I always find this conversation fascinating and it makes me wonder in what other ways people may experience the world differently.

I do have a constant internal monologue. Every word I read is spoken in my mind. My thought process is, to my awareness, me talking things out in my head.

I don't have one at all. Spent ages thinking that it was just a figure of speech, but when I found out I became fascinated by it.

The current theory is that at some early point in our evolution we literally had a voice in our head, not unlike how some forms of schizophrenia present.

It's called the bicameral mind.

https://gizmodo.com/did-everyone-3-000-years-ago-have-a-voice-in-their-head-510063135

In my day to day life it makes little difference however, despite being an avid reader and writer I struggle tremendously to read aloud.

I don't know for sure but I suspect it is connected.

That sounds heavenly. Mine will not shut up. And when I've run out of current problems to worry about, I start thinking about all my past fuck ups an embarrassments. And that's just in the time it takes to a simple activity. When I'm at work it is constant flipping back and forth between my anxious thoughts and doing my work and worrying about how I might be fucking up my work.

Mine seems to appear when I'm not on auto-pilot. If I'm heating a can of soup, there's no real thought. I'm probably thinking about other things while carry out simple steps. If I can't find something, it'll pop in and say, "Where did I leave that?" Or maybe something like, "I should call Mom cause it's New Year's Day." Another is, "I'm glad I remembered my umbrella," when in rain. But I don't have monologue about putting on my shoes or locking my door. Those are mechanical tasks while I think about something else in an abstract fashion.

I suspect that most people have a partial internal monologue, whereby some thoughts arise to the level of verbiage and others don’t. There is also variance in how self-aware we are of our thoughts themselves. I don’t think anyone can keep up effective, meta self-monitoring 100% of the time, so our own view of our thought process is probably skewed as well. Some people swear that every single thought they have is 100% verbalized. I think that’s impossible and they’re only counting verbal thoughts as thoughts. But no doubt some people verbalize more than others.

Yep, I don't, either. I think mostly subconsciously, then in raw concepts, then images, then words. I have to actively translate what I'm thinking into language in order to consciously understand it myself or communicate it, but I do better if I externalize the language through writing or speaking.

I have imaginary conversations all the time where I simulate interactions with the people in my life and work. I’ll say something and then imagine their response and often go back and revise what I would say. This is how I prepare for conversations that might be delicate, where I want to get something across but not in a way that creates negative consequences.

Other people say that they verbalize literally everything, as in, “I need to throw this rock in a gentle arc if I want it to hit that other rock there, oh dear perhaps I should adjust my grip and throw underhand instead.” My opinion is that this is functionally impossible. You can’t drive a car by verbalizing every command as you go - put a blindfolded friend at the wheel and try it sometime! I think one of two things is happening to people who say their monologue is exhaustive: they are only counting verbal thoughts as thoughts and ignoring the sea of inchoate impulses that churns beneath them. Also, I think any time we turn our attention to our thoughts themselves, those thoughts become verbal. To say it another way, any thought you want to think about you have to first pin down and define. You render it in words by directing your attention to it. I believe this leads people to believe that all their thoughts are verbal because all the thoughts they’ve looked at are always verbal.

But I’d say this to those folks: have you ever forgotten the right word for something? There it is on the tip of your tongue but the word won’t come. This happens to everyone. And you’re clearly able to think about the whatness of the thing even in absence of the right word.

I have an external monologue!.. Yeah, I just never stop talking

Peasant...Go quadraphonic or go home!!!

One of the "constantly" group here. It's a bit more like having someone to talk to all the time who is also me. I can turn it off, but it has to be a concentrated effort and as soon as I'm not concentrated on keeping it silent it comes back.

I've spent many years wondering at the nature of the little voice, especially after I learned that not everyone has it. It's not controlling or contradictory, it's a bit more like a narrator for my feelings and a driving point for logic.

I've come to the conclusion that what it actually is is my subconscious manifesting as a conversational partner. Kind of like an avatar that represents the part of me that isn't the literal point of consciousness inside my head. Make of that what you will.

Don't get me wrong, I still think in pictures and non-verbal inclinations. That doesn't really go away either. But it's like having a narrator alongside it that also speaks in the first person.

My experience is the same as yours. I have an inner monologue, but it is not constant. My thoughts do not always come in the form of words.

In fact, I would say that wordless thoughts are my default and the IM comes when I am trying to figure something out.

Read this sentence one word at a time. As you read it, do you hear the words spoken inside your head?

I think only about half the population think this way. Your voice is in your head speaking thoughts kinda like they show in movies. The other half thinks in pictures, shapes, colors, and sounds.

As someone else mentioned with hearing music, people can also smell smells, taste tastes and conjure up imagery. When they read books the reading turns into a movie like thing or something like that.

It's all bundled up as visualization.

Some people can't visualize at all, or can to varying degrees.

When you can't, it's called Aphantasia. If you can't do any visualization at all (maybe some can hear music, but nothing else) that's called total aphantasia.

The one part that's still a weird conversation for me is the inner monologue. I can think, I can read words, but it's not my voice? It's not my voice like people say they can have a conversation with themselves or pretend to have one with someone else.

So I lean to thinking I don't have an inner monologue as others would describe and expect, but I still do?

Do you think we had internal monologue before having language?

By which you mean, it’s the part of our brain that we no longer really listen to, so it developed the ability to flat out tell us: “damn that’s a bad idea.” And “I told you so, idiot.”