Yes, I have. Driving is such a skill; when I was first learning to drive, I had to think about driving ("...need to change gear, which was the clutch again? Ordered CBA, so on the left..."). Now that I am more practiced, I can just think about changing gear and change gear, without having to examine my actions in so much detail. Which allows my internal monologue to wonder into other directions.

On a couple of occasions, as a result of this thread, I've tried just quietening down my internal monologue - just saying nothing for a bit - and observing my own thought processes. I find that the result is that I pay a lot more attention to audio cues - if I hear a bird in the distance, I picture a bird. There's associations going on inside my head that I'd never paid much attention to before.