April 26, 2022.
For the longest time I assumed everyone could hear their own voice in their head. For people who say, “I can’t hear my voice inside my head,” I will share below. One day I was working on a tough mental math problem. I looked at the question and immediately saw the answer in my eyes. About two seconds later I heard the voice saying, “if you multiple this, divide that, subtract here, do this trick there, the answer is…” and it was the same answer I saw before in my eyes. I realized in that moment that the inner voice “thinks” slower, and I was actually doing it to double check the first answer I saw. I had no recollection of doing the calculation and felt that the answer just appeared. That was when I became conscious of the fact that I experience thoughts in different ways. Turns out, inner monologue is one of five types of inner thoughts that occur in people’s head.
The five ways people experience thoughts
According to Dr Russell Hulburt in his research on Pristine Inner Experience, the five are inner speech, inner seeing, feelings, sensory awareness, and unsymbolized thinking. I will leave a summary of each below. Most people experience a combination at different intervals. The frequency of each in individuals is roughly a quarter of the time. In fact, a study conducted by Dr Hulburt deduced that only 26% of people heard their voice in their head.
My opinion on having the voice inside my head
When I think, I hear myself saying things in my head especially when I am planning to say something to someone. This means when I say something, it’s not the first time hearing it in my own voice. This voice helps in checking what I am going to say for bluntness. Sometimes the voice will say “Yea don’t say that” when I realize that I need to filter something I was planning on saying. What I enjoy most about hearing my voice in my head is that I can catch negative thoughts easily or when I am being overly critical of myself. Some downsides are that it slows me down when I read and so I have been training myself to shut it off. Or sometimes when I am talking to someone, the voice starts its own dialogue in my head. Think of it as that one person who does not stop talking during a movie. I am sometimes that person.
Question of the day:
- What is my inner experience of my thoughts?
Comment your thoughts and share with a friend who might benefit from reading this!
Summary of the 5 types of inner experience as described by Dr Hulburt:
Inner Speech: an inner voice that provides a running monologue on one’s life throughout the day combining conscious thoughts and unconscious beliefs and biases.
Inner Seeing: the experience of seeing images or symbols of things mentally.
Feelings: the experience of being aware of feelings and acting on them.
Sensory Awareness: the direct focus on some specific sensory aspect of the body or outer or inner environment.
Unsymbolized Thinking: the experience of an explicit, differentiated thought that does not include the experience of words, images or any other symbols.