The ability to think- Do slightly autistic people have it?

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Yes, I know the above title looks stupid and for the most part seems like a rhetorical question. However, let me explain, and it might make more sense to you who read this.

First off, I can't start a discussion without a proper introduction, my name is the AutisticMalcontent, and I am a 21 year old male who has diagnosed P.D.D-NOS. Having P.D.D-NOS isn't really that bad, except for the ocassional fits of anxiety and the lack of understanding concerning people's emotions and body language. But I digress, so onward with my question.

What I am about to say probably doesn't make much sense, but I will say it anyways, I feel like I don't have a cognitive ability to think mentally. This sounds weird, but let me put it into terms that might make sense. When I learn stuff, I don't think about it when I register it, it kind of automatically comes to me without thinking about it. It is kind of like my mind is blank, that I have trouble envisioning things in my mind, such as imagery or certain memories, but I can just pull out things off the top of my head without much thought, like facts, figures, concepts. Even as I type this, I'm not thinking about what to say, I'm just letting my hands run loose on the keyboard. It is a very odd feeling, knowing things without thinking about it. Neurotypical people have a internal thought process about what goes on, but it seems I am lacking of one.

My question, therefore, is do any of you feel the same way I do, to have trouble mentally seeing images or thinking words in your head, but you can autmotically know stuff spontaneously without even thinking about that much? I read somewhere that a psychiatrist came up with a theory of how autistic people lack "the theory of mind". I don't know, maybe you guys can help me out. Thanks!

Hm. Maybe what happens is the thoughts just flow. This question is a difficult one. I am not sure if this is different from everyone else. It's hard for me to imagine someone contemplating an entire paragraph before actually typing it. Do some people really do that?

It sounds like whatever thinking you're doing, it's so easy that it happens automatically and therefore doesn't need to be conscious. It doesn't sound like it has anything to do with theory of mind (which is so easy, most people never notice themselves doing it).

well, I've tripped out on mushroms many times.. and i tell you, if your brain hits the right wave, it's like surfing and you start talking and you can't stop, and you dont 'comprehend' what you're saying, you just speak without thinking.. there is no more thinking, you are saying what your brain WOULD be thinking.. now that is one kickass experience. As long as you have a listening partner

You think. it just sounds like it's in imageless, wordless concepts.

It sounds like a more subconscious level of thinking.

I have that most noticably when I tell my children stories. They take on a life of their own. It's almost like the story chooses to tell itself, and I'm often very surprised to hear the direction my own story is taking.

But I am sure I am thinking and inventing that story, none-the-less.

Oh, but I am mostly NT, if that makes a difference (my son is AS).

You are thinking - you're just not NT thinking. Sometimes we just 'arrive' at things mentally. Temple Grandin wrote about this process; basically the difference is that autistic thinking is often associational instead of verbal/procedural. So you're thinking, it's just a whole different level and kind of thinking.
It can be really helpful for me sometimes, I know sometimes it seems like I've just pulled a fact out of nowhere and I think, 'wow.' But it can also hurt. In math classes they used to get mad because I wasn't able to show how I got to the answers.
Does that help at all?

I think both ways I think, heh, I think. Anyway, I can easily visualize stuff in my mind, but sometimes I just pull facts off the top of my head without thinking about it much. I think I have good recall for things that are interesting to me. For example random fact about a plant called fall dandelion thats rarer than the common dandelion. I told my brain "random fact" and there it was.

I definitely visualize things may times but other times.. it just comes to me, can't explain it, it just does.

I had trouble in school with Maths because I couldn't show my 'method' for working out the answers. I would think about the problem and work it out, but I mostly couldn't explain how I'd worked it out, except geometry where it's easy to show the steps.

AutisticMalcontent, one thing you need not worry about is not thinking! You're very obviously engaging in it (unless you're a clever AI program that's fooling us ), so you really needn't be concerned about it.

I suspect a lot of autistic people who claim they don't think, or didn't used to think, are/were really thinking in the above way, and believe that the only kind of thought that counts as 'real thought' is conscious, reflective thought.

Well, I kinda understand where you are coming from... Except when I would conceptialize something for the first time, whether or not from school, I'd have to relearn it again for myself just to fully understand the full constraints of such.. Like in reading a book for example, when the author describes how the room looks and you don't know the proper meaning of the word, and you totally prescribe the wrong thing entirely to idealize, I'd think that would be common with us, if I'm explaining it right at all...?

AutisticMalcontent, I actually thought about this myself. I'm going to have to stop thinking about that. I say that I am a "hunt and peck" typist, but that isn't 100% true. As I type now, I look down at the keyboard sometimes. I use BOTH hands. So what is odd? I am not really thinking about the words AS I type, but almost after! Basically, I try to sound out the words hitting the screen. I am not looking at the keys ALL the time, and not looking really AT the keys I use. My hands move almost without my thinking(in any obvious way). I am certainly NOT determining WHICH hand should type, or when! When I read earlier, I didn't "verbalize". NOW, to a fair degree, I don't. If a word looks odd, or I haven't used it in a while, I will look it up.

Frankly, I don't know how the autistics that speak of an internal monologue, etc... handle it. I would go NUTS!

I always took this automatic, unconscious thought to be the norm and not just for people with Asperger's syndrome.

"Theory of Mind" isn't about you thinking, it's about making accurate guesses about what other people are thinking.

It seems to me that you confusing certain qualitative properties of the act of thinking with thinking itself. As far as I can tell, most people experience the sensation of 'thinking' as being like having a voice in their head speaking. If they have a thought like one of yours, they might say it's not thinking, but an intuitive 'shine' or summat. But it's thinking.

Teachers drove me mad in maths always telling me or writing in my books to "show working" and I couldn't. A lot of the time I'd reach an answer without "thinking" about it consciously, so showing the process of how I reached that answer was impossible. I'd often get less marks than I should have because of this.

Maths has always been a struggle for me, but there were days when I could get an answer at the click of the fingers without really thinking about it, but when I'd come back the next day and face a similar set of questions, I'd draw a complete blank and have no idea how to get the answers, or how I got the answers to the other questions the day before.