When I experience conscious thought, it is mostly in words (I am making a big exception for the type of conscious thought that accompanies hitting my thumb accidentally with a hammer). When I remember my dreams, for the most part, it seems to me that those remembered dreams included words. There is an old French movie L’Enfant Sauvage, directed by Francois Truffaut about a child who somehow survives in the wild to grow up without words. In the movie, the child clearly thinks. There is good scientific evidence that the Great Apes think without words. I believe my dogs think…without words. And yet, I can’t imagine my own conscious experience without the internal narrative of language. Why is that? Is it just our own species-specific experience of conscious thought that requires language?
Do I need words to think?
Jim
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Discoverers and Discoveries 
After my blogpost, I thought about just what you write about. In fact, I did an experiment, as I was walking up my street to catch the bus. I was able to rid my consciousness of all words (with difficulty for perhaps 5 seconds at a time). So perhaps musicians and others have been trained at this particular skill.Jim
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Imagine composing a symphony or playing an instrument in your head. Do you consider music or sounds as words? Imagine improvising a choreography or having the idea for a new painting. Do you really need words to generate ideas on <>sensations<> or <>emotions<>?As a matter of fact, when I practice the violin, I try to be as conscious as possible of the sound I produce and of my sensations, but to shut off my verbal chatter…I am probably terribly naive, but it seems to me that, in their very essence, the examples above are purely non-verbal thoughts, yet they are conscious. I would be curious to have your…verbal thoughts on this 😉
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