Talking to yourself.

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Do you talk to yourself?

If so, why?

(I did post this in another forum but posted it in the wrong place, as I meant to post it here! I have not long woken up and I have not had enough coffee to start my day yet lol).

I'm always talking to myself, it is the only way I can have a decent intellectual conversation.

BTW: The maximum number of lines allowed in a signature is 6 as per the site rules.

I read an old thread here once in which someone said that when he talked to himself, it was as if one part of his brain was communicating with another part, and that's what it's like for me. I don't really think in words, at least no more than very simple and often repetitive thoughts, so if I want to put my thoughts into words, I have to talk out loud. I've done it all my life.

My mind is full of thoughts all the time about many different things. I talk my thoughts out loud to keep track of one line of thought.

It helps me think. I do it more if I'm trying to concentrate on a particularly complex train of thought or trying to remember something. It doesn't bother me though, even when I do it in public (although I tend to mutter rather than talk at full volume most of the time). I honestly don't know if people think I'm strange for doing it, neither do I care.

Occasionally I'd talk to myself to acknowledge what I've finished and to remind me what to do next. Sometimes I blame or compliment myself. I do excessive scripting in my mind though, rather frequently, but not aloud.

If you out loud, sometimes but not often. If you mean like just in my head, pretty much all the time.

I always think like I'm talking to myself, I even show body language. And I often think out loud: sometimes just murmurs, other times at full volume, depending on how many people there are around.

Yup. All the time. I've even reached the point of not being bothered by others noticing it.

In a way, I think I do it for the same reasons that we dream. Dreaming is a way for the mind to "work things out" during sleep. I work things out by talking them over, either with myself, or with somebody else I imagine being there. Usually it's somebody I actually know.

And some people say we have no imagination.

I always talk to myself. Sometimes its just thinking out loud. I can't keep it in my head for some reason. The other reason why I talk to myself is talking to thought insertion. I won't get into that here. The good news is I don't always talk to myself in public. People would laugh and stare at me if I always talked to myself in public. They would think I am nuts.

I have to talk myself through the things I do because I am so easily distracted and forgetful. If I am alone I do it out loud. If I'm out in public I try to keep it to myself but a lot of the time I am just muttering to myself under my breath. It is not enough to just "think" it I find I need to at least move my lips a bit. A lot of it is just instructions to myself (okay now I'm going to do x and then I'll do y and z).

I also find myself wanting to blurt out comments about how I'm feeling. Any time I am out in public it's inevitable I'll start to blurt out "I want to go home." I try to catch myself before I say it but sometimes it comes out anyway. One day a young boy heard me say it in a store and he just stood there staring at me with wide eyes.

And when I'm alone I have "conversations" where I will pretend I'm talking to someone else, either to practice something I need to actually say to them later, or else to say things I would never say to them in person.

I will answer my own question. I talk to myself all the time but try not to do it in public. It helps me process my thoughts and to work through problems etc.

It's fine when I am on my own but sometimes people have walked in whilst I have been nattering to myself and asked who I am talking to. Errr I was the only one in the room at the time, there was no one else there, who do they think I was talking to? LOL.

I think most people do, no matter what neurology.
It's a perfectly natural thing to do.
As long as you know that it's yourself that you are talking to, there is nothing wrong with it.

People also talk to deities, dead people, fairies, demons, angels, aliens, the universe, their higher selves, you name it, none of that necessarily indicates a pathology.

What bothers me about talking to myself is sometimes it happens spontaneously and I can't control it, I just blurt things out.

I conduct mock conversations with people except I'm alone. When I'm extremely excited about something with no one who cares to listen I act like I'm explaining it someone like a teacher. I do this to learn even more about something because perspectives change when you put things into words.

Also and I do this when I'm getting too wrapped up into a debate I have mock debates in my head with people. This is probably also to help me understand the concept that I'm debating. I consider myself very good at understanding multiple sides to an argument at least through logic and talking it out instead of thinking it out helps me understand other sides to the debate.

I talk to myself sometimes because it helps keep me focused on whatever I'm doing.

Other times I talk to myself using my imaginary friends' voices so it feels like I'm having a two-sided conversation with them.