Do you imagine what other people might be thinking?

Post Reply New Topic

I imagine that attempting to perceive the innermost thoughts of the minds of others would lead most down the road to insanity were they to dwell on such things, but then you seem intelligent enough to guard against just such an outcome.

I'm also of the opinion that the thoughts of others are something to be enthralled and wholly enraptured by, and I will often spend time at the end of most days contemplating the curious behaviour of "normals", wondering what exactly separates us and how I can bridge the chasm that divides people like us from people like them.

But it is ultimately futile, I do not hold the answers to the questions that routinely clutter my mind, they are simply alien to me as I imagine I am alien to them. Whether this is the expected behaviour of one who inhabits a part of "the Spectrum", I cannot say, nevertheless such thoughts are at the epicentre of all that I am.

I'm drawn to the nature of the human mind, and will perhaps endeavour to undertake education in the area of psychology in order to better define the answers I am in search of, but I hold no preconceived notions of any success in doing so. I think that most of us with an ASD are seekers of a sort, always in pursuit of knowledge in order to clarify an often-times inscrutable world, and that we are ultimately doomed to perpetually fail at doing so.

I don't mean to sound so dreary, but it's the inescapable truth, at least in my opinion.

I wish i could but, I don't/ can't think of what they are thinking.

Oh gosh, people, it's not like you're REALLY trying to imagine what they're REALLY thinking, you're making it up to humor yourself. You're not going to go crazy using your imagination, I promise.

*curls pinky and extends it outwards*

Pinky promise.

Oh.

I find people others consider "normal" are self confident and don't care what people think about them, but they still wear designer clothes and care about the way they look. It's a shallow awareness, but they don't care about how people perceive them on a profound level unless it's their boss at work who can promote them or a teacher who can give them a good grade. Generally, they don't worry about how peers perceive them and when they see others do it they call them neurotic or paranoid.

I don't notice most people exhibiting self consciousness. Mostly, I've been told by NTs to not care what others think of me which gives me the impression they are not self conscious.

No. But I do try to imagine what animals think. Which concepts they understand? How do they perceive time? How do they see the world with their different senses?

Yes all the time. I will try and figure out what people are thinking when they react a certain way. I also do that with characters on TV. I also imagine my boss must think I am dumb and a liar and weird. But that is probably just my false assumption.

I had a good laugh about a car driver the other day who was honking a little too aggressively. I was looking at it from a house and
I was almost sure I knew what he was thinking!

Are you sure? I guess I have more important things to think about, as that game sounds incredibly dull.

Even it were that exciting I'd have to be far less self absorbed to do that. Except for when I need or am forced to interact with other people I never really give them a second thought. Seems like something that would require social imagination.

Mm....I don't know if it's the same with me to how you wrote it, but I'm always thinking that other people are thinking exactly what I'm thinking. Like say if somebody called my name across the street, I always think that everybody's thinking, ''oh, that stupid girl's called Jo, I will remember that, then when I next see her I will be able to use her name so I can laugh at her even better.'' Or something like that. But that might be Social Phobic thinking.

I have no idea what people you hang around but most people around my university seem pretty fearful of speaking up unless necessary in a public environment and most people are uncomfortable with public speaking and most people don't talk unless they are in a group with 1 or 2 other friends they're already comfortable with - most people in those 4-5+ person groups don't actually talk (most of the time), they're simply listening to the most dominant 2 or 3 people . I'm guessing the more extroverted, less self-conscious people are getting your attention more and giving you a false impression of the "average person"?

Of course, maybe my university is giving me a false impression of the "average person"? haha. They are mostly 22 years old and younger, so age might have something to do with it. (Teenagers are notoriously self conscious)

Well, I'm not normal, so don't take my craziness as evidence that it'd make an NT go crazy, lol.



What else do you think about when you're walking in between points of interest? I don't know about you, but I pretty much have nothing else to think about when I'm not in a contemplative mood besides what mental illness or disorder(s) I possibly have, haha.

This doesn't sound very interesting. What exactly is one supposed to get out of it?



Many many things. I usually think about fiction I'm working on or whatever it is I would rather be doing. I don't really think about what other people might be thinking as I suspect it's about as interesting to me as what I am thinking might be to them (which is to say, not very much).

And that last bit is due to experience. I learned my lesson after too many attempts to get a random stranger interested in my interests.

My theory is I live in a location where the culture revolves around loud, rowdy people who were raised to not give a damn and that's what the vast majority of people are like where I live. They are not what I would call self conscious.