How does your mind work?

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My mind is very visual, almost everything in there is pictures and video. I see all my thoughts as if it's a video of the event, idea, memory, or whatever playing itself out in front of me IRL. (People wonder why I don't talk much... It can take a lot energy to translate all those pictures into words.)

My thoughts bounce around a lot too - someone once used a pool cue ball to describe it. Whenever a new stimulus comes along it knocks the previous one out, so that I can't even remember what I was doing/thinking about a second ago. A classic example is going from one room to another to do something. By the time I get to the other room, I have no idea what I went in there for because of all the new stimuli in there. "What was I doing?"

Taking the office scenario:

My mind has many different workers. It's often a rare occasion when they're willing to work with one another, especially pulling up the filework. Each individual is very efficient and organized at their own little job but, as I said before, they despise working together.

Also, the worker who runs my language center likes to take frequent coffee breaks. I'm thinking of firing her...

WOW!! Are all aspies in their mind? I am. I see my mind in a lot of the above posts. I have trouble with the telephone from my mind to my mouth. What I'm thinking, just won't come out the same way. I end up stumbling over words!! ! Maybe I need a new cordless.

My mind works like those drawings of objects that show all the parts of item in an exploded view. Kind of a supercomputer 3D CAD program. I can visualize the concept them make changes, look at it for problems from different angles, change colors, styles for aesthetics, make new changes, re-render then build. I can see the assembly of the object in moments. I just wish I could finish the real project as fast. If do get sleep, I usually build all night long, then get up the morning and have to do it for real in slow motion. I can build complex buildings with on plans (currently building my studio ). I too am very bad of analyzing structures of building all the time. When I go wandering in big box stores I am the one looking up at the different truss structures, and all the parts of the building. I would be an good architect, but it to slow to draw all the plans out. Before I finished one drawing I would have dozen new ones planed out. But am going to start building models of the really good buildings, hoping to make the constant assembly to in my head to stop. I prefer art projects because they are smaller, and faster to complete, and more relaxing.

I like the office analogies, they fit well. However I've always done a computer one:

My mind is like a computer attached to the world. It's excellent at assimilating information, especially making connections. It's a state-of-the-art, high speed, next generation computer, capable of processing information faster than almost anything else. (At least around my town, I'm sure a lot of you folks are the same)

Sometimes, though, it's too busy processing and storing incoming information to respond to other system requests- especially ones that come from PEOPLE (a high information density) and LIFE (bills, dinner, etc)... these system calls get stuck in a memory loop somewhere.

When asked a question, the computer opens the /MIND directory and all information becomes available. Responses to the query are varied depending on the level of complexity. A general question ("how are you?") is an open search command.

SEARCH /MIND FOR *me

returns:
LIST: EVERYTHING

Very visual, very pattern based. Remembering a book, for example, I visualize the page in my head. I'd do this on exams too, "seeing" the textbook in my head helped a lot. Not eidatic memory, it's for things I read only. I used to challege friends to read a few lines from a good book... I'd tell them what page it was on, which side, and where to find it on the page. Sometimes I'd have to scan the story in my head to find the right spot, but I was usually able to do it.

Good question I'm loving all the answers, a lot of them sound familiar.

It seems I have a hard time shutting My poor brain down too.

Lil' factoid: Any time i ever think of anything it reminds me of something and i can tell you what it reminds me of. And usually i can repeat whatever it was that i was reminded of.

When it comes to problem solving, which actually covers a lot of stuff since the lower mind is very flexible about what it considers a problem, i figure out the situation, figure out possible solutions, compare them, and get an estimate on the best solution in about 1-3 seconds. By this i mean usually non-mathematical problem solving, like you come home, open the door, and you see a window open and you've got cats. I don't panic cause i've got an understanding on the situation in 1-3 seconds.

When my attention is on something, my mind becomes that thing, and it is recorded. I cannot really think and record at the same time. If i think about what was just said, i will miss what they say next and i have to back it up. The more important stuff i can probably recall exactly, whereas the other less important crap i can give you a feeling on.

If my attention never gets on it, or i mishear it, i will remember as i heard it.

A lot of my thinking is an association between an image, or movie to another image or movie. I just truck along with associations. Occasionally i will remember a line from some TV show a long time ago and start crack up laughing. Amusing to watch people be unnerved near you.

There is the learning mechanism. I'm not entirely sure how this thing works, and i'm fairly certain(and i mean that in a total sarcastic and light hearted way given my total ignorence on the current knowledge) that nobody knows how it works. My attention and memory are part of the learning mechanism. I seem to take note of rhythms and patterns, and sounds, images are a little more fuzzy. I don't have perfect photographic knowledge but i have pretty god damn fast developing speed since i can just chill and listen to someone rant, and as long as im paying attention it will all get absorbed.

I may need to be reminded(like the beginning of the knowledge in the book or lecture will probably trigger a cascade of information.

Then there is this entity which acts as my voice to the world. perhaps you could call it the ego, but essentially it puts all the various mechanisms through a screening process so that you, the faithful consumer don't get gems like, "Given enough money, you bet your ass i'd be willing to get screwed by a 400 pound gorrilla." Or, "I don't see why theres all the sensativity about menstruel blood and crap. If you gotta bleed, you gotta bleed."

This is also the voice that tells me that i should say to hell with all this world crap, we should build a world of stories, and never be hurt again. The voice also just told me that that very statement is widely considered weird and unsettling and indicative of poor mental health. It is essentially my common sense.

I'd like to believe my metacognative functions are somehow above, beyond, seperate or different from my normal functions but they probably arent. But basically all the while all the other parts of my mind are working away on stuff, this part is considering the potential unthought about signifigance of some such association or process or emotion.

I am not well enough educated to know or confirm this but i have this vague guess that all higher brain functions have their foundation in the emotional world. And that it is impossible to even consider logic and emotion seperate.

I can feel my feelings expressing themselves, and thoughts are constructed but not in ways that can be put into words(or at least easily). This part of my mind is always present, and it is sending me information although i might not notice it.

the left side of my brain is like a small run-down office in the middle of a vacant desert. In the office, there are two people: The secretary, and the guy who is supposed to clean the place, but never does, and instead just watches television. The secretary speaks some language she made up on her own, and is constantly spilling coffee on the papers that have my 'logic of mundane mathematics' written on them.

the right side of my brain is like a HUGE Chocolate Factory! It covers the area of about 2500 miles, and is 45 stories high, both above ground and below ground. There are built-in theme parks in the right side of my brain, and several different malls and megaplexes. It is ran by a bunce of kind, caring butlers who help people around who want to visit the Factory, and the head man is a tall thin pleasant guy that is a hybrid of Willy Wonka and Loki the trickster god.

My mind is largely verbal, with some (fairly crude) visual thoughts. It sometimes stops and goes, and the thinking is fairly linear, but there's a lot of tangenting, so the trajectory of my thoughts can end up sort of like a random walk or (if it stays more or less on track) one of those oil drops in the experiment in college physics where the tiny droplet got knocked around by the air's Brownian motion. There's often some degree of repetitiveness in my thoughts, though the repetition is more likely to be in theme than in the exact verbal/visual content and structure. Since I have a reasonable tolerance and appreciation for repetition, I'm not really bothered at all by my Aspergian buddy's tendency to repeat himself a lot in his conversations.

It's also quite common for me to at least partly mouth thoughts out to myself and sometimes even to use my voice and talk to myself.

It also seems like I have tape running all the time in my head and can go back to it . I can take it back years to covesations remembering not just what was said but who was there were they were standing or sitting the more I think about the clearer it becomes sometimes to the point of being able to close my eyes as watch it on tv not with everything but things in my intersts or people i like