Let's talk about your inner monologue

Mental Health Training

Building upon a previous podcast on self-talk because many of us, when we read something, you hear a little voice in our head. Most of us would refer to this as an inner monologue. Just in case you didn’t know, many individuals don’t have one.

Individuals often make assumptions about someone’s internal experiences, being identical for everyone, such as talking to themselves or seeing words in their heads as images.

According to psychology professor Russell Hurlburt, approximately 70% of people do not have one. However, if you are one of the ones that do not, don’t despair. He teaches this at the University of Nevada. “I’m convinced that inner speech is a robust phenomenon; if you use a proper method, there’s little doubt about whether inner speech is occurring at any given moment.

And I’m confident about the individual differences—some people talk to themselves a lot, some never, some occasionally.

An inner monologue happens when we use language but do not use our mouths; it’s merely thinking and hearing yourself without actually saying anything aloud.

Hurlburt concluded that only 30-50% of people had an inner monologue in a study that he carried out. Hurlburt took a sample of 30 students and then had them describe randomly selected experiences.

“Five main characteristics emerged, each occurring in about a quarter of all samples (many samples had more than one characteristic).

Three of those five characteristics may not surprise you: Inner speech occurred in about a quarter of all samples, inner seeing occurred in about a quarter of his specimens, and feelings only occurred throughout a quarter of all samples.”

Additionally, he said that subjects only experienced talking inwardly to themselves 26% of the time, and some never encountered it.

“Inner speech is the product of the default mode network of the brain,” explains Helene Brenner, a psychologist and creator of “My Inner Voice”. “It’s a network of different areas of the brain that become very active, all together, when we’re not engaged in doing anything task-oriented—when we’re just thinking or daydreaming.

It also appears to be related to drug cravings, and it turns out it never entirely stops either—it just gets suppressed when we become more actively engaged.

This phenomenon begins in childhood, as we develop language skills. Research believes that those who lack aphantasia (the ability to visualize) are tied into a lack of inner monologues.

However, there are many theories about why- and more research is still being carried out.

Are you one of the few who have an inner monologue? Perhaps that little voice inside you speaks up every once in a while with tiny, insightful declarations. You would do well to listen to it with reflection and self-awareness. Let it be your friend and not your critic.