The Inner Voice/Monologue

[midicon]

This is beautiful! Thank you.

That old "Cartesian scam", great insight. Always question anyone who has something named after them, haha. You're reminding me of Julian Jaynes, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, and the ways we externalize, project and individuate while we may indeed be talking to ourself. The word really is ego, isn't it?

Thanks UltraBudgie, you always say nice things! I think you are very intelligent!

Regarding the ego..I think this is from Nietzsche, kind of obscure maybe. Once upon a time my favourite book was Zarathustra! 


​​​​​​"Body am I, and soul" so saith the child. And why should one not speak like children? But the awakened one, the knowing one, saith: "Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body." The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd. An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother, which thou callest "spirit" a little instrument and plaything of thy big sagacity. "Ego," sayest thou, and art proud of that word. Bur the greater thing in which thou art unwilling to believe is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not "ego," but doeth it."

[Maxmars]

The word really is ego, isn't it?

The human world is.

Reality?... that's a whole 'nother question. 

The inner voice may only be a mental construct to engender the thought process.  An ouroboros of 'mental' causality?

[UltraBudgie]

Thanks UltraBudgie, you always say nice things! I think you are very intelligent!

Regarding the ego..I think this is from Nietzsche, kind of obscure maybe. Once upon a time my favourite book was Zarathustra! 


​​​​​​"Body am I, and soul" so saith the child. And why should one not speak like children? But the awakened one, the knowing one, saith: "Body am I entirely, and nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body." The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a peace, a flock and a shepherd. An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother, which thou callest "spirit" a little instrument and plaything of thy big sagacity. "Ego," sayest thou, and art proud of that word. Bur the greater thing in which thou art unwilling to believe is thy body with its big sagacity; it saith not "ego," but doeth it."

Thank you midicon I think that is very kind.

The Nietzsche quote is ponderable, at the risk of going off subject a tad would you categorize it as materialist? I some how think it isn't. There's likely some insight there about the parallels between the manifest and the intrinsic, and the ego's role in that divide, I wonder?

Maybe the morphogenesis of the body is the conjugate of the complexity of the self, and the word is the quanta of the time aspect of that, made dynamic in the voice -- positive gradient internally spoken and negative gradient externally spoken.

I feel I have taken a large beakful of possibly nonsensical philosophical birdseed with this line of thought.

The human world is.

Reality?... that's a whole 'nother question. 

The inner voice may only be a mental construct to engender the thought process.  An ouroboros of 'mental' causality?

Yes somehow I am responding to both of you in the nonsense above haha.

[Maxmars]

That was in not nonsense!

I won't respond immediately. 
It is a very dense sentence.

I'm keying on the word "gradient," it has an harmoniously organic feel to it. 

[UltraBudgie]

I feel "jibber jabber" is a vastly underrated phrase. Perhaps that's more apt.

[appropriate emoji here]

I think in theory the little/inner voice often acts as moral compass and 'whispers' accordingly, but it could be somewhat compromised due to past trauma e.g. hinting that you shouldn't when maybe you should and vice versa.

An individual nurtured and continuing on in some optimal pristine environment might harbor an inner voice that is less wary than it would otherwise be and perhaps less wary than it should be in this day and age.

In a way the voice resembles the "ego" in the Freudian model of the psyche. Except that instead of attempting to model/filter your actions according to observance by a judgmental society (superego) will do so instead solely for your own good although lines between "ego" and inner voice may become somewhat grayed or nonexistent at times given the circumstances. The inner voice may guide you against actions that might harm others – conscience.

In my particular case. Sometimes it 'attempts' diversion from certain driving compulsions when I'm on the road, and at times I ignore it because I'd rather have some fun and briefly hang on the edge, or it may tell me that a piece I've just written could use a little reworking/restructuring.

My existence is moderately isolated and non-invasive, so my little voice will likely be optional much of the time, but for others could be the difference between life and death.

On the edit tags:

I see those "edit tags" as an unwanted blemish and will occasionally briefly argue with the little voice as to whether or not one is deserving in correcting some minor triviality i.e. negligible. At times that annoying little voice will nag at me and I end up giving in and fixing it five or ten minutes later – OCD.

Social conscience is a key, I think you've sounded a good note here. I remember as a very young child becoming aware of the perception of others of my actions. It set up an internalized feedback loop, a second-guessing of myself, that I think is what leads to having an introverted monologue. A redirection of immediate action into thinking, internally vocalizing, instead of the pure acting in the moment of a child. It's a long road back to that. The idea of that voice being the superego, a voice of the personal ego as a member of the larger group, is interesting, because that matches with my experience. Of course the moral compass thing applies, too, and sometimes I have little voices of remaining unresolved trauma pop up like devilish magnets trying to spin my compass, derail my more intentional self. I've welcomed most of them back into the flock, but some remain, and it is very easy to consider them 'intrustive' or externalize them as plaguing spirits or such. It takes actually facing the absolute to know the difference, I guess, although maybe as you say someone born and raised in an optimal pristine environment would be different in that regard. Although looking even at the elite and most privileged in this would who might enjoy that, it seems that may not be the case, and everything warps somehow. Perhaps the key to bloodline legacies is knowing how to consistently mould such warping intergenerationally.

Isn't the "call of the void" when driving fun? "Just steer off the road, it would only take a wrist twitch" or "I bet I could get the car across that guardrail and off the bridge". Memento mori, thanks for the reminder, shadow! Hahaha I say -- someday, if only it were that easy, void my friend.


Recently I've been examining the song lyrics that are stuck in my head. Sometimes when I have no inner monologue, I'll get refrains going in a loop. That's annoying. Anyone dove into processing those? I wonder if it's the time and place of the songs, the life-memories they are tagged to, that are what persists, or perhaps unnoticed significance in the lyrics, or maybe even just the rhythmic theme? As I have not heard it said, "if you meet the music on the road, kill it". Classical seems to be a way to go, pure tonal emotion patterns, but even better is the om at various vibrational levels that LightAngel and quintessentone were mentioning in the other thread.

[quintessentone]

“Music speaks the language of the soul, penetrating into the past and resonating into the future, unearthing pain and tenderness and sorrow and joy, reminding us of our infinite fragility and extraordinary strength, reigniting our dreams and passions once again to remind us of who we are meant to be.”― L.R. Knost

and -

 Greek philosopher, Plato, said, "Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue." Here are some practical ways to allow music to elevate your soul. Our vocational call to holiness, received at Baptism, came with a gift: music.

and -

“Music in the soul can be heard by the universe” -Lao Tzu.

Very interesting, UltraBudgie.

[Sirius]

A long time ago I was told never to let the voice go quiet and definitely not during meditation. Leaving the mind blank allows it to be taken over. Imagine my surprise when I learned that quietness is exactly what is sought by many during meditation.

Now I'm not so naive for you are possessed all the time, a veritable playground for all the memes. The meat puppet of the conscious universe.

[UltraBudgie]

A long time ago I was told never to let the voice go quiet and definitely not during meditation. Leaving the mind blank allows it to be taken over. Imagine my surprise when I learned that quietness is exactly what is sought by many during meditation.

Now I'm not so naive for you are possessed all the time, a veritable playground for all the memes. The meat puppet of the conscious universe.

That is a good point that it can be a dangerous practice without cultivating a connection to the divine. All the armour of God stuff applies, if you're Christian, for example. A great amount of willpower and concentration is required to calm the "puppy dog chasing its tail" that is the sensory-infatuated mind. Don't let your conscience or empathy go dark, that's what psychopaths do. Consider it instead as being raised to a higher level, moving one's identity from the worldly ego into the virtuous beyond the mortal. With the stilling of the voices, you're not killing them, but healing them with lovingkindness. Think of it like many people talking in a room at once. You can't make out what any one voice is saying, only the general gist and mood of what is being said. The inner narrative, unfocused, gives words to this, and becomes the babbling hypno-toad of the daily rat race that most live as life. With quieting meditation, consciousness, the true observer, is active apart, and the chatter of the mind is stilled and becomes the observed. This allows the individual voices and motivations of the animal mind to be seen, heard, examine, and reconciled. That's the idea any way.

Please enjoy this tasty beverage:

You may consider it beer, ginger ale, saspirella or water as applicable.

Edit: Or seltzer! That's an option too!

[Sirius]

That is a good point that it can be a dangerous practice without cultivating a connection to the divine. All the armour of God stuff applies, if you're Christian, for example. A great amount of willpower and concentration is required to calm the "puppy dog chasing its tail" that is the sensory-infatuated mind. Don't let your conscience or empathy go dark, that's what psychopaths do. Consider it instead as being raised to a higher level, moving one's identity from the worldly ego into the virtuous beyond the mortal. With the stilling of the voices, you're not killing them, but healing them with lovingkindness. Think of it like many people talking in a room at once. You can't make out what any one voice is saying, only the general gist and mood of what is being said. The inner narrative, unfocused, gives words to this, and becomes the babbling hypno-toad of the daily rat race that most live as life. With quieting meditation, consciousness, the true observer, is active apart, and the chatter of the mind is stilled and becomes the observed. This allows the individual voices and motivations of the animal mind to be seen, heard, examine, and reconciled. That's the idea any way.

Please enjoy this tasty beverage:

You may consider it beer, ginger ale, saspirella or water as applicable.

Edit: Or seltzer! That's an option too!

Stilling the voice is dying, you become an automaton. Sleeping is called the little death but there you still dream.

This is my problem with focus and being mechanistic and why I much prefer channeling energy where my time isn't lost. Now if I could just stop channeling Dionysus for a day.

[Ray1990]

Apparently only about 30-50% of us have an inner dialogue, some people consciously think differently and these people tend to have a much stronger ability to visualise consciously.

I have a very weak visual imagination unless I'm highly focused which can be achieved via meditation, I do have full colour dreams though, occasionally I can read in them, trigger autonomy and a few other things, all these things seem to be accessible via meditation too. I only mention all that because there's seemingly a very strong link with the ability to visualise within the mind and parts of the brain that regulate.

Hypnagogic hallucinations manifest as visions in the minds eye for some, faces, shapes and randomness just passing by before that inevitable flip into pure imagination/sleep. Those 'hallucinations' for me come forth from a grey fine mist where the images swirl into existence, almost like a smokey grainy old photograph.

Again, it can be trained to have better visual imagination, the same can be said for visual memory too, I suspect it's ways of thinking but then how to you confirm that beyond trusting others and what they say? Brain scans? They all point to the same places pretty much.

Fact is we do not understand consciousness.

When I think of things like this I'm naturally pessimistic and I'm probably going down similar thought patterns as IdeomotorPrisoner, that inner monologue is more likely guided by experiences and the way we think is often. 'corrupted' by experiences and trauma or maybe that's what actually develops it? Language and memory are intrinsically linked with how we think, I'd go one further and say that what some call intrusive thoughts are actually just the subconscious or at least mostly. I'm still open about the possibility of telepathy and other weirdness.

There's the whole "people born blind have never ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia" too which is absolutely fascinating, there doesn't seem to be any changes with the inner monologue of blind people though. Look it up... People who develop blindness do get schizophrenia and other related issues.

It's those pathways of development I find the most interesting when it comes to inner voices. Seems that social animals are the most nuts, most of us can go nuts and have all the functions to make it so, the question is why do some people hallucinate and others don't, another is why do some people have intrusive thoughts and images whereas others just have a subconscious. Is it all the same thing wound up around an ego?

Faith systems and culture often ask us to cast aside negative psychological issues and I seriously wonder if it's these practices that potentially worsen the experience of individuals. It cannot be natural to deny and invalid aspects of ourselves that we've developed via experience.