I Can’t Stop Thinking About How Not Everyone Has An Internal Monologue

If you have an internal monologue, you’d likely be shocked to hear that some people just… don’t. 

Wild, I know. But some people just don’t have a voice inside their heads that they hear when they think.

Personally, I hear every thought in my brain as if I’m saying it out loud, so it is mind blowing to me that some people do not. Every single sentence I say on a daily basis is played in my head like an audio file before I actually say it out loud. But this isn’t the case for everyone.

I genuinely do not understand how anyone thinks without hearing their voice. Do they see words as if they’re reading a book? Or do they just have abstract thoughts that don’t directly translate to thoughts? I don’t fucking understand.

It’s sheer madness, and thanks to a viral article by Ryan Andrew Langdon, the Internet is just realising that not everyone has an internal monologue.

Prompted by a tweet by @kyleplantemoji, Langdon fell down a rabbit hole of trying to comprehend people who don’t experience the phenomenon that is an internal monologue.

The general consensus is that a majority of people (or at least Twitter users) have an internal monologue, but those who do not experience this have been quick to share an insight into how their brain thinks.

I imagine if you don’t hear your own thoughts, you’re probably exceptionally confused right now.

But like any thought provoking piece of information, Twitter went absolutely buck wild over this, sharing opinions and stories from both sides of the coin.

First of all, we’ve got the overwhelming majority of people (myself and all five people I could scramble answers from included) who hear their own thoughts in full sentences.

And then we’ve got the rare few who do not hear their own thoughts. Whether they see words and read their thoughts like a book, or just have random streams of consciousness that can’t be directly translated into sentences.