# Inner voice reading technology: dystopian visions **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 15, 2025, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inner-voice-reading-technology-dystopian-visions/1022111 "2025-08-15T14:41:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 14
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2025, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inner-voice-reading-technology-dystopian-visions/1022111/14 "2025-08-17T13:36:14Z")
But she clearly did think. Preverbal children still think. Animals that we do not even suspect have language think. And many people claim at least that they have no “inner voice”. There is a fair amount of evidence that much of our conscious experience of decision making is an epiphenomenon, occurring _after_ the brain has already made its choice under the hood. Inner speech for those of us who experience it may be that. Not key to or required for the thought process at all. But even if not key or even something we are all consciously aware of it could conceivably be read. I count myself as an inner monologue person FWIW but really not everyone is. Recent threads about it: > [@Only 30-50% of people have inner monologues?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/only-30-50-of-people-have-inner-monologues/1016567): > > I saw on a reddit thread that only 30-50% of people have inner monologues- i.e. don’t think in words. That seemed utterly ridiculous and fantastic, but lo and behold, it’s true. [Woman without an inner monologue explains how she thinks - Upworthy](https://www.upworthy.com/woman-shares-life-without-inner-monologue-ex1)[How Inner Monologues Work, and Who Has Them | Psychology Today](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/intersections/202304/inner-monologues-what-are-they-and-whos-having-them)[Is It Normal to Not Have an Internal Monologue? (Explained!) - Iris Reading](https://irisreading.com/is-it-normal-to-not-have-an-internal-monologue/) How in the heck does that work? How do you function in normal society? How do you grasp more complicated con… > [@Do you have an inner voice?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-have-an-inner-voice/1011680): > > I’m sure this has been done before. I’ve read this in the past: some people do not have an inner monologue. I came across it again today, based on a social media question about reading silently to yourself. This person was claiming that he didn’t hear the words in his head: he just visualized the story. Others were baffled. They would explain that they would read the words, hearing them in their head. Dialogue would have inflection or an accent. And if a passage didn’t sound right in thei… No need to cover it again in detail here. Just open to the possibility that even without having the conscious experience of the monologue the firing _might_ still be going below awareness, even if not required for thought, and still readable. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inner-voice-reading-technology-dystopian-visions/1022111)._