Talking to Myself

[Paul Whybrow]

Living alone, I talk to myself a lot. If I haven't said anything for a while, I've even made myself jump on hearing human speech! We all have internal conversations with ourselves, for that's how we work out what things are, but actually saying stuff out loud apparently has value too, according to a scientific study:

Saying 'car keys' out loud may help find them

It seems that vocalizing the object you're searching for, helps you to find it, for speech focuses your consciousness on the task in hand. Writing is a solitary activity, and I suspect that all writers do a form of this—I know that I do, when searching for a word—I prefer exhausting the options in my mind, before turning to a thesaurus, in the hope that it will better fit the mood of the writing.

Talking to yourself used to be considered a sign of madness, where lunatics were hearing the voices again . These days, with people connected to invisible entities by mobile phones, it's common to see someone walking along having an animated conversation with no one else in sight. A separate scientific study found that one's inner voice helps self-control, preventing us from impulsive behaviour. This partly explains the notion of an angel on one shoulder trying to drown out the devil on the other shoulder.

Is talking to yourself a sign of madness? No it's good for you, say scientists | Daily Mail Online

Authors chat to themselves and their characters with familiarity. Playwright Edward Albee observed, "I write to find what I'm talking about."

Dorothy Parker was less modest, "Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience."

An author needs to find their 'voice', which establishes their style of writing, revealing their attitudes and personality through the characteristics of word choice, punctuation, dialogue and character development. In finding our voices, it sometimes helps to read our stories aloud, and while we're bringing them to life, is it any wonder that we've summoned a doppelgänger, who's part creator, part reader and part critic? That might sound spooky to someone who hasn't attempted to write a story, but writing techniques include such things as how the tale sounds:

Rhythm. A play of syllables and even sounds. I hear sounds in a sort of indescribable way as I write.

Don DeLillo

It's normal that we talk to ourselves. I'm not claiming that my solo chattering is in any way profound, and I'm sure that if I carried a voice-activated tape recorder, which I listened to at the end of the day, there'd be a load of gobbledygook punctuated with swear words!

Do you ever get funny looks from family, friends and strangers, when you realise you've been talking to yourself about your story?

Have you ever achieved a breakthrough in your WIP by talking to yourself?

 

[Emurelda]

"Hey, there's no shame in talking to yourself sometimes," I said to myself.

 

[Peter Hankins]

I think Daniel Dennett says that human consciousness might have come about through one of our ape-like ancestors talking to itself, then internalising the process.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Talking to yourself is like sinking a borehole to find hidden water.

 

[Rich.]

To liberally paraphrase Douglas Adams (I think from one of the Dirk Gently novels, but I may be completely wrong about all of it) – for every wine-soaked tramp staggering down the street talking to themselves, there is another tramp, in some other part of the world, having the other half of the conversation.

Have you ever achieved a breakthrough in your WIP by talking to yourself?

Often. I don't hold with antiquated notions of writing things down or carrying a notebook or any other twentieth-century idea of how a writer should behave. If I want to write, I type. Pens and pencils seem desperately slow and unwieldy. And if I have an idea I want to save for posterity, I speak to my smartphone's voice recorder.


[Hmm, I seem to have been channelling Douglas Adams when I wrote that last paragraph.]

 

[Amber]

Dorothy Parker was less modest, "Of course I talk to myself. I like a good speaker, and I appreciate an intelligent audience."

I do amuse myself. Even when I'm miserable it's pretty darn riveting.

People talk to themselves. Even people who don't write talk to themselves. And even when we don't vocalize what we're saying to ourselves, there's internal dialogue. So, we're talking to ourselves.

Your post made me think of the difference between extroverts and introverts. Extroverts use interaction with the external world to help them figure things out. It's why they're always talking.

Introverts are the opposite.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

The tramps. Hehe. Many a true word spoken in...*hic*

Anyone who never talks aloud to themselves, never never, hasn't got anything to boast about. Nothing superior about that, the opposite if anything. It's a healthy thing to do and it can seriously help you, or even save your life in its weirdest, most dramatic manifestation. The Third Man Syndrome,

 

[KateESal]

I'm always nattering away to myself. Sometimes I have to tell myself to shut up.

I remember at a Glastonbury Festival one year there was a guy who provided a running commentary on everything he was doing using a microphone attached to a portable speaker rig. I was behind him in the queue for the loos. The phrase "too much information" comes to mind. But it was hilarious (especially at two in the morning after a couple of bevvies from the Cider Bus).

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I don't know where this came from, but in my house growing up, we always said it was fine to talk to yourself, and it was even fine to answer yourself, but if you responded, "What?", then you were in trouble.

I think this is actually the reason people have pets--so they can talk without seeming to talk to themselves.

 

[MrDisco88]

Often. I don't hold with antiquated notions of writing things down or carrying a notebook or any other twentieth-century idea of how a writer should behave. If I want to write, I type. Pens and pencils seem desperately slow and unwieldy. And if I have an idea I want to save for posterity, I speak to my smartphone's voice recorder.

When listening to a youtube video by Stephen King, he said something along the lines of "notepads are a great way to immortalise bad ideas". I get most of my ideas while walking, and find that the less good ideas fade and the best ideas continue to burn until I've had a chance to write.

 

[Paul Whybrow]

The tramps. Hehe. Many a true word spoken in...*hic*

Anyone who never talks aloud to themselves, never never, hasn't got anything to boast about. Nothing superior about that, the opposite if anything. It's a healthy thing to do and it can seriously help you, or even save your life in its weirdest, most dramatic manifestation. The Third Man Syndrome,

It doesn't fully explain Third Man Syndrome, but there's a natural phenomenon known as a Brocken spectre, which appears in foggy weather and in clouds, making it look like you're being stalked! I experienced this eerie spectre when I was 14 years-old, out walking my dog in thick fog at dawn. I crossed my school's playing field, to see what some huge cedar trees looked like in the murk. My dog alerted me that someone was waiting for us, growling fiercely, and 100 yards ahead, a black figure stood motionless. I only realised it was me, when I raised my arm to brandish a walking stick.The rising sun was diffused through the fog, throwing my shadow ahead of me. It still made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

I included this phenomenon in my third Cornish Detective novel, Sin Killers, when the lead detective visits a surveillance team who are staking out a suspect's house from a dilapidated barn. The coppers are just becoming aware that the likely killer has been watching them too, through his expert training as a spook for the secret service, so when he appears to be shadowing my hero through thick coastal fog, they momentarily panic—as I did, fifty years ago!

 

[Rich.]

...there's a natural phenomenon known as a Brocken spectre, which appears in foggy weather...

Cool. I'd never heard of that.

--

When listening to a youtube video by Stephen King, he said something along the lines of "notepads are a great way to immortalise bad ideas". I get most of my ideas while walking, and find that the less good ideas fade and the best ideas continue to burn until I've had a chance to write.

I've seen the video, and I agree with him completely!

 

[Amber]

It doesn't fully explain Third Man Syndrome,

I wonder if you can understand how funny it is for you to criticize a source. This one is a piece of somewhat anecdotal information and I don't see how it doesn't fully explain it ... or how I or anyone else would know the explanation is incomplete. The first sentence of the wiki covers it I think.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

I have experienced the Third Man Syndrome. Some might say it's an angel. Some might say it's an hallucination, or a manifestation of our own emergency batteries, but whatever it is, it's a power for good. Nothing whatsoever to do with something like the Brocken Spectre, which is possibly something like the Grey Man of Ben Macdhui. Chris Bonington once saw that, scared the bejeez out of him.

 

[Carol Rose]

Well I don't live alone but I still talk to myself all the time. I'm great company. LOL!

And I totally believe in angels, third men, whatever you'd like to call them. Have had far too many experiences of them interfering in my life for good not to believe in them. I never actually think about it, though. I'm so used to it that I simply accept it as part of reality. Just remember to acknowledge and thank them once in a while.

 

[Katie-Ellen]

Once it was a cat, or at least it came in cat shape....I woke up at 3...it's always about 3 of course, these things, to see it there, sitting on the arm of the sofa staring at me; a ginger cat with a big white bib, eyes blazing green but the room was dark so that was a physical impossibility. I stared. It stared for a count of perhaps 3 or 4 until it faded. and I wondered what was going on, but a few days later received a message from my brother, distressed to know what was best to do for his beloved old puss. We talked about what seemed best for her and next morning first thing she died on his arm.
A few days later I told him about my unlikely-glow-in-the dark feline visitor, described it, and he was gob-smacked, because apparently it was a cat he used to have before, many years ago; but she'd been run over when very young. He hadn't had her very long poor thing, and I'd never met her or seen a photo, but she had come as a herald for the passing of old Jiffy. The animals too, have guardians to escort them forth, then, and why wouldn't they? We know so little of their minds and souls. But of all the saints, Francis must be permanently absolutely beside himself.

 

[Carol Rose]

That is an absolutely awesome experience, @Katie-Ellen Hazeldine.

 

[Rachel Caldecott]

I've always talked to myself. Nothing wrong with it. However... I have a confession. When I was little I used to interview myself while on the toilet. My mum would stand outside the bathroom listening and thinking (she told me later) how cute I was. Well... um... I still do it. It is great fun. But I should never have confessed to my husband!

 

[Rich.]

@Rachel Caldecott-Thornton. Nothing wrong with interviewing yourself.

 

[Patricia D]

Brocken Spectre and Third Man Syndrome - this thread is inspiring all sorts of spooky ideas. And please count me among those who talk to themselves. I keep myself amused. I also talk to my dog, who is deaf.

 

[Rachel Caldecott]

@Rachel Caldecott-Thornton. Nothing wrong with interviewing yourself.

Indeedy! Love the film and love that scene.

 

[Marc Joan]

I've always talked to myself. Nothing wrong with it. However... I have a confession. When I was little I used to interview myself while on the toilet. My mum would stand outside the bathroom listening and thinking (she told me later) how cute I was. Well... um... I still do it. It is great fun. But I should never have confessed to my husband!

Marvellous image. But what do you talk about in there?

 

[Marc Joan]

Yes, I've been Brocken-spectred. At the top of a mountain, sunny day, precipice in front of me; then the mist came down, or rather the clouds rolled in (I was quite high up), and my shadow greeted me, cast on the clouds that now covered the valley. It wasn't spooky, though, because on that occasion the nature of the phenomenon was obvious. Another interesting thing about it was that my shadow had a circular rainbow around its head. I felt quite angelic for a brief nanosecond.

 

[Amber]

I've always talked to myself. Nothing wrong with it. However... I have a confession. When I was little I used to interview myself while on the toilet. My mum would stand outside the bathroom listening and thinking (she told me later) how cute I was. Well... um... I still do it. It is great fun. But I should never have confessed to my husband!

This reminded me.

My son used to freeze his Batmans (he had many) and then take them in the tub... where the Batmans would be freed from their cold graves... Much discussion went on. I don't know what he said. But every time I tell people this story he's thrilled.

 

[Patricia D]

This reminded me.

My son used to freeze his Batmans (he had many) and then take them in the tub... where the Batmans would be freed from their cold graves... Much discussion went on. I don't know what he said. But every time I tell people this story he's thrilled.

I'm imagining an ice-encased batman drifting across the surface of the tub. What an imaginative child. It sounds like there's another writer in the family

 

[Amber]

I'm imagining an ice-encased batman drifting across the surface of the tub. What an imaginative child. It sounds like there's another writer in the family

He does make things up.

 

[Matnov]

Talk to myself? I talk to a variety of my selves. Believed now for a long, long time that our Ego is comprised of multiple personalities, all vying with each other on a myriad of issues, making and breaking alliances and generally annoying the hell out of the core me as they compete to be the one I pay heed to. My head can be an interesting place at times. And then there is Norman...