My Answer to the Question: How Do Deaf People Think?

There is this one question that people ask me when they grow comfortable enough around me. That question: "You know how hearing people usually say they have a little voice in their head when they think? How about you? How do you think?" They are usually nervous that the question would offend me. First of all, it is extremely hard to offend me. Second, that is actually a good question! I recall the first time a friend asked me that and I didn't even know how to respond because I never really thought too much about that. I just think, why question how I think?

After pondering on this issue, I am still somewhat lost. However, I will do my best to describe what it is that I "hear". I believe it is a mixture of several methods of thinking. The strongest one would be how I feel myself talking inside my head. For example, I feel my mouth moving and forming words in my head. Second biggest one would be imagery. I see and feel myself signing inside my head. Last one would be, yes . . . a little voice in my head. I know some people would wonder how can she hear a voice in her head when she doesn't even know what it is like to hear a voice? I honestly can't even explain it, since I don't completely understand it myself either. My closest comparison is that since I grew up taking speech therapy for about five years, I do understand the basic concept of how to speak. It just happens that I am not all that good at it. I also wore hearing aids until I reached the end of seventh grade, and did hear a number of sounds but I never was able to understand what exactly I was hearing. I think that with the help of speech therapy and my experiences with hearing certain sounds has somehow formed a concept of a voice and how words would sound? That's the best I can do!

I have done some research and it appears that a large number of deaf people do indeed have a voice in their head even though they have no auditory input at all. Some others sign inside their head, but I have not found any information about people feeling their mouth move but I am positive I'm not the only one. Another interesting thing I noticed while doing research is how some deaf people speak verbally in their dreams while others sign or communicate telepathically. I have done all three as well. I think most common one would be telepathy but there have been times when I wake up signing. People who have slept over at my home have heard me talking verbally in my sleep. I recall one ex boyfriend who said that he could understand what I was saying perfectly! How ironic, I speak better in my sleep than I do while awake.

It's quite mind-boggling how deaf people could form a concept of sounds while being completely deaf. But it has been shown in multiple research that they do. There are deaf schizophrenics who hear voices talking to them. The voices may however not be correct if a hearing person could hear it, but it is clearly understood by the deaf individual. The mind, indeed, works in mysterious ways.