Why do we have an internal monologue?

_number8_@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 201 points –

What is it for?

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I suspect that most people have a partial internal monologue, whereby some thoughts arise to the level of verbiage and others don’t. There is also variance in how self-aware we are of our thoughts themselves. I don’t think anyone can keep up effective, meta self-monitoring 100% of the time, so our own view of our thought process is probably skewed as well. Some people swear that every single thought they have is 100% verbalized. I think that’s impossible and they’re only counting verbal thoughts as thoughts. But no doubt some people verbalize more than others.

Insightful, I've found that most people change their answers at least slightly after having time to observe their thoughts for a while, we are geniuses at believing our own conjectures.

I'd say I can't actively observe a thought without my internal monologue in some way narrating it or articulating what's going on. Frankly that's the reason I have difficulty understanding what it's like for someone without internal monologue.

I’ve been able to observe myself stringing ideas together in a complicated way before actual words can land. The other day this happened and I considered stopping to put words to my thought and decided to just let it go and move on.