All the Voices in My Head

Dead Alive

Having an inner monologue might not be as common as you may think. At least that's what TikTok wants you to believe, apparently. Granted, TikTok isn't exactly known for being introspective and cerebral, more like for hormonal teenagers and bored night shift nurses expressing themselves dancingly (twenty seconds at a time), but still. The apparent absence of vocalized cognition raises an interesting question. The lights are on, but does that mean there's somebody home?

Don't get me wrong, just because you don't think in words doesn't mean you don't think at all. You're just not talking to yourself, which admittedly seems... kinda weird? Like, who are you addressing exactly? And who might be listening? Either way, personally I might fall somewhere in the middle. Occasionally there's a voice announcing its intentions to me, despite a certain proclivity towards intellectual lazyness. It's true, I might not think all the time, but I do think sometimes (not bragging). Don't believe anybody who says otherwise.

I'd say this whole topic is related to the concept of freewriting, as far as I understand it. You just sit down and start writing and writing and writing, freely. It's like the voice in your head but on paper. Some might call it stream-of-consciousness, or automatic writing. Not exactly a revolutionary concept as such, but it's like fanning the flames of cognition. Or more like catching a spark that might burn through all of that mental brushwood clogging that noggin of yours. Eventually you might run out of fuel, yet the embers remain and will ignite whatever garbage you toss into the furnace. Does that make sense?

Now, automatic writing might be stream-of-consciousness but not all stream-of-consciousness is automatic writing. With the latter you ignore the gaps and spaces of cognition. You don't wait, you just keep going and going and going. Essentially you're brute forcing that internal dialogue of yours and engage in some kind of ad-hoc associative improv game. It's a bit like high voltage electricity bridging the void between neurons that wouldn't like talking to eachother otherwise. Not a perfect analogy either, I'm aware, just keep working with me.

Talking to yourself isn't necessarily a good thing, many would argue, but it's at the core of writing. Essentially you're just putting down thought, refine them and hope for the best. The stream-of-consciousness? Practice! Fanning the flames,as I said. I figure you're encouraging those neural pathways to change your perception towards words like drawing changes the perception of an artist towards shapes. Sure, this might be somewhat of a double edged sword, so maybe you're opening yourself up to be possessed by the ancient spirit of L. Ron Hubbard, but at least you're writing. Right? But rest assured, as of now I haven't been possessed just yet.

Either way, what's your opinion on automatic writing? Do you vocalize your thoughts? Do you think in images, words, or neither? Have you ever been possessed by demons after conjuring up a freewriter prompt? Just let me know.