How Do I Know the Voice in My Head Is Me? Agency, Ownership and Source Attribution Across Inner Speech and Voice-Hearing

Abstract

How do we recognise the voice in our head as our own, and what changes when it feels as though someone else is speaking? This conceptual paper explores the relationship between inner speech, auditory imagery, dreaming and voice-hearing, drawing on neuroscience, psychology and philosophy of mind. It examines how agency, ownership, speaker identity and source attribution contribute to our experience of internal voices, and why these features do not always occur together. The paper invites a closer examination of how the mind distinguishes its own thoughts from the apparent voices of others, questioning whether experiences that seem fundamentally different might reveal shared processes. By exploring these connections, it considers new directions for understanding the relationship between perception, consciousness and the sense of self.