Thinking in pictures

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I think in both pictures and words, depending on the situation and which way of thinking is more efficient for whatever I'm thinking about. I do tend to have to draw pictures just to explain things quite frequently, but that might be more a problem with the people I'm explaining things to rather than with me.

I definitely think and learn easiest visually or just by doing it. If someone tries to explain how to do something to me without showing me it is quite useless. When reading instructions I often just have to work out how to do it on my own and will get frustrated if someone tries to help me by giving verbal input. But I am quite good good at figuring out most things on my own, I guess because from a very early age I got used to being my own teacher.

For example I really wanted to learn how to knit, but learning how o do something like knitting through written instruction, even with step by step pictures, seemed totally absurd to me. I needed to take a class and have someone show me in front of my what I was supposed to do. After that it was quite easy. It is the same with cooking. I hate cookbooks without photos of the finished project because it is so difficult for me to understand what it is going to amount to unless I see it. So I'd rather watching cooking shows than read cookbooks.

In college classes that were all lecture were kind of difficult unless they involved a lot of participation and problem solving. Luckily when it came to my major there were pictures for everything since I majored in art history I never thought about it in such a way until somewhat recently, but I think that one of the reasons I really love art history is that it allows me to learn about many different things through someone's visual interpretation. But I also always wrote EVERYTHING the professor said because I needed hugely detailed notes. Just by writing what they said it helped me process it even if I never really read back much. Just by listening I wouldn't have remembered nearly as much. I would also sometimes even copy text in my own writing because by copying it it helped me remember what I was reading much better.

I also think that my extreme ability to learn easily through pictures allows me to b one the seemingly few people who can put a piece of Ikea furniture together easily and without wanting to kill someone The fact that it is all diagrams and no worded instructions makes great sense to me, while frustrating most of the general population haha.

I would be as lost I could be without it! Words have hard to get to me, doesnt matter if its written or spoken but if I get to see the same information in an image it solves life way easier
I keep remembering members of this forum by their avatar. To think of the avatar makes its way easier to notice the nickname....

Oh yeah I love photography and videomaking...makes even more sense....

I cannot think in pictures at all.

I only think in images when I'm developing one of my stories... or while thinking of things I can't post here, if you get my drift.

I think largely in moving pictures and sound. I'd guess the movie part would fall under pictures but I don't think that I think in words as in visable words but would hearing spoken words in your head (in my own voice or a made up voice when in a movie story) be thinking in words?

What I mean by thinking in movies is that I often act out stories in my head and I see them in my head as movies if that makes any sense. I see the characters acting out the story and hear them talking and stuff as if I was watching a movie (but the quality isn't as good and the characters are animated since I watch and prefer animated characters to live characters). The few dream I can remember were also movie like but not under my full control like the movies in my head (well mostly under my control).

Also I talk to myself in my head and just hear the words in my voice without any pictures (like right now I'm typing this and saying it in my head to myself as I type the exact words I'm saying in my head. Proper spelling doesn't translate though).

I may be over thinking this (I tend to do that. That and rambling).

For the record I don't know if I have AS or not but I might and I'm sure I'm not NT.

I guess I'd be lost without pictures. Although my mind kinda thinks more in cartoons, which is actually just pictures put together to form a moving drawing!

I have to agree with this, but what about NVLD? It's supposed to be a part of autism, but isn't it quite the opposite of a depicting mind?

I would feel quite crippled without my visual thinking.

This post reminded me of situation long ago that might make sense to some.


My prior significant other and I dosed with ayahuasca (legally).
As usual, it's a complete and utter visual/audio/everything experience for me. It feels as if it is existence in another reality (while never leaving the brain).
She on the other hand reported that her entire experience was that of emotion. A pure emotional journey.

I can not comprehend what that means! Perhaps in a quasi-intellectual way it is possible to taste the smallest flavor from the meaning. Overall, I simply seem unable to understand without the visual (perhaps more to the "emotion,' dunno).

Yep I do have CAPD.

I think in pictures. It has always been easier to learn things via television and picture books rather than books with no pictures, and it is easier to learn any of those ways than to be simply told something. When I was a kid, I would always find the history/geography/science books with the most and largest pictures; when I went to checkout counter at the library (by the way, do those places exist anymore?), I would have a stack of coffee table books that weighed as much as I did.

And yes, I hate telephones; I hate them with a passion. I hate to talk to people on the phone, and I hate to hear a phone ring.

There might be two different mind tracks or learning loops for interpreting the world:

-Observation
(Visual and sensory experiential, physical environment)

-Social interaction
(Verbal and social participation, social eye cues, perspective taking, social environment)


If one loop's weak, perhaps a person could concentrate more on developing the other loop to compensate.

Perhaps someone might see the world as a set of sensory experiences to observe and may be unaware that socialising is important. Perhaps, for them, socialising would be a lower priority or difficult because they'd process the surrounding physical environment before the social eye cues?

Perhaps they'd see the world as vast and full of objects and the nature, and humans as only a small part of this larger world.


That would be my guess anyway.