How we think

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Any of you seen the show True Blood? The psychic girl is supposed to be reading peoples thoughts and every single time she hears them speaking inside their heads. Asking people about this it seems most people actually speak inside their heads and have the idea that this is their thoughts. I came across articles where people we trying to prove that we can think without words by referring to examples of quick thinking while they're driving. I found this pretty amusing as the only time I ever talk inside my head is if I need to hear what something will sound like before I say it. Thats very rare usually I just talk and the words come out naturally. I think its a common trait of people on the autism spectrum to think without words.

Anyhow heres something amusing to think about. If that psychic girl in True Blood read your mind what would she hear (or see, feel, smell etc.).

In my case she'd probably hear a song playing and if she heard a voice it wouldn't be my voice it'd be me remembering what someone said. If I'm thinking she would hear the sounds of things I'm thinking about as well as these weird seemingly sounds which would be completely meaningless to her unless she started "seeing" my thoughts too. Now she'd actually be able to have a bit of an idea of what I'm thinking she'd see actions that may or may not mean I'm about to do the action, she'd see objects, people, sceneries, animals etc. depending on what I'm thinking which may be memories or imagination. They're the only pictures that would make any sense to her she'd also see different coloured boxes, cubes, spheres, shapes, swirls, airwaves, patterns, distortions, bizarre non worldly sceneries, and a myriad of other things many which there are no words for. These are what I use to think of abstract, metaphysical and complex concepts. To really complicate things for her many of these objects are in motion and only make sense to me if they are moving in a certain way. To make my thoughts even more incomphrendable by an external mind theres always information attached to these images but I can't explain how I think it may be from memory. As well I attach forces like pressure, of magnetic attraction/repulsion to my mental images and I'll often attach emotions especially if I'm thinking about altered states of mind etc. Not even a psychic cryptographer could read my mind. The more I think about it the more intricacies I spot for example when I'm thinking about states of mind I'll attach this idea of "drive force" which just means the energy or drive we have when in one mindset with respect to another like for example if your being chased by a lion you'll have a lot more drive to run than if you were running a marathon. Thinking about this though I don't see the drive and I don't hear it instead I feel it as a force in my upper torso.

This is very interesting! I have lately become more aware of how I think in pictures and symbols. Especially when I can't sleep at night. I realize that after having to interact with others, all day, I am having trouble turning off "word mode" and returning to "picture mode." Once I have switched back to picture mode, I find that I can fall asleep. I also realize that the delay that happens when I am spoken to, it is because I am translating pictures into words, and then formulating an verbal answer.

Very interesting as I have accidentally "switched on" word mode twice both times it happened when I was writing these big long philosophical articles and I started speaking it all in my head to see what it would sound like if I was speaking it and then when I was done I found my mind was wording out thoughts automatically my god it never stops its horrible not only can I not sleep because my brain won't shut the f**k up but I start to feel sick because my mind becomes completely filled with words which are these horrible time consuming linear monstrosities that are so feeble in comparison to 5 sense thinking that they do not belong in my head. It went away after I slept but the whole night everytime I decided to ponder a concept I found myself automatically pausing and expressing it in words right after I thought it and what was making me feel sick was that it took me so much time to speak all these words for a concept I can think about in milliseconds without words. My sympathy goes out to people who think with words thinking for them must be a painful and time consuming process.

I've been looking into this and it seems people put great effort using meditation and other techniques to "shut off their internal dialogue" and I think they are mislead into believing this is something hard to get rid off. I saw it as more of a compulsion if I started thinking about complex concepts theres no way the words could keep up with my thoughts but I can see how someone can get stuck in the habit of wording out thoughts if they've been doing it for as long as they can remember. I'm skeptical about this though I can see a vast array of problems someone would run into if they worded out every thought in their heads. First off how would they think about that which they have no words for? Their thinking would only be as complete as their vocabulary. Maybe this is what George Orwells 1985 was all about. If so it makes no sense even if we couldn't think without words we could just make slang for our "thoughtcrime". Secondly how can you form new concepts with words? My god the thought is sickening using nothing but words to analyze concepts and put things together. i Heres what I see to conceptualize the difference between thinking with and without words. Picture a big maze, in the maze is someone thinking with words, he can't see over the walls, he cant move very fast and hes bound to run into dead ends and go around in circles. Someones thinking without words can builds his own mazes, has an overhead view of them and can rapidly move through and doesn't run into dead ends since hes the one building the maze.

She wouldn't hear anything but might see pictures, sounds, smells, physical sensations and such If she did hear anything it would just be words from other people I am tying to make sence of. I don't think in words but I don't think in pictures either. I think in smell, sound and physical sensation (i.e touch).

Funny, I've been thinking about this a lot lately, trying to figure out how to describe it to my husband.

I usually don't think in words unless I'm planning how I'm going to say something out loud or on paper. It's mainly images, but there are also sounds and smells and especially tactile and proprioception/motion sensory feelings, oddly enough. Or if I'm trying to solve to a problem of some sort--when I think I have a solution, I will force myself to articulate it in words, trying to translate it and make sure it makes sense in the world outside my head.

I read somewhere that about 60% of all people, both autistic and neurotypical, think in pictures. Can anyone confirm or deny the statistic?

I think in pictures, symbols and logos. I hardly ever think in words.

I usually think about future situations they may or may not happen. Usually other people are involved. Or I'll get stuck on a thought that's been bothering me all day. Or my mind will be in movie-mode.

I can visually see things and they're acted out as though in a movie. Or I just hear my own thoughts that's usually about thinking over the same negative point until I tell myself to stop.

She'd probably get frustrated. Lots of overlapping layers of information from all senses sorting itself into patterns. I can picture her going "Where are the THOUGHTS?!"

i think pictures when working with cars, never seen in tv shows when someone remembers something ? well its like that it only lasts couple seconds and then i know where that last b***h screw is hiding
i kinda visualize progress of last time and go though everything i had done thats why im relatively good about what i do

I printed up a stack of interesting looking journal articles on autism that I'm working my way through. One of them is Predicting inner speech use amongst children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD): the roles of verbal ability and cognitive profile, but the data seem contradictory in this department.

Another article that was more interesting is about episodic and semantic memory in adults with ASD. Apparently, most neurotypicals have a distinctive pattern of remembrance where they remember more life events from their adolescence and early adult years. People with autism do not display this "reminiscence bump" for some reason. The overall gist of the article seems to be that people with ASD have impaired episodic autobiographical memory but preserved semantic memory.

Makes me wonder if perception of time differs in some way as well...

I can't confirm/deny them. I know I think in words, but i've been told I exhibit *classic* NVLD characteristics, so that's not too surprising.

I can't even visualize a cube in my head. A few months ago...someone in this group said they had to actually LOOK at a cube in order to determine how many sides cubes have.

After reading that.....it occured to me that I had to do the same thing.


For some stupid reason....I never remembered that a cube has six sides...but I do now.


I also find geometry impossible...far more so than more verbally-based math like algebra.


I can screw in lightbulbs and drive a car....that's about the extent of what my visual-spatial skills permit.

I think in a extremely visual way. I never really noticed how non-verbal I was until I watched a talk by Temple Grandin where she described being able to "test run equipment in her head", and realized that I do the exact same thing but with everything. My thoughts for most of my life have been so exclusively non-verbal that when about 6 months ago when I started noticing a passing internal monologue when under stress; I went to a psychologist thinking I was developing schizophrenia like my mother lol. But yeah, when I'm thinking, I'm visualizing, building, observing, manipulating, and interacting in my own internal world. It makes non sensory based information hard to understand, like lists of things to do, or verbal instructions.

When I'm comfortable and relaxed I think without words. Using words, I have to sort of translate in my mind from other kinds of thinking into words and the words are always visual and in Century font (think Dick and Jane books).

Looking at some of the replies here, I'm not sure where I fall. I definitely think with a distinct inner-voice the vast majority of the time, unless I'm very focused on an activity. There's a clear sense of a thought occurring and then being translated into language, and it's not something I can control. This is the voice that deprives me of sleep with long tangents, and often splits off to play devil's advocate when I'm considering things, or exploring the different ways an upcoming social situation could go wrong.

On the other hand, visualising things is very easy for me as well. When I want to draw something, I can form a clear image of what I'm aiming for in my head (and then fail spectacularly in recreating it, due to lack of skill). When creative ideas come to me, they're always images that appear, immediately and automatically. Is that the thing of thing people are talking about when they describe thinking in pictures?

Guns, guns, guns, guns, guns and more guns.

That's how I think.

Hmm... I'll try to take a stab at this.

Maybe the comparison of thinking styles isn't as linear as you think. Consider that the bits of information required for thought don't always have to be linked to an image or word.

I don't really know if I'm a "word thinker", but I'm definitely NOT a visual thinker. I can't see any images in my head. I'm physically incapable of visual thinking. I only know 2 people with the same issue. It's far more uncommon than being a predominantly visual thinker. 65% of the general population thinks predominantly visually. One of those 2 people is a very good database admin. I don't think she goes through long strings of words to figure stuff out. I don't think it would be possible for her to do what she does that way. She probably has a very similar thinking style to my own. With is:

All the knowledge I have is just kind of there; invisible and silent, in my head. It's not an audio file, word symbols, pictures, or movie like files. It's just knowledge. I make connections between things very easily. In a way, it's like everything is already connected, because it's all just part of the same big pool of invisible information. I can't say if the way my brain processes information is faster or slower than visual thinking. But, I know the process isn't what I keep seeing described by visual thinkers; who almost seem to be claiming some type of superiority via their thinking style. (That's a just a mini rant and not directed at you Gorilla.)

Something I'd like the visual thinkers to ponder and respond to is... How quickly could you process if you removed the pictures but could still access/use the information previously attached to those images?