Thinking in pictures?

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I think in a mixture of emotions, auditory, and visual, and depending on the subject, smell... My senses are really sensitive and I love remembering everything about something, even the negatives. Like if you ask me to think of a mulberry tree, I'll think of a specific tree and picture it in my head, hear how it sounds in the wind and how it smells.
I don't know what it's called to think in feelings though.

I think in words most of the time, but have a pretty easy time working out mechanical designs in my head. I use sketches to reduce the memory load and clarify some things, but I can also do advanced operations like finding CG, estimating deflections and strength, and dynamic responses in my head, with or without a sketch.

Feynman thought that he always thought in words, until someone asked him "You know the shape of a crankshaft?" and then asked what words came to mind..

Tesla could design a machine in his head, run it, and then tear it down to check for wear. A lot of engineering is done with quick estimates that only have to be within 10% or so.

I never do but I have a low vision disorder & a visual processing disorder so I'm not a visual person.

I think in pictures. If I'm trying to recall an event, I get a picture/pictures in my mind as if I'm viewing the event from above (like a snapshot). Once I get the picture, suddenly everything about that time comes flooding back to me (including all of the irrelevant info which I have a hard time separating from the relevant facts when explaining the event to another.)

I am also able to manipulate images in my mind.

My thoughts are like short video clips, and they are very vivid.
I can easily manipulate familiar objects in my mind (rotate, move, modify, build, disassemble, etc).

I was wowed by Grandins descriptions of her thought processes. I do the same, sadly not at her level, but the same at a high degree.
I can see objects taking form and work, when I construct something, - and then I do the measuring. I always called it "having a good craftsman logic".
So, I am a spatial thinker.
By expressions like "at the end of the rainbow" or "open the door to new things", I do see it literally, even though I know it is an idiom and use it as such myself.
That is just being concrete, I guess.

I'm not sure what "thinking in pictures" means. If for example I am thinking about anything - let's say I am rehearsing a conversation with my boss - or planning to meet up with an old friend - I do see them in my minds eye and do imagine what such a conversation would look like as well as sound like. But, I assume everyone does that. So, I'm a little confused by what someone means by "thinking in pictures."

Being an Aspie DOES really have some fantastic trade-offs!

Yes, I tend to think in pictures.

Yes - I'm a visual-spatial thinker. It's why I became an engineer. Was top of my class in engineering drafting.

Looking around on yahoo answers, this person posed an interesting point with thinking:

I do a few types of thinking. Auditory thinking? Check. Most of my thoughts have a running monolog to go with them. Visual thinking? I can certainly relate to that spatial type of visual thinking. I think in pictures a bit but the pictures come out really blurry I can never remember exactly what something looks like but I do a lot of spatial thinking where I move things around in my head to see how they fit and don't even worry about what they look like.

But when I picture people, things and places they come out blurry (I still do it a lot anyway). Not like when I try to remember what something sounds like where I can hear it in my head very clearly. Sometimes if I hear someone talk and I'm not listening, if I don't understand the words as they say them due to me not paying attention, I can reconstruct the meaning of their words by playing back the sound in my head so I can listen to the words again, even though I had no understanding of the words the first time. What would you call that? Phonographic memory?

Also I do a bit of kinesthetic thinking. Some my skills are just from muscle memory without much understanding. Sometimes I can play a piano piece from muscle memory without any conscious recollection of which notes where in it. Maybe I'm like that with spelling too. I can most words right most of the time if I'm writing or typing but if you ask me how to spell a word, if you ask me to say what the letters in it are, I'll have no idea unless I'm writing it.

I'm a bit like that with navigation too. I can find my way from maps or landmarks but I'm really bad at following written or spoken directions. I hate it when I ask for someone's address and instead of telling me their address they give me directions to their house starting from a place I've never heard off. I only want their address so I can look it up on my smartphone or the PC or the street directory (even before smartphones I could spatially memorize the way if I looked at the map before I left home but understanding spoken directions is near impossible for me (even with a sometimes phonographic memory, just because I remember what someone said, that doesn't mean I understand it, quite the opposite, phonographic memory is more like the sound of words stripped of their meaning).