The Mystery Of Inner Monologues

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 November 2025

⏱️ 14 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Emily Kwong is pretty sure she lacks an inner monologue, while the inner monologue of producer Rachel Carlson won’t stop chatting. But how well can a person know their inner self? And what does science have to say about it?

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:05.8	Hey, shortwavers. It's Emily Kwong.
0:07.9	And Rachel Carlson, shortwave producer. And Emily, I think it's pretty safe to say that both of us read the team inbox, shortwave at npr.org.
0:16.2	Every morning, fervently. Exactly. And two months ago, you said something to reporter John Hamilton
0:22.6	that really piqued our audience's interest. I don't have an inner monologue. Not everybody
0:28.6	has an inner monologue. This is something that it doesn't work for everybody. I'm safe.
0:34.2	Yeah, exactly. I'm so proud of myself.
0:38.2	And our inbox lit up about this.
0:40.9	People wrote, is that even a thing?
0:42.7	I don't understand.
0:43.7	How is that possible?
0:46.0	So we had to confirm.
0:48.4	Science backs this up, right?
0:49.7	Not everyone has an inner monologue.
0:51.8	It is true.
0:52.8	Scientists confirm.
0:54.9	For some people, inner speech is far less wordy.
0:58.9	So my inner experience isn't really word-based.
1:02.0	It's more like a moving landscape of images.
1:04.5	It's kind of like soaking in an emotional bath and like feelings.
1:09.0	I love it.
1:09.6	Yeah, and feelings and images will rise and they'll fall.
	...

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