I had no idea I had been baptised by the Holy Spirit, I thought I never had been, it wasn't until a few years ago I was at a weekend long seminar on Gifts of Holy Spirit run by my church, I had to be there to work the laptop and look after the recording of the weekend. I thought I have never been baptised by HOly SPirit, we had a section which dealt with reasons why people are sometimes not baptised by Holy Spirit, at end I stood up to be one of the handful of people who felt they had not, having gone through all the prayers dealing with soul ties, generational curses and so on.
Come time to sit down, everything went black for a few seconds, I was then shown an event which happened in my late teens when I took communion for the first time, I had this rush it was like standing under a shower everthing turned bright for a few seconds, made my hairs stand on end I felt amazingly good, I forgot about that moment and when it happened I just thought it was something spiritual, but had no idea what. I then knew what it was! I felt kind of cheated that I did not know this, had I know it then maybe I would have taken a different path.
However I ended up speaking to the chap running the seminar and told him, He asked had I tried speaking in tongues I said no never, so he just put his hand on my head and told me to do it.
I looked at him like a rabbit caught in headlights, I said "Really?" I have no idea how this is going to work or what to do, sure I heard others saying things, but I had no idea how this would work.
Eventually I just began to speak, I had no idea what was going to come out, I made sounds similar to what I heard , in back of my mind I am thinking, "is this really Holy Spirit at work or is it just me subconsciously making noises that I have heard, I was encouraged to continue and as time ticked on I became more confident, the words just flew out. After a few minutes I was told I had a strange accent! He said it was unusual but most definitely 100% from Holy Spirit! should point out that the chap in question had this gifting of teaching about gifts and discernment of them and discernment over things being from God or Satan.
I still think its rather strange how it works, I have no idea what is going to come out sound wise, but then I look at it in the following way. When we speak fluently in our own langauge going full flow in conversation with someone, are we aware of what each word is going to be before it comes out of our mouth? No, subconsciously the brain knows, if we slowed everything down then yes we could be aware of each word in a fluid conversation before it comes out of our mouths, but ranting on full speed about something, we are not aware of each word that is queued up in our minds ready to come out.
If someone is fluent in more than one langauge, the same applies, there maybe a slight concious adjustment to tell the brain that langauge is being switched to another one, but then speaking at full pace we have no idea of the next words forming until they are literly on our lips. Children who are bi-lingual even mix the two langauges up without knowing.
So it is when talking in tongues, When I am prompted to do so, such as pray over a situation or person, or I just want to singing some praise in tongues or whatever, I just say ok I am going to speak in toungues, then instead of the words being placed in the subconscious of the brain from my own soul and spirit, they are placed there by the Holy Spirit.
Just to clear this up a bit more, If you are excited over an event, you just got a new job or something, you know that you are going to tell people about this event, but you do not plan out how you are going to tell them or what you are going to say, it just comes out.
Same with people playing improvised on their instrument, just get in a little special place and play, often what comes out takes people by surprise they never thought about it, it just happened.
That is how it is with tongues as a prayer/ praise thing, I just want to talk in it so I do, but it is Holy Spirit who comes up with the stuff, not my own spirit.