What is your internal dialogue saying to you?

[Jaymann]

Similar to the song always playing in your head (and sometimes simultaneously) it seems there is almost always a voice in your head saying something or other. Such as:

If something good happens: "I fookin' did it!"
If something bad happens: The swearing would make a drunken sailor blush.
Often it will be a catchphrase or movie quote in context: Like if I go to a store that's closed, my inner Schwarzenegger says, "I'll be back."

What are you hearing?

[Lassr]

My inner dialog often sounds like Patton Oswald's bit about him in the car....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWcUupayezk

[Kraken]

My inner dialog often sounds like Patton Oswald's bit about him in the car....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWcUupayezk

That's about right. My stream of consciousness streams all over everything and frequently sings nonsense songs. Although at this time of year it's mostly my seasonal depression that gets the microphone. You don't want to hear those thoughts.

[Anonymous Bosch]

[Blackhawk]

Mine is constant, like a stoned narrator on speed. I'm a visual thinker, so what my internal dialogue actually 'says' is combined with images flashing through my mind, so if you were to transcribe it, you'd get something like:

"Ok, need to get in and finish that, but tomorrow's free, then Saturday three of those and get that out of the way, OK. But if... no, wouldn't fit there over there, and move those, then... yeah, just need to figure out what to do with it."

If I'm about to be speaking to someone, I'm running that conversation in my head, a dozens of variations, anticipating objections or questions.

If I just finished a conversation, I'm running that through in my head, every bit of it, figuring out what was really meant, what I could have said differently, what I need to check on.

If I'm figuring something out or learning something, I'm mentally explaining it to a (usually) undefined audience as if I were a teacher training them to do the thing.

Intersperse that with mental singing or musical 'brain humming' (which sometimes happens at the same time), random thoughts and ideas, and mental notes about the things happening around me.

Oh, and cover the entire thing with a layer of me figuring out why I'm wanting/thinking/acting/avoiding whatever is going on, a sort of ongoing introspective self-analysis that I use to understand myself. It's usually battling with anxiety and self-doubt (Why did I say that? What will they think of that? Did I explain it too much, or not enough? Did I look like an asshole? Why weren't they speaking? Did I annoy them? All of this is done at lightning speed as a wave of impressions rather than as actual conscious thoughts.

Also, if I'm typing, I'm mentally 'saying' the words as I type them, often along with the extra keys I hit back-back-back-back space h-i-t period

---------------------------------------------------------

And yes, this goes on constantly. I had to learn to meditate just to turn down the volume on it. In fact, if I wake up during the night to pee, I have to be very, very careful not to let it start up, or I won't get back to sleep. I've learned to focus on a single thing - often what I was dreaming about - so intensely that there's no room left for other thoughts to start.

[em2nought]

"Women hate you."

[dbt1949]

Bye bye, so long, aufwiederssehn adieu.

[Daehawk]

Mine's chaotic. And I've lived a long time now. Many of my inner dialogs seems to relate to old television commercial jingles and well known phrases. If I encounter something about a secret my mind says "ancient Chinese secret huh?"

Just today I referred to my dog as LBD....little brown dog. Then my mind sang "little brown dog of , dynamo!" .....as a word play on the old tv commercial for Dynamo clothes detergent that went " little blue jug of, dynamo!

It never ends. And that "I'll be back" phrase runs through my mind on many occasions. Just like "It's not a tumah!" Damn Arnie and his memorable one liners!!!!

[Holman]

I have the usual inner voice responses when various things happen. If I drop something I'm carrying, I'll hear "Nice job, dumbass" in my own voice. If something interesting comes into view, I'll hear "Well how about that?"

But I also run little dialogues and speeches in my head, sometimes ones that I've been practicing and refining for months or even years. These often occur in the form of me trying to explain some aspect of my life or something I believe to an interviewer. Sometimes I'll stop a podcast in the middle just to silently practice what I might say on a related topic if I were on a podcast.

For example, I've got a little two-minute set-piece explanation for the theory of evolution that I've been massaging in my head for more than a decade. I always imagine it as occurring in dialogue with my (now deceased) Creationist dad.

[Jaymann]

For example, I've got a little two-minute set-piece explanation for the theory of evolution that I've been massaging in my head for more than a decade. I always imagine it as occurring in dialogue with my (now deceased) Creationist dad.

Can you give us the gist. No need to waste 10 years of rehearsal.

[Z-Corn]

Any time somebody asks me to help another person or get something for another person, which happens DAILY because I'm the Lone IT Guy for a charity, my mental response is, "Fuck 'em, feed 'em fudge!"

Just something I picked up learning how to get salty by working in kitchens in the '80's...

[Blackhawk]

Sometimes I'll stop a podcast in the middle just to silently practice what I might say on a related topic if I were on a podcast.

This is why 45 minute podcasts take me two hours. I'll either pause to argue, or pause elaborate.

[hepcat]

Right now it’s telling me “you get the chance to visit your 88 year old father for the holidays, so don’t make a scene by telling everyone you’d rather have lumberjacks smash your testicles between two boards than watch one more goddamn minute of this Dolly Parton Christmas movie”.

Edit: crap, he just changed the channel and now my inner dialogue is wondering if he’s actually Professor X and read my damn mind.

[Isgrimnur]

Is The Christmas Shoes with Rob Lowe up next?

[hepcat]

He just switched over to Willy Wonka (Gene Wilder version). So there’s hope yet for me.

I fear I’m not going to get many more of these moments though, so I need to appreciate them while I have them.

[Isgrimnur]

SSA says that an 88yo male has a good chance at another four years.

[hepcat]

[Holman]

For example, I've got a little two-minute set-piece explanation for the theory of evolution that I've been massaging in my head for more than a decade. I always imagine it as occurring in dialogue with my (now deceased) Creationist dad.

Can you give us the gist. No need to waste 10 years of rehearsal.

Here's a version I wrote up and saved for myself sometime back:

Claim: “Human life is too complex to have evolved by chance. How could everything about Earth and biology just happen to be so perfect for us?”

Succinct Rebuttal: Think about your family tree: generation after generation of people meeting, mating, and raising children to do the same in their turn, all of it leading to you. Take away just one of those people and your unique particularity disappears. One accident, one missed acquaintance, one worse disease, one misplaced sperm in umpteen thousand years and your place in genealogy would be occupied by somebody else. It stands to reason, then, that every choice and action made by all those countless ancestors must have involved not chance or choice but predetermined intelligent design. Otherwise, the odds against you existing at all are simply astronomical.

But of course it isn’t that way, is it? You exist at the foot of your family tree by chance, not choice. You’re what came of those events and possibilities, just as human life is what resulted from the mutations, selections, and behaviors of a billion years. Given what we know of the robustness of life, the likelihood of humanity occurring (or something like humanity, which we would call humanity if we were it) is actually rather good. The universe is very large. The odds are astronomical, but only because there burn so many stars.

[Daehawk]

Is The Christmas Shoes with Rob Lowe up next?

Me and my wife watched that movie. She liked it. I didn't like the ending. Sadness isn't on my Christmas wish list.

[Blackhawk]

Claim: “Human life is too complex to have evolved by chance. How could everything about Earth and biology just happen to be so perfect for us?”

Rebuttal: You have no clue how much time 4.4 billion years really is, do you?

[Zarathud]

It’s Dolly Parton and Willy Wonka, hepcat. That’s the preteen male dream of the 80s — titties and chocolate mayhem. Add in some classic scream queen and you’ll have the trifecta.

[Kraken]

Claim: “Human life is too complex to have evolved by chance. How could everything about Earth and biology just happen to be so perfect for us?”

Rebuttal: You have no clue how much time 4.4 billion years really is, do you?

That was Holman's straw man.

I don't have any official kids, and as an adoptee I come from a long line of people who didn't have official kids. Last year I found out that I had an unofficial grandkid that killed itself before it could have any unofficial kids. Probably. Somehow genes persist without regard to their carriers.

[LordMortis]

Bye bye, so long, aufwiederssehn adieu.

and mine is mostly associated lyrics

[Unagi]

I've been instructed not to share anything.

[Punisher]

My therapist says i shouldn't listen to the voices in my head anymore. Not sure we trust her.

[Holman]

Claim: “Human life is too complex to have evolved by chance. How could everything about Earth and biology just happen to be so perfect for us?”

Rebuttal: You have no clue how much time 4.4 billion years really is, do you?

Originally this point arose in reply to the Creationist chestnut that absolutely everything about Earth is perfect for human life, so therefore it must have all been designed for us.

The *most* succinct rebuttal is that this claim simply confuses cause and effect. (Earth's conditions aren't the way they are because we needed them to be that way; instead, we're the way we are because that's how life happened on Earth.)

[Blackhawk]

My therapist says i shouldn't listen to the voices in my head anymore. Not sure we trust her.

Your therapist is just one of the voices in your head. Since she tells you not to listen to the voices in your head, that includes her. You should, therefore, listen to the voices in your head.

Including her. And she told you not to listen to the voices.

Good luck.

[Blackhawk]

Claim: “Human life is too complex to have evolved by chance. How could everything about Earth and biology just happen to be so perfect for us?”

Rebuttal: You have no clue how much time 4.4 billion years really is, do you?

Originally this point arose in reply to the Creationist chestnut that absolutely everything about Earth is perfect for human life, so therefore it must have all been designed for us.

The *most* succinct rebuttal is that this claim simply confuses cause and effect. (Earth's conditions aren't the way they are because we needed them to be that way; instead, we're the way we are because that's how life happened on Earth.)

Or, rather, we adapted to fit the pre-formed environment, slowly, over millions of years. Those of us who weren't able to do so didn't survive. We're just the most effective combination of traits for surviving here so far.

At least in the short term. Long term? Those same traits, removed from their original survival context, may be what cause us to fail, too.

[Punisher]

My therapist says i shouldn't listen to the voices in my head anymore. Not sure we trust her.

Your therapist is just one of the voices in your head. Since she tells you not to listen to the voices in your head, that includes her. You should, therefore, listen to the voices in your head.

Including her. And she told you not to listen to the voices.

Good luck.

Hmm.. goid point.
Now to determine which voices to listen to... decisions decisions. Probably gonna go with whichever ones are the most fun.

[Daehawk]

hahaha just had it do it again. I needed the security code to my bank card. I was about to guess at it as Id just used it a minute ago doing the same thing. But I checked to be sure. Yep I had the right numbers.

So in my head I hear Darth Vader's voice at the end of Return of the Jedi where he has his helmet and mask off talking to Luke and saying with my own self interjected into the phrase "I was right,...tell your sister, I was right"

[Jaymon]

yesterday when I got up, I had a phrase running through my head instead of a song. A knockoff Schwarzenegger was saying "Enough cheesecake nibbles, let us do something already"

It sounded like the tough guy fairy from fairly odd parents, or reiner wolfcastle from the simpsons.

[El Guapo]

[Daehawk]

The way my bills and things breaking are going combined with this being election year im starting to hear....

[Daehawk]

Today Ive been hearing Narfs not Snarfs thrown around in my head for some reason. I remember Snarf from the Thundercats cartoon in the 80s but Im not sure what a Narf is.........then again my buzzed and assaulted brain may be confusing words ......like Nerf and scarfs. Its Nerf or nothin!