But I&#x27;d ask if the audio of that voice is capable of drowning out the noise around you. I&#x27;m guessing it isn&#x27;t. And if that&#x27;s the case, we&#x27;ve discovered we&#x27;re both working with different definitions of what it means to hear.<p>I think the more likely explanation is that many of us have developed a habit where we activate this pseudo-voice in order to have pretend conversations in our head, and others just didn&#x27;t develop that same habit -- although they could probably do it if they tried.

It&#x27;s funny that the expert in the article says exactly the opposite of the article:<p><pre><code> &gt; &quot;I think most people are mistaken about it,&quot; said Hurlburt. &quot;People are hyper-confident. &#x27;Yes I have inner monologue.&#x27; And other people say, &#x27;No I don&#x27;t have a monologue.&#x27; And the chances are pretty good that both sides of the debate are mistaken.&quot; &gt; Hurlburt said what he calls &quot;armchair introspection&quot; likely won&#x27;t teach you much about your own mind because the act of paying attention &quot;screws up your everyday inner life.&quot; </code></pre> I think he is saying we all have all aspects of thinking, to varying extents and therefore everyone has inner monologue to some extent.

After reading this, I feel like I can say I don&#x27;t have a very active inner monologue at all really. I haven&#x27;t given much thought to this; like the article mentions, I just kind of assumed everyone was like this. It would explain some things though. If I examine my own thoughts, it&#x27;s almost robotic in a way, and I wasn&#x27;t always like this.

Weird. I have more of an external monologue, I have to speak to consolidate my thoughts. I can&#x27;t read a book silently and retain any information. I have to read each page out loud, but the volume doesn&#x27;t matter. It&#x27;s more the act of translating thoughts to words.

Using different parts of the brain can give you one or not. Sometimes I have one, sometimes not. Being able to turn it off is a skill meditation teaches you. Being able to turn it on is a different type of meditation teaches you. Then you try to find that middle way

People who do vipassana meditation and apply it to their daily life have an entirely silent inner life. Our awareness isn’t what in Thailands version is referred to as the monkey mind that chatters away distracting us from the present. Our inner mind has no voice, it’s what underlies everything we do and it simply is. The mind with a voice is a tool of the real mind, our awareness, but most people confuse their monkey mind with themselves. In Buddhism a great deal of our suffering stems from confusing ourself with that chattering tool. As such, it’s a useful tool for structuring ideas and analyzing, replaying the past and anticipating the future. But a key to happiness is the recognition it’s neither necessary nor sufficient, but is a tool to be used as needed and no more. Our silent inner mind is necessary, sufficient, and forms the exclusive entirety of our existence.

Quiet. I’m guessing it’s quiet.<p>Pro tip, your inner monologue can be turned off. It’s nice, I recommend it. Come to my ted talk to learn how. Or just think about it quietly for five minutes.