No ‘voices in the head’: what is it like to have a silent mind?

“Today I discovered that not everyone has an inner monologue, in their own head – and it ruined my day.”

That was the title of a blog post that appeared some time ago and provoked a heated debate both in the media and on social networks.

Those who discovered such “voices in the head” began to look suspiciously at individuals around them who do not share the same experience.

“What do you mean? Don’t you have an inner monologue?… Of course you do. Everyone does!”

“What, voices in the mind? Not me!”

The conclusion, on both sides, was often the same: “You’re so weird…”

The blog brought to light a specific part of our mental lives called inner speech, or that silent conversation many of us have with ourselves as we go about our daily activities.

Things like “you shouldn’t have told him that” or “I can’t forget to buy tomatoes” or “I’ll put that off until tomorrow because I want to sleep.”

Of course, for those who experience something similar, this is part of everyday life. It’s as normal as it is for people like Justin to experience life in a completely different way.

In his mental landscape, “there is literally nothing.”

“There is a feeling of emptiness. There are no images, noises, voices, narratives. Everything is totally calm, as if nothing is happening.”

And that’s not all: between the presence of voices and the absence of any “noise” in the mind, there are at least three variants of the inner world of humans, a territory so difficult to explore that it remains largely unknown.

Mary’s mind, for example, is neither full of words nor completely empty. In her definition, it is a place that can be reached by a spiral staircase that starts behind the left ear.

“It’s like the attic of a very nice, small, imposing house. It’s oak, I believe. There might be a little mahogany, but I think it’s basically oak – I don’t think I can afford mahogany – and it’s full of things, like storage boxes, screens, films and photographs”, he describes.

“I suspect there’s a back door, but I don’t think I went through it. It’s a quiet place. It’s not noticeable, except that it’s inside my head.”

Like those who live with their internal monologues, Mary was always convinced that everyone had a similar attic, until she realized otherwise during a conversation with her daughter.

“We were talking about remembering dreams and I said, ‘Well, it’s a bit like when you walk into that room inside your head,’ and she said, ‘A room in your head? You’re so weird, Mom.’ surprise, but I just accepted that this concept really might sound a little weird.”

Different worlds

Charles Fernyhough, a writer and psychologist at the University of Durham in the UK, was pleased and intrigued by the reaction to the blog post.

“I studied inner speech for much of my career, and suddenly people were raving about something that, to me, always felt like a neglected branch of psychology.”

Neglected, perhaps, because our inner world is so familiar to us that we rarely pay attention to it.

“When we do that, we find that it’s very varied, which means we shouldn’t assume that other people’s inner worlds bear any resemblance to our own,” says the expert.

“Almost everyone goes through life thinking that other people’s experiences are like their own,” says Professor Russell T. Hurlburt, who has spent his entire career trying to capture what he calls “pure inner experience.”

It was precisely the Hurlburt investigation that sparked a furore on social media.

“It’s hard not to assume that everyone goes through the same thing as you, because we never get a chance to see someone else’s inner experience.”

“I myself have dedicated part of my life to studying the subject, but the only sensations I have directly experienced are my own.”

One person who had the opportunity to live in two of these moods was Lauren Marks, author of the book “A Stitch of Time”.

Silence

Marks reports that he “spent a lot of time repeating lines or anticipating a conversation that might happen” in his mind.

“I wanted to silence that voice, but it wasn’t easy.”

“I was an actress, director and doctoral student in New York, so my inner speech was fast, neurotic, relentless and problematic.”

“In August 2007, I went on tour with a show at the festival in Edinburgh, Scotland. I was with some friends in a bar, singing a karaoke duet, laughing and everything until I stopped being myself.”

“I just fell apart. It was as if every part of me had disappeared in an instant,” he says.

“The next moment I have a good memory of is seeing my parents at my bedside in the hospital. They told me I was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm and had surgery.”

“It felt completely impossible and weird. But it wasn’t bad. I didn’t feel bad at all. Everything felt different, I just didn’t know how.”

“But then it became clear to me that the difference was that I no longer had my inner voice ‘saying’ what I was thinking.”

“Much of my experience after the aneurysm was one of tranquility. An absolutely penetrating and fortifying silence”, he says.

“I haven’t heard myself say, ‘Will I be able to finish my PhD? Will I be able to live independently in the future?'” he asked.

“And when I reflect on the most peaceful moments of my entire life, those three weeks in the Scottish hospital are always the ones that come to mind.”

more silence

Marks enjoys the experience so much that at the end of the book in which she recounts the case, she writes, “Language is one of the most beautiful things in the world. The only thing more beautiful is the silence that precedes it.”

But the author adds that the return of the head’s voices allows it to function better.

Justin, on the other hand, lives in this world free of mental conversations.

“When I’m alone, which is almost 100% of the time, I’m in a quiet, relaxing place.”

“It’s like having an island, but everything around it is a huge, unknown, deep ocean. And I think what happens is that I’m more attuned to this kind of ocean of unconsciousness that surrounds the island.”

“Sometimes if someone interrupts me, I feel a little resentful that I was taken from this place and brought back into the real world of conversation and words.”

For Maria, whose mind is flooded with images all the time, “having nothing in your head should bring peace of mind and that’s admirable.”

“It must be a very comforting life. But not as colorful as the one I have inside my head.”

“I wish I could show someone my ‘mental attic’ because it’s full of stuff and it’s so exciting… If I could download it to a computer somehow, that would be wonderful.”

In defense of the noise

These silent minds, in addition to being free of images or sounds, can manifest with feelings and also with something that has no sensory quality. There are no words, images or sensations. It’s something Hurlburt calls “symbolized thinking.”

But as charming as the stories of Lauren, Mary and Justin seem, is silence always good?

“What’s the use of all those words if they’re not doing something useful?” asks Fernyhough.

“Research shows that the conversations we have with ourselves seem to have developed from the conversations we have with others as we age.

“That’s why I avoid terms like ‘inner monologue’ or ‘the voice in your head,'” explains the expert.

Studying how children speak aloud while playing a game or solving a puzzle is what prompted Fernyhough to tackle inner speech as a doctoral student.

“This form of speaking out loud is known as private speech. The idea is that it gradually turns into silent speech as we age.”

“Just like private speech, inner speech seems to have its benefits: it can help us plan what we’re going to do and reflect on what we’ve done. It can also express our feelings, prepare us for action, and scold us if we do something stupid. “, adds the teacher.

Fernyhough adds that this custom helps narrate and organize memories of the past or reflections on the future.

It’s still not well understood why some people end up with a head full of words and others don’t.

Regardless of what future research may show, at least one thing we already know about inner speech: whether the mind is “talking” or “silent”, there is no one that is considered normal or standard by science.

This article is based on the BBC Radio 4 documentary “The Silent Mind” produced by Overcoat Media. To listen to the original (in English), click here.

This text was originally published here