"Staging" Conversations

[kubikub]

Forgive me if there's already a post relating to this, but I will often find myself staging hypothetical conversations or full-fledged debates with people I know, completely within my head.
It is often enlightening, as it opens you up to new perspectives on the opposite end of whatever you might be 'talking' about, seeing as though in order to fully realize the conversation you must step into the mindset of the opposing side. Yet at the same time I feel a little weird after realizing I spent the last 20 minutes imagining myself talking to a kid from my math class about vegetarianism.

Thoughts? Experiences? Psychiatrist referrals?

 

[bananaphallus]

YES! So much, all the effing time.

I'll work through conversations I've had with people, whether lighthearted or serious, taking them in new directions, trying to make myself laugh, see something new in what they or I was saying, etc. etc. Often at night or in the car driving while listening to just the right sort of music, it's all I do. I've got literally pages of dialogue on my computer and written down in the most random of places, dealing with the most trivial of topics. I both love that I do it and hate myself for being so 'in my head' and detached, I'm trying to find ways to make it productive. I've staged entire speeches in my head, worked through many a worknight's worth of comments and verbal exchanges - replacing words and sentences and imagining the reactions I would've gotten, I even find myself doing it while watching movies or TV, going back and placing myself in the position of a character, and saying what I would've liked to hear myself or others say...eggs and toast I'm exhausted.

I also sometimes think of things to say - conversational ammunition, if you will - and keep it in the back of my mind until the right comment or situation calls for it, it's a bit disconcerting how often this happens, I sometimes wonder if I'm unwittingly leading the conversation in such a direction as to ensure that these 'stored' comments or utterances 'see the light of day', or if my subconscious is doing it. I'm fucked up.

 

[Negative Space]

Although it seems like many intps do this. I don't do this quite as much as most. The problem I find is how can you have a full fledged debate with another person in your head for 20 minutes...how can you know how they are going to react to your points?

In particular, if (the argument) is around a concept with many assumptions supporting the premise then you are going to have to defend (or attack) all assumptions to make sure they are epistemically justified...But this is impossible to go more than one round of "debating" within your head without compounding (exponentially) the chance that in a REAL conversation the other person will say something different than what you are ASSUMING they will reply back to you with.

Debates in your head heavily revolve around the assumption that what they reply back to you (in your head) is what they will actually say in real life. That is why I have never put much stock in such notions...

On the flipside, constantly calculating the evidence to convince myself one way or another is much more reliable way of having real evidence to use as ammo in an argument.

People are unpredictable and unreliable, even in a debate setting (unless of course the debate is of the most elementary level, of course in that case it's not much of a debate) thus I used to do this a lot when I am younger but not so much anymore.

In addition: this is a risk:

I sometimes wonder if I'm unwittingly leading the conversation in such a direction as to ensure that these 'stored' comments or utterances 'see the light of day', or if my subconscious is doing it. I'm fucked up.

 

[Jennywocky]

Debates in your head heavily revolve around the assumption that what they reply back to you (in your head) is what they will actually say in real life. That is why I have never put much stock in such notions...

Word.

Yup, I used to play things out like this partly because I was socially anxious (so I'd rehearse possible conversations in my head) and partly because INTPs create "models" in their heads ... people included... so you start dialoging with the replicas automatically, the imprints of the people we know are all there.

I learned the hard way that things never really went as I had imagined, even if the person still remained pretty true to form.

 

[grEEEn]

mmhmm. I've had many an imaginary precreation conversation with someone which I never intend to actually have. Most often in the shower. About the oddest topics.

 

[Ashenstar]

I believe there was a thread very similar to this, no worries though.
Oh yes.
I don't do this for new perspective, I just find it much easier to talk to myself compared to other people.
I talk to myself so extensively with imagined people that I actually know in real life that I am often forgetting what was a real conversation and what was imagined causing me to repeat myself or ask people about past conversations we've "held".

I do however set up modesl of intended conversations in my head, even though I have also learned that they never go the way my imagined conversation went.

 

[Ombat]

Yes... If I'm about to be in a situation the next day that differs from my usual activities, I will roll around in my bed the night before for an hour staging conversations with whoever I'm going to see the next day. It's annoying for two reasons:

1. I can't get any sleep.

2. The conversations in my head are always witty or come to some sort of favorable outcome, but then i'll not even end up talking to this person that I imagined this conversation with. (Even if I did, there's no chance that s/he and I will talk about anything near what I was thinking of...)

 

[makhan]

Yup, I do this all the time.

 

[Felan]

You mean there are conversations other than this?

 

[kubikub]

Debates in your head heavily revolve around the assumption that what they reply back to you (in your head) is what they will actually say in real life. That is why I have never put much stock in such notions...

Oh, they absolutely do. But, I don't hold the assumptions I make as things I should expect from them, should the topic come up in 'real life.' Regardless, I still enjoy these conversations to a certain extent, and I feel that basing them on specific people with mannerisms and opinions I already have a general understanding of is more interesting than talking with a formless entity-blob inside my head. At least I know what their voice sounds like and how much of a temper they have.
Plus, I feel like talking to something that already exists (albeit in my head) makes me feel better than if I were to hold a conversation with an opinionated tiger in my spare time... Or at least more sane.

Yes... If I'm about to be in a situation the next day that differs from my usual activities, I will roll around in my bed the night before for an hour staging conversations with whoever I'm going to see the next day. It's annoying for two reasons:

1. I can't get any sleep.

Been there before.

 

[INTPINFP]

Yeah, I do this when asking for a date. Doesn't really help the outcome though.

 

[Jaico]

Yeah, I gotta say that I do this as well. It's really interesting - it's almost like I'm an observer to two different people talking about a subject; it almost always leads to some sort of interesting insight that I didn't see before. Whenever there's a discussion going on in my head, it seems as if every other sentence starts with a "but" or "what if"...or even "but what if" . I tend to do it when I'm walking down the street/lying awake in bed/being bored in class (i.e. whenever I'm zoning out and not really paying attention to my surroundings a lot).

 

[transformers]

I envy that you can do this, it's a useful skill. Personally I don't have the patience for it.

 

[Maiken]

I do this all the friggin' time!! I'm happy to see I'm not the only one, was starting to think that I was a bit crazy and selfcentered talking to myself so much.