The Many Voices in Our Heads

Auditory mental experiences are as unique as we are

Feb 17, 2023

Hiya!

I don’t know about you, but I’m a verbal processor, which is probably why I enjoy writing. My mind experience consists of a rich internal monologue with varying intensity levels, but my inner vision, or “mind’s eye,” is weak and fuzzy at best.

I used to think everyone’s mind was like mine, but then I learned we have different internal experiences. Some people can “see” in their minds as clearly as reading these words, while others don’t have inner monologues at all, and those of us who do have them don’t share the same voices. We each have unique dialogues in our heads.

Internal Monologues

Ancient philosopher René Descartes said, “I think therefore I am.” The idea was that since he was aware of his thoughts, he was, therefore, conscious and alive. This awareness of our thoughts, and the ability to consciously and intentionally have them, was thought (ha!) to separate us from other animals. (Though, how can we really know whether other animals are aware of their thoughts or not?)

The fact that some people don’t have internal monologues seems to be a relatively new realization. It was long assumed that everyone has one, so upon hearing these reports, researchers jumped to action. Granted, studying something like our inner experiences is notoriously difficult — which also likely contributes to why so little research has been done on it.

Still, experts have come up with a few ways to do it. When researchers tried to find out the percentage of people who have inner monologues the general conclusion estimates that anywhere between 30 and 75 percent have one. Other research indicates that children develop inner monologues as toddlers around two or three years old. This aligns with when children begin communicating their desires and thoughts verbally and nonverbally — also called expressive language.

But why did our inner monologues come about at all?

Researchers think the inner monologue may have formed for the same reason our sensory predictions evolved. Our brain can simulate predictions of our actions before we complete them, like predicting the texture of a blanket or the temperature of the kitchen floor on our bare feet. Our inner voices may have developed to help us speak better, prepare for a conversation, or process information from past ones — ever replay an argument for days afterward?

Russell Hurlburt, a psychology professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, is an expert on people’s inner experiences, thoughts, feelings, and sensations. He’s been studying our inner experiences since the 1970s and is known for his study in the 1990s, showing that subjects talked to themselves inwardly about 26 percent of the time they were sampled (but many never experienced inner speech) while others did it 75 percent of the time.

While Hurlburt and other experts are now turning to newer technology to study what inner monologues look like in the brain. In 2019, researchers published a study in Frontiers in Psychology that discovered inner speech isn’t the same for everyone. According to them:

“[S]ome inner speech involves complete sentences and even whole paragraphs (such as rehearsing a conversation you plan to have with your boss), and some of it is more fragmentary — just a scrap of thought here or a word there.”

According to neuroscientist Dr. Helene Loevenbruck of Grenoble Alpes University’s laboratory of psychology and neurocognitive, who studies the inner voice, our inner monologue uses several brain regions — including the superior temporal cortex, inferior parietal lobe, and inferior frontal gyrus. These areas involve speech, language, and/or perceiving sensations such as temperature and pain.

Inner Voice Experiences

An article from 2021 by the Guardian piqued my curiosity. The writer, Sirin Kale, shares several people’s experiences with “unusual — or nonexistent — inner voices.”

It’s a fascinating read that inspired me to analyze my thoughts and ask others about their internal experiences. The voices in my head sound like me, but their volumes and resonance differ. The loudest is my intentional dialogue, which I use to talk to myself, think through a problem, and replay or prepare for a conversation.

The middle loudest is advice from influential people in my life. I regularly hear my parents’ voices or my friends’ — their words, but my voice — and they guide me. This is also why I’m selective about who I spend time with; people’s voices stick with me.

Then there’s the quietest one, which is also my voice, but more innocent and childlike. I’ve learned to pay attention to her the most because she’s generally the wisest and most cautious, but also because her resonance is the strongest. Her words, while soft, reverberate through me, sparking feelings of either calmness or aversion.

It’s these feelings that I pay attention to more than anything else. The words spoken by any of my voices illicit a stirring of feelings within me. Kind of like how naming an emotion can help resolve it, or when you can’t decide what to eat, so you list off restaurants until one “sounds good.” When none of the voices are speaking, my mind is quiet and calm.

My friend’s inner voice is very different, though. She told me her’s is herself at various maturity levels. For instance, when she doesn’t want to do something, the child version of her throws a tantrum in her mind, while the older, more mature one either lets her pout, provides wisdom, or tells her to grow up.

While the dynamics of our inner monologues seem to be as unique as we are, there are many other ways people experience their inner worlds. Some people don’t have inner voices at all, which is called anauralia.

Many of us, perhaps even most of us, spend our lives assuming everyone else experiences thinking the same way we do. When the truth is, there is far more variety than any of us imagined. A quick online search offers countless articles and essays about people’s internal experiences. It’s a fascinating rabbit hole to tumble into.

Perspective Shift

It’s genuinely remarkable how unique our inner worlds are. Even the dynamics of our internal monologues are personalized. Researchers are just beginning to explore these differences, and I’m excited to learn what they discover. We’ve spent the last several centuries hyper-focused on the physical world. It’s high time we give the same attention to our inner worlds.

It seems likely that exploring the many forms our mind experiences take would inch us closer to understanding consciousness. Perhaps it already has. I mean, having unique mind dynamics could mean inner sight or inner monologues are not required for consciousness to occur. So maybe they serve as more than just a tool for us to relate to the external world, but also for consciousness to communicate through us. Maybe not, but it’s fun to think about.

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