re: Do you have an inner monologue?

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I have friend that is a CPA that does not imagine pictures or scenes when reading books? Just the words on a page. I wonder if it’s a CPA thing.

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I'm a cpa, I have a vivid imagination. I've also found it easier to do medium level math by imaging a white board and doing the math in my head.

Only when I’m not talking

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Do you have an inner monologue?

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Yes, I do. It is incredibly effective for me at night to check-in with how I am feeling and try to figure things out. Most of the time this happens after I take my sleep meds and I am super relaxed.

I have an inner dialogue but only one of the voices is mine.

Is that bad?

I don’t have one.

Mine is much more like a picture at the moment of a scene. Which many times is the urge to grab someone by the throat.

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Read The origin of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind.

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You can thank this for religion.

So this guy is going about his day and he suddenly hears a voice, “Sell your house, sell your car, sell everything you own. Go to the Casino, and put it all on Red.” The man thinks to himself, man, that’s weird, and goes about his day.

That evening, right as he’s getting into bed, he hears the same certain voice, “Sell your house, sell your car, sell everything you own. Go to the Casino, and put it all on Red.” He goes to sleep, wakes up in the morning, rubs the sand out of his eyes, “Sell your house, sell your car, sell everything you own. Go to the Casino, and put it all on Red.”

He immediately goes to the doctor, walks into the office, “Sell your house, sell your car, sell everything you own. Go to the Casino, and put it all on Red.” The doctor gives him a clean bill of health, “Sell your house, sell your car, sell everything you own. Go to the Casino, and put it all on Red.” He gets in his car, the voice is even more certain, “Sell your house, sell your car, sell everything you own. Go to the Casino, and put it all on Red.”

Maybe, he thinks, this isn’t an errant thought, that this is a spirit, looking out in his best interest. “Sell your house, sell your car, sell everything you own. Go to the Casino, and put it all on Red.”

So he drives down to the casino with the deed to his house, walks into the casino, the voice is louder, “Sell your house, sell your car, sell everything you own. Go to the Casino, and put it all on Red.” He exchanges everything at the counter for chips, he walks over to the Roulette table, the voice is yelling, “PUT IT ALL ON RED.” He slides the chips onto red, the roulette spins, and lands on Black.

The voice in the back of his head goes “Aww, frick. I thought that would work.”

I have an imagination, and I have thoughts, but I don't have a narrator in my own head speaking in my voice. I thought that was just a TV/ movie thing.