320: Voices in Your Head

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to brain junk. I'm Amy Barton. [00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And today is everything you never knew you wanted to know about the voices in your head. [00:00:13] Speaker A: I do know. I want to know about this. [00:00:15] Speaker B: I do, too. Okay, so just, just to catch, just to catch our listeners up to speed, I get a. What is it? Instagram from you with an art, probably. [00:00:25] Speaker A: I feel like those are less intrusive, so I send those. [00:00:28] Speaker B: That's true. And you're like, I want to talk about this, but I don't want to look into it. [00:00:35] Speaker A: I'm learning some. I'm learning about myself. This is good, right? [00:00:40] Speaker B: It's a journey. [00:00:41] Speaker A: That's right. Exactly. [00:00:44] Speaker B: So I looked into it. Wow. It has been the topic of much conversation in house. Kerr, over here. And so now we're going to bring it back around to you. [00:00:52] Speaker A: Okay, good, because we haven't been chatting about it very much, but we will. [00:00:55] Speaker B: Yeah. So two things. I looked into your thing and then it led me into something else. [00:01:01] Speaker A: Oh, all the best things do. [00:01:03] Speaker B: I know. Right? So an endophagia and aphantasia. [00:01:09] Speaker A: I feel like I've heard of the second one. So we'll see. [00:01:11] Speaker B: Yeah, those are super fancy words. The first one is the anendophagia, and that is talking about that inner voice in your head, the monologue in your head. Do you have one? [00:01:22] Speaker A: No, not in the, like, I don't hear an audible monologue like a voiceover or anything. I can imagine speaking and hearing speaking. I dream about it, but I don't have any voice. I do have a concept. So that's what I'm intrigued about, is how. How did they define and study this and how do they characterize it? And. [00:01:45] Speaker B: Yes. And see, this is the thing that hung me up. People kept coming upstairs because I was going, huh, huh, huh. Because they say in your head, like, listen in your head. And I'm like, you, I have a running commentary of, but I don't physically hear talking. That would probably be schizophrenia. Yeah. But in my inner brain, there is stuff going on. Well, here, so let's bring, break down some of this. So scientists thought that everyone had some sort of inner voice, and I'm just going to keep calling it that because that's kind of what they call it. But then they found out that maybe this isn't true. And the problem is, and this is what we just talked about, it's too hard to quantify because it's very personal. Right. It's so subjective. Well, now they're thinking that maybe only 30% to 50% of people have an internal monologue. So let's. Let's kind of. I know, right? That's, like, hardly anybody. So, according to Sari Chait, who is a psychologist, director of University of Maryland Language Science center, that inner voice is. Do you talk to yourself out loud? Do you hear your voice in your head while reading or complete with tone and affect? And again, I'm not actually hearing, but, like, if I'm reading a book and someone has an english accent in my head, there's an english accent happening. [00:03:06] Speaker A: Yes. [00:03:07] Speaker B: Right. [00:03:07] Speaker A: But it's sort of like in movies where people or shows where there's a telepath, they don't hear the actual speaking, but they suddenly have a reply to a conversation. [00:03:19] Speaker B: Yes. Also, if you rehearse conversations or presentations in your head. [00:03:24] Speaker A: I do do that. [00:03:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Or if you have a song stuck in your head, those are all kind of inner voice y. [00:03:31] Speaker A: Okay. [00:03:31] Speaker B: I currently have a TikTok. He's singing it. So I like my whiskey sweet, and I hear it over. I can't get it out. It's been in for, like, two weeks. Can't get it out. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Try singing the canadian national anthem. I've heard that helps. I think we've talked about it here on brain junk before. The antidote is in a back episode somewhere. [00:03:50] Speaker B: Just so you know. Now, as we do this, I'll be singing O Canada over and over in my head, back in the background. So. Okay, so all of those things, the songs in your head, rehearsing conversations, those experiences, those are different from, like, an auditory hallucination. So, you know, if you actually hear the thing, there is something else going on that's not that internal voice that you're hearing. [00:04:16] Speaker A: Okay, so this is. Did this probably involve a lot of, like, eegs and stickers on heads and then somebody just quietly sitting at a computer? What are you doing? Science. Go away. [00:04:29] Speaker B: No, it's even worse than that. How do you test it? And it's. So this is new research. Hot off the presses. This is May of 2024. You have Joanne Niedergard and Gary Lupian from the University of Wisconsin Madison. And they were like, okay, how are we gonna. How are we gonna even. I mean, we can't put a little microphone up to their ear and hear what they're doing in there. [00:04:51] Speaker A: Yep. [00:04:53] Speaker B: So they took 100 volunteers, which is. Okay, so super small study. [00:04:56] Speaker A: Yep. [00:04:57] Speaker B: And they asked them to self assess if they feel like. Like, based on the criteria that I listed before, do you think you hear an inner type voice. 46 of them said, not really. And then 47 of them were like, yes, absolutely. It's like a dance party in there. It's constantly going. And then they figured that if you have this inner voice, like, there's sound going on in there, that maybe that would affect some of your ability to do things cognitively. Like, subjects were asked to memorize words that were similar phonetically, like bought and caught and taught and wart. [00:05:39] Speaker A: Oh, I'm so curious. What happened? [00:05:41] Speaker B: Well, they said, memorize them. [00:05:43] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:05:44] Speaker B: We're gonna ask you what they are later. Because they figured in order to remember the word, you need to be repeating it in your head. And if you don't have an inner voice, there's nobody in there going, bought, caught, taught wart over and over. Right. And when they asked them, the people that had the lower levels of inner voice, they did have trouble remembering and repeating back what those things were. [00:06:08] Speaker A: Oh, that's interesting. [00:06:10] Speaker B: Yeah. Another way that they tested them is they put a whole bunch of pictures out in front of them, and they said, okay, look at this picture. And I'm not going to use the correct word because I want you to find the rhyme. Look at this picture of a feline and look at a picture of a stick that we use while playing a sport with a ball. [00:06:28] Speaker A: Okay. [00:06:29] Speaker B: What are these two things? [00:06:31] Speaker A: So they're supposed to say cat and bat. [00:06:33] Speaker B: Yes, they are. Cat and bat. Try to think of the words that rhyme, and if you can't sound it out in your head, cat, bat. How can you figure out between all of these different things? Cat, leaf, dog, whatever. Which one's rhyme? [00:06:46] Speaker A: Oh, that's interesting. [00:06:48] Speaker B: Right. [00:06:49] Speaker A: So that could really, when you talk with somebody that struggles to find a word, perhaps there's some of that going on. [00:06:58] Speaker B: Could be. It could also be a processing issue. Yeah, that's true. But, yeah, they did find that the people with that lower level of inner voice said they had a much harder time figuring out which one, unless they just could kind of memorize that this is what rhymes, because they couldn't sound them out in their head. [00:07:19] Speaker A: Oh. And there's probably not a lot of edge cases that have figured out to create another structure to hang it on, those little memory tricks. [00:07:28] Speaker B: That's true. They did say that some people, they asked one fellow that said he had no, he felt like he had no internal voice at all. And when he was doing tasks, he would do what they called finger tapping. So I'm working on this one thing. I'm tapping my thumb, and when I'm working on another thing. I'm tapping my forefinger. And he had this whole externalized way of. [00:07:54] Speaker A: He creates a sensory association. [00:07:57] Speaker B: Yeah. Of keeping track. It's like me with post it notes everywhere, externalizing my brain because I can't keep it all in order. Yeah. [00:08:04] Speaker A: So the. The people that chew a strongly flavored gum and work in the same environment that smells the same, maybe some of that kind of concept is at work there. [00:08:15] Speaker B: Maybe. Yeah. [00:08:16] Speaker A: To create some associations. [00:08:18] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's so weird because I, like I said, when they say hear, I don't. Well, we're gonna get into that because the hearing. And then there's something else. The other one. The other, the other. The aphantasia that is images. And they say, see, and I have so much trouble with this, but we're not quite there yet. So what is this internal voice good for? They think it helps people process ideas and store them in memory, increases critical thinking. And they thought also that in situations like where you have therapy and you need to be changing thought patterns, if you have low or no internal voice, it's very difficult to change things because you can't be processing internally what your behavior is doing. [00:09:10] Speaker A: That's interesting. So I'm so curious for all directions of this kind of concept because I don't feel like I can visualize things very well, which makes it easy. Like, if you're trying to let go of a situation that was difficult or stressful or is taking up a lot of brain space, it really works for me to think of blurring it out and bringing it into the distance because it's already not very focused. Oh, our wonderful brains are so interesting. [00:09:43] Speaker B: Right? And then I was thinking, wow, I can't imagine having no internal voice. But then they said, yeah, but if you have a loud internal voice, that can conflict with incoming information. Also, people with loud internal voices are often more likely to have depression or anxiety because we can't stop thinking. [00:10:04] Speaker A: Oh, that's interesting. [00:10:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Because how do you get out of your internal voice if your internal voice is just voicing constantly? [00:10:12] Speaker A: Well, that's true. I definitely don't have a constant internal voice. Mine might wake up at night just a little bit. [00:10:18] Speaker B: Well. And then add on to that maybe some ADHD or some autism and some other issues, because they were like, this is these internal voice things. The monologue inside your head is separate from that. But if you add on, you know, someone who gets stuck in a pattern or someone who can't get all the thoughts in order, and then you're just juggling this mess around in there. It's too loud. [00:10:43] Speaker A: Interesting. So interesting. I have so many different thought directions right now. [00:10:48] Speaker B: We'll just sit here and let you have your thought direction. [00:10:51] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:10:52] Speaker B: See? [00:10:53] Speaker A: Shh. [00:10:53] Speaker B: Amy. She's having a moment. She's talking in her head. [00:10:56] Speaker A: Be quiet. Well, I was thinking, because I am a conflict avoider, and so I. But I would like to have a lively discussion about a complex topic when I don't feel like it's aversive. But as soon as conflict is entered, I am an avoider. And I wonder if some of that is processing under stress, that not having a lot of voice happening. I don't. I don't know. I have to read the study, and I could be going in all sorts of not quite right directions. But it's a fascinating. [00:11:26] Speaker B: Well, yeah, because I know the study is really short, like I said, because it's. It's so new and it's so few people. And again, it's so. It's so subjective because how you experience things, you can't just put an electrode on and figure out what people are experiencing. So, for example, so that. So learning about that. And then I came across a. A tweet. I refuse to call it anything else, by John Green, the science, you know, writer, smart guy, youtuber. And he has up a tweet, and it says, it's baffling to me that some of y'all see stuff in your mind. You see it. And he wrote, see in capitals, the way your eyes see. Because I always thought visualize meant thinking of words and ideas and feelings. And so there's this scale of affantasian. It shows an empty head, and they're like, do you. If I said, visualize an apple. Let's all play this together. Unless you're driving, then keep your eyes open. Visualize an apple. Do you see, like, a three dimensional apple, or do you see, like, a flat picture of an apple? Or maybe a black and white picture or an outline, or do you see absolutely nothing at all? [00:12:35] Speaker A: I see. It's a little hard because I'm a little distracted because we're doing this. But my initial, when you first said that, was a pop up of, like, a snow white style red apple, but it was a picture. My brain doesn't show me, like, a real. But I think your brain could show you a real apple looking thing in your head. But mine is very much like I'm looking at a magazine picture of an apple. [00:12:58] Speaker B: Okay. And you're actually, like, seeing it. [00:13:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Although as we talk and I'm distracted, I lose it. It doesn't stay. Or it becomes like, is it a red or a green apple? Which kind of apple do you want? Like, too much sensory is coming in. But if I'm concentrating calmly, I'd see, like, a magazine picture of a red apple. [00:13:16] Speaker B: Okay. And the sea part has really. Oh, this one has really got me on the fence, because. [00:13:24] Speaker A: Wait, do you see it, too, though? Do you see or not see? [00:13:27] Speaker B: I see nothing with my eyes. [00:13:30] Speaker A: No, me either. It's in my head. [00:13:32] Speaker B: I'm seeing, like. And I can't show you because this is radio, but I'm seeing, like, with the back of my head. I feel like I'm seeing back in my brain, but I'm not really seeing anything. I close my eyes. It's just black. I see nothing. I see the after image of the room. Right. But I can imagine what it looks like. But here's the thing. I asked Beckett's person, Cam, and I said, you know, this very same thing, and they're, like, right here, like, in front of their face. I see the app. [00:14:05] Speaker A: It's like they've turned a projector on. Like, they've got one of those little viewfinder guys. [00:14:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:10] Speaker A: That's weird. [00:14:11] Speaker B: Yes. [00:14:12] Speaker A: And so that's awesome, but weird. [00:14:14] Speaker B: I know. Well, and then I was thinking, because I am really good at drawing. I call myself a copier. I'm like a photocopier. I can look at a thing, and I can draw the thing. I have never been good at imagining a thing and drawing a thing. And I'm like, is that because I can't actually see it, that. [00:14:29] Speaker A: Oh. I've always struggled with art classes for that very reason. Like, creating something from my imagination, it always becomes very pattern based and linear. [00:14:38] Speaker B: Yeah, but then Beckett says, I see in the back of my head. But they draw all the time. So there are. There are different grades of this. So aphantasia is when you asked someone to imagine a beach, and you just get a running list of what would be there. They're not seeing anything. They're like, well, it's a beach. There's Sandhya, birds. There's water. That kind of thing the average person might see. And I'm saying this like, either in front of your. You know, like, back in your head, a beach, you know, sand, water. And then you have hyper fantasia. Extreme, very vivid detail, but still in the back of your head. And then there's prophantasia, which is, like, what Cam has. It's projected onto the eyes, you actually see the thing. [00:15:27] Speaker A: Like, that's extra brain power there. I feel like, like, I agree. A superpower. I assume that's a smaller portion of the population. [00:15:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. It's. [00:15:35] Speaker A: Do they, maybe they don't know. [00:15:37] Speaker B: It's teeny. Well. And again, I get caught up on the whole see thing because I was like, I see nothing. But then I can describe a thing, so that must mean I'm seeing it. I dream vividly, so I do have internal, you know, there is a sense of, yeah, so I did find this Reddit, and people were going back and forth, and they're like, I see nothing. And then they're like, you're stupid. And thanks, Reddit. [00:16:03] Speaker A: Actually, that's just thank you, chat forums, right? [00:16:06] Speaker B: And then this person said, no, we're going to clarify mental imagery. You aren't necessarily quote unquote, seeing the thing with your eyes, although some people do do that. It's the sensation of seeing, and you have a mental image of the thing. Okay, yeah, that's weird. [00:16:22] Speaker A: And I guess we go through this world not realizing that we might be different. One of my children has some colorblindness that we did not discover until two or three years ago, and my children are 17 and 20, and he just didn't know. There had not been enough discussion about what color something was for him to know it was not the same as the rest of us. [00:16:45] Speaker B: Ah, yes. You know, and it's funny, like, at the eye doctor, they had you take the color blindness test sometimes, and it's all the little dots. And I love doing those because it feels like a test. I know I'm gonna get an a on me too. And they put it up and, you know, and we're going through it. And I said to the guy, after we've gone through, you know, I'm like, 1327, you know, I can see all of them. And I said, do you ever get anybody in here who's not a kid who looks at this and says, that doesn't have a number, and they're shocked. [00:17:17] Speaker A: When you tell them nobody ever showed it to them? [00:17:19] Speaker B: Well, that they just didn't know. They can't tell the difference between orange and green, you know, and he said more than you'd think. [00:17:27] Speaker A: I can see that because that's what happened with us. I'm like, oh, oh, you're in, like, middle school. How long have you not known that that's purple? [00:17:38] Speaker B: We just didn't think you liked it. And he's like, no, I thought that was gray. [00:17:41] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So. Well, and I think it's not as pronounced for my kid. He's not, like, hardcore serious. Everything's gray. [00:17:52] Speaker B: He's just not gonna be matching, you know, colorways. You know, he's not gonna be matching. [00:17:56] Speaker A: He's all black right now. He matches all the time he's got styled in, so. Oh, just the way we perceive the universe. That's so interesting. [00:18:09] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. And underneath the tweet that John had about how, like, he sees nothing, and he was talking about how he can rarely find things in his house and if he's been somewhere, he doesn't. He couldn't later tell you, like, if he went to somebody's house, he couldn't later tell you how to get to the bathroom even though he'd gone. You know, he doesn't have. But I'm like, he's a writer. I mean, he's creating these worlds. [00:18:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:37] Speaker A: So that's so interesting, because I do have. When you said that, I'm like, I can imagine myself putting my bag away after work. I have a little Movie of that. But it's in the back. It's not up front. [00:18:51] Speaker B: Yes, it is in the back. [00:18:53] Speaker A: So I'm not special there. [00:18:55] Speaker B: No, I know. It's like when I write scenes when I'm writing a book and I see it like a Movie, but now I'm like, that's actually not true because I'm not seeing it out in front of me. I'm seeing it in the back somewhere, which is odd. [00:19:11] Speaker A: Yeah. It's weird to describe it, but it is not. It's not in the front. [00:19:16] Speaker B: Yeah. No, no. I'm not crazy. I promise. [00:19:19] Speaker A: And then that gets into the question of your sense of self versus, like, my brain versus my body. [00:19:26] Speaker B: Mmm hmm. [00:19:27] Speaker A: I'm just really grateful that, like, the majority of my cognition and how it manifests in my BODy really Pretty much jive. And I feel extra grateful for that right now. [00:19:41] Speaker B: Yes. And I think my favorite part about looking into the paper about the inner voice was, I was looking at. I think it was another Reddit post. And so this fellow was talking about how he doesn't really think he has any inner voice, and. And somebody said, yeah, but what. What happens if you. If you're really mad about a conversation you had and you want to, like, rehab it and rehab it until you win the conversation? And he was like, I don't even know what you're talking about. [00:20:09] Speaker A: Wow. That's so interesting. [00:20:13] Speaker B: You must be so quiet in there. [00:20:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it's quiet for me sometimes. And now that we're having this chat, I think that Chris's inner voice might be louder. [00:20:25] Speaker B: Ah. [00:20:26] Speaker A: Because I don't think he can tune things out as much. So he's willing to hang in and have the discussion longer. There could be other things that play there, too. But now I have to go ask him. [00:20:36] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:20:37] Speaker A: Do you have the voices? How many voices do you hear? [00:20:41] Speaker B: Voices? And he's like, what? I don't want to go to a grippy. [00:20:44] Speaker A: It's totally normal for 30% of the population, trust me. [00:20:49] Speaker B: Yeah, 30 to 50. Although we still. That. [00:20:53] Speaker A: That is, like, as self reported by 100 people. [00:20:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So take that as you will. Don't go running off to tell everybody that some of you just can't hear anything in there. So we don't know. [00:21:05] Speaker A: Yeah, we don't know. [00:21:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:07] Speaker A: But we're starting. These are the. These are the questions that then help ask the next question, I feel like, is the phase that that research is in. [00:21:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, it did that in my house because I read that paper and I'm like, wait, what? Wait, what? And then I kept looking, and so I was like, oh, I have to stop. I just finally reached a point where I was like, I can't learn anymore today. [00:21:27] Speaker A: No. Yeah, it's done. I'm gonna shut that off. Just let it blur and go out into the distance. [00:21:34] Speaker B: Ah, there we go. Goodbye. Goodbye. [00:21:40] Speaker A: Well, if you're letting things blur and go out into the distance and silencing your inner voices and looking for a replacement sensory experience. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Oh, excellent. [00:21:48] Speaker A: Visit us on Facebook and Instagram. We're brain junk podcast. Go to our merch store and get yourself a nice tumbler and a t shirt. You can get anything you want. But those are two of my favorite things that are on there. [00:22:00] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:22:01] Speaker A: All right. Trace and I will catch you next time when we share more of everything you never knew you wanted to know, and I guarantee you will not be bored.