Do you talk to yourself? Is there a response?

[aTOMiC]

I occasionally wonder how often we talk to ourselves. There are a few general examples. You are all alone in a room and you accidentally pound your thumb with a hammer. Now the first thing you do is exclaim from the pain. Then you talk to the hammer and the nail. Then you talk to yourself. There are also the times while driving when we talk to ourselves so much you can't hear the radio (I'm guessing we are really talking to the jerks in the other cars but I'm pretty sure they can't hear us). Then there are the times when we are trying to reason out something in our heads and that may sound like a conversation with another personality but probably isn't.
I work with, fix, and configure computers pretty often and during those times I frequently speak, yell and curse at the infernal machines. In other instances for example after I have just formatted a hard drive that had one last, very important piece if information on it that I forgot about, I begin talking to myself in earnest.
To this point in my life I have never heard a voice speaking back to me when I was talking to myself. I'll keep you all posted if I ever do.

What about you?

[dlbpharmd]

Yes, I do.

[ChoChiyo]

I talk to myself continuously, but all those other voices in my head keep interrupting my conversation with myself.

The voices do have some pretty good ideas sometimes though,....


No, seriously--I really do talk to myself. I will even occasionally say to myself, "Take a breath," if I start to flip out over something.

Mainly, I work out problems aloud--or I ask myself what in the seven hells is the matter with me. I never get a decent answer to that one--just a mental raspberry followed by the giggling of all those other voices in there.

[lurch]

...I hear voices in my head...but they keep saying I'm a real stud,,so..MEL

[SoulQuest1970]

I talk to myself all the time. I answer myself too. I figure I am ok as long as I don't talk to my lawn and have it answer me back. That would be scary.

Hmm...

I wonder what my lawn would say to me. Get me Rogain for lawns? Dude! Too much puppy poo! Darn squirrels dropping nuts on me! What is with all the freakin' weeds?!

[Queeaqueg]

My alter ego (Cho) speaks a lot...

[Leonard Nimoy]

Will you guys shut up? I'm trying to have a conversation with myself here.

[hierachy]

I talk to myself when I write... but that's just to make sure things sound alright when spoken.

PS. looks like we may have found our common denominator.

[kevinswatch]

Usually when I program, I tend to mutter to myself a lot.-jay

[ChoChiyo]

Heh heh. I mutter when I write...and i mutter A LOT when I correct my kids' compositions....

"Weren't you LISTENING AT ALL when I talked about TOPIC SENTENCES???? AAAARRRRGGG!"

[Myste]

I talk to myself, and to my computer, and to whatever project I'm working on.

Then there are the days when I'm utterly distracted and stressed out, and to calm myself I fall into this Gollum like "we" thing...

"Okay, Myste, first we have to stop at the bank. Then we have to go to work. Then at lunch we can run to the store and the post office. When we get off work (after hanging around to see if the cleaning guy shows up! ), we go straight home and do laundry, and while we're doing laundry we can start marinading the chicken wings for tomorrow. We'll be fine. We can do it!"

Usually, if I catch myself at it, I start to worry about us, and have to tell ourselves, "Okay, so we've gone a little crazy, nothing to worry about. We'll just be sure to call someone if we starts answering back, preciousssss."

[ChoChiyo]

Yessssss, my preciousssssss....we WANTS it we doessssssss

[SoulQuest1970]

Heh heh. I mutter when I write...and i mutter A LOT when I correct my kids' compositions....

"Weren't you LISTENING AT ALL when I talked about TOPIC SENTENCES???? AAAARRRRGGG!"

LOL Sounds a lot like me with my kids... wander off in another room mutteing "Sell her to the gypsies! Ah... they'd just leave her on the front porch during the night." *sigh*

[Myste]

You know, my mom sold me to the gypsies once, and that's exactly what they did.

[MsMary]

I talk to myself all the time, but it's generally so low you wouldn't hear me.

I also yell back at the radio, when someone says something really stupid.

My husband has loud vehement conversations with himself when he thinks there is no one around. I suspect he is rehearsing bawling out bosses or co-workers that he could never really yell at in RL.

[MsMary]

Btw, Jay, you're avatar is a riot.

[Queeaqueg]

I talk to myself only when I am mad

[I'm Murrin]

When trying to use the internet over my old dial-up connection, constantly. Firefox had this stupid habit of telling me a page couldn't be found even when I knew perfectly well that it could. So, in frustration, and also when thinking hard, perhaps working out how to do a complicated maths problem. A large proportion of this talking is, of course, swearing.

[dennisrwood]

i talk to myself at work a lot, my inmates get confused and ask me what i said. i tell them i was thinking out loud.

[onewyteduck]

I talk to myself. Sometimes I'll have more than one conversation going. I figure as long as I can keep them straight it's not a problem!

And frankly? There are times, at work for instance, when me, myself, and I are the only ones making sense.