How Humans Work - Part 1: Our Internal Dialogue and Why we Have Voices Inside Our Heads

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Ever wonder why you have voices inside your head? Here is the good reason you have them.

Each of us has a voice that is inside of our heads that consistently speaks to us. it watches our actions and comments to us about them, warning us when we are heading towards a dangerous or unfamiliar situation, and challenging us to choose safety rather than being reckless.

I don't want to confuse this voice with intuition. Intuition is a different voice or feeling that may happen when we are in comfortable or uncomfortable situations. Intuition supplies an internal notice that causes us to think more deeply about the situation we are involved in or about to get involved in.

We have Intuition because we have familiarity from a similar situation and our mind and body is trying to tell us to use this knowledge for our current situation to make a good decision. Intuition is always a great thing and we should pay close attention to it because it can help us avoid bad decisions and move towards good ones.

But intuition only comes into play sometimes. The voice I am talking about is constantly running in your head and giving strong advice on nearly every situation. It is called you internal dialogue.

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Yes that voice that you are hearing right now as you read this. It is asking you:

Does this writer have any idea what he is talking about?
Where is he going with this article?
Should I actually continue reading?
Do I want to know this information?
Why does he think he knows so much?

Yes, that is the voice. Please tell it to shut up for a few minutes and relax because you are totally safe with me. Take a deep breathe, everything will be fine and your time will not be wasted.

Feeling better now? Ok, let’s continue.

It is important to understand that if you are breathing, you have an internal dialogue and it is alive and well.

Where does the internal dialogue come from?

There is a big debate about what our internal dialogue is, what is its function, and where did it come from. Here are the explanations I have heard and what I believe.

1. Some say that our internal dialogue is an expanded version of our intuition. They say that it speaks to us when we have a feeling about something but are not really sure. This feeling gets translated into an actual voice so we can understand those feelings. I have hard time with this explanation because our internal dialogue goes off before we can even start thinking or feeling about the thing. It does not wait until it recognizes something to decide. The alarm just sounds and it is off to the races.

2. Some people say that our internal dialogue is an overactive imagination which happens as a result of our big brains. And that it is just us talking to ourselves when we are unsure about something. It gives us a chance to go over whatever the thing is and to safely work on solutions before we take any actions. I think there is some truth to this but why it is always only consistently negative in everyone? Wouldn’t one person on the planet have an internal dialogue?

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I do not believe that either of these definitions is accurate, although they do each give us information about our internal dialogue.

The reason that I say that neither is accurate is because our internal dialogue does not need any specific information to begin doing its thing, and it only delivers negative information to us. For this reason, there's another definition that I've heard that I believe more closely reflects what the internal dialogue is, where it came from, and what is its function.

I believe the internal dialogue is a byproduct of our being humans and having lived in environments where we could not defend or protect ourselves. In those environments we needed as many physical and internal tools as possible to keep us safe.

A long time ago (think 1,000,000 years ago or earlier), early or even their ancestors, lived in places where they did not control anything around them. Humans do not have strong outer plates or any defense systems, we only have our brains and thinking skills.

Long ago there was a time when humans were not familiar with their environment and literally everything was either dangerous or seemed that way.

Finding new food each day was really difficult. We did not know what to eat and had to experiment with each new food. Should we eat those berries? Why don't we let Phil try and eat the berries and see what happens? Phil would be the one chosen (because maybe it was his turn or he was the boldest one), and he would try the berries. The rest of the group would watch him eat the berries and then wait for some time to see what happened to Phil. If Phil did not get ill or die, the group would know that the berries were in fact safe to eat. If however poor Phil bit the dust, the rest of the group would make a mental note to never eat those berries from that bush.

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A similar thing happened with the animals they saw. Certainly there were big scary animals that they knew to never get near. And there were some smaller animals that were not very scary. But what about those in between animals? Maybe they were large but they're also sort of friendly-looking. What did they do in those situations? Well here again comes the time for another volunteer. So this time they would send Eddie out ( unfortunately Phil did not survive the last patch of berries). Eddie's job would be to try and make friends with the Saber-Tooth Tiger. The group would hide behind a big rock while poor Eddie would try to get close enough to pet the Saber-Tooth. After this failed experiment, the group would all clearly understand that this particular animal was not a friend.

Man - "Hi. honey, hi son. I have some bad news. Phil and Eddie did not make it back from the hunt today." https://www.flickr.com/photos/lorda/89983493

This strategy of trial and error is how they became familiar with their environment and the food and animals within it. There was a similar concern about the terrain in which they lived. Should you fall asleep in the snow? What happens to your extremities if they get really really cold? Can you jump off a 100 foot cliff and live? Very quickly they understood about wearing clothing in the snow and not jumping off high cliffs.

I believe that what happened over time was that early man developed an internal warning system that alerted him to potentially dangerous things in his environment. And remember anything that was new, was potentially dangerous. For this reason that alarm system went off very often. The sound of it made it a critical tool for early man. It was a human advancement and it got handed down. Those humans that had it lived. Those like Phil and Eddie who obviously did not, did not survive. Over time, every human had it and it had become as impornant a feature to us as having two arms and two eyes.

It is in my opinion that these are the circumstances under which the internal dialogue developed. It was an internal alarm system designed to keep us safe and alive in a very unsafe world.

I hope you enjoyed this post. I will write another post about how we can manipulate and control our internal dialog to assist us to get what we want in Coming soon in How Humans Work - Part 2.

Thanks for reading and if you enjoyed please like, upvote, and share!