Losing My Inner Voice Changed Me Permanantly
New Inner Voice Research Reveals Why It Matters
This week, a casual conversation with a friends daughter, let’s call her Ameenah, led to an important re-discovery and a shock revelation. We were chatting about her progress on a presentation. As an actor and public speaker, this lead me to ask about her ‘inner voice’ — which I have always found vital for learning lines of script and rehearsing. Her answer sent me deep into the world of internal speech and current research.
Finally, it threw me back to a night, which changed the course of my life.
Before I go on, let me ask you a question.
Are you aware that you have an inner voice? Ever given it much consideration? If so, what does the ‘inner you’ sound like and what does the voice tell you?
Back to the discussion with Ameenah:
‘What does your internal voice sound like when you read to yourself?’ I asked.
As she mulled this over, the pause extended. Until, she said, words which really stunned me: ’my inner reading voice sounds like a machine.’
We tend to presume that everyone’s internal life, like our social media feed, is, if not identical to ours, then surely, very similar. Because, hey, we are the benchmark of human experience, right? Yet, the comments section of the most mundane posts from ‘how to make a macaroon’ to ‘Why I never use hair dye’ are full of stunned humans, crying out in utter frustration:
‘I don’t get where you are coming from on this!!’
Shock news is human experience varies
Even when we speak to ourselves inside ourselves — we do not do it exactly the same as those around us. Growing up the 1970’s, the Waltons theme tune, seems to amuse some part of my inner self into repeating it audibly, yet inwardly, from time to time.
Your own set of tunes will be based around culture, addictive melodies, nostalgia, family norms etc. And when you read an email or a shopping list, it will not be my voice your hear, but your own. Or perhaps in this tech age, a mechanised voice.
It was looking up how it would be possible to hear a mechanised voice when reading, that I uncovered some shocking news. According to new studies, not everyone ‘hears’ a voice, at all. Much less do these souls have chats with their inner self about the doves on the balcony being bullied by seagulls, and what to do about it, when they should be writing a speech or studying. As happens to me on a daily basis..
Recently, research was published in the journal, Psychological Science. An admittedly small study of just 93 adults, the findings are striking nonetheless. Half of the study group reported low levels of inner speech.
Nedergård and Lupyan from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, even coined a name for this condition:
‘Anendophasia’ — meaning, a lack of inner voice which may affect how you solve problems and retain information
‘Others describe their brain as a well-functioning computer that just does not process thoughts verbally, and that the connection to loudspeaker and microphone is different from other people’s.’ Johanne Nedergård.
Stunned? I am (inner) speechless.
The participants of the study were given four tasks to complete, which included remembering words in a sequence and determining whether a set of pictures contained words that rhymed. Unsurprisingly, the participants without an inner voice were significantly worse at remembering the words. In short, how can they be retained without repeating them in our minds, in a ‘voice’?
“Some say that they think in pictures and then translate the pictures into words when they need to say something,” linguist Johanne Nedergård said in a statement. This process appears to be cumbersome and may add to or even cause anxiety and depression in a person with ‘anendophasia.’.
Puppet Conscience
There is a children’s story character who would probably have their scenes cut from todays Disney studios. In the cartoon movie ‘Pinnocchio,’ the Blue Fairy gives Jiminy Cricket the task of becoming the eponymous puppets conscience.. It is Jiminy who teaches Pinnocchio to distinguish between good and evil, so that one day he will ‘become a real boy’.
The chirpy, cricket-in-a-suit, is the puppets externalised, inner voice. Presumably because inanimate wood can’t have either a mind to reason or a soul to guide it — but here’s the zinger — we humans, all of us, do.
The conscience has become somewhat unpopular in recent times. Defined as the moral basis that helps guide our social behaviour, it is what speaks to our inner heart when we do something ‘bad’, say, abuse a fellow driver, backbite a colleague, ignore a parental call or take something that is not ours.
Beyond being the ‘inner critic’ which psychoanalysis teaches us to fear, it is the conscience which boosts us towards doing good deeds for no immediate reward. It does this via the mechanism of the inner voice.
Think of it like this — as your head hits the pillow, does your ’mind’ suddenly invent a ‘worst playlist of all time’ to bother you? Or, do you hear an unending to-do-list, or run through arguments with a loved one? Maybe it does all of the above. That is a powerful — and important, voice.
Now imagine….silence. No voice, an internal — peace?
This is the space we humans continue to try and reach in all manner of ways, commonly today via meditations western cousin; mindfulness.
It is everywhere, you can’t escape the invitations to ‘discover the ‘Alpha technique’ or pay thousands to go to an island for a silent retreat.
We are increasingly desperate to tune out the ‘noise’ both outer and what is increasingly sold as ‘inner noise’ too.
Fourteen years ago, I had my inner voice, shockingly silenced. It is in no way hyperbolic to say that this experience changed my life in every way.
But before I take you there, I invite you to sit away from this screen, somewhere quiet, for 2 minutes.
Set a timer if possible. Then listen for your inner voice. What is your personal voice saying? don’t worry at all if it is just chatter. Just listen. What is it telling or asking of you? This is the start of getting to know the state of what is behind your inner voice, your heart.
Not all the thoughts that you will hear or visualise inside yourself, come from you. Stay calm about this, it is good news. The main thing is to notice if you can hear anything at all.
Spiritual Pre-Med
So, here is what happened to me. September 2010, in a far off city, I entered a gathering intent on doing some covert filming for a UK newspaper.
Instead, as I sat down inside, I immediately felt sedated. The only time I had ever had a similar feeling was aged 19, when I was given a pre-med injection before an emergency appendectomy. The inner thoughts which had been tumbling over themselves moments before just… vanished.
There was not a sound in my head. I didn’t even remember my own name. And. It. Was. Bliss.
I was so entranced and overjoyed by the feeling that I stayed the night with the strangers, sleeping on the carpet, amongst their feet.
My inner voice was utterly silent, for around 5 hours and partially silent until sunrise, another five hours.
It was an utter peace I never wanted to leave. I would have swapped everything in an instant, husband, children, house, self, to stay in, or close to, that state of …silent, somethingness.
And then, just as profoundly, as it began, it stopped.
I have been seeking, its return ever since.
In my next article, I will share THE tried and trusted ways which bring us towards this reality. Even those of who have an electronic inner reading voice.
To be continued……..
#reading #writing #peace #innervoice
