# How do you think? Inner dialogue? Images? No images? Can you hear anything? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 6, 2025, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800 "2025-09-06T21:03:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mixdenny](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mixdenny/32/2962_2.png) [@mixdenny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mixdenny)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/21 "2025-09-07T16:10:35Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > I think in words, sentences, including the sound of my voice I think this this a lot myself. Sometimes it is like I am writing a speech and carefully formatting it. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/22 "2025-09-07T17:23:25Z")
FWIW, after doing the test, I came with: **VVIQ Result: Phantasic.** When I get close to sleep: I find that, besides seeing many clear scenes, Phantasia and my cerebral cortex stops me from arriving to the sleep phase sometimes. Because, when my dream/brain [starts the regular cleanup and tries to put the trash and fears out](https://www.its.caltech.edu/~bi250b/2009/papers/crick-rem-nature.pdf) my more analytical lobe goes like: “Wait, that doesn’t make sense” I said to a close relative, “you can go to jail for doing that in public, even if the public here is happy to see you do that!” \*\*. I open my eyes, and should realize that many times I should let things go when falling asleep so as to have a good night, not to reach for my tablet and look for cites late at night. It would be better if the more reasonable part of our brains did not mind the clean up crew. 🫩 . . . \*\* An example of a dream I had when I was younger; no, will not give details, it was too gross and it did not happen ever. Some times the nonsense is too much in a dream and my brain screams “CITE!!!”. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/23 "2025-09-07T23:46:30Z")
I come up with hyperphantasia. Not a surprise. I write with a lot of metaphors and images, and there are several artists in the family. I’d be a painter if I didn’t lack the hand-eye coordination. And yes, my dreams often have not just images and sounds, but tactile sensations, tastes, and smells. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2025, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/24 "2025-09-07T23:48:11Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Smell is a very peculiar sense in that it’s not well represented in memory in terms of recall, but the encoding lurks there forever, and when it’s recognized many years later, like the smell of a fresh Christmas tree brought into the house, it can trigger powerful memories and emotions like no other sense. I’m with you there. There is a specific concentration of mercaptan in natural gas that brings back the emotional feel of my grandmother’s kitchen when I would arrive from the Greyhound station at 9 p.m., more than sixty years ago. It also hit me the last time I stepped into that kitchen, twenty-eight years ago. > [@Gordon\_G](#): > > I don’t know how severe my Aphantasia is. I can think that I’m “sort of viewing” a vague image, but with eyes closed all I actually “see” is a dark “screen.” This is just a WAG, but I have a sense that such images may be something one _notices_, rather than conjures up deliberately. Perhaps for some individuals. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2025, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/25 "2025-09-08T00:49:48Z")
> [@Gordon\_G](#): > > I don’t know how severe my Aphantasia is. I can think that I’m “sort of viewing” a vague image, but with eyes closed all I actually “see” is a dark “screen.” Wait. Are there people who can see things projected on the blackness with their eyes closed? When I imagine an image, I can’t _see_ it, but I can sort of imagine seeing it, kind of in the back of my brain. It’s certainly not like dreams, which are more like watching real life or a movie or something. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2025, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/26 "2025-09-08T12:04:36Z")
Most of my life I’ve thought “mind’s eye” was a metaphor; but apparently most people are actually seeing something. I haven’t figured out just what they mean by that, as it must be distinguishable from actual vision and from hallucinations. People who visualize: is it like a projection on closed eyelids? Do you have to close your eyes to do it? ---
**Author:** ![solost](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/solost/32/11776_2.png) [@solost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/solost)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2025, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/27 "2025-09-08T12:43:47Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > People who visualize: is it like a projection on closed eyelids? Do you have to close your eyes to do it? No, I don’t have to close my eyes-- right now I have the television on. I can watch it and visualize a mental image at the same time. If I’m _really_ trying hard to visualize a particular image I will be somewhat distracted from the images on the TV. I haven’t taken the test posted upthread yet, but I’ve always been a very visual thinker. When I read a book I visualize the story to the point that, for a book that was made into a movie, years later I sometimes am not sure whether I saw the movie or am just remembering my imagined images from reading the book. I also have an inner monologue constantly running (that I’d like to shut up at times 😏). I thought there there was another recent SDMB thread about the different ways people think that the OP might be interested to read-- I did a search but couldn’t find it. ---
**Author:** ![P-man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/p-man/32/3606_2.png) [@P-man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/P-man)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2025, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/28 "2025-09-08T13:51:29Z")
Some things I can visualize and some I can’t. When I do mental math I see the numbers, just as I would on paper. I cannot for the life of me visualize spatial relationships, though. I can hear pretty much any voice I choose. Right now I’m hearing Dr. Smith from Lost in Space. ---
**Author:** ![minor7flat5](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/minor7flat5/32/258_2.png) [@minor7flat5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/minor7flat5)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2025, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/29 "2025-09-08T14:00:42Z")
> [@Dr.Drake](#): > > I can think about a green apple, and there’s sort of an awareness of colour & shape, as well as the words “green apple” in a mental non-voice. > … > I recently learned that other people can think of smells and tastes. I cannot do this. Just sound (words, music), and emotions. I was reading this and began imagining a green apple, with a bit of a speckled surface, with little droplets of cool water from washing it. Then on your taste bit I imagined biting into the apple and it tasting like garlic. It’s pretty rare that I invoke the “think of a smell or taste” sensation, but it is apparently a feature. I had never imagined that this would not be everyone’s thought process, kind of like wondering if your “red” is like my “red” I guess I had always assumed everyone’s though processes were similar. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2025, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/30 "2025-09-08T14:19:31Z")
> [@minor7flat5](#): > > was reading this and began imagining a green apple, with a bit of a speckled surface, with little droplets of cool water from washing it. Then on your taste bit I imagined biting into the apple and it tasting like garlic. I can imagine that. But I’m not seeing anything. I’m imagining it in some fashion that doesn’t involve seeing it. The taste imagination is clearer than the appearance imagination; but it’s an apple flavor. I almost can taste that on my tongue. Imagining an apple that tastes like garlic is harder— though I can imagine the taste of an apple eaten with garlic. ---
**Author:** ![spanna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@spanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spanna)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2025, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/31 "2025-09-08T15:45:42Z")
Aphantastic here, been aware of it for a couple of years. It suddenly makes sense of the times I’ve been asked to imagine something I all I have is an abstract idea. I never understood all the relaxation techniques where they say imagine you are on a sandy beach etc Funniest reaction I have had is from a guy at work with a lot of visual imagery who can’t understand how I can do anything at all ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/32 "2025-09-09T00:26:19Z")
Words and pictures, no voices. As a mathematician I can construct rather elaborate commutative diagrams while lying in bed trying to go to sleep. Of course, I actually have to draw them to be sure they are right. ---
**Author:** ![Hatchie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hatchie/32/3983_2.png) [@Hatchie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hatchie)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/33 "2025-09-09T00:52:23Z")
My inner-me does talk to me in my outer-me voice (as I am used to hearing it, not the way it sounds if you record it and play it back to me, which to my ears is an appaling, mushmouthed drone). I practice everything I say before saying it, unless there’s no rehearsal time. I have trained my brain to think in terms of humor. That means I have to quickly judge whether blurting out the jokes I formulate is appropriate. I’d say I’m about 80% successful at self-censorship. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/34 "2025-09-09T15:12:59Z")
Now you have my brain thinking about my brain. Dammit. I’m both dialog and images. I’m a programmer and also lean artistic. My wife and I play a LOT of chess, card games and now darts. I visualize chess a lot. I’m very good at spatial stuff (it’s my job), so pretty good at chess. I must share though. My wife has some interesting epiphanies, that aren’t meant to be. She said - “I was thinking the other day, and then I thought ‘Oh, whatever’”. I still laugh about that one. It’s true. Some things Just. Don’t. Matter. And often you can’t do anything about it anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/35 "2025-09-09T15:57:02Z")
I think sometimes using my inner monologue, which is not a think that talks to me, but feels like me talking as I would in conversation, just without using my mouth and vocal cords. (I mention this because apparently for some people, their inner monologue is a voice that they do not control, and _tells them_ what to do - mine isn’t that, and that other kind sounds kind of terrifying to me). I can practice and rehearse accents and voice performances and refine the wording of what I want to say, using my inner monologue - it really is like speaking in every way except the external sound. Sometimes though, thinking is more like wordlessly assembling pieces of a puzzle or a diagram or a flowchart, but in much more fuzzy and non-graphical form - just like mentally manipulating causes and effects or something. And sometimes thinking is just like _realisation_ of facts or outcomes that presumably some unconscious process has handed off to my conscious mind. I can visualise images and 3D scenes in my head and make them move, but the experience is not like seeing them; it is _seeing_, but it’s like a different kind of seeing; I think some people describe this as faint or tenuous visualisation, but it’s not really what I would call _faint_ - it’s just different in a way that I can’t properly describe. A lot of the controls for the vehicle are on the inside. To some extent, I can choose how to feel. For example I can, most of the time, decide to be mirthful and it works just the same as if someone had told me a funny joke, except it works without the joke. There are people for whom their own thoughts are a black box - I’ve spoken to people who have little or no perception of their own inner thought-life - in some cases, they don’t know what they think about a thing until they voice their opinion. This also seems mildly terrifying to me. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/36 "2025-09-09T18:33:00Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > There are people for whom their own thoughts are a black box - I’ve spoken to people who have little or no perception of their own inner thought-life - in some cases, they don’t know what they think about a thing until they voice their opinion. This also seems mildly terrifying to me. Good, and interesting. I wonder if this is why some people don’t enjoy reading. They can’t pull it off the page, in any way shape or form. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/37 "2025-09-09T19:44:02Z")
If I’m thinking about how I would lay out an idea for others, I’m thinking in words, but when that’s not the focus, I seem to represent ideas graphically — not literally as a visual so much as the _idea_ of a visual representation of it. ---
**Author:** ![Eric1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3bc359/32.png) [@Eric1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eric1)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2025, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/38 "2025-09-09T19:47:39Z")
I actually no moi ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2025, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/39 "2025-09-10T14:36:25Z")
When I’m reading or listening to a book, I’m picturing it like a movie in my head. I sometimes assign celebrity faces to the characters. Sometimes I picture a certain character as someone I know or a celebrity, and it bothers me. I don’t want that character to be who I’m picturing for one reason or another. It’s really hard to change that image to someone else. When I do fast math in my head, I picture the numbers like they’re on a school worksheet. When I have a conversation with someone, I picture in my head what they’re telling me. I could never meditate. My brain is way too busy. ---
**Author:** ![Gordon\_G](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3da27b/32.png) [@Gordon\_G](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gordon_G)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2025, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800/40 "2025-09-16T13:32:35Z")
Trivia: Speaking of “in my mind’s eye”, the following (from [medievalists.net](http://medievalists.net)) just appeared in my Samsung phone’s feed: > [@Geoffrey Chaucer](#): > > It were with thilke eyen of his mynde, > With which men seen, after that they been blynde. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-think-inner-dialogue-images-no-images-can-you-hear-anything/1022800.md?page=1)