Reticulating Splines vs Spoon Theory

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I have so many moments where something gets stuck on my tongue and I have to stop and try to come up with the words and during those times I see pictures. Sometimes if it's just one word I can't remember I try to picture the word written.

This book is really great - also, I like how she pointed out that animals think non verbally. Although they obviously speak verbally at least sometimes, I always wondered how they think - maybe it is in total pictures like Temple or colors like you or symbols like JSBach.

Oh there's this other thing I do - I did not know this was an Aspie thing until recently, but I do it all the time and have a hard time stopping myself. Say my boss walks up and asks me for a pen. I will repeat "Pen?" as though I didn't understand the word. Really I am just visualizing the pen. Why I have to do that when I know very well what a pen is, I have no idea.

OMG all these years I was reading it as "reticulating spleens"! After reading your article though, "splines" makes way more sense!

Well for instance my dog relies heavily on smell and hearing. I imagine that he merges incoming sense data to create a whole "picture" of what's around him. I think this is why he doesn't recognize himself (or anything moving) in a mirror. He did as a puppy, but eventually figured out that if it doesn't have a smell and 3D depth and sound, it's not real.

BTW, lots of NTs also reflect what someone asks by repeating it, even when they hear fine, as a way to acknowledge the request. All these things are a matter of degrees, and even NTs have their times of echolalia. :D

That's a good theory, combining senses to make a picture, I guess that's kind of what we do if we're walking along say and smell something out of our sight or hear something.

Ha, I have a picture of my cat on my iPad lock screen. I always put it in front of him and ask him who it is. It fascinates me that he doesn't at least know it's a cat. But you are right, smell and sound are so important to them. He is very visual though, his eyes lock into mine a lot, but then I'm moving and smelling and making noises.

(Then again, he only had one cat sister and she looked nothing like him.)

So maybe aspies and animals and babies all have thinking ways in common.

I like this thread a lot. Question:

I don't know if I'm a synesthete. Certain instruments of the orchestra will sort of make me "feel" a color, like the cellos evoking in me burgundy or indigo, or a vioin cabernet, or a flute robin-egg blue or a more velvety blue. But it's not like the color or feel is obtrusive to me. So....am I being synesthetic or am I just using my imagination?

Sometimes I pause. I often have to "re-image" and then quickly find the right word to hinge my image to the sentence I want to speak. So I have my image. Then a bunch of words will flash in it, and I'll try to pick the best one or two, I.e. "mercy," "friend," and then I will make a sentence like, "To live in God's mercy means that he calls us friends."

That sounds a little like I talk except I see pictures of things and not for every word, only if I'm struggling or doing that echo thing. A lot of times if I know I have to have a difficult conversation (which for me is something like calling a company about a bill or anything that needs detailed explanations), I will try to place myself in the conversation and visualize the whole thing before I call.

I would really like to see what you are seeing though. These shapes. Are they always the shame shape for the same word, or do they change depending on the feeling - for instance you can say "I love you," sincerely, sarcastically, casually. In those circumstances would you get the same symbol? Or are they just random symbols all the time?

the shapes look most like subatomic particles in a cyclotron. as for sarcasm, it is sort of dark green which then colors the shapes, making them sarcastic. I've never had to explain this to anyone before. It's awfully strange.

This thread and book have made me think about myself in ways that feel weird too,

Now I'm thread crossing - I finally listened to Bach's 3 whatever it was thing you told me to listen to. I can only say Bach is an acquired taste. I really like modern music, stuff I can sing along to or that tells a story, but you are way more intellectual then I am!

The reason I brought that up in this thread is, has it ever occurred to you that your internal language is somewhat like reading music? Or at least that's how I'm envisioning it from your descriptions - shapes in black and white, etc.

Hmmm. I never thought of that. There is no sound in my inner language but it is quite clearly analogical to my experience of music. Quite interesting.

You could always email the author. I've done that before and got an answer.


There have been threads on WP in the last 12 months asking how people think. It can be safely stated that most are visual, some think in words, some actualy think by smell (association to the smell of a thing), and some by sensation ect.
It brings up the question, how do blind people think? surely not visual.



I'm a design engineer. I'm pretty much a 100% visual thinker. In fact when I'm doing music practice or production, the music "sensation" for want of a better word, has a visual representation in my mind.



I blieve this is caused by cross wiring of the brain. It's one of the common traits of Aspergers.
The nerves connected to you're hearing thingies goes to the sound interpretation area of the brain, but some impulses also go to you're visual or smell centres. I've read on WP where some people smell colours, or like you, see sounds.

I don't so much see sounds, though it does happen with loud music. My mind visualises the sound into colour and textures. I think mine is slightly different.

Last edited by GregCav on 28 Oct 2013, 9:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If the colors are consistent (cellos always evoke burgundy or indigo), then it's synesthesia. If it constantly changes that aren't related to the instrument or note played, then it's not synesthesia.

Hm, in my case, the shapes are more like patterns of what I'm trying to express. They're fairly nebulous and not vivid. Sort of like those abstract desktops that come with windows, where there's a fuzzy white flowing line over a blue background with tendrils coming out. Maybe someone is talking about their relationship with someone else, and I might see that connector line, and then it reminds me of feeling the same way as the other person, and that feeling flies in as a red glob and the line changes as it is affected by the glob. The line and glob interact and learn from each other, and then maybe I think of three other things that all interact. And it's not just the shapes but words and emotions and memories and pictures and all the rest.

It's not at all like synesthesia (I also have grapheme-color synesthesia, so I can compare them), in that it's not a consistent set of symbols or shapes, and I could never create any kind of "translation" of them like I did for my letter colors. It's more like.. how all the ideas connect to one another are "impressions" before they are words. Concepts are like blobs of stuff containing all the attachments that I can drag around and connect with other blobs. It's all very unconscious, just below the surface of forced conscious thought, or "verbal" thought if you will.

This description sounds very much like my own visual thinking when I'm working on complex problems. Programming for example.

I'll go into a meditative type state. I'll have fuzzy objects (multiple) that represent known data, another one that represents unknown data, one or more that represents known methodology, another couple for unknown methodology. Each will be arranged and linked in order of required process, and I can delve into the unknown areas and figure out what data I need from where, and how I can process it to get out the desired result.

Interestingly; I did the same while writting the above paragraph.

Clearly we have different interior languages -- my language is horrible for things like programming but great for philosophy and theology and art -- anyway....
Isn't it cool to have such awesome interior languages? I mean, I used to think that everyone thought like I did but now I realize my brain is FUN! Don't you guys feel the same way?

I have a lot more comments about this book, it's thought provoking.

The one thing I can say now though is because of this book and this thread I have really come to acknowledge how much of my life has been spent in my head and I'm kind of shocked.

I know it's considered weird and self centered to live in your head, but those are some of my favorite times! I think that's why I have been totally unable to finish my book too, and I always wondered why. I think I just enjoy it so much in my head, it's like running movies. So now I have a resolution to take it out of my head and make it more concrete on paper.