Last month I blogged about an article in New Scientist regarding inner speeech, inner dialogue, the voices inside our heads, or whatever you want to call it.
In the June 22 issue there were two interesting letters about this article. Here's the first one:
From Brian Reffin Smith
Your article on inner voices was fascinating (1 June, p. 32). I often solve problems or rehearse a text, such as a lecture, in my head. Saying it out loud destroys the moment, with just fragments remaining from some beautiful yet fragile structure.
It seems, in that moment, so simple to see the difference between my thoughts and my actual speech. Indeed the bits that remain tend to be the basic elements, without the analogies and sideways thinking, the nodes without the connections, the world without the glory.
Berlin, Germany
I resonate with what Smith is getting at.
Don't we all sometimes say, "This is tough to put into words. but..." We know what it is we want to communicate, but translating that knowing into words that can be spoken to another person (or even to ourselves)... difficult.
Mystics, gurus, preachers, and such frequently claim that God is beyond words. Well, lots of things are beyond words. According to the letter writer, almost everything in the mind, perhaps.
Here's the other letter:
From John Wellbelove
Discussion of our inner voice reminds me of when US physicist Richard Feynman was testing whether different activities performed as he counted to 60 in his head would influence how long he thought a minute was.
It turned out he could do anything simultaneously except talk. Conversely his friend could talk but not read. Richard was counting with his "inner voice", whilst his friend would use his "inner eyes" and picture a tape inscribed with numbers.
Portsmouth, Hampshire, UK
Interesting. I'm definitely an "inner voice" guy. I hear the numbers when I count inside my head. I've sort of assumed that everybody else did also. Didn't realize that some people see numbers, rather than hear them.
This probably is a simplistic therapeutic approach for psychotics bothered by voices, but I've wondered if instructing them in a form of mantra meditation, where they repeat a single word or a few words over and over, would stop those inner voices.
Afer all, since they are being produced by the brain, seemingly the Feynman phenomenon mentioned in the letter above would hold true: if you can't talk outwardly while counting silently inside your head, it's hard to believe that the brain could talk inwardly while a mantra is being repeated.
As a long time meditator, I'm well aware that "inner voice" thoughts do continue during mantra meditation. However, my experience has been that this only happens when I stop concentrating on repeating the mantra.
Like Feynman, I can't talk to myself in thoughts while counting in my head, or saying anything else inside my head.
Good question about using a mantra to control hearing voices. I'll ask the experts I know who study non-drug therapy for psychosis.
Btw, how woukd scientists explain these creepy things kids say?
http://www.danoah.com/2013/07/25-more-of-the-creepiest-things-ever-said-by-kids.html
Posted by: Skeptic | July 11, 2013 at 07:01 PM