Can think only via writing, speaking aloud or...

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Here are some quirks I want to share and talk about.

1)Do you also experience inability to just sit and think without the additional aid of some sort of medium?
My only way to think something intentionally is to write it down or speak it through.

2)And as of thinking for idea searching it only happens in the background mode like when I perform physical exercises or watch videos/listen to books/podcasts. Then I have to write it down and lose track of content I'm listening to.

Having zero ability to do these things (thinking, creative search, idea generation) intentionally scares me, like I have my own will and power in those areas. If I just sit and try to come up with something it just never happens - the harder I try the less results and more frustrated I get.

3)Another peculiar thing that bothers me is that I can't just use built in interface of many logical tasks and games.
Example: there's a game called "Human Resource Machine" where you use built in logical blocks to perform various programming like tasks. So, there is all you need to make it through, but unless I take a pen and paper and draw my own schemes with basically the same but differently named and/or looking blocks I can't think it through. Happens with many tasks. It seems like I can't put it in my mind unless I somehow personify it, make it familiar.

4)And other similar thing that is ridiculous. I try to train my brain with dual and quad n-back task. The thing that bugs me is that I only can perform the task in the app I got used to. If I use similar app, all the functions are in tact and interface is the same, but I just can't get my mind going as good as in my old app. It's not like learning to perform the same task from scratch but pretty similar to that in terms of strain and frusration. In such times I often ask my brain aloud: "WTF?! It is the same damn thing, why can't you just do it?".

Well, I can understand needing to sketch out your ideas for Human Resource Machine on paper. It has some really tricky levels.

I feel like I think better with a pencil in my hand... Don't know why!

I tell a lot of jokes, but if you ask me to think of one, I can't do it directly. They are all linked to other memories as "similar stories."
I get highly original thoughts, and they can arise from reading, or just mulling over past events until they make more sense. I take lots of notes to free up my short-term memory. If I want to build something, I make sketches, and they sometimes reveal problems or opportunities I hadn't visualized.
I think it is quite normal to have to re-do lessons in your own way to learn them. I've always done that. I like to get my facts related to each other, so if there's a lapse in memory, I can tell something is wrong, like a mistake in remembering a poem is. This means that I'm useless at botany, but can really use the engineering creatively.

I find that I'm more able to think when I'm talking to myself. It helps me to process things better.

I just thought that it is common for NTs to think completely in their mind and not using external tools for visualisation. Maybe it's not the case.


Yeah, I get that. It just annoys me that I have no inner voice or it's too silent. If I'm writing I'm not losing a train of thought, like the witten words are the railroad, but silent ones are just ghosts of railroad. You know how like sometimes you don't feel your body unless there is some tension, or let's say gravity is stronger than usual, so your body becomes heavy and you feel it like never before. I think my thinking process is the same, thoughts are too light and aeriform and I can't grasp them with my mind's grasp. But when I use words the thought is captured and can't escape.


Sometimes I think aloud or narrate everything I see. Without it I almost don't process what I'm percieveing. This farm animal like aptitude to just stare at the world in front of your eyes and yet to not see it scares the s**t out of me. I guess the lack of dialogue with someone else pushes me to have this dialogue with myself to feel connection with life. It's like a let's play for game of life itself. I wonder how normal people feel about this absurdist nightmare of a world. Everything is fake, make believe, optional, yet everyone is super serious and strict about it. Nobody beleives in anything deep down but everybody wants to fight the opposite party. Everyone knows at least at some level that (s)he is a mere puppet of global inertia but still thinks of himself as a protagonist in this meaningless drama. Gee, I started ranting. Sorry not sorry, just need to vent out and talk to someone I guess.

I have a similar thing.
My interpretation is that I have a very small functional or working memory. When using a paper scribble pad I can keep all of the aspects of an issue in full view on the paper as a stand in for memory.
Since coming up with that explanation, I find I judge myself less harshly regarding this little weirdness.

It certainly helps me if I put my thoughts into spoken or written words, when the thoughts are at all complicated. But for all I know it could be the same way for NTs.