The Royal 'We' and the Inner Voice

Zilla360

Does any one else use 'We' instead of 'I' when thinking to themselves, or when speaking internally with your own sub-concious mind? Is it a possible sign of some kind of low-level mental illness at all?

How many people use 'I', and how many people use 'We'?

I'm (or we are?) asking because I've have been thinking about the concept of the bicameral mind quite a bit lately, and how it applies to my own lived experience of consciousness as a neuro-divergent human being; with a fairly unique combination of sensory-perceptual modalities.

I guess this is kind of both a neuro-science and philosophy question - thusly I don't know anyone else in my life knowledgable enough about both topics that I could reach and ask.

Edit: Adding a straw poll, hoping for a fairly reasonable sample size - https://www.strawpoll.me/45597457/ .

Gnizmo

I would offer a conditional maybe in terms of mental illness. It certainly could be a hint at dissociative identity disorder although it would take a great deal more information, and a radically different context for me to offer more than that. On its own it is no reason to worry at all.

That said this is coming from a concept of mental illness rather than mental health which I always find weird. People don't typically talk about which physical illness that causes then to not be able to run to the end of the street without getting winded. We view it as a matter of physical health being in an odd state. Basically, there is a large range of presentations that do not fall into illness as much as reflect the current health. Most of them aren't really positive or negative. They just are and the person decides how they feel about it and proceeds from there

In terms of we as a pronoun it could very well just be what you are used to, and sounds good in your head. Not a satisfying resolution to the mystery, but life doesn't offer a ton of satisfying resolutions. It could also represent a segmenting of the mind that has been seen. I have come across it as a therapist in a not super rare amount which isn't strictly surprising considering my specialties.

At a guess it could be the result of trauma, or having two versions of yourself in your head. If I remember your posting history correctly, the latter is highly likely although I am not one to tell another's story for them. It is a quirk of mentality that is shockingly common in a specific population due to (I would guess) the extreme differences between how they choose to interact with the world after a certain point.

Now this is all just general information rather than specific stuff for you. Therapy is a great place to deep dive this stuff and really explore what is going on with your head. I would say if you can view it as something that makes you awesome rather than something wrong with you then it can resolve in some truly beautiful ways.

Incenjucar

The cultural and linguistic nature of it makes it something someone would be unlikely to use for inner thought unless they just thought it was fancy affect instead of tied to speaking for an individual or group, or if they had somewhat dissolved their sense of identity into a group long enough that they were unused to speaking of their individuality.

While I have sometimes anthropomorphized parts of my identity in order grapple with them (inner child, etc.), they were always separate and abstract rather than a cohabiting self, so I was always I.

I have known people who had much more concrete and "alive" selves, but they always were other selves occupying the same body instead of a collective "we".

I haven't encountered a "we" outside of fiction, but it's not an area I study so that's mere layperson anecdote.

Edit: Oh my god so many typos.

Zilla360

Hmmm. I've used 'We' internally since I was ~4 years old. I started to realise I was Trans* from the ages of 6-12, then started my transition at age 27. Hmmm.

To use a CompSci metaphor... Maybe I forked my human wetware at an early age? Or maybe it's a left-brain right-brain thing?
I think, as of now, it has resolved in a beautiful way, but it's exhausting to maintain it at that level of insight/self awareness that other Trans* people seem to be operating at.

Lots to think about, thanks. If anyone else has any further insights that they would like to share, I would love to read them. :heartbeat:

Gnizmo

I am not a brain scientist strictly speaking, but I do work adjacent to it. Splitting the brain that way makes sense from what I know. Parts of the brain do kinda act independent of each other with limited interaction across the corpus calosum for the left and right side. A slight bit of weirdness in brain development there would explain it to me.

I do realize I forgot to offer my experience as well. I don't use we a lot, but it is used when I am mindful of it. Mine comes from as a trauma defense though so it gets a bit wonky. Parts of my memory are blocked off. Makes for a bit more of indepent functioning while still collaborating towards the major life goals most of the time. Not exactly the same, but at least it's someone else in a similar boat.

dispatch.o

I generally use 'we' for self-criticism. I think it's because it feels like some mistakes are as much as my brain not interacting with itself properly as it is my actual abilities being unsuitable to the task at hand.

"What the fuck are we doing?"
"We forgot to clean the litter box."

I still most frequently use 'I' though in my day to day tasks, when it feels like it's less a troubleshooting dialogue and more of a play-by-play of shit I have to do, or mundane decisions I have to make.

Ringo

My inner monologue uses We quite regularly, usually during self-criticism, but also during crisis situations where I need to think "out loud" while I am alone.

"Oh my god Ringo, how did you screw this up? We are so fucked now!" is a fairly typical usage case for me. I've never really explored it (despite many years of therapy) but I find it difficult to have a non-conversational internal monologue. I have to address my thoughts to myself though the other "self" doesn't respond. It's a lot like talking to my cat, actually. Referring to myself as "I" internally just doesn't pull the right mental triggers. "Okay, what am I going to do next? What do I want to eat for dinner?" leads to my mind just going blank or feeling overwhelmed by choices. "Alright Ringo it's time to eat. What are we feeling?" gets a much more measured response from me.

If I had to self diagnose, I would suggest that the habit developed from living an extremely chaotic childhood where the "conversation" helped me pull my focus in tense situations, talk through my next actions rationally and not panic in the face of danger. Most of my longest tenured maladaptive behaviors grew from the same roots. If I had to guess I wouldn't say using 'we' was detrimental, but that I used it in conjunction with burying my emotions during crisis and that the crossover to using 'we' during calmer times reinforced a pattern of burying my emotions on a regular, and unnecessary, basis.

Tastyfish

I tend to use 'we' more naturally when talking, but less so online in text come to think of it now. But I can't think of any particular founding event that might have caused it.

spool32

purely use I. I'm a single entity in my own head.

Xaquin

Thinking on it, I basically use them interchangeably in my head. Never really given it too much thought.

I don't think of myself in the plural or anything

Mayabird

I, we, you (usually involving self-criticism) interchangeably. I don't have an internal monologue so much as a discussion a lot of the times, complete with a pedant who's probably wearing a psychic trilby way in the back. The fastest way to trip me up in conversation is to make some absolutist statement like something always or never being a case, and that pedant takes over, using all the processing power to parse if it's actually the case that this is an always/never statement.

Ringo

Xaquin wrote: »

Thinking on it, I basically use them interchangeably in my head. Never really given it too much thought.

I don't think of myself in the plural or anything

Okay, but what if we ask the other you?

zepherin

Internally it's more of a stream of consciousness (narrative) for me. I don't really refer to myself. It's more like that needs to be picked up. This gas is rough. Burping and farting at the same time hurts real bad.

knitdan

I don’t recall using the royal “we” internally, but I do “talk” to myself in the second person on a pretty regular basis.

Unknown

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Xaquin

Ringo wrote: »

Xaquin wrote: »

Thinking on it, I basically use them interchangeably in my head. Never really given it too much thought.

I don't think of myself in the plural or anything

Okay, but what if we ask the other you?

He's a jerk, don't talk to him

discrider

...

I use 'We' somewhat frequently in conversation.
We'll stop talking to ourselves when we're dead.
But we're both me, even if I divide some conversations between an internal dialogue speaker and audible speaker.

Endless_Serpents

I use ‘I’ in conversation and ‘I’ in my head when conscious, but I always dream as several characters that talk to each other.

I do think of my past selves as separate entities though, sometimes as early as yesterday, and will refer to them as ‘them’ etc.

I would hesitate to refer to your behaviour as mental illness. As long as you lead a fulfilling life and it doesn’t harm you or others, it’s fine. Mental illness is really a question of can you look after yourself and does it adversely effect those around you?

Gnizmo

Endless_Serpents wrote: »

I use ‘I’ in conversation and ‘I’ in my head when conscious, but I always dream as several characters that talk to each other.

I do think of my past selves as separate entities though, sometimes as early as yesterday, and will refer to them as ‘them’ etc.

I would hesitate to refer to your behaviour as mental illness. As long as you lead a fulfilling life and it doesn’t harm you or others, it’s fine. Mental illness is really a question of can you look after yourself and does it adversely effect those around you?

I am going to push back on this definition of mental illness hard. A lot of people with mental illness can take care of themselves fine, and it doesn't harm people around them. The better question is whether or not it is disruptive to a major area of your life. That impact can be significant without ever getting severe enough to hit those two thresholds.