Woman with no internal monologue describes what goes on inside her head

A lot of us were left flabbergasted after finding out an internal monologue is a luxury, rather than a given.

Not everyone has that little voice in their head to help them navigate day-to-day life, which basically allows you to have a conversation with yourself without ever making a sound.

It sounds like you, thinks like you and allows you to safely criticise your best friend's bizarre outfit choice without them ever getting wind of it - as well as letting you recite your shopping list, recall song lyrics, or stew over a complex situation.

Seeing as though this voice has been with a lot of us for as long as we can remember, the thought of not having one terrifies the living daylights out of most people.

A black, silent void springs to mind when you try and work out what is going on in the mind of someone without an inner monologue - but thankfully, a woman has now satisfied out curiosity by revealing what is going on inside hers.

Kirsten Carlson sat down with YouTuber Ryan Langdon, who runs the channel PA Struggles, to discuss the bizarre phenomenon and what on earth a simple though looks like for her.

She explained that she has attempted to converse with her own little voice in her head, since she found out that other people did have internal monologues, but she ends up 'speaking out loud' instead.

A lot of people presume that she would have no chance reading a book without the words on the page being recited in her head, but Kirsten claims she has a completely different experience.

She said: "When I read, I can see this sentence structure. Like in my head, every sentence has a shape. You can see the shape of the sentence and then also, keywords will pop out. And I can file those away into my concept map, so at the end of reading something I can have a concept map of the main topic that I've read about."

But the student did admit she still moves her lips while reading, adding: "I'm saying it out loud but it's just not audible."

YouTube/PA Struggles

Basically, everything the little voice in our head tells us, instead presents itself an image in Kirsten's head - so when she's reading a story, she can see the plot, and when she's thinking, she sees the words she is thinking about.

She said: "I feel like the information is in there and I can pull it forward if I want it, like it's almost like files - there's categories of information in my head and I can pull them to the front if I need them."

Kirsten says she never daydreams but does have dreams while sleeping, although they aren't accompanied by dialogue.

Getting to sleep is a battle in itself though - as although a lot of people can't nod off because their mind's doing overtime and the voice in their head won't shut up, Kirsten is constantly being 'visually stimulated' even when her eyes are shut.

YouTube/PA Struggles

She said: "I have trouble getting to sleep because I can see lists of things I need to do and in order to make them go away, I have to go write them down."

Admitting she is a 'big journal-er', she either has to put pen-to-paper or verbalise her thoughts to get them off her mind.

Interestingly, Kirsten said she has suffered from both anxiety and depression in the past - but these have manifested themselves physically rather than mentally.

She explained she would instead only realise she was feeling these things when her hands started shaking, or when she felt sick, fatigued, unmotivated and 'disinterested in life'.

Although it sounds pretty bonkers to people who have an internal monologue, Kirsten says it all feels 'normal to her'.