Listening to the voice within

DAVID HAMBLING asks why we experience internal monologues – and what happens if we don’t?

Most of us are familiar with the idea of an inner voice, and we experience language while thinking. This inner voice – also known as covert speech, verbal thinking, inner monologue or inner dialogue – is little understood and only now coming under scientific scrutiny. Not everyone has one: some people lose their inner voice due to brain injury, and a few never have one. Studies of the inner voice are shedding new light on mental phenomena from musical ‘earworms’ to hearing voices. Inner dialogue has been discussed as far back as Plato, but researchers have shied away from studying it. A subjective experience which cannot be detected or measured by an outside observer is a slippery fish to catch. Even dreams can be studied via REMs and brainwaves, but…

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Fortean Times (Digital) - 1 Issue, 423

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