I found this website where you can see some of the research done on inner experience. I don't know if it's the same researcher mentioned in the session, but it seems pretty similar to what was discussed regarding inner speech:
Dr. Hurlburt is Professor of Psychology and author of books on inner experience and statistics
hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu
I haven't read all of it yet, but it seems to me that what the woman in the video posted before relates is close to what they describe as the experience of those who don't have inner speech.
Here's a simple summary of what this researcher found:
Do You Have an Internal Dialogue? Not Everyone Does
It seems that researchers don't know why this happens but there's a theory I read somewhere (I can't find the article now but will do my best to find it again). They say that inner speech lights up some prefrontal cortex areas of the brain along with the auditory parts of the brain without engaging the motor parts of the brain that would be used to speak, and the theory is that people who can't speak to themselves internally can't use that prefrontal cortex area and auditory area without engaging the motor area. Well, something along those lines.
For me, if we focus only on inner speech it become a bit more confusing than perhaps talking about it in terms of what Joe asked in the session about having an observer:
(Ryan) Laura, would it be relevant to ask the question: What is the primary difference between the inner experience of an OP and a souled person?
(Joe) It's a bit general.
(L) Yeah. I don't know if you can... I mean, maybe we just got the clue from the previous question, which was the inner monologue maybe. Is that our clue to the primary difference between the inner landscape of an OP and a souled person?
A: Yes
Q: (Joe) Is it more or less the ability to kind of see yourself to have an observer in a certain sense?
A: Yes
Q: (L) Because the inner speech kind of denotes an observer. You're talking to yourself or that one part of you is talking to some other part of you.
(Andromeda) But can OPs do that to any extent as well?
A: No
I thought that was pretty interesting, the mention os parts of ourselves, and it makes me think of Gurdjieff's 'little Is' concept and how the idea was to get a butler to organize those little Is (servants) in the house so that the Master (soul) could arrive. Perhaps the butler is the first observer until the Master arrives?
I've been studying about Internal Family System (IFS) which is a model of psychotherapy that I thought was interesting because it brings up the subject of inner parts and how they sort of take over by blending with the self (which is the core essence for them) and the whole therapy revolves around un-blending self from these (often childish) parts and increasing what they call self-leadership in the internal system. That's a very short summary and they aren't the only ones to work with this 'inner parts' concept and perhaps they're model isn't 100% accurate but I just thought it is very interesting.
Now, the reason I bring it up is that, in one of my trainings they showed a video of a person who has DID as the therapist was trying to work with her using this type of therapy, and the main difference with her is that there seems to be no Self, that is, the therapist mostly needs to talk directly with the 'parts' but then there's no observer that kind of knows what is happening or what the conversation was. That made me think of what the Cs said about Dissociative Identity Disorder:
(L) Next question: As you know, we've been having (a discussion about MPD /DID in reference to a particular individual). My question is, what makes a person susceptible to MPD? Let me rephrase that: Are some people more susceptible to splitting than others?
A: Yes
Q: (L) What would make a person more susceptible?
A: Being an organic portal.
Q: (L) Okay. is an individual - an OP - less likely to recover, or is it more difficult for them to recover?
A: Yes. Almost impossible. Also be aware that some individuals are actually born with many divisions in their makeup.
Q: (L) Does that mean that _______ is possibly an OP?
A: We hesitated to make such a pronouncement, but since we see that you have such suspicion, then we can confirm it.
Q: (L) Why not just say, "yes"? (laughter and discussion about C's "legalese" answer)
(L) Alright, how many alters or different personalities does ______ actually have?
A: Seven dominant and many temporaries that are born and die frequently.
Q: (A***) Is she aware of all these personalities? (Ark) Which "she"? (laughter)
A: Several are aware of the others but a couple think they are the only ones.
Q: (A****) Do we communicate mainly with one or two or all of them?
A: You have encountered four.
Q: (L) More than enough for me. (A***) Do they have different names for themselves?
A: Some do.
Q: (L) Okay, can multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder be induced in a souled individual or one who is potentially souled?
A: Yes, but it is extremely difficult.
Q: (S) Does that mean that all these programmed assassins are all OPs or something?
A: Most likely.
Q: (DD) (audio too faint but referring to inducing MPD in souled individuals.)
A: Very difficult.
So, first, let me highlight that according to that, souled individuals CAN develop DID too, so let's not just conclude that all who have DID are OPs. The purpose is more to understand the dynamics and differences.
For me, that's interesting in light of what I've been researching about IFS because, when using that model, what is believed to 'heal' is the ability to bring up the 'Self' and have the self be aware of the inner parts and increase that 'Self energy', so to speak, which for me translates to kind of like awakening and strengthening the 'inner observer' so that it can organize those 'inner parts', and for that you need an internal dialogue. And also, while studying about it, I thought that it seems to be that what they call the 'Self' has a protective influence against fragmentation too.
I still haven't got any conclusions derived from these thoughts, so these are just some ideas that came up while thinking about this inner speech stuff.
I also thought about Artificial Intelligence and how bots like ChatGPT can create pretty complex speech and yet, it too doesn't have inner speech. It is just reacting to prompts and producing an answer but it's not really thinking, just reacting, which is pretty obvious when you interact with it and you ask it to 'think' about its answer: it just says 'OK' and gives the same answer or something nonsensical.