Subconscious Verbal Thought Process - talking to self,

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Talking to your self... monologue?
It seems I am constantly explaining something, debating something, etc to my self.
Either in my head or under my breath, sometimes even a loud whisper or my lips are just moving.
I spend atleast 95% of the time doing this
I don't always directly know what I am saying
I don't usually realize I do it,
I can't directly pay attention to it, if I tried I would "wake up" out of it.
Its not something that I purposly do, or chose to do, it just happens.
I'll pace back and forth while doing it.
If I purposely tried to think of what I was just talking to my self about I would have no or little idea.
If I don't do it for a while because I am around people for instance, sometimes thats as bad as holding my breath.
After I am away from people, I am so relieved to be able to do this, what ever it is.

Is there a name for this? I would think there should be a name for it if its something I do a large amount of the time and "most people" don't do it.
If there is no name for it, I think it could be called a "subconscious verbal thought process" or some kind of "verbal thought wandering" "verbal daydreaming thoughts"???


Just to clarify,
I am not talking to someone/something that I think is there or something.
I am not literally talking talking to my self example "Hey Rick, oh hey, hows it going?"
And its not how people would say when they are trying to get through something "Come on rick you gotta finish this, you can do it man!"
and its not like where someone would be working on something and say "ok this goes here, and this is how you do this, oops why did that happen"?


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Any ideas on what this could be would be greatly appreciated. Say what ever you would like to about this, you don't have to be afraid of hurting my feelings by calling me crazy or something like that.


apperently other people do it too:


"Is there an official psychiatric/pscyhological term for talking to
yourself out loud? I do know that its not uncommon for
schizophrenics to have dialogs with people who arent there. I do it
and I do it alot but with me its always a monologue rather than a
dialogue and if someone approaches me or says something I
immediately stop. In a nutshell, I tend to think out loud and thats
what Im doing when I talk to myself in public"

"I talk to myself all the time. I cannot help it. When my mind drifts all my inner dialogue becomes so real that I unknowingly start talking to myself. It sometimes scares some people but when I tell them that I'm not psychotic and that it is just a habit they are ok with it. Some people are cruel though and make fun of it."

" I am in need of more information.
My son was diagnosed with ADHD at age 7. He was put into special education even though his IQ was 120. He had poor social skills, and had a hard time with simple tasks like dressing himself, and things to that nature. At age 17 he started talking to himself and became easily confused with simple tasks. The doctors determined that he was schizophrenic and for 4 years he was put on different medications with poor results. Now at age 21 while in a treatment center, professionals there say that he has Asperger's Syndrome. They want to remove him from any pyschiatric treatment because of this finding. But from everything that I have read about Asperger's, I cannot find schizophrenic like symptoms such as talking to yourself. I need information quick because today I have a meeting with these mental health professionals who intend on stopping medication and sending him out of the mental health system. My son cannot function on his own.
Thank you for reading this, and I would appreciate any opinions. "

Its interesting that people confuse this with schizophrenic traits. I don't think there is any relation.
I thought that schizophrenics purposely try to communicate with whats not there?
where as with with me it just starts happening where I am explaining things to nothing or no one.

If i am getting the in the right direction it is internal dialouge.it is motivated by our subconscious self.I too do that this days.i constantly explain my surroundings to me.i think this is quite natural.

So I suppose the verbal part of my brain some how crosses with my subconscious thought process, because what ever I am thinking about I am always saying in my head with out me realising it and that goes to my mouth. I wonder if some sort of catscan or brainscan (or w/e they use to see how your brain fires and works (what parts are activated and what not)) would verify that? That would go to show how my brain is wired differently. Wow thats actually pretty interesting, I suppose theoretically when I am off guard and spacing out I could wear a headset and try to record whatever it is that I am whispering if I whisper it, and essentially record my raw thoughts. hmm...

I have a similar issue: I need to talk to myself to understand things; I verbally explain issues to myself to process those. This starts with trivial issues like a line number and ends up with complex lines of argumentation. It is quite hard for me to do any intellectual work silent. I can do so, but it needs an act of will and I need than to verbalize issues silent, often moving my mouth without producing any sounds.

I do it all the time, yeah all the time, its hard to control. When I first got married I used to really try hard not to do it, but half the time I don't even notice myself doing it, I do get pretty loud unfortunately sometimes, and when I finally notice someone watching me I just kind of mutter 'trying to figure something out'. People do tend to think its weird, so I do make an effort to try to control it when around ppl, even my family.

If you're in public and need to do some kind of active motion, such as moving your lips, even vocalizing it, consider using a cell phone. People will think you're talking to someone on it. I didn't come up with the idea, but read it here a while ago. She uses it when in a grocery store, for an example. To give proper credit it was Sinsboldly or Merle, which she uses as her sig.

I most certainly do a type of talking to myself in my head and am constantly surprised, especially in the written, when something just seems to "appear" and I go where the hell did that one come from. I do it verbally as well, but I'm using a person as a "sounding board" also very common. I tend, or prefer, to think in spiraling thoughts a little from here and a little from there and sometimes it fits and sometimes it doesn't. We think on many levels.

I think this is pretty common. I call it the "internal narrative" (although that phrase has a different meaning in literary criticism, but whatever.) NTs just don't move their lips when they do it, but it's there in their heads.

I first became consciously aware of this phenomenon while reading Carlos Castaneda's book _A Separate Reality_. In it, the spiritual teacher says this to the protagonist:

"You think and talk too much. You must stop talking to yourself."
"What do you mean?"
"You talk to yourself too much. You're not unique at that. Every one of us does that. We carry on an internal talk. Think about it. Whenever you are alone, what do you do?"
"I talk to myself."
"What do you talk to yourself about?"
"I don't know; anything, I suppose."
"I'll tell you what we talk to ourselves about. We talk about our world. In fact we maintain our world with our internal talk."
"How do we do that?"
"Whenever we finish talking to ourselves the world is always as it should be. We renew it, we kindle it with life, we uphold it with our internal talk. Not only that, but we also choose our paths as we talk to ourselves. Thus we repeat the same choices over and over until the day we die, because we keep on repeating the same internal talk over and over until the day we die."

So there's the evidence the internal talking phenomenon is experienced by other humans. In fact, spiritual traditions such as Zen expend a great deal of effort in trying to shut it up.

I do it a lot and don't really think about it. Other times I turn it into random songs that I sing to myself.

Thinking out loud
Quite alot of people do this, or sighing etc... nothing to worry about.
Just can be annoying to others sometimes.

I normally have a recipient. Somebody who I am fully aware is not present, but it's more like a practice session for an intended conversation that may never happen. I always walk, however. I don't just sit down somewhere and natter to nobody. It's only when I am walking alone.

Usually I am giving a full explanation of various aspects of my life to somebody who did not witness those aspects. Otherwise I would be talking about the future, specific to whoever it is I have chosen to talk to. I am usually fully aware for a while, but I gradually get lost in the 'conversation' (lol)

This is actually slowing down a bit in recent years, but only to be replaced by singing.

I have always been self-conscious about it, and it has been something of a secret, or would be I I was deliberately hiding. Any opportunity to mention it like 'oh yes FYI I talk to myself, by the way', I just don't actually think about it. Still, definitely something I'll continue failing to mention.

There have been a couple of times I almost slipped, though. During a two-way conversation once, one of the topics I'd previously 'discussed' with the person came up. I actually began a sentence 'Remember I said to you...', before remembering that such a memory would not exist, as the prior conversation had never happened.

((((hugs))))

~Loving Light~

i do it all the time

sometimes i create entire conversations.

sometimes i get excited, and it elevates to a whispering level. i often have to stop myself, as it looks kinda creepy, like on the bus :]

I do that sometimes. Not 95% of the time, but often enough. I'm pretty sure that's a normal thing that isn't related to ASDs.

I'm beginning to get the idea that my "unusual" thing is that I am often thinking nothing at all. Like, if I'm washing dishes, or going for a walk, there is total silence in my mind. Apparently that means I'm either a demented nutbag or a guru.

I used to do the self monologue all the time then I felt bad when I worried others heard me and dwelled on what they thought of it. Another example of something I no longer have the need to do and I am grateful.

I often get the exact opposite. Not a total silence, but rather more like an analogue TV that isn't tuned to a channel. Just a mess of thousands of thoughts, like those little black and white dots, that amount to nothing. Not silence, just noise.

I've never had a black (or even white) silence, even in meditation.

It's when people ask what I was thinking about, that's the only time it seems weird.

((((hugs))))

~Loving Light~

Thats pretty much it (aside from the singing), a person will represent a problem, and I will be talking it through with them. Like if I have a problem with a car, a mechanic or a guy who is into cars will be who associated with the problem. I know they are not their, I don't even exactly picture them, its like some sort of symbol, also they don't directly ask questions, its as if the instance of the question is there, and then I answer to them.

Also my mind runs scenarios of what people might say in a random situation that may or may not happen. It runs the scenarios based off of what I already know about them, what they have already said, etc, then I will be saying things in response. Sometimes in real life the person will bring up something I have already thought about, then my response is not what just came up word for word off the top of my head, but its something that I thought of before to them (like its memorized). Its almost like in Irobot, where there was that hologram of that one guy, and you are not really talking to him, but rather prerecorded responses, so its like that for other people talking to me if I have already thought about what they are in present asking me.

Or sometimes in a social situation in real life, if someone said alot to me, and I did not respond correctly or if at all, then later I'll just be talking to my self about it and I eventually come up with the right things to say (but its too late). Its just strange that I don't do it on purpose, or directly think about whats happening, it just subconsciously happens. Its not like in the movies where some guy will be standing in the mirror purposely saying out loud different things that he might try to say to a girl, because it just happens for ever under my breath about anything or nothing of my thoughtful choice. Its also interesting that it happens to some people on here, and not others, yet we have the same condition, manifested in different ways? Like there are people who think visually, musically, etc. For me it may be some sort of verbal thought process, I don't know.

I'm thinking about this quite deeply. Perhaps it is actually some sort of release. I can't really speak for anyone but myself, but I'm thinking what if it is a way to express what I am not expressing in two-way conversation?

A way of resolving the conflict between what I want to tell someone and what I actually do tell them. I still get to say my piece, even if it's not directly to the person I want to say it to.

I noted a few weeks ago I got rather drunk, and talked for over 45 minutes to my ex, who actually was present and listening. The format was the same as my usual soliloquies, and what I was saying was the real deal also. I mentioned at the end that I knew I would not have been saying the same if I was sober, but that it was all completely true. I even went so far as to confirm the next day that I remembered what had been said, and still meant it, without being able to actually reiterate any part of it. I guess alcohol helps.

A way to throw ourselves at barriers that won't be overcome?

Thoughts......?

((((hugs))))

~Loving Light~