Question for NTs about how you think

Post Reply New Topic

Are there more nonautistic people around who can say things to this please?

I can give my opinion, the trouble is I can't really say that I'm an aspie or not..

My memories and thought processes are pretty visual. I can picture things quite easily and mental graphing is how I often get to the results in some mathematical estimations.

HOWEVER the inner voice is there and always there and drives me potty. If my inner voice got out that way, perhaps I'd be more socially adept. It's the inner voice that is intellectually working out what people are thinking and what I should say, unfortunately this operates far too slowly to keep up with life, particularly as more sensory data is being processed.

The only times it silences I'm intensely engaged in an interest OR when I'm doing what I now understand to be stimming.

Jason

Wow, this thread is so interesting.

I did not know about this internal narration until yesterday. I did not know that daydreams and memories could have narrations or that people could have narrations accompanying their everyday activities. In my mind, it is silent unless I purposefully think about things in words. There is a specific feeling that goes along with thinking about things in words, like the tightening of a blood pressure cuff around my arm, and when I stop purposefully thinking this way, it is like the blood pressure cuff relaxes, and my arm and mind go back to their normal states. There is no hint of an automatic narration in my mind, and I had assumed that this was how it was for everyone. Oops.

This internal narration, especially prevalent during daydreams and mundane activities, sounds to me like a manifestation of the "default network" or "task-negative network", the pattern of brain activation that is identifiable in functional MRI when the brain is not doing anything in particular. During tasks, the task-positive network, a different pattern of brain activation, operates. Studies have shown that the default network is hypoactivated in autistic people compared to neurotypical people. One study investigating the default network in neurotypical people even asked the participants what they thought about while they were in the MRI after they had gotten out of the MRI, and most of the thinkings were about the everyday things that they had to do that day and their plans for the near future, like the coming weekend. All the examples of the thinkings were in words, just like this internal narration, e.g. "I have to do pick up the dry-cleaning on my way home from work".

I asked on a small TV fandom forum whether people thought like this. I have only got two responses so far, but the responses were like people here are posting about the voice that is always chattering away and themselves letting it chatter while they daydream. One of the studies about the default network said that autistic people do not daydream, because they do not have the same pattern of brain activation as neurotypical people have when they daydream, presumably using this internal narration, but I think that the study went too far with its conclusions. Autistic people do daydream, but perhaps not using this internal narration, so it is highly unlikely that they would have the pattern of brain activation of the default network while they are in the MRI. I know that I daydream a lot, but not in words, but in sensory experiences through all my senses. But some autistic people probably daydream in words too.

I just asked my mother (NT) about this, and she said that she has this internal narration too. She says that she uses the voice to plan tasks, like when she is cooking, the voice says, "I am doing X, then I am going to do Y, then I am going to do Z".

Yes! Nicely put.

This is obviously related to the odd notion that autistics don't daydream (whence did that originate?). I'm suddenly very interested in what else it may explain.

That makes so much sense! I read enormous amounts from the minute I learned to read (which my Mom says was not long after I learned to talk, although it was just simple nouns at that age). I still read lots. I tried writing but ironically was absolutely terrible at it. I should have become an editor, the perfect job for people who read voraciously but can't write. But that might have killed the fun. It makes sense that immersing yourself in narration will create the mental habit of narration.

I've asked a few normaly people and they say the same sort of thing. That actually sounds like a useful application of verbal thought. It seems to have purpose.

I guess the other point I've overlooked is that when the thoughts are running away with me, it's often replaced my music, film dialogue, memories etc. etc. which then have some helpful observations over the top, particularly with old memories.

It's a shame we can't record our thinking for a minute, then re-play and write objectively about it. Thinking about how we think, changes our thoughts. On that note, I now have a fantastic headache, time for a glass of wine.

Jason

Congratulations.

@jannisy interesting idea about the reading. I do read a lot, perhaps that explains some of it.

Side question for you then, are you pretty much compelled to read everything, street-signs, flyers, posters, road markings, number plates, door numbers and so on? Not just once, but every time you see it? On further thought, this contributes a lot to my internal verbal rattling.

Jason.

When I do science experiments, I never have a narration of what I am doing or what I am going to do. Instead, I play little videos of what I am going to do. I play the videos from both third-person and first-person perspectives, so I can really get familiar with the steps before I do them. I play these obsessively, because otherwise, I will screw up. From the outside, I see myself upending a sep funnel back and forth and turning the stopcock to release the gas, and from the inside, the video comes with the feeling of the glass funnel in my hand and the sound of the gas release and the bright lights of the fume hood and the sound of the fume hood blowing and the coldness of the lab and the texture of the gloves on my hands and the texture of the lab coat through the gloves and the nasty smell of the chemicals even though they are in the fume hood they still smell nasty or possibly good depending on the chemical and the feel of the slightly slippery floor under my feet and the grinding of a piece of a glass pipet that I dropped earlier under my heel and the goggles they feel heavy and confining on my face and the view through them lacks sharpness and there is a smudge here and a line there, etc etc etc, and there are no words while I am playing this sensory experience. It feels natural and effortless to play this sensory experience, like I am doing it for real, and not the same as the feeling when I think of things in words on purpose. This video or sensory experience seems like what athletes do when they visualize one of their athletic moves, like a gymnast visualizing her performance on a balance beam. It is called visualization, but not at all limited to visualizing, but much more of a full sensory experience, like you are doing the move with your body.

YES!! I am absolutely compelled to read every single scrap of text that passes in front of my eyes: street signs, flyers, posters etc. In the shower I read the shampoo bottle over and over again. It's madness! Or actually I guess it's a compulsion. And that 24/7 immersion in text no doubt keeps the inner narrative going.

I mean 24/7 immersion in text almost literally. I have had many dreams that included text that I read. But although I could read it in the dream, I could never remember what it said when I woke up, even if I remembered all other parts of the dream. I also have no idea if the narrative voice is still going while I'm dreaming. It's going when I wake up and remember the dream and it narrates my memory of the dream. I just don't know if it's talking when I'm dreaming or if it just talks when I wake up and remember the dream. What is your experience with dreams? Do you read dream text and can you understand it or remember it? Does the narrative voice speak or is that just when awake?

Wow, this is so interesting too.

I see these signs with words on them everywhere in any city, and I see the words and numbers as shapes and textures.

And I cannot even imagine narration of dreams after I wake up. I feel like I am not organized enough in my thinking after just waking up to be able to compose an internal narration of my dream. These voice must be operating effortlessly to be narrating dreams right after you wake up. After I wake up, I just replay the dream and the feelings of the dream. I seem to have very strong feelings in dreams, stronger than in real life.

I read text in dreams too. Sometimes I remember what it said, and other times I don't. I have read entire books in dreams, and then woke up having no idea what it said.

I read the shampoo bottle in the shower too! I read anything that has text on it. I don't know how a person could look at words and NOT read them. It seems utterly impossible to me.

It is like seeing a picture of a cat or dog or tree. The word is a shape that I do not automatically process into language. The brand name of the shampoo is just a purrrty picture. The paragraph with the direction is just another picture with more stuff in it.

Here is a question: When learning about an unfamiliar topic and reading unfamiliar terminology, e.g. the parts of the brain in neuroscience terminology like superior temporal gyrus and anterior commissure and locus coerulus (cannot spell this), do your eyes just pass over the terms and see them as a picture unit and you never subvocalize them or hear them in your mind? I find that it is exhausting for me to subvocalize such strings of words, so I just chunk them together as that picture and that other picture, not pictures of the parts of the brain, but the pictures of the words themselves. Once I learn eggsacly what part of the brain these pictures refer to, then they are replaced by the picture of the part of the brain instead of the picture of the words.

Shizuoka, I now want to create a poll that cross references Aspergers, Autism, PDD-NOS, undiagnosed, or NT with hyperlexia or dyslexia and the presence of a internal monologue and the vividness of imagery and age and sex and a bunch of other stuff, but that poll would have WAY too many options.

No, I immediately start trying to sound those words out in my head. And I probably do it the wrong way, as I am notorious for mispronouncing words. But I still have to sound them out.

When I read the shampoo bottle, I don't just read the English, I try to read the second language on it too. Mine has French on it so I spend half my shower sounding out the French words.

I don't know if I'm an NT. I think in words and pictures/videos and I remember in videos (I also daydream in videos). My inner voice is speaking most of the time but isn't always a narration, sometimes I'm just discussing with my self. I'm not my inner voice, I can shut it up if I want and I still exists, I'm not the thoughts, I'm the thinker. I think I know why is difficult to turn it off, when people try to shut it up they are thinking "shut up, shut up, don't think" but you don't do this when you are talking to someone and you want to stop, you don't say "silence, silence, shut up" you just stop making sounds, that is what you must do with your mind, just stop thinking.
I don't need to narrate what I see to see it, I also don't need to say what I'm going to do to do it, but I still need my inner voice for reading but according to the photoreading tecnique is not necesary(according to that tecnique the inner voice slows you).
Sometimes when I stay awake for too many time my verbal thinking goes out of control, my inner voice talks very fast, it's like having a speed up conversation, when I answer myself or I say "shut up" out loud I know it's time to sleep , the same happens sometimes when I've just waken up, the voice is in the background but it can be annoying.

Regarding pictures, I have pictures for some abstract concepts like the days of the week and the months and when I'm solving a programming problem I visualize diagrams and then traslate it into code, I also think some pictures during conversations, sometimes I wish I had a mental projector to show what I'm "seeing", I try to explain myself with words and hand movements like pointing an hologram and it doesn't always work.

I feel there is something behind/before the thoughts, I wonder why do we need to traslate them into pictures/words to understand them, I often find myself explaining things to me, if I'm explaining something I'm supposed to know it but I don't know it until I explain it...

I do it too xD