Do you think in words or pictures?

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People have always fascinated me that think in pictures, because I find it so hard to imagine. I think most people think in words, but I just wanted to see what it was on the forum. I think in words myself, but on rare occasions when thinking of something to do with locations I can think in pictures.

Words, music, images, etc.

I put pictures but I do think in both but in different ways. If I go into deep thought, my mind works best in pictures. Pictures or visions take over. I can dream up ideas (Designs etc) and turn them around like computers can, and I can think in film form where I can imagine complete scenes and what the outcome will be. If I am anxious and stressed and I can't sleep, I will be re-living the previous days events in my mind and be going through living the day aheads events and how I am going to deal with them all in film like form.
There is also an element where real dreaming and my picture like mind can converge. I once when working on the railway had a tough shift the next day. I had had anxiety about it the night before and was worried.
Then I drove to work and worked the busy all stopping train up to the big city some 90 miles or so from my depot, and then worked another train up a branch line which has some lovely scenery but is an area where you think the men are tough, but wait until you see the women! I remember selling tickets up there and a family of four came on the train and asked for two child fares. I found out both the parents of these two toddlers (Of different ages) had not reached 16 yet!
So I worked up the branchad back taking another busy train with various passengers going home or going out for the night drinking...
Then a break and then the driver and I worked the last train back which was a difficult train to work as it was half full of drunks and was a "Drop off only" train so I had to work fast as we only stopped where the passengers were getting off at, and working fast with drunk passengers trying to find where they were going when half of them are hiding trying to avoid paying... Many times I had been verbally assaulted (Somehow not physically on that specific section of drop off only part of the service though physical assault was part of the job... Being spat at in the face being the most common occurance)... But anyway. Got through this bit to the next smaller city. Almost home now. Less then an hour to go. Pick up the seriously drunk people who would take the whole width of the street to walk up to get their train. Departed for the five stops along the route before I reached my home depot station and then the 45 minute drive back home... I climbed into bed and the alarm went. It had been all a dream and worse still. I had the whole shift to do ahead of me!
By the time I did that shift and got back home I was soo tired!


Uhmmm. Now while my deep thinking inner mind works in pictures, my outer "Surface" mind works in normal speech type thoughts etc.
Part of the difficulty I have is with subjects like Maths where any mathematical calculation requiring deep thought I have to think in picture form to do it. This requires me to think in series of pattern like dots. I see the patterns the dots make to know what numbers they are when my outer mind translates these patterns into numbers. So I have to make my outer mind and inner mind work in three or more stages. First my inner surface mind has to convert the numbers into the patterns of dots, and I can then use these patterns to calculate answers in my deep thinking inner mind, and then bring the patterns back to my outer mind and convert them into written number form. I can't show my workings out, so I then have to work backwards with the sums to write the workings out so I don't get into trouble with teachers for not showing them. Where I can make mistakes is when transferring the dots from my inner mind to my outer mind because the dots may not be in base 10 form whilst others are so my outer mind has to sort it all out and makes mistakes because I can't deep think this part to work it out if that makes sense?

Anyway. My maths. In exams I either did terribly, or I did very well. My last exam was a GCSE resit and I had 100% in it,but just prior to that I had failed an engineering course due to my maths. So \○/ !

Neither. Sort of. I can't visualize things in my head, never been able to. I'm also not prone to thinking in words from the get go. It's more like concepts, ideas, general understanding of a thing, then It gets translated into words if I need to express it, whatever it is, to someone else or if I feel the need to better understand the idea...if that makes any sense at all

Depends on the subject at hand.

Usually it's always picture form. Especially if for example someone starts discussing rain for example, as when it begins to rain or I can literally see it coming and can often predict how long until it is about to rain where I am standing so long as their's constant wind speed for example. It's like very dense fog almost. As for general interaction or talking to others my mind is usually much preoccupied with predicting the future sentence for example. Gets very tiring after a relatively brief interaction with others especially when it's topic of little interest to me or in most cases a conversation or topic of unfamiliarity! This causes much responses to be generated in advance to compensate. Usually when I'm singing or rhyming ( rap ) it's exclusive to pictures as my mouth takes time to catch up with my thoughts and feelings, pitch, etc to emulate the emotions that would be best suited to whatever comes to mind. When I get into what I call "the zone" it's pictures set out in story form or lyrics that I'm ahead with in my mind about 12 or so words in advance.

My first real introduction to the concept of what autism is came in the form of a girlfriend who I started dating a few years ago. (She is married now). Now it puzzled me because when I asked her what aspergers was (As that was what she was diagnosed with) everything she said except for two things seemed "Normal" to me and how I thought or what I did. One thing was that she rocked back and fore when anxious and I don't, and the other difference was that she has her own individual language in her head which she translates into English which is why it took her longer to learn how to speak.

Some of my explanatory thoughts include diagram/cartoon-like pictures with a concise word narration. This is how I wish I could communicate my thoughts to others.

Words. Unless I'm deep thinking about art.

During proper lockdown (lockdown 1) I became able to imagine things in my head when reading. I hadn't had that ability since childhood. It was cool. Like a movie.

I am an extremely visual thinker/learner. When I am concentrating hard on a special topic, pictures do not do it justice. It is more like multiple movies playing at the same time, yet from different perspectives on the same subject. I can slow/stop fast moving things in my head, take them apart and build them back again. I can go into much higher dimensions and see the effects upon the intersection points with time-space. It is a great help in my research areas that I have this capability in thinking. When I was growing up, I figured everyone could do this and it was normal. Later on, I found out that it is very rare at my level.

BTW - I basically do not think in words. When I write, I have to visualize what I am after and then describe it the best I can. It took me years of struggling with writing projects in school before I figured that part out. If I try to visualize in words, it does not go well.

I think in both and it changes depending on stress/anxiety levels. Under normal conditions, I think in mostly words with images thrown in here and there. If stressed enough, my thinking can convert to fully visual which in turn causes problems with my speaking which in turn increases my stress levels which makes talking even more harder which in turn....

I think in pictures. I always have.

I think in moving structures and factures.
It's quite abstract, hard to explain.
Then, words over pictures.

I think an unfocused video would be a good description of how my mind works. So it'll start off with auditory words as if listening to a podcast then it'll flick through imagery, sometimes still images and other times videos such as hypothetical situations or memories.

There's usually something that triggers the images. For example, if someone is describing a visual to me such as a movie scene then I'll probably see it in my mind regardless of if I want to or not. If I haven't seen the film, my mind will make up an estimation of what it could look like based on the information given. When I'm thinking of doing something, such as preparing to stand in front of a room and present, I'll see myself doing so briefly before it happens in real life.

I think in pictures and moving images a lot more than I do in words and I find it difficult to imagine not doing so because that's what I'm used to. Reading a book is basically the same as watching a film for me as I see it play in a video in my mind.

Sometimes I get confused momentarily because I wonder what film I was previously watching and then I remember that it was a daydream instead of a film. When coming up with concept ideas for my work I often see my ideas visually before I work out all the tangible details.