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hellhole
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09 Apr 2017, 8:23 pm

Somehow, over the months I've spent alone doing my own thing, I've honed this skill where I can basically recall a memory, and then talk to the people in that memory using my internal monologue... all in my head without uttering a word. So for example, I would remember something nasty somebody had said to me in the past, and then in turn I would use my internal monologue to insult them back out of resentment.

This is a hard this to wrap your head around, and even harder to explain, but if anyone here gets what I mean, can you do this? I definitely live inside my own head.

I mean, what do you think is going on at the biological level? I wonder if my brain is somehow making connections between the memory center of my brain, and the part of my brain that controls my internal monologue. My face also goes dead blank when I do this which creeps people out lol. I also get weird slight headaches and depersonliztion when I do this, which go away quickly after I stop, and I'm 100% back to normal.

I can't find any info on my weird... condition, online, so I don't know if this has any long-term implications, because I'm pretty sure the human brain isn't supposed to do this lol.


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Yo El
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10 Apr 2017, 2:27 am

hellhole wrote:
Somehow, over the months I've spent alone doing my own thing, I've honed this skill where I can basically recall a memory, and then talk to the people in that memory using my internal monologue... all in my head without uttering a word. So for example, I would remember something nasty somebody had said to me in the past, and then in turn I would use my internal monologue to insult them back out of resentment.

This is a hard this to wrap your head around, and even harder to explain, but if anyone here gets what I mean, can you do this? I definitely live inside my own head.

I mean, what do you think is going on at the biological level? I wonder if my brain is somehow making connections between the memory center of my brain, and the part of my brain that controls my internal monologue. My face also goes dead blank when I do this which creeps people out lol. I also get weird slight headaches and depersonliztion when I do this, which go away quickly after I stop, and I'm 100% back to normal.

I can't find any info on my weird... condition, online, so I don't know if this has any long-term implications, because I'm pretty sure the human brain isn't supposed to do this lol.
Yeah I have that a too I also have a lot of imaginative conversations for no reasons, very annoying. But I think everyone does that to some extent.



Raleigh
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10 Apr 2017, 2:46 am

hellhole wrote:
Somehow, over the months I've spent alone doing my own thing, I've honed this skill where I can basically recall a memory, and then talk to the people in that memory using my internal monologue... all in my head without uttering a word. So for example, I would remember something nasty somebody had said to me in the past, and then in turn I would use my internal monologue to insult them back out of resentment.

This is a hard this to wrap your head around, and even harder to explain, but if anyone here gets what I mean, can you do this? I definitely live inside my own head.

I mean, what do you think is going on at the biological level? I wonder if my brain is somehow making connections between the memory center of my brain, and the part of my brain that controls my internal monologue. My face also goes dead blank when I do this which creeps people out lol. I also get weird slight headaches and depersonliztion when I do this, which go away quickly after I stop, and I'm 100% back to normal.

I can't find any info on my weird... condition, online, so I don't know if this has any long-term implications, because I'm pretty sure the human brain isn't supposed to do this lol.

Doesn't everyone do that?


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Raleigh
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10 Apr 2017, 3:00 am

The skill you speak of is called 'using your imagination'.


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NorthWind
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10 Apr 2017, 3:10 am

If I'm not overlooking or misunderstanding anything in your post, this doesn't sound too unusual, except that it causes headaches and that you apparently didn't do so ever since you can remember. Otherwise, I'd say it's a perfectly normal way to use imagination, fantasy, daydreaming. Not everyone does it to the same extent, but I'd have thought that people who sometimes do something like that are not a rarity.
Personally, I don't tend to repeat or continue arguments that actually took place though. I daydream and sometimes have imagined conversations with real or fictional people, but as this is more a way to get rid of stress for me, it'd be counter productive to dwell on things that actually annoy me at that time.
Al right, it sometimes can be inconvenient, if it distracts me from something I should rather be doing but aside from that I see no problem with it.
I think my sister tends to continue arguments inside her head though, sometimes to an obsessive extent and that doesn't seem to be good for her overall well being, because it only gets her more and more angry and she often is not able to leave the past in the past and sometimes feels a need to bring up past arguments again in the real world rather than just in her imagination.

I don't think my face goes blank when I do this, but I sometimes have to watch out to not really make the facial expressions that I make in my imagined conversation.



ElabR8Aspie
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10 Apr 2017, 3:16 am

I personally think,your bringing back into mind,a memory,to which you've previously blocked out by coping mechanism.
To which the deep seeded hurtful memory has come back and a way of coping,you use an imagination,a third person,to shut that hurtful memory down.
In essence,your coping mechanism and resolve.

Well,that's the way i see it.


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dossa
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10 Apr 2017, 11:14 am

I have been known to spend large amounts of time in my head replaying/tweaking past events. For me, sometimes I will tweak/adjust a situation over and over until it plays out in a way I find satisfactory. Other times I just seem to loop a memory and play it out until I have some kind of aha moment with it, at which point it becomes boring and uninteresting to me and I move on. I tend to call it head tripping instead of daydreaming, as it is more obsessive and controlling (?) than an average daydream thing... I think. I mean, it can take hours out of my days when I get to doing this, which is very counterproductive to the whole living life outside my head thing. Not that I am big on engaging the world around me, but I do get annoyed with myself when I get to slacking off on things like housework or other daily goals I set for myself and this head tripping I do is a time eater to say the least. And I have the hardest time stopping myself once I get started on it. It's like I'm not thinking the stuff, it's thinking itself.

I know, for me, I do have a dissociative disorder, so it's real easy for me to detach from reality and float back into my head... so that's likely not helping me any... but I also have notable problems with emotions and self awareness. Not to mention the whole, I fail to understand other people thing. I think, for me, I do this in part to gain insight on myself, and part insight on others, and part just a way to deal/understand past events that left me confused/upset/whatever... and maybe it just took me years to figure out that the stuff bothered me in the first place. It's also sometimes a coping technique I employ... when things get tense/stressful in my life my default is to hole up in my head and I will sometimes take events from my past and tweak them into memory security blankets of sorts. I certainly have my returning comfort 'head scenes' I relive. Oh, and sometimes I think I do it as a control or revenge type thing... like if I want to right a wrong someone did to me or a time I think I dropped the ball or whatever.

I don't really think what you speak of would cause long term negative effects... so long as you do not end up spending all your time in your head living in a not so real reality and shunning the real world around you. I think balance is the key with this stuff. I mean, if you have the time to kill and you choose to live in your head, personally I see no problem with it as long as it does not interfere with your life. Oh and, recently I have read an emotion processing book and in it the author speaks on negative thoughts playing on repeat in a person's head when something happens to, for example, make them angry. It is common for people who get angry to have their minds immediately draw on past experiences that make them angry as well as potential future experiences that will make them angry... people easily get trapped in that kind of trap where one thought feeds another and so on until the emotion becomes a mood. Just saying that to say that it could also become damaging to you if your thoughts cycle around angry or other negative thoughts as they can fuel more negative thoughts and put people in a down kinda place emotionally/mentally. Not saying it is doing that to you... just saying it happens to some people so it might be something to watch out for.

And bloody hell I talked a lot so I'ma shaddup and move along now...


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pi woman
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10 Apr 2017, 11:26 am

It sounds to me like a healthy coping mechanism. Especially for those of us who can never seem to think of an appropriate response in the moment, but come up with a perfect "should-have-said" when replaying the conversation later.