I interviewed Kirsten Carlson, a PA Student at Francis Marion University, who is one of the few people that do not have an internal monologue. She does not h...
These types of discussions are always difficult. I think when some people hear "oh I can hear my internal voice and picture things" they think the person means "I can become schizophrenic at will and create visual hallucinations at will" but most people don't mean that. They mean it abstractly. Of course all 3 types of people exist, but it's mostly in the middle.
i have to wonder how much of this discussion is just disagreement over the words being used. I have a feeling some people might realize they're actually more on the internal monologue side if they had the concept explained to them differently.
there's also the separate issue of aphantasia. I asked some co workers to imagine a coffee cup in their "mind's eye." They all did so, except one guy. Then I asked them what color the coffee cup was. They all had different answers. One of my coworkers said he wasn't able to visualize things in his mind like that and found it bizarre not only that we were able to close our eyes and "see" a coffee cup, but also give it a color, and so on. So not only do some people lack an internal monologue, some aren't able to visualize either. I think there's much more to it than the words being used, and I don't see it as a disability necessarily, since there are drawbacks to having a vivid imagination, such as being distracted by your own thoughts easily when you're trying to work or listen to someone else.
oh no I believe it's a real thing, I simply think internal thoughts might sometimes be very idiosyncratic and not easily explained from one person to another. I'm not a doctor or anything though.
found it bizarre not only that we were able to close our eyes and “see” a coffee cup, but also give it a color, and so on
It is weird that you can do that though, it's just that the majority of people are like you.
There definitely are advantages to aphantasia (not being free from distraction though sadly), some STEM fields and especially coding have aphants very overrepresented. I guess some kinds of abstract reasoning must be less natural when your thinking is anchored in visuals.
I mean I can literally see and hear things if I want to, I just understand they're imaginary. Like, if I've listened to a song enough times in my life, and I know all the lyrics, and instrumentation by heart, I can play it back in my head perfectly without having any kind of playback device. Not being able to visualize things in your mind is called aphantasia, which is a separate issue entirely from whether you have an internal monologue or not. What distinguishes both of these things from hallucination is being able to control them somewhat, and understanding that they're coming from inside and are not external. So "hallucinating at will" is kind of a contradiction since a hallucination usually comes with the ambiguity that you aren't entirely sure if it's real or not and/or you can't control it. Like, when tripping on mushrooms, I knew my hallucinations weren't real, but I wasn't able to control them. A schizophrenic isn't always sure whether or not their hallucinations are real, and on top of that, they need medication to control them.
By hallucinate at will, I just mean conjure false images that literally show up in your own field of view, at will. I think when one neurotypical person says to another, "I can see things in my imagination - I can picture them", that other totally neurotypical person might understand that statement as "I can create literal visual images that float around and look real", and assume that either they or the other person is neuroatypical.
I just mean conjure false images that literally show up in your own field of view, at will
i can kinda do that, but it's easier if i close my eyes. Like I can easily imagine an ant crawling on my desk right now, and if I focus hard enough on imagining such a thing, I can literally "see it" while understanding that it's not real. It just goes away if I stop focusing on imagining it. I hope that makes sense.
I can imagine a desk that looks like mine with ants crawling around on it, but it's clearly in my head and not my eyes perceiving the desk. Also, it's muffled.
It's not really a hallucination though, just a somewhat vague visualization like a dream is. Aren't most humans also capable of hallucinating by actually seeing things in the world that aren't there? But it usually has to be induced somehow by drugs.
These types of discussions are always difficult. I think when some people hear "oh I can hear my internal voice and picture things" they think the person means "I can become schizophrenic at will and create visual hallucinations at will" but most people don't mean that. They mean it abstractly. Of course all 3 types of people exist, but it's mostly in the middle.
i have to wonder how much of this discussion is just disagreement over the words being used. I have a feeling some people might realize they're actually more on the internal monologue side if they had the concept explained to them differently.
there's also the separate issue of aphantasia. I asked some co workers to imagine a coffee cup in their "mind's eye." They all did so, except one guy. Then I asked them what color the coffee cup was. They all had different answers. One of my coworkers said he wasn't able to visualize things in his mind like that and found it bizarre not only that we were able to close our eyes and "see" a coffee cup, but also give it a color, and so on. So not only do some people lack an internal monologue, some aren't able to visualize either. I think there's much more to it than the words being used, and I don't see it as a disability necessarily, since there are drawbacks to having a vivid imagination, such as being distracted by your own thoughts easily when you're trying to work or listen to someone else.
oh no I believe it's a real thing, I simply think internal thoughts might sometimes be very idiosyncratic and not easily explained from one person to another. I'm not a doctor or anything though.
It is weird that you can do that though, it's just that the majority of people are like you.
There definitely are advantages to aphantasia (not being free from distraction though sadly), some STEM fields and especially coding have aphants very overrepresented. I guess some kinds of abstract reasoning must be less natural when your thinking is anchored in visuals.
interesting! I wouldn't have guessed that! The one guy at our job with aphantasia was a comp science major.
I can see why that would be useful for coding, yeah. Thanks for sharing.
I mean I can literally see and hear things if I want to, I just understand they're imaginary. Like, if I've listened to a song enough times in my life, and I know all the lyrics, and instrumentation by heart, I can play it back in my head perfectly without having any kind of playback device. Not being able to visualize things in your mind is called aphantasia, which is a separate issue entirely from whether you have an internal monologue or not. What distinguishes both of these things from hallucination is being able to control them somewhat, and understanding that they're coming from inside and are not external. So "hallucinating at will" is kind of a contradiction since a hallucination usually comes with the ambiguity that you aren't entirely sure if it's real or not and/or you can't control it. Like, when tripping on mushrooms, I knew my hallucinations weren't real, but I wasn't able to control them. A schizophrenic isn't always sure whether or not their hallucinations are real, and on top of that, they need medication to control them.
By hallucinate at will, I just mean conjure false images that literally show up in your own field of view, at will. I think when one neurotypical person says to another, "I can see things in my imagination - I can picture them", that other totally neurotypical person might understand that statement as "I can create literal visual images that float around and look real", and assume that either they or the other person is neuroatypical.
i can kinda do that, but it's easier if i close my eyes. Like I can easily imagine an ant crawling on my desk right now, and if I focus hard enough on imagining such a thing, I can literally "see it" while understanding that it's not real. It just goes away if I stop focusing on imagining it. I hope that makes sense.
I can imagine a desk that looks like mine with ants crawling around on it, but it's clearly in my head and not my eyes perceiving the desk. Also, it's muffled.
I do have some N2O on the desk right now...
It's not really a hallucination though, just a somewhat vague visualization like a dream is. Aren't most humans also capable of hallucinating by actually seeing things in the world that aren't there? But it usually has to be induced somehow by drugs.