What If Your Brain Works Completely Differently Than Mine?
Same room. Same message. Completely different experience.
I recently stumbled across something wild: some people don’t have an inner monologue. Maybe you’re one of them.
There’s even a name for it: anendophasia. It’s when someone doesn’t experience that internal voice narrating their thoughts. Instead of silent self-talk, they might think in images, abstract ideas, or concepts without words. Research estimates about 5–10% of people process the world this way.
📖 Here’s the study if you’re curious. 👀
Naturally, I started asking my friends about their inner world. How could I pass up learning more about them!
Do you have an inner monologue?
When you read, do you hear the words in your mind?
In the shower, do you think in steps (“Shampoo, wash face, rinse, then conditioner etc.”) or just… shower and you’re on a kind of autopilot?
And I was shocked to learn how differently we experience our minds. I’d always assumed people thought like me, like there was some universal default. But, no, ‘tis not so. How wonderful!
The Way We Think Changes Everything
This realization cracked something open for me.
Two people can be in the same moment, same meeting, same movie, same silence, and have radically different internal experiences.
Since becoming aware of this, I’ve been more curious, less assumptive, and way more interested in asking how people process the world.
And it’s changed how I communicate.
Take this example:
I’ve been seeing someone who hates texting but loves phone calls. I thought, “Fine, not a big deal.” But over time, I realized I actually do care, I feel closer when I get texts in between phone calls.
Old me might have said, “You need to text more.” But instead, I asked:
“What’s your experience when I don’t text back for a while? How does that feel for you?”
They shared. “No news was good news.”
Then I shared mine:
“When I don’t hear from you, I start to feel lonely.”
They had no idea until I explained it. They were shocked and had never thought someone else’s experience might have been that.
If you don’t ask, you can’t know.
That one conversation shifted everything. Not because we agreed, but because we understood each other better. We both still had our own experiences but we understood a little more what it was like to be in the other’s shoes.
How to Have These Kinds of Conversations
If you’ve been avoiding a tricky conversation for fear of it being misinterperted, or just want to connect better, try this:
Start with curiosity.
“Hey, I noticed we seem to experience this thing differently, and I want to understand your experience better.”Share the facts and your feelings.
“I feel X when Y happens.”Invite their experience.
“What’s it like for you when Y happens?”Reflect back what you heard.
“So it sounds like... Did I get that right?”Problem-solve together.
“What could we try that works for both of us?”
Remember: It’s not you vs. them. It’s you two vs. the problem.
Dare:
I dare you to ask 3 people in your life (friends, family, colleagues, if it feels appropriate) 1 (or all) of these questions:
“Do you think in words, pictures, or something else?”
“Do you have an inner monologue?”
“When you read a book, do you hear the words in your head or just see them?”
Then listen. Let it surprise you. Let it change how you relate to them.
I dare you.
Bonus Rabbit Hole: Aphantasia 🧠
Once I found out about anendophasia, a friend introduced me to aphantasia too: the inability to visualize mental images. Only about 2–4% of people experience this, so it’s rare BUT there are some people that don’t picture what their reading or what you’re explaining in their mind.
Try this experiment with me:
Picture an apple.
What do you see? There are no wrong answers.
Just the word apple?
A flat red shape with a leaf?
A vivid, 3D apple with shadows and speckles?
Now ask a friend. Their answer might blow your mind. I know it blew my mind one fondue night when 6 of us compared what we saw in our mind’s eye!
It’s such a powerful reminder: we’re all living in the same world, but not in the same reality. And the only way to bridge that gap is with curiosity and conversation.
Let me know what you discover. I’d love to hear!