Your Internal Monologue

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My entire post was directed at Poke but you got a reply before me so it looked like I was replying to you, I guess. Sorry!

I spoke in sentences at 13 months and I think visually, but not in words. It may be true for some but I suspect not all.

On the other hand, if I want to "think in words" I can manage it by talking out loud, which is actually - from Barkley's description - a partially but not fully developed inner monologue. I can also do it by writing. What I can't do is just think quietly to myself.

I do something like this

Please don't misunderstand my comments on Temple Grandin, I KNOW she is HFA and I don't have the desire to question that diagnosis. To be more exact in my confusion regarding her capacity to visualize, I had gotten to the point where I thought the presence of visual, as opposed to verbal thinking, was the trait more associable with Autism disorders. Now I'm seeing that it's the lack of visual thinking that is more likely to be associated with Autism. Which makes more sense, I read somewhere that blindness creates autistic symptomatology as well as a higher risk of a de facto autism diagnosis (now don't quote me on the last sentence, I don't have the reference available).

Regarding your last question Verdandi, "Do you mean spontaneously see images or do you mean concentrating on visualizing?". When I close my eyes, I see nothing but black. As I said elsewhere, the 'visualization' I do get internally is more like a 'feeling' of an image. I can conjure up visual memories and reexperience them through a mental 'touch' process, something I've come to feel must be similar to a blind person's efforts to 'see' an object by touching it with their hands, except that I 'touch' my memories with an internal tactilization.

I didn't think you were saying she wasn't autistic, but I wasn't sure where you were going with right brain comments. It seems to me from what people say here that there's a diverse number of ways to think.



That sounds very similar to how Donna Williams would perceive objects before she got her Irlen lenses. She wasn't blind, but she was effectively blind because she couldn't process what she was seeing as a complete object, only as parts. Also, "meaning blindness" or visual agnosia.

I think with both pictures and words. Sometimes people hassle me when I use large words in my speech like I do in my mind. They think I am trying to be smarter then I actually am.

Yes, as usual Verdandi, you are right. There are diverse ways of thinking when effected by Autism Spectrum Disorders, both visual and verbal thinking are manifested by individuals on the spectrum.

I clearly am a verbal thinker, with little or no visual thinking capacity. It is frustrating to find out that very few people are so afflicted and that I am one of the lucky few (it appears that only 3% of the population have ZERO visual thinking capacity).

It's funny, there is so much that's similar between NVLD and ASDs that I am amazed that NVLD isn't put 'on the spectrum' with the other disorders. There are some symptom differences, but it doesn't take a professor to figure out that NVLD, Aspergers and HFA are practically identical. I wonder if there will be an effort to absorb NVLD into Autism, in much the same way Aspergers has been?

I have no idea.

I have been talking to someone who has NVLD, ADHD, depression, and anxiety (very similar to what I have, except I have AS), and we have been identifying differences - like how each of us respectively thinks and copes with spatial relationships and the like.

That said, we have a lot in common with social functioning. I don't think he has the sensory stuff I have, though.

Autistic behavior can be the result of a wide variety of brain "conditions", so wide that what appear to be completely opposite brain issues--say, a person that has a massive lesion on their left hemisphere but a super-thick corpus callosum vs. a person with a massive lesion on their right hemisphere and a very weak corpus callosum--can result in behaviors we call "autism". Perhaps person #1 has outstanding visualization ability, while #2 has none. This doesn't change the fact that both of these people likely have trouble behaving normally. So, on a superficial level, we might talk about these people as if they have opposite conditions, but from the more comprehensive viewpoint of "autism" they're merely two people whose brains are so __________ that you can tell just by observing them.

You might find this video interesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCYHsL-9tLY

It's titled, Social Emotional Learning Disorders, but I think a better title would be The Continuing Struggle to Established a Definitive Right-Hemisphere Symptomatology.

I'm hyperlexic. I take 500 words to think what boils down to "I have an itch"

You just reminded me of anbuend's ent metaphor in my thread about excessive explanations.

I've been frustrated lately because I can't get my 500 words out as much as I'd like.

I seem to have monologues with myself commonly. As for thinking in pictures, I happen to do that also, but rarely.

my major interest is Jungian psychology and not least dream analysis. i had a dream several years ago where i saw a gigantic strange being. about 20 - 30ft (5 - 10m) long .. whale-size .. black .. shaped like a slug only with a gigantic mouth like that of a great white shark. scary. no eyes. i was petrified. but realised somehow i had to touch it. i did and the most wonderful intense sense of well-being spread inside me. warmth and joy.

i had to accept the giant slug-whale-leech was in fact me. and i wanted to be held. and if i did all would be well.

as this touches upon inner monologue in my case .. my understanding is that .. i need quiet on the inside. but i will easily babble a lot in there. though my understanding is ever more that that babbling is simply an effort to drain out the outer overwhelming sensory stuff. so i cover my ears and stim a lot and then gradually im calmed and silence returns. meditation helps too!

and these days i also feel a great need to image myself holding a cat or a dog or some such friendly animal. .. normally ony when i feel the warmth and realness of that animal will i be really happy.

to my mind that is analog to the dream with the giant leech thing. it is real deep me wanting to be held. and once it feels held it is happy and silent and calm. visualizing myself holding the cat or dog seems to function like holding or touching that leech-being in the dream. inner monologue ends

I talk to myself in my head all the time, i can get quite annoying when the voice won't shut up.

That's how my internal monologues play out as well.

I have an inner monologue near constantly, except when playing games. I guess if I don't have something to concentrate on I think instead. Mind will just go on and on, non-stop, over every topic imaginable.

Looking up that NLD (nonverbal learning disorder) well I dunno if that applies to me. Still reading it. However I can say that I am terribly poor at visualisation, as such atrocious at any sort of "creative" art. I do some drawing but the things I draw are based off rules. I guess you could say the drawings are procedural, in a way. I am also hopeless at recalling things, especially visual, without some sort of trigger.
Saw this on the wikipedia page:

fits me perfectly.

In any case if I was as smart, confident, socially aware and in control as I was in my inner monologue "playing through possible scenarios" thoughts, my life would just be so much easier...

I'm always thinking. The voice in my head rarely ever takes breaks. I also tend to think visually a lot to. Even when I hear words, I *see* the word. When people use metaphors, I see the metaphor, even if I understand it I still default to a literal visual interpretation. Having a near constant inner voice though is very tiring and becomes rather distracting. Not really a good thing, imo. Especially when I get music or entire songs stuck in my head, playing on repeat even when I'm trying to sleep. Sometimes it will go for days on end and even for weeks until the tune/song finally stops coming back.