Language is just a way of encoding semantic meaning - this is a perfect explanation and im going to use it from now on, thanks. yea this is like me too.

curious, did you start reading at a very early age? I started around 3. this is what I personally think it is. It’s not like I dont have the ability to hear a narrative in my head, I just dont do it. I’ve suspected that since I began reading so early, it has something to do with it - and if you’re not capable of reading /comprehending as fast as I can, like if you’re literally sounding out every word in your head you’d never be able to keep up with whatever it is I do. I’d be enormously frustrated by that process. But to me this is what “narrative voice people” must do in their heads.

or maybe it has to do (for me) being on the spectrum (high functioning)

> curious, did you start reading at a very early age? I started around 3

I did! I also learnt to read at 3. Your observation was really impressive.

I've never thought about it being the cause of my weird quirks, I thought it was actually another consequence/symptom of being wired a bit different, but maybe you are right. Have you ever met anyone else who learnt to read early? Do they also behave like that?

I don't know if I'm in the spectrum (I suspect I do, but I don't want to know). In any case, if I do, then I'm also a functioning one.

> if you’re literally sounding out every word in your head you’d never be able to keep up with whatever it is I do

Another possibility is that they overestimate how much they use their inner monologue without realizing. For example, I really doubt they think "time to move the left leg, now the right leg, now the left..." whenever they walk. Maybe they just don't enter into that "mode" as often as us