I was 51 years old when I learned that most people (or at least those who are neurotypical) do not have a voice constantly running in their head. I’ve read books on meditation and books on mindfulness; many of them mention “monkey mind,” a concept of chattering monkeys- or thoughts- that crop up to distract you from the present. I always thought that this was what I was experiencing and didn’t understand why I couldn’t control them and just focus. Now I know that my brain just works differently.

When I say the voice in my head is constantly chattering, I do mean constantly. From the moment I open my eyes, until the moment I slip into sleep, my brain is narrating my day. (I’m guessing it continues while I’m sleeping as well, based on some of my dreams).

I refer to it as a voice, because I hear the narration in my brain rather than seeing it in images. I can visualize things, but my default is auditory. And it’s not just one clear voice, most of the time it’s layers of different things happening in my brain all at the same time.

Here is what is usually going on in my head (aside from what I am actually working on):

• Narration of everything that I am doing. For instance, right now my brain is narrating that I am typing this post and listening to a Queen song while sitting on my bed with my laptop in my lap.
• A soundtrack. There is always song lyrics playing in my head. I can minimize this by actually having music playing so that my brain locks onto it and doesn’t have a separate song playing. It’s usually background noise in my head, but always there. Sometimes, the lyric will be more noticeable.
• Rehearsing what is coming next. This isn’t just for big things or things that I am anxious about, it is for everything. I rehearse making dinner, washing the dishes, driving my brother to work, taking a shower. Literally everything I do (including writing this post), is rehearsed in my head before I do it. This is on top of the narration of what I am already doing that is also happening.

Those are the three main things that are chattering in my head all the time, but there is also whatever I am working on at that moment, and sometimes a larger problem that is simmering at the back of my mind. But I am aware of all of them simultaneously.

When I turn off the lights and lay down to sleep is when things get really fun. Since I am no longer actively occupying my brain with activities, I start rehearsing things that way in the future: what is going to happen tomorrow, conversations that will come over the next week, the blog post I want to write for my birthday next month. Or, conversely, I dwell on things that happened in the past (I still go as far back as an incident that happened when I was 10). If nothing else is going on, my brain starts chattering about what the characters in one (or more) of the books that I’m reading are doing (or should do). And the song lyrics are still there, as well as the narration that I am lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, thinking about things, oh and I need to roll over so let me rehearse that before I actually do it, and now roll over. Needless to say, I have difficulty falling asleep most nights.

I think this is both why I am so tired all the time and why I can read so many books concurrently and keep them all separated in my head. My brain has practice keeping track of multiple narrations on a regular basis.