Little voice

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about that seemingly unstoppable voice inside my head. I gather everyone has one but please tell me if this is not so. I think of it both as a friend and foe. It has helped me solve many a problem throughout the years and my blogs often start as one of its monologues. Yet it is a foe when I wake up in the middle of the night to be told of all my failures, the things I haven’t done and the burgeoning task list ahead of me. Its constant prattle has cost me many a night’s sleep.

I said seemingly unstoppable as I have found that it is not constant. It can’t cope with competition. Whenever there is some other input into your brain it struggles, especially with sound. Gently humming to yourself makes it go away, at least temporarily. The act of humming is a mixed blessing however, as it is not alway conducive to sleep, your own or your partner’s.

The voice inside your head  has an element of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle about it. When you stop to listen if it is there you can hear it but if you avoid it you can never be sure. The act of listening makes it appear. It is a complicated thing.

My interest though has strayed into psychology and the relation between conscious and unconscious thought. When I hear the voice I am conscious of it yet have little steer over its direction. When I don’t hear it, it may well still be there directing my conscious thoughts from the unconscious. Who knows?

It usually speaks to me in English and is obviously an extension of my own voice and I am left wondering what about those people who cannot speak. What do they hear if anything? What voice does my youngest chranchild hear, as he is not able to form words though his communicative ability grows by the day. In the quiet hours does he hear his own squeaks and squawks?

What do animals hear? Do horses in the fields hear a constant monologue in their heads or is it all silence? When the dog chews your slippers does it think it was the voice in my head that made me do it? Again, who knows.

It is an intriguing thought and even now, the voice in my head is mulling it over.