Do you have a mind’s voice?

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Do you experience an internal monologue? A conversation happening within your head? Are you reading this question “aloud”, within your mind?

If you do, what is it like? Does your mind’s voice have dynamic volume, tone, and pitch? Can you go from a whisper to a shout? Does it sound like your actual voice? When you sing Frozen’s “Let it Go”, can you impersonate Elsa’s voice and range?

I heavily think in language, the inner discourse is constant. However, I don’t “hear” it. It is silent and without variability? Can you relate, or do you possibly think without the use of a mind’s voice altogether?

Whatever your experience, I’d love to “hear” it 😉

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Yes, I have an internal monologue. It’s my own voice, and I can modulate it. I’ve been trying to shout in my head and that’s hard, but I also am a quiet person overall… I’m not 110% sure of what I sound like shouting. For your example, yeah, I can impersonate Elsa in my head even though I absolutely could not sing “Let it Go” out loud in a way that anyone would want to hear. 😉

I don’t think I can really produce other people’s voices — I can’t “hear” my dad saying a joke so much as I can remember what he says and how he says it, if that makes sense. I feel like I have a very rich inner life — I talk to myself and think things out that way all the time! 

One thing you might want to investigate is subvocalization — this is the voice in your head as you read. Apparently speed readers try and reduce/eliminate it, since I guess you can only read as fast as you can “say it” to yourself. When we subvocalize, there are actually small movements in the larynx, that would also be active during speech. I’m not an expert in this by any stretch, but your internal voice is important to subvocalization, and other more heavy cognitive tasks can lead to subvocalization… again, I’m not an expert here, but its something I’ve been learning about lately as I explore the topic of how people think!

on May 3, 2021

Hi Jordan. I find your difficulty internally shouting fascinating, yet this sort of report no longer surprise me! So many people have told me about the inability/difficulty to imagine highly-specific things that they haven’t experienced or given much attention to. A fun example is my brother who rarely looks you in the eyes while conversing and told me he can only imagine green eyes. When he told me this, I immediately asked “Does Grayson (his ex-girlfriend who he was most serious with) have green eyes?”… she does, indeed. I’ll let you connect the dots 🙂 And I’m happy to hear you have your inner monologue priorities in check, singing Let it Go is far more important than shouting at yourself haha

As mentioned, I do not experience my inner voice as anything more than volumeless language, however I very much relate with the rich inner life. I view my mind as my best friend and am always strategizing and conversing with that guy haha I’m curious though, do you feel much emotion while speaking with yourself or is it more analytical?

Yes, I came across sub-vocalization and the concept of restricting sub-vocalization while speed reading while reading Limitless by Jim Kwik… I haven’t figured out that one lol 

Yes I experience an internal monologue. Yes I am reading this aloud in my head and I can’t change the volume. Sometimes I want to scream in my head but it just turns into an aaaah it doesn’t sound like my actual voice as well. I can not only hear Elsa but I can also hear some instruments. When a song is actually playing and I learn all the words and all of the instrumental beats then I can replicate the song in my head. So if I learn just the chorus to a song that part just repeats in my head. Can anyone else relate to the last bit?

on May 8, 2021

Nice, if I had auditory imagery I think I’d most use it to play my own theme music. I wear headphones much of the day, using music as a way to modulate my mood and stay focused.

I’m curious, are you easily distracted by noises in your environment? This sort of hypersensitivity is reported somewhat often, and I recently heard Joel Pearson something along these lines (that aphantasics appear to be more sensitive/attentive to sounds and less so to visuals). No major studies published on this yet, though.

Anyway, I’m just wondering whether this may be less prevalent in aphantasics who have auditory imagery!

I do have monologue inside with a “voiceless voice” 😀 “Voiceless” because it’s very much different from the actual voice outside (of mine or of others). But it’s still a “voice” because I can raise it, stress it, sing with it. 

I’m basically a non-verbal thinker. I don’t usually think in language, just like to “see” with my mental eye, though not very much pictorial. I cannot recall voices (of my wife, my mom, my dad, my bro…), but I can remember and create music well

You can read more at my post: Thinking: Visual vs Abstract vs Verbal vs Logic vs Connective vs Kinesthetic etc.

on June 9, 2021

Thanks for sharing, it’s descriptions like your own that helped me begin seeing each imagery spectrum (auditory, visual, etc) as being made up of far more distinct experiences than can simply be classified into 3 buckets: aphantasia, phantasia, or hyperphantasia. It isn’t as simple as saying ‘I do/don’t/kinda have a mind’s voice’, there are so many aspects and abilities that may vary within each modality!

With the support of Zeman, Pearson, and other wonderful researchers, we have been developing and scientifically validating a new imagery assessment that is designed to address these nuances. It’s called Imagination Spectrum, please let me know if you take it – I’d be curious to see you unique imagery profile!

I have bookmarked your other post, it looks like you’ve spent a lot of time reflecting over your inner world! I’ll hold my questions until I’ve taken time to fully review!! Thanks, Lê Định!

Yeah, not only do I read things aloud in my head a lot of the time, I’ll also sometimes go back and resay stuff again, like a weird audio double-take, if a particular line hits me in an unusual way.

At the same time though, I can kinda skim still, and I’m reading but without saying all the words, it just feels a bit disjointed

As far as music goes, yeah, I can get the full range of Elsa’s singing Let it Go in my head. Including all the little detail like the little laughs or emotions

Having just tried it out though.. I find that when I get to say, the louder bits, it becomes harder to just say, listen without doing anything? Head and hand movement starts working in, it builds up a bit.. .. tho it could just be cause I enjoy that song

As I’ve said in other ones though, I don’t tend to have a mix of both lyrics and instrumentals unfortunately, the lyrics tend to overpower the music beneath and I don’t remember it. Solo bits like at the start of the song though

But yeah, I generally think with vocal conversations, often I’ll talk to myself in my head

on June 10, 2021

The audio double-takes resonate with me – ba dum tss 🥁🤣

But seriously, I’ve observed that the only type of ruminating that I semi-regularly engage in is conversations and literature. My experience with literature is less redundant, whereas I may circle back through a conversation (from the recent past or forthcoming) many times over, gradually reworking and refining my language each run through. I believe I’ve naturally reinforced this habit over time as a form of self-directed dialectic/charisma training. Socializing, relationship building, brainstorming, and coaching are all skill sets I’ve leaned into heavily throughout my life, but this habitual linguistic critiquing has always been more of a compulsive reflex that I only recently began to recognize. Outside this process, I don’t frequently engage in any other sorts of mental time travel.

I have pretty extreme aphantasia; no visuals/Mind’s Eye, poor facial recognition, almost no longterm memory, and very bad sense of direction. I’m a musician (violinist), so I believe sound is my “dominant” sense. I have a hard time describing my experiences, but you’re description hit home. I do have a constant inner discourse when reading and writing, but I don’t “hear” it, even though I can tell it’s happening because it’s paced at my reading tempo/cadence, so I can totally relate. I always thought that it was in my voice, but it’s like staring at a star; if I overthink it I lose it. I can hear music, and it’s not in my voice, it’s in the artist’s voice/instrumentation, but the dynamics are what I can only describe as a “non-volume”, and constant. I do get earworms, and I can create music in my head. When I’m just in my thoughts I find myself reacting (frowning, smiling etc.) but I don’t hear emotion in it, like others, who can’t hear a scream. 

on June 10, 2021

I also have found it difficult describing my inner world, and I assume most people can relate with this challenge. The only reason I can express my experiences with any level of lucidity is countless hours of self-reflection and conversations like this haha

That’s an astute observation of emotion being expressed through your body language but not in your mind’s voice. It actually relates to a surprising observation I made when I first came up with that experiment of mentally whispering and then screaming “hello”. That was when I realized, they sound no different and that a mind’s voice isn’t necessarily composed of auditory imagery, however what really shocked me was that I experienced a very pronounced stress response immediately following the imaginary scream! All of a sudden, my heart was racing and anxiousness swooped through my body!

I have no inner voice whatsoever. I would even ask ‘What do mean – inner voice (monologue)?’
I simply have thoughts – a sting of thoughts or ideas, perhaps – but that’s it.
I might occasionally, very occasionaly, quietly, very quietly, voice a thought or a qustion to myself, perhaps when I’m trying to puzzle out how to reassemble something I’ve taken apart. But that’s it.

As for hearing songs in my head (mind?) – never. Why would I even want to?
If I wanted to sing – which I don’t like doing anyway – then that’s what I would do, out loud.
But then, as I say, simpy don’t like singing, and never join in sing-songs. In fact, I cringe at the very thought of doing that. Yet I thoroughly enjoy listening to Schubert lieder or certain operas. (But pop music – never.)