Yeah, my inner monologue sometimes feels like I'm driving it, and sometimes I am definitely definitely not driving it. I don't know if it's "my voice" or not, it's just... the the thing in my mind that outputs (silent) language.

And yeah, I can have conversations with the voice. Yeah, it can help to focus moving my thinking forwards on some problem-solving thing. But, alas, often when I'm doing that it just starts saying obviously-silly things, as if it's a Markov model. Sentences that might sound structurally reasonable but that are obviously not what I meant to say/think, and obviously not true.

But it almost never interferes with reading. Reading is too compelling. Even if my thoughts go off in some other direction while reading and I do the "just read a page but absorbed nothing" thing, there's no voice involved then, it feels like a different process.