Who am I talking to within my mind?

[Robert_Sock]

Sometimes the voice is good, other time it’s evil. It was especially strong when I used to watch porn, and was forcing me to become a homosexual. I can’t help but feel that the voice comes from afar, and can either lead a person to holiness or evil.

It’s not schizophrenic in that the voices are inner voices and not audible. The voices, I believe, are ‘normal,’ and I believe exists within us all.

Where do these inner voices come from?

 

[GEddie]

Sometimes the voice is good, other time it’s evil. It was especially strong when I used to watch porn, and was forcing me to become a homosexual. I can’t help but feel that the voice comes from afar, and can either lead a person to holiness or evil.

It’s not schizophrenic in that the voices are inner voices and not audible. The voices, I believe, are ‘normal,’ and I believe exists within us all.

Where do these inner voices come from?

We have several thought processes within our mind at any time.

Only our higher mind (superego?) is aware of all of them.

Blessed Triduum, ICXC NIKA

 

[meltzerboy]

Sometimes the voice is good, other time it’s evil. It was especially strong when I used to watch porn, and was forcing me to become a homosexual. I can’t help but feel that the voice comes from afar, and can either lead a person to holiness or evil.

It’s not schizophrenic in that the voices are inner voices and not audible. The voices, I believe, are ‘normal,’ and I believe exists within us all.

Where do these inner voices come from?

They come from your own mind, Robert.

 

[St_Francis]

There are three sources of temptation: our selves, the world, and the demons.

The demons can affect our imaginations to a limited extent. But we can also have a sort of conversation with ourselves, in which case it can be like this (metaphor): our conscience on one side and our concupiscence on the other (like the angel and the devil in different shoulders in old cartoons). And the more we listen to our concupiscence, the louder its voice gets and the quieter the voice of our conscience becomes.

If you continue to have trouble with the voices, talk with a priest who gives good spiritual direction.

 

[ProdglArchitect]

The voices in my head are the personifications of my desires. Certain of them, as with you, have strong sexual connotations and plague me to look at porn. Other are the desire for a Catholic world, which drive me to anger at non-Catholics. Others are the desire for a simpler reality, one in which there is no God, nothing to worry about, we die and that’s it. This is not a comforting voice, I find all those thoughts to be very discomforting; it is the voice that fuels my doubts. And then there is the Catholic voice, the one that tells me to go to mass, to go to confession, to pray before sleep. This voice sat quietly for a long time until I was ready to listen to it again, now it is highly active and working to overcome the others.

All of this is within my mind, as are your voices. They are the manifestation of your wants, desires, hopes, dreams and fears. Your brain gives them a persona and a voice so that it can work through them, after all, debate is the best way to test a conclusion.

I am, however, convinced that my catholic voice is at least influenced by God and the Holy Spirit. it is within me, and it is from me, but it is driven by God and his pull on me. Similarly, while I do think the negative voices are from within me, I believe they experience the same pull from Satan.

 

[Robert_Sock]

They come from your own mind, Robert.

So neither God nor Satan speaks to us through our own inner voices?.

 

[meltzerboy]

So neither God nor Satan speaks to us through our own inner voices?.

I believe G-d may speak to us but not Satan.

 

[JohnTomHoc]

I always think of “The Flintstones” when a little devil Fred Flintstone would appear on one should & a little angel Fred Flintstone on the other.

“Everyone is prompted & carried away by his own sin” – the “voices” are simply expressions of our own will, “Wow, cool!” “Oh, sick!”

God alone has direct access to our thoughts; devils do not except in cases of possession.

 

[Ceil-1]

What makes you so sure it is not Schizophrenic in origin? Inner voices are typically psychosis and should be treated as such. Take care of yourself. Why suffer like that? Take the bull by the horns and get a handle on those things.

 

[Robert_Sock]

What makes you so sure it is not Schizophrenic in origin? Inner voices are typically psychosis and should be treated as such. Take care of yourself. Why suffer like that? Take the bull by the horns and get a handle on those things.

My psychiatrist told me the these types of inner voices are OK, and that it is auditory voices that reflect psychosis.

 

[triumphguy]

Sometimes the voice is good, other time it’s evil. It was especially strong when I used to watch porn, and was forcing me to become a homosexual. I can’t help but feel that the voice comes from afar, and can either lead a person to holiness or evil.

It’s not schizophrenic in that the voices are inner voices and not audible. The voices, I believe, are ‘normal,’ and I believe exists within us all.

Where do these inner voices come from?

I thought you were the pyschologist

 

[Robert_Sock]

I thought you were the pyschologist

I threw all my degrees away, quit psychology, and became a devout Catholic.

 

[triumphguy]

I threw all my degrees away, quit psychology, and became a devout Catholic.

Is it really so antithetical?
I know priests who are psychologists.

 

[Robert_Sock]

I believe G-d may speak to us but not Satan.

I don’t remember the Tanya ever speaking about Satan, but Chabad does talk about ‘the Spirit of Folly’ that enters us and torments us.

 

[Robert_Sock]

Is it really so antithetical?
I know priests who are psychologists.

I believe psychologists make great observations, but provide poor explanations. Yes, a fair number of priests study psychology, but I found it lacking in true LOVE.

 

[triumphguy]

I believe psychologists make great observations, but provide poor explanations. Yes, a fair number of priests study psychology, but I found it lacking in true LOVE.

So having both studied, and rejected, psychology, what/who do you think the voices are?

Personally, I think it’s just the reflected (and reflected upon) self.

 

[Robert_Sock]

So having both studied, and rejected, psychology, what/who do you think the voices are?

Personally, I think it’s just the reflected (and reflected upon) self.

I believe the voices come from afar, to guide or torment me, by way of good and evil spirits.

 

[Love4All]

I believe the voices come from afar, to guide or torment me, by way of good and evil spirits.

Jung made a differentiation between mind and psyche, and he called the psyche the mind taken together with all the influences on the mind.

Looked at in this way, the psyche can be considered to include both angels and demons, that regularly influence our thought.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola gave an important means of discerning the spirits. He said that we must examine the thought carefully, in its beginning, all through its middle, and in its end. He said that if the thought comes from a good spirit, it will be good in the beginning, all through the middle, and in the end. If not, then it did not come from a good spirit or from God.

I think we all experience angels’ and demons’ influence on a daily basis, but we are so used to it we don’t think of it as out of the ordinary. It is, in fact, the ordinary functioning of our psyches.

I see God’s influence as slightly different from the angels and demons, in that we have in us an aspiration to seek God, which comes from God, and that is part of the way God guides our thoughts. So that, there is the striving within my own spirit, to seek the truth, to seek love, and that is a big part of God’s influence on my actions, in addition to my thoughts.

Sometimes I experience myself asking myself something, and it seems to me I am asking my brain for the answer, the way we sort of (most of us) used to think about computers before we became more familiar with them — more like HAL or the computer on the bridge of Star Trek. They would ask the computer a question and the computer would come back with the answer. I find my brain works very well in this way, I can ask it a question and listen for the immediate answer, and on further investigation it is more often than not right. I find it quite useful and amazing, actually. It is as if my brain already knows how to process the question, and if I get my ego out of the way, my brain does its thing very quickly without me having to help it. What is normally called discursive thought is cumbersome in comparison.