Is It Normal to Not Have an Internal Monologue?

[reinaert]

A common cause of anxiety and depression.

One last question (maybe): you mentioned the absence of daydreams. Do you never fantasize? No thoughts of sex with a beautiful woman, a relaxed lounge at a nice beach resort, how you'd live as a billionaire?

Never. I cannot picture, hear or imagine anything sensory, symbolic, etc.

If I need to practice something to say, I have to subvocalize. I was in debate in school, and I'd end up with a sore throat doing prep. Only years later did I realize it was because I was moving my vocal cords to memorize prepared portions.

 

[Allan]

Never. I cannot picture, hear or imagine anything sensory, symbolic, etc.

If I need to practice something to say, I have to subvocalize. I was in debate in school, and I'd end up with a sore throat doing prep. Only years later did I realize it was because I was moving my vocal cords to memorize prepared portions.

Do you think the lack of noise and chatter helps you focus? I do daydream and found it interfered a bit in school and university.

The opposite to me is a friend's son who has a biomath PhD from Harvard and is working on his second Physics PhD at Stanford.

He talks about his ability to exclude all other thoughts when he's working on a math equation. "In the zone" he calls it, and likens it to tunnel vision.

 

[reinaert]

Do you think the lack of noise and chatter helps you focus?

I would have to know what it feels like to be self-distracted to be able to answer this question. I know I can seem to overfocus.

I do daydream and found it interfered a bit in school and university.

Wife talks about this. I cannot really comment because I don't know what I'm missing. She finds the idea of never being able to daydream truly horrifying.

The opposite to me is a friend's son who has a biomath PhD from Harvard and is working on his second Physics PhD at Stanford.

I avoided accounting for several reasons, but chief among them is a hyperfocus on numerical patterns. I rabbitholed myself on mandelbrot sets when they were first introduced to popular culture. I spent years trying to make a proof for 1= 0, which is silly, but invented my own numerical system to try to find a cut out, and have been working on a simplified writing system I'll never show anyone because it's just for passing the time.

I take notes when I play video games.

He talks about his ability to exclude all other thoughts when he's working on a math equation. "In the zone" he calls it, and likens it to tunnel vision.

Not really similar. I don't have to exclude. I have an affinity for ch'an and taoism because they make sense and require no effort for me.

That written, I was pretty useless when my youngest first started having sleep paralysis, because I cannot sympathetically imagine myself into mirror states, which my wife can do with facility. I had to build a "model" and approach it as a problem sidewise, which doesn't help anyone in real time.

 

[Silenthunder]

Some people do not experience an internal monologue, which means they may think in images or concepts rather than in words. This phenomenon is relatively common, with estimates suggesting that about 30% to 50% of people have an internal monologue, while a smaller percentage, around 5% to 10%, report having none at all.