[jbarberu]

I definitely don't have an inner voice. I certainly can "enable it", for things such as composing this reply. But in general I'd describe it as a stream of thought, not bound to any language. Then when I need to actually communicate I "pipe" it through whatever language I need (I grew up in a home with multiple languages, don't know if that influences it).

One way I notice this is how thoughts are generally unpacked and stored without a language association, meaning I can't remember how people phrased something, only how I interpreted it. I feel like this is a decent memory optimization, but it drives my wife nuts and can be very unhelpful during arguments...

[mbfg]

>> I'd describe it as a stream of thought, not bound to any language.

as it's your head i accept that at face value. However i couldn't possibly understand how that could possibly work. How do you think not in a language not in words? What are the "atoms" of stream of thought for you, is it picture based, or???

My head talks to me all day long, unprovoked, uncontrolled by myself and in english. i can certainly interrupt and quiet it if i like, but i just am doing something ordinary and notice that i'm mentally talking to myself.

As a corrolary... when you read a book, what is that experience like? do you have a reader reading the book to you? Do you 'hear' words as they are read. I don't mean audibly, but is a story told to you as you read? To me this journaller is very similar to what i sense when i read a book, altho obviously it's not surprising in the book reading sense.

[Unbefleckt]

I'm the same but I tend to remember very precisely what people say. My partner is the opposite and yeah it's frustrating as hell especially when I'm being misquoted from mere minutes ago.