Do You Hear Your Voice in Your Head?
February 12, 2024
It is not uncommon for someone to hear other people’s voices in their head when they feeling anxious, sad or worried, those are auditory hallucinations.* Those voices are usually linked to extreme stress, such as a traumatic life experience like bereavement after losing someone that was close and hearing their voice in your mind in their absence.
But, that’s the process of hearing someone else’s voice. What about hearing your own voice as it plays out conversations in your mind. This is a unique phenomenon that some people experience more often than others. It is the internal monologue that comes from meaningfully thoughts about something for an extended period.
When you spend time thinking deeply about something important, pondering may explain your lingering thoughts. Taking time to ponder can enhance wellbeing in allowing you to take a brief mental journey where your self-reflection allows you to draw on positive outcomes. Truth is, some people naturally spend more time contemplating or mulling over situations than others and both are normal decision styles.
Internal monologue can lead to rapt absorption...
Having internal dialogue with yourself about something for an extended length of time can be useful as you ponder your next move or statement. The positive result of pondering includes taking the time to carefully examine the pros and cons before reaching a decision. It is an extension of thinking where we often make snap decisions. Rumination, which means to think deeply, has a more negative connotation today than pondering, as it indicates a cyclic state of repetitive thoughts often in a negative mood. Becoming mentally engrossed or spellbound over things, especially those bound by emotions, often leads to rapt absorption.
How Internal Dialogue Skills Develop
Your “inner speak” is a natural phenomenon that allows you to have a mental dialogue silently inside your own head where you can hear your voice, play out phrases, and have a conversation in your mind. It is a positive cognitive function that can provide helpful insight into your thoughts and decisions. It allows you to ask yourself questions, react to what people might say or do, reflect on personal experiences, and recall vivid mental imagery.
While some people experience internal monologues much more frequently than others, not everyone experiences inner dialogue and may never play out conversations in their mind. In fact, recent research suggests that between 50% to 70% of people may not have a talkative brain. Linguists believe the ability to have internal monologue is learned during childhood in what’s called private speech. Language skills develop as a child independently engages in internal commentary. This helps to explain why less-social children often form imaginary friends.
Although it is unclear as to a definitive cause for why some people don’t hear their inner voice, it doesn’t mean they do not experience an inner monologue. The dorsal and ventral streams in the brain are language tracts for audio and visual streams. Since the emergence of inner speech is influenced by your dorsal stream, children with hearing impairments will still experience inner monologue through tactile or visual memories. A lack of auditory imagery (anauralia) and/or lack of mental imagery (aphantasia) are generally not considered to be medical conditions but are likely inherent to personality.
Different Physical Spaces for What You Hear
The secret ingredient of language is that it consists of a mental dictionary comprised of words and creative rules of grammar. So, why people can hear their thoughts without speaking is just an illusion that is created by their memory of overt speech. Since there are many parts of the brain, it is complex sytem that's never singular. Instead of simply identifying where neurons are firing (neuroimaging), understanding internal dialogue as a linguistic task requires identifying which neurons are firing where.
Silently talking to yourself is most often a healthy cognitive function that provides valuable insight into your emotions, thoughts, reactions and behaviors. For example, you may create an internal dialogue to decide whether to go out for the evening or stay home. Unlike a conversation with someone else, your private speech is a one-sided communication designed to address your innermost thoughts. But, not all internal monologues expect an answer. For example, you may hear your voice complete with tone and affect when you read or while rehearsing a speech.
Since research on the Silent Mind is relatively new, more clinical evidence is needed for linguists to gain a more thorough understanding of internal dialogue and the relationship between sound waves and sound emission decoding via the neurons transversing the brain. Interestingly, inner monologue is associated more with personality traits than intelligence. That means, if you have more developed verbal skills, you are more likely to have a wordier inner voice but it does not seem to impact whether or not your inner voice is active or not.
CONCLUSIONS:
Research on people who speak more than one language shows that it takes imperceptible effort to switch between languages. Measures of gray matter volume between adult bilinguals and monolinguals suggest increased gray matter in the bilingual’s brain, especially in the region that plays an important role in problem solving and filtering out of irrelevant information. Scientists say it is this kind of neuroplasticity that allows the brain to never stop changing in response to different life experiences. In other words, language experiences allow your brain to develop new channels of communication for newfound neurons.
*Disclaimer: Only a medical expert like a doctor or psychologist can accurately diagnose the cause of hearing voices or noises that don’t exist in reality. Typically, there is no concern if you are hearing yourself involved in self-speak. In fact, researchers suggest your internal dialogue may be good for long-term brain health.
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At ProLingo, we encourage everyone to exercise their language skills whenever the opportunity arises. Adopting healthy lifestyle habits can help enhance brain health, so don’t worry about the self-speak or internal dialogue that fuels conversations with yourself. Just use it, so you don’t lose it. Call 800.287.9755 to learn more about any of our professional language services.
