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Desrtopa comments on Rationality Quotes June 2013 - Less Wrong
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I play other people's voices through my head as I imagine what they would say (or are saying, when I interpret text,) but I don't have my own voice in my head as an internal monologue, and I think of "myself" as the conductor, which directs all the voices.
What happens when you are not thinking about what anyone else is saying or would say?
I think in terms of ideas and impulses, not voices. I can describe an impulse as if it had been expressed in words, but when it's going through my head, it's not.
I'd be kind of surprised if people who have internal monologues need an inner voice telling them "I'm so angry, I feel like throwing something!" in order to recognize that they feel angry and have an urge to throw something. I just recognize urges directly, including ones which are more subtle and don't need to be expressed externally, without needing to mediate them through language.
It definitely hasn't been my experience that not thinking in terms of a distinct inner "voice" makes it hard for me to pin down my thoughts; I have a much easier time following my own thought processes than most people I know.
In our case at least, you are correct that we don't need to vocalize impulses. Emotions and urges seem to run on a different, concurrent modality.
Do ideas and impulses both use the same modality for you?
Maybe not quite the same, but the difference feels smaller than that between impulse and language.
To me, words are what I need to communicate with other people, not something I need to represent complex ideas within my own head.
I can represent a voice in my head if I choose to, but I don't find much use for it.
Not quite the same thing, but I've discovered that "I feel ragged around the edges" is my internal code for "I need B12".
One part of therapy for some people is giving them a vocabulary for their emotions.
I can recognise that I'm angry without the voice. When I'm angry, the inner voice will often be saying unflattering things about the object of my anger; something along the lines of "Aaaaaargh, this is so frustrating! I wish it would just work like it's supposed to!" Wordless internal angry growls may also happen.