Having to listen to or watch your thoughts...

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Thanks, Exclavius.

There's also more on this, where actually people with schizophrenia have an exacerbated "sense of the arbitrariness and inadequacy of words" (q.v. the link in the post where I originally quoted Artaud). Again, this is in reference to schizophrenia. Here's what Artaud had said:

Though there's a lot here, I know it's also pretty common for autistic people to mull over their use of words, which I think you mentioned as well, in terms of "The real problem is... that once vocalized, the precision and conciseness of the thought has been degraded due to the restrictions of language." That expresses a "sense of the arbitrariness and inadequacy of words," that difficulty converting the internal experience into the expression.

Of course, what I've discussed here is a bit different than what I mentioned in my OP. Do people with schizophrenia have to work in both directions I wonder? Also, don't autistic people sometimes mull over the words, the symbols, themselves?

Of course, this gets away from the "having to hear or watch your thoughts to know what you're thinking."

Last edited by beneficii on 16 Nov 2013, 7:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think I can solve this riddle. Looking at the section where Sass discusses a kind of hyper-focus on the relationship between the content and the expression and also in other areas of his work where things like perplexity and loss of natural evidence encourages such hyper-focus and obsessive rumination, as part of hyperreflectivity, where you have a tendency to think very explicitly about stuff--nothing simply passes by your mind and you lack that instantaneous forgetting Artaud discussed--I think it's kinda clear what goes on as a person develops schizophrenia:

Basically, the person begins having difficulty translating their inner experience into the expression, perhaps with a lack of correspondence within the inner experiences as well, coming to consider words as arbitrary and inadequate. The person starts to obsess over this, that is, they start to reflect excessively on the words themselves, which is hyperreflectivity. To compensate for their newfound difficulty, they begin to reflect very strongly on how their thoughts would translate into words, resulting in the situation discussed in the OP.

Of course, this looks mighty similar to what happens in autism as well, with the exception of age of onset--basically, autistic kids have this problem from the very start. Since they always had the issue, they may be less obsessed over it, but I believe a fair number of autistic people who spend a lot of time rehearsing conversations, which I think starts to come into the purview of what was discussed in the OP. Now there is the question of the correspondence in the inner experience, if that is affected in autism as well.

After seeing the last post, I think what was really going on was that I started to have thoughts in which I knew I was thinking, but didn't actually know what I was thinking about. I started reflecting on what those thoughts were, and I think that actually did help minimize the problem. However, I still need to think a little to know what I'm thinking about.

Starting reflecting on what those thoughts were help to keep you from having to reflect on them?

That didn't actually keep me from having to reflect on them; it was just that with practice, it became easier to figure out what I was thinking about when I reflected on those thoughts.

This is what i've described in the past as "Letting your conscious mind sit back and watch your unconscious mind think for a bit" It does take conscious thinking to monitor, and to translate "unconscious thought" into "conscious thought" If you find yourself converting it then into words/symbols you often lose track of what your unconscious is thinking ...
You can control what your unconscious is thinking about too. Doing this is more and more the only way I have left to figure out how i "Feel" about things.

in response to beneficii's reply...
I gotta really think about what I just read, and dig a bit more online. I've questioned in my past whether I was ASD or schizophrenic or even just a sociopath (i've ruled out the later, I live as one, and by choice, because ASD (and life in general) are easier to cope with as a sociopath than not)

That inability to "translate the inner experience into expression"
I have learned and continue to learn more each day how to translate my THOUGHTS into expression, but it doesn't come easy.
But if you don't learn that, then you don't survive, or at least can't strive.
However not being able to translate EMOTIONS into expression isn't a sink or swim issue. I guess it is socially, but the world isn't QUITE yet to the point where you have to strive socially to prosper.
Given how hard it is to make those translations... it isn't worth the effort to me.

Okay.. i must schedule a good block of time for brain watching on this idea.

Exclavius,

First, a warning. Spending a lot of time watching yourself can actually transform your experience of yourself and the world, so keep that in mind. Look at this article for more information:

http://www.academia.edu/3794218/Introsp ... xperiences

It's kinda like that thing in quantum physics where merely observing a certain thing can cause its state to change.

Also, regarding schizophrenia and ASD, if you've not had psychosis and your autistic symptoms go back to before or around Kindergarten, then you do not have schizophrenia by definition.

The purpose of this thread was to look at some striking similarities I noticed between schizophrenia and ASD.

Ja. I see what you're saying now and I do the same thing.

There have been many introspective activities I have done willingly, but reflecting about what my thoughts were was not something I intended on doing. I mainly did it because I had to.