My mind may be (literally) somewhat defective, but I don’t EVER literally hear anything in my mind, except perhaps in dreams. I’m not sure if my dreams have sound. As a child, I did once “hear” the stereotypical theatrical-evil-laugh while on the edge of sleep, but I haven’t EVER heard anything from inside my mind, ever, since then. I’ve had lots of thoughts, but they don’t make any noise. Am I “interesting” in that I hear nothing? (I can imagine the feeling of certain sounds, but the sounds themselves aren’t evoked when I do that.)
I’ve done the autopilot coding thing, too, but once the autopilot ends and I go back and look at the code again, it’s usually really bad code. The funny thing is that often, when I’m looking back at the bad autopilot code, I suddenly realize the easy and clean way to do it right.
So it’s a useful draft/brainstorming?
How many hours of coding experience would you say you have?
What helps you get in that state of mind?
Anyone who’s just posted “Inner monologue is like …” need to put a big hefty dose of “in my experience” on the front of that, because people’s experiences of their inner monologue actually are remarkably different.
I polled the dope about this a couple of years ago and received a really remarkable number of answers from people saying that their imaginative experience of music, voices and other sounds was functionally identical to actually hearing it out loud. (I don’t necessarily put any credence on the number itself. It WAS a self-selected poll on the Internet after all. But it was a lot more common than I was expecting)
That ability combined with a propensity to have things pop into your imagination rather than consciously generating every thought (also pretty common) probably leaves a lot of people who “hear voices” without their being a real person behind them. Generally speaking, if you know you have vivid audio experiences you just treat it like ordinary imagination (which it is) and move on - because if you do have that kind of imaginative experience you have to get good at sorting out from context and logic whether this, that or the other sound was real or just in your head.
I might occasionally “hear a voice” - a random thought that popped into my head happens to cross the vividness threshold - and it’s no big deal because I can clearly from context correctly label it as imagination, not real, if the person that it sounded like isn’t actually there. People with mental illness are undoubtedly bad at that sort of contextualisation, so it’s really hard to tell if people with mental illness hear voices more than mentally functional people, or if we just associate “voices” with mental illness because those of us who are grounded in reality just aren’t normally bothering to mention it, or make it someone else’s problem.
Have you ever had voices in your head telling you what to do? Having a discussion with your self is absolutely ‘on the spectrum’. It’s just way over at the ‘normal’ end.
From my friends and acquaintances, the most distressing aspect of having voices in your head is having trouble distinguishing between voices “in” your head and voice “not in” your head. They experience that as bad even when it is telling them that they are the Chosen One or the Jewish messiah. But characteristics of schizophrenia are notoriously diverse, and there are some people who /enjoy/ not being able to distinguish. Some people even take /recreational drugs/ that trigger hallucinations.
I myself am normally able to distinguish between internally triggered and externally triggered voices. Just a few episodes of Hypnagogic or Hypnopompic Hallucinations, and the odd experience in a deserted room (often put down to ghosts). That is, fairly normal.
I have Dissociative Identity Disorder and I hear my “parts” speak in different voices. Sometimes I have arguments between parts (one decades long argument that I could not win until recent years when I finally understood the perspective of that part). One part swears a lot. Another has a sense of humor with words. When I think “What shall I have for dessert?” I can sometimes hear: “Brownies!”, “Cookies!”, “ice cream!”, “cake!”, and then I have to figure out what I will actually have, and how to ease the disappointment of the ones who did not get their choice.
Could you go on about finally understanding the perspective of that part? What was that process like?
I’m not sure it’s quite as simple as that. I seem, to me, to process “inner monologue”, or memories of voices, using the same pathways I use for processing real here-and-now sounds. But it also seems to be the same pathways I use for processing written text. Which can lead to moments of cognitive dissonance when I “hear” in my head a word that I’m reading, but then, despite clearly “hearing” it, realizing that I have no clue how it’s pronounced.
M=Me, T=that part
M: I am a good person
T:No, you’re not
M: Yes, I am
T: No, your’re not
M: Why am I not a good person?
T: You’re just not
M: How can I change?
T: You can’t
M: I do good things.
T: Doesn’t matter
M: I will believe I am a good person (therapist recommendation for Positive Affirmations)
T: won’t change anything
M:(Therapist question) Is my Sister bad? Is my brother bad? Are the newborn babies in the hospital bad?
T: No, they are not bad, they are good.
M: Then why am I bad?
T: You just are.
M: Can I ever be good?
T: No
M: Why can’t I become good?
T: You just can’t
Over and over, for years and years,. . .No matter the question, just blunt negatives without explanation. (Starting from around age 6)
Then one day (about 6 years ago-I’m 64 now) after a therapy session where we discussed this situation), I was thinking about this part. I thought:“What if that part had never experienced being loved, wanted, accepted, cared for; from the very beginnings of that parts awareness (I will go as far as to say even in utero), they had felt unwanted, unloved, resented, only existed in a negative environment, never had a chance to feel/experience “being good”. That would be all they know, they don’t know/can’t think any different.” And that broke the cycle.
So, now I know I am not totally, unrepairably, bad. I still can’t do affirmations. I tell my therapist: “It’s like you are telling me to go through that door, and all I can do is hit the door with my head. I can hit that door with my head for a long time and never get through it.”
Sorry this is so long. I couldn’t figure out how to make it more compact.
Not too long at all. I find it very interesting. That feature of your mind enables you to perceive more distinctly what happens in most people’s minds.
What, exactly, broke the cycle? Was it realizing that the message from that part of you wasn’t the truth but was distorted by negative experiences? Something else?
Now when you hear the same things from that part, how does it affect you? How do you deal with it?
Have you tried doing it with other parts of your mind?
Thanks for sharing.
I understand that part’s perspective and can be more understanding and supportive with that part. Now I can be better about accepting the good things I do as being good and not discount them as much as I did before.
I won’t hijack this thread anymore. MichaelEmouse You can PM me if you want. I guess, if there was more interest, I could do an AMA thread.
Count me as one person who’d very much like such an AMA thread. If anyone else thinks they might find it interesting, let pudytat72 know.
Interested too.