this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2025
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As per title, I am curious. How does your mind / your thoughts work? I only ever experienced my own thoughts, so I'm curious how it works for other people.

I for one feel like my thoughts sometimes are like me talking to myself silently. Sometimes I can even let out a random short sound, which I've come to start disguising by laughing kinda quietly or coughing or whatever. Like it was part of something, and not like an inner monologue almost leaking out.

So, how do your thoughts work?

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[–] Droggelbecher@lemmy.world 12 points 2 weeks ago (18 children)

The way I explain it is: when you read, you don't read the words aloud in your head. You look at them and register their meaning. My thoughts are just those meanings. Usually in larger chunks than single words though. They don't have a language. I can 'picture' sounds I've heard before though, like getting a song stuck in my head. That one's more difficult with pictures.

[–] QuizzaciousOtter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 weeks ago (12 children)

This is not a good explanation because as someone already pointed out a lot of (most?) people do "read the words aloud in their head". For me, I often even make tiny moves of my tongue and larynx - see subvocalization.

[–] Droggelbecher@lemmy.world 5 points 2 weeks ago (11 children)

Interesting, everyone I've told this to said that is indeed how they read!

Does reading something quietly take as long as reading something out loud for you? It's hard to imagine!

[–] QuizzaciousOtter@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If I'm actually reading with the goal of thorough understanding then it will take as long as reading it aloud or longer. I can still skim through the text faster, but I will understand less of it.

The Wikipedia article on subvocalization has a section on speed reading. It seems that subvocalizing can in fact limit the reading speed.

[–] Droggelbecher@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Thanks for the pointer, I'll read the wiki!

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