Okay, wow. I never realized I did this until reading through this thread. How did I not know this about myself before....

My work requires that I plow through a lot of very dry non fiction stuff daily (court cases, etc.) Through 80% of that, I don't hear the internal voice. When I find something I need to focus on, extrapolate from, etc. I slow down and the monologue comes back.

When I'm reading fiction or non fiction out of interest, the monologue is always there, and in the case of fiction it's quality changes.

With fiction it's like that monologue is part of engaging with the substance of writing and language as a thing itself, not as a carrier for something else.

With non fiction being read out of interest,nthe monologue helps me slow down and more fully grasp things