Burning Beneath

I woke up again this morning the same way I often do. My mind already running before my body has even fully woken up. Voices, images, fragments of memories, plans, and songs looping endlessly inside my head.

Two songs have been stuck with me lately. One is Golden Hour. The other is an Iranian religious chant that keeps appearing in my feed. They echo over and over in my mind, sometimes quietly in the background, sometimes loud enough to shape the rhythm of my thoughts.

And as all of this was happening this morning, a question rose inside me.

Does everyone experience their mind the way I do?

I am not talking about the thoughts themselves. We all think different things. I mean the way thinking actually happens inside the mind.

For me, every moment has a voice.

There is a narrator inside my head that speaks constantly. It is my voice, yet at the same time it is not always exactly mine. It shifts. When I imagine other people, the voice begins to resemble theirs. A man, a woman, a child, even animals sometimes. The voice changes tone, character, emotion.

Alongside the voice there are vivid images. Scenes unfold like a movie. Memories, imagined futures, dreams, fantasies. Everything plays out visually.

It is like a film that never stops running.

But it is not always calm. Sometimes it is chaotic. It jumps between memories, ideas, plans, emotions, dreams. Everything at once. At times it becomes overwhelming, and I wonder if something is wrong with me.

So I became curious and asked the question.

Do other people experience their minds like this?

The answer surprised me more than I expected.

Apparently, human minds work in very different ways.

Some people have an inner voice that narrates their thoughts like mine does.

Some people have only imagery with no voice at all.

Some people think in abstract feelings or concepts rather than pictures or sound.

And some people experience moments of complete quiet in their mind.

The idea that someone can have quiet inside their head was almost shocking to me.

My mind rarely rests.

When I tried to understand where this might have come from, I began to remember my childhood. I started reading very young, around eight years old. One of the first gifts I received was a series of books about historical figures written for children. Later, a neighbor began giving me small booklets of stories from the Quran. There were thirty of them in total, but she would only give me a few at a time. When I finished them and returned them, she would give me the next ones.

I devoured them.

This was the 1980s. There was no internet, no endless television channels. The world felt much smaller and quieter than it is today.

So my imagination became my universe.

When I read, I did not just read the words. I lived inside them. I saw the scenes, heard the voices, walked through the stories. My mind created entire worlds.

Looking back now, I think that is where this ability was born.

The voice.

The images.

The endless internal movie.

It shaped the way my mind works today, and perhaps it is also what shaped the writer I am slowly becoming.

But there is another side to this as well.

Sometimes it is exhausting.

My mind does not stop. Even when I sleep, my dreams are vivid and narrated. It feels relentless at times.

Yet this same restless mind also saved me during some of the darkest moments of my life.

When things became too painful emotionally, I would go to my room, crawl under my blanket, and close my eyes. I have a weighted blanket that I heat up. The warmth and pressure calm my body.

Then I would begin drifting into the worlds I created.

They were not exactly dreams because I was fully awake. But they were not reality either. They were places my mind designed to keep me safe and happy for a little while.

For a moment, the pain would quiet down.

It was my escape.

It was almost like a medicine I created for myself.

I do not do that as often anymore. Maybe I do not need it the same way I once did. Maybe my mind and body have found other ways to carry the weight of life.

And for that I am grateful.

When I think about it now, I realize something important.

My mind may sometimes overwhelm me, but it is also my greatest tool.

It keeps me thinking.

It keeps me searching.

It keeps me creating.

And in many ways, it has kept me alive.