Your Internal Monologue

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Do you have a mostly constant internal monologue?

To clarify, your internal monologue is when you have conversations with yourself, when you hear dialogue in your head in your voice, you're speaking in your brain without pictures

I ask because a lot of NT's have said to me "yeah, of course, that's normal ,everyone has that", it;s usually a revalation for them that someone like me could have a fundamentally different thinking style, "thinking in pictures".

I think mostly in pictures, but I also have monologues with myself too.

Self: Hmm... Did I feed the cat this morning?
*picture of cat loads into memory*
Self: I'm not sure I remember seeing that...
*picture of food bowl loads*
Self: I don't see any food in there.
Self: Geez the cats are going to hate me.
Self: Look at that jerkface over there in that Suburban.
*video capture begins*
Self: What the heck does he think he's doing pulling out in front of me like that?
Self: Should I use the horn or not... hmm... I will anyway.
Self: Wow, this guy is speeding too, and he just ran a red light.
Self: What a butthole.
*video capture complete*
*video archived to memory*

I don't really have internal monologues like that, no. I may think a few words or even an entire sentence, but I'll hit my limit and go straight into pictures. If I stick to words I just get into some kind of mental echolalia. My thoughts in words are very simplistic and not very meaningful.

I can never seem to shut off my internal monologue. Most times they are thoughts out of nowhere which turn into more thoughts coming from nowhere. Most of my internal comments or reminders are usually spoken out loud if no one is around.

The picture thinking kicks in when I have deep concentration or sometimes I need another medium in the background like a TV on or music playing.

But this mind of my mind never stops thinking.

My thinking style is all words, no pictures.

It's like...you know when people are accused of suffering from 'verbal diarrhoea', a non-stop flow of words - this is my brain.

Primarily it's myself having a one-sided discussion about something, my brain telling me what I'm thinking. Secondarily it's word association like an internal thread of subjects, which make sense to me at the time but I'd not be able to explain my train of thoughts to others.

I very rarely have an internal monologue. A few cases where I do:

At the grocery store: Don't look at me don't talk to me don't look at me don't talk to me don't look at me don't talk to me don't look at me don't talk to me

When I can't find a fork: fork fork fork fork fork fork fork

When I want to say something to someone but I can't cause it would be inappropriate: I love you so much my sweet baby

And song lyrics. But like for Verdandi, these aren't necessarily verbal impressions but more purely sonic ones.

Oh, and I do compose whole stories in my head sometimes exactly the way I want to write them down later.

Just echolalia in my head

My thinking is predominantly verbal. There is constant dialog which I can manage more fully the older I get, even getting it to stop at times.

I have visual thoughts but not very good internal visualization of visual memory. The process I use to access visual memories is kind of like synesthetia - I don't get mental images per se, the memory is recalled with a sense of 'presence' which I can access through 'feeling' the details, just as a blind person might run their hands over an object to tell what it is - such is the process I use to remember visual details, often with great accuracy.

Visual and verbal are constantly on in my head - at least when I'm not on SSRI's. Those turn my head off and it is extremely disconcerting.

Not only do I narrate my day but I'm am also picturing what will happen in advance. I also have a fairly persistent and active fantasy/daydreaming mode. I am constantly switching back and forth between whats happening now and the much more attractive fantasy mode. The visuals are AWESOME. I get very detailed lifelike visuals - like well scripted movies with great FX.

I used to have that incessant mind-chatter, but at a certain time if faded mostly away. It would be tempting to say there is a lot less going on in my mind now, but it's actually just not in as obvious a form (I think, anyway).

(It seems I have more trouble with speech since then (figuring out how to say/explain something to people for the first time), and I've wondered if it's due to not "rehearsing" verbal thoughts about a subject like I used to.)

Whenever I have an internal monologue I always visualize the words. Sometimes I say them out loud to get some kinda of stimulation out of it. I think I'm focused more on vocabulary as an autistic person rather than maths or science. I've always been fascinated by the way words are spelled, how they sound, why they are the way they are.