The Voice Inside Your Head

I thought we all had one. It shows up for an impromptu fiesta when you’re unable to sleep. it warrants extended morning showers. It tells you to not swerve into oncoming traffic. It weasels and winds its way throughout your waking days.

Yes, I’m talking about the voice inside your head.

Some say that they have the best conversations with themselves on long drives. If you’re anything like me, it’s not just open roads that rouse the inner voice. My little chirper is having a ball of a time all the time.

Talking to Yourself

Inner speech as it’s formally known shows up more frequently in some and can take on many different guises. One study suggests that some people have no inner speech at all. I call bullshit.

Just because I’ve never met anyone without such a voice, doesn’t mean it’s not possible. What’s going on here, I think, is that we don’t have a shared understanding of what we mean by ‘talking to ourselves.’

Even if your thoughts don’t have a specific voice that you can identify, dialogical thinking is likely taking place. That is, thought itself is a voice.

And count on the MIT Lab to prove it. That’s right, Alterego lets you control your environment through thoughts alone. An intelligent AI headset picks up on neuromuscular signals that you trigger when you subvocalize. In other words, you can kick-back in you Lazy-boy and flick through TV channels like a badass Jedi.

A Little Attitude

The little voice inside our heads, whether it’s whispering or screaming, taking on a British twang or a Southern drawl — flexes tiny muscles in the larynx. The same part of the brain (known as Broca’s area) used when we speak aloud is also hard at work when employing our inner voice.

Nearly a hundred years ago the psychologist Lev Vygotsky proposed that inner speech occurs because we’re simply internalizing our external speech. While this is only a theory, it does point to how narratization helps us explains ourselves, well, to ourselves.

Talking to myself is integral to the way I think. So I’ve been thinking — do my thoughts have a distinct voice? They certainly have an attitude. The voice shows up in a myriad of incarnations but is always a dude. Sometimes he’s the inner critic — and from time to time he promotes himself to the critic of the inner critic. In other instances, he adopts a pom-pom wielding cheerleader to combat the nasty critic. And he can turn up as the ingratiator — at times useful but often just an elaborately designed mask for insecurity.

From time to time, and often in my own company, I find ‘him’ speaking aloud. Rarely possessing as much zeal as bowling champ Peter Weber, Perhaps he spirit of our inner voices spontaneously arises from our shadow selves.

Quietening the Noise

Sure, it’s possible to hush these voices. I’m always working on giving them plenty of room for naps. But like you, Eckhart Tolle, Oprah, and even the Dalai Lama — we all have ’em.

Indeed if we were to rid of our inner voice it would mean banishing our anxieties, neuroticisms, suffering, confusion, guilt, shame, self-loathing to name but a few lovely qualities. We would become shells of ourselves.

Enlightenment is not in ridding of these characteristics but embracing our consciousness as both a blessing and a burden. While an equanimous mind is a lovely one, it’s the awareness of what’s happening inside- that makes us human. In discerning the signal from the noise we reveal our true selves.

Two Brains?

Princeton psychologist Julian Jaynes proposed a biological basis for hearing divine voices. He believed our brains were composed of two distinct chambers that make for a ‘bicameral mind’. If you watched Westworld you’ll know what I’m talking about.

The left contained language areas and the right, language-making structures. So in times of stress, the right would ‘speak’ to you. Folks thought of the right side as being external to themselves and chalked up these utterances as the voice of God.

Working at a mental health charity several years, I saw firsthand how the inner voice can be destructive to the person and to others. I also witnessed incredible adversity as many confronted their demons — letting old narratives die and new stories begin.

What seems to matter most then, is not whether you have voices in your head, but how you listen and choose to react to your thoughts.

Acute Awareness

Elyn Saks, a USC professor of Law, Psychology, and Psychiatry and someone who actually lives with schizophrenia says, “The humanity we all share is more important than the mental illness we may not.”

In some cases, auditory hallucinations are attributed to a lack of awareness — simply failing to appreciate that you’re talking to yourself. These voices are those of others and not you. Reassuringly, auditory hallucinations can be integrated into one’s life in a healthy way.

People who are deaf claim their inner voices sometimes take on visual symbols which makes sense to e. But whichever way— painted pictures, Australian accent, cocky chant, or tough tone — I’m still curious what it would be like to have no voice at all.

I’m not sure who I would be without self-talk because even as I type this, the little bugger is tugging at my shirt — advising me, “It’s time to stop.”