Internal and External Bicameral Companions-a Continuum
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2025 2:19 pm
My assumption was that 'hearing' our own inner voice in our 'mind' is just one end of the continuum of experiencing a Bicameral Companion.
Definition of a Bicameral Companion: One part of the brain sending signals to another part that is experienced as 'hearing voices'.
Which means that anyone who has experienced 'talking to themselves' is hearing voices from a Bicameral Companion.
Which means that our ancestors, 3000 to 4000+ years ago, experienced their Bicamerial Companion(s) as hearing someone else's voice that, by cultural definition, was external and invisible to them.
This is basically what Brian McVeigh seems to be saying in his short YouTube video, at least how I perceive it.
Disentangling Inner Speech, Self-dialogue, and Auditory Hallucinations
https://youtu.be/iux258Aj7Ec?si=XRUHGAv3rRPel0EN
The upshot of all this is that if you do 'talk to yourself' and/or 'hear your own inner monologue/commentary' then you are experiencing a form of the Bicameral Mind as proposed by Julian Jaynes.
Definition of a Bicameral Companion: One part of the brain sending signals to another part that is experienced as 'hearing voices'.
Which means that anyone who has experienced 'talking to themselves' is hearing voices from a Bicameral Companion.
Which means that our ancestors, 3000 to 4000+ years ago, experienced their Bicamerial Companion(s) as hearing someone else's voice that, by cultural definition, was external and invisible to them.
This is basically what Brian McVeigh seems to be saying in his short YouTube video, at least how I perceive it.
Disentangling Inner Speech, Self-dialogue, and Auditory Hallucinations
https://youtu.be/iux258Aj7Ec?si=XRUHGAv3rRPel0EN
The upshot of all this is that if you do 'talk to yourself' and/or 'hear your own inner monologue/commentary' then you are experiencing a form of the Bicameral Mind as proposed by Julian Jaynes.