Conversations with others inside your head?

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I'm not sure, to me there is sort of a difference between rehearshing a conversation in your head and having a conversation with someoone in your head. When I rehearse conversations in my head I am thinking if all the routes the conversation could go and think about what I should say and how they might respond. To me at least, I would think that a conversation in your head would be more similar to a real life conversation. In my rehearsals there is always the ability to stop, pause, play, fast forward, rewind, etc which is very distinct from a real conversation.

Any time I think I am going to have a conversation with someone, I will rehearse it in my head over and over - I try to figure out how the person will respond to what I say, and how I will respond to their response. Of course, they may have several responses, so I have to play with each one ...

I hate it when someone says in an email or in person "I think we need to talk about that sometime ..." or similar because of course that sets me off.

Although I struggle greatly with spontaneous conversation, and might end up not being able to speak at all, at least I don't end up going through the rehearsal stuff!

As well as conversations I know I'm going to have, I also rehearse conversations I'd like to have ... just in case the opportunity should arise.

Regardless of the type of rehearsal, these are always conversations with real people in my life, and not characters in my head.

For the most part these rehearsals take place entirely in my head, but sometimes I find myself rehearsing out loud as I go about doing things in the house or walking somewhere by myself. If there are people around and I notice I'm doing it aloud, I'll try to shut myself up.

(And then of course, after each conversation / interaction comes the analysis carried out by replaying the conversation over and over; there is never peace in my head unless I get to have considerable alone time; when I do, it is great!)

These rehersals seem to take up alot of my thought. Leaving nothing to surprise me. It doesn't help when I forget that the conversation was only in my mind, and either way I end up terribly bored with the real conversation. Because people can be so predictable, with their small talk.. I've usually predicted everthing that will be said. But still, I don't mind that I do it. If I didn't rehearse, my replies would be even more delayed.
It's rare that I say things out loud but it's happened, probably when I'm tired or something.

I tend to try to prepare myself for arguements and other conversations as well, but it never seems to work because you never know what they will say in response or if the conversation will take a turn you did not anticipate.

Otherwise, I tend to have another world inside my head where people talk to me and things like that, sort of like daydreaming except I sometimes laugh becasue of what is going on in my head. And I'm never idle when I'm doing this either... I could be healing a dungeon party and be having dinner conversation with a imaginary friend at the same time. It keeps me from getting lonely a lot of the time.

Yes I do that quite a lot. I think out loud, or as near to out loud as I dare when I'm not alone, and to some extent I usually imagine a real listener......generally it's somebody I'm friends with. Some of it seems to be rehearsal - I know I'll probably never use most of the material I rehearse, but some of it does get used, so I feel it's no bad thing to have a lot of rehearsed stuff in the can, just in case it's needed. I think it's just to keep me working my conversational skills so I don't go socially rusty, and it also helps me to focus my thoughts if I say them out loud, and I guess it makes me feel a little less lonely during my long phases of solitude, to generate that feeling that I'm talking to somebody, or at least preparing to.

I have a variation of this, but it's more a "conversation with myself". I say a remark in my head, to see how it sounds, and to guess if it's going to get the point across which I want made. In the past (probably age 6 or 7 through teens), I would hear my Grandma telling me things in my head, as she was the "voice of reason" when I was confused or scared. She died when I was 10, but I kept having that phenomenon with her voice for several more years.

Charles

I have spoken to myself since my onset of Asperger's, and what's more, I actually play different roles when I do this. Most of the "selves" who talk to each other in my head are based on people I have met or been acquainted with, complete with their own personal quirks based on their real life persona. I made a list of these "selves" when I was in college, and I came up with 110 different personalities. Now the number is likely well over 200. There are usually only three or four "selves" chatting or debating with one another at a time, but I remember that I had to meet with all of them at once when I created the list. - LJS

I tend to have simulated conversations in my head with people that I know or have known. Once in a while If I'm alone I might say something out loud. It's typically a one sided conversation, my side.

yeah, I do this. I often do it to figure out what I might say to someone later. Sometimes I do it because I feel like telling someone off, but never did it. *sigh*

I write the dialogue for my fiction stories this way.

I do it less often with real life people, because I don't feel able to predict what they'll say in reply. But I'll rehearse what I'm going to say.

And I never confuse these conversations with real life. (My Dad does though, he'll claim he told us something and then realize he only imagined telling us something.)

Every day. Iv done well dealing with other problems, meltdowns, depression, small talk ect, but this is one that Im having a huge problem controlling. I'v tried meditating before, but to no avail. I was hoping it would help me be able to clear my mind and have a better focus throughout the day. Anyone have any suggestions on dealing with it?

The most interesting conversations I've ever had were with myself.

+1 lol

It seems I have come to the right place.

I do the rehearsing beforehand as well as the analysis after each social interaction I have. If I'm especially nervous for something I get stuck doing that for days. If a social encounter was especially hard or confusing, it can pop up weeks, months and even years later and I analyze it again.

I do mumble things or say them out loud by accident. Only when there's no-one around, though.

Last edited by oblomov on 19 Jul 2011, 4:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I tend to agree with Guilted Lady when it comes to rehearsing conversations in your head. It may all look so perfect when you're mapping out the conversation in your thoughts, then in reality the person in front of you says something you did not anticipate, and boom, the map is gone. Lately, however, I am not as easily shaken by this as when I was younger. I can improvise a lot more easily now.

I don't think this is specifically something that people on the spectrum do, however it's natural that we would worry about such things more, because we are less secure about our interactions with other people.


There's one other thing I'm kind of embarassed to mention here: sometimes I imagine what a conversation would be like with someone I've never met, or in other words someone who doesn't exist at all. Yet, always someone who I could 'potemtially' meet in the future. Like, for instance, a week from now (hypothetically), let's say I'm going on some camp, with a group of people, all interested in nature, but no one knows each other. And I haven't met these people. What I do is, I imagine who the people are I'm going to meet there, and I think about what the conversations are going to be like with them. And I imagine this quite vividly, too.

I do it all the time. It's a trait handed down from Grandmother, to mother, to me. We discuss ourselves through almost every task. My mother and I both will make an invisable figure out of someone and have discussions with them to the point of grunting and ranting. I went far enough to foam at the mouth one time. I was surprised to see a tiny spot of white in the corners, but it was just a tiny spot or two, not like rabis or anything.