Distracted Visual Thinking

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OK, is there anyone here who thinks in a different manner? If so, can you describe your thinking process? (Preferably in a way that is easy to visualize. )


Ahhh... I do it often. I never knew it was a bad thing...

That has happened to me my entire life.

Argh!! I hate when people give directions like that... it's so vague it's practically useless!

I thought I was the only one. I get requests like that all the time, I work at a grocery store. Normally, I get help, but it's so annoying. And until a few years ago, I thought everyone thought visually like that. I once did stage lights for a local theatre, and at the end of every night, I would have to go and turn off ALL lights and then leave. I could've used a flashlight, but I never did. I preferred walking in the dark to see how far I could go without using a flashlight. People had trouble believing me when I said I could visualize that well. It's so cool to find other people who think like this. I'm only 16, and in high school, and sadly, have yet to meet anyone like myself.
I also visualize conversations all the time. It helps a lot with my confidence (I'm always in short supply) and it's always fun visualizing different situations with people. But, I also like to walk around aimlessly and think outloud. One of my favorite pastimes. Anyone here do that too? It would be a wonderful thing to know that I'm not as weird as my friends think I am.

Last edited by Sarcastic_Name on 29 Mar 2005, 1:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Oh yeah, I do this all the time and I am usually amazed at the connections I come up with. I actually met a woman on the plane today, whose children are both gifted, but with learning disabilities and they do the same thing. I met her in a very bizarre manner, but she could tell I was a visual thinker, b/c I was watching her hands the whole time she was talking and she said when I recall the conversation later, I will remember her hands, but not her face and she was totally right. When I looked at her I visualized oranges.


Tallgirl.

Yes, this happens to me, too. Having gone siteseeing this past week with a couple of friends, it occured more often than usual. I can't follow another person's line of sight, or the direction they are pointing. I basically just have to look across the landscape until I find what they are describing.

I have pictures streaming in my head all the time. And I guess there usually are several streams running at the same time--the thing I'm actually focused on as well as a bunch of other stuff. I enjoy it. I never thought about it being "distracting", but I guess it is to some extent. Not to the point that I can't function, though. I control it when I have to, but at other times I just let the images flow, which is both interesting and relaxing. I think of it as The Movies My Brain Shows Me, but it's more like a slide show than a movie. Actually it's like several slide shows going at once--overlapping and intermingling--a constant visual extravaganza.

Several times, people have said to me, "I'll bet you've dropped a lot of acid". I never have, but I guess I see why I might give that impression.

I do sometimes feel sort of fatigued by this effect. I feel like my brain is just cranking so hard all the time.

This is something I think I have as well, but really I'm not too sure I can call that "visual thinking" because it tends to be very vague in my mind. However, I do feel that this is a good explaination for me having a poor sense of direction.

I'm also intrigued that someone could use their other senses to visualize. Perhaps the sense of unrealism in my visual thought is because I am using only my sight (and hearing?) to visualize.

A few questions:

1) How clear would you consider your visual thought?

2) What is the difference between visualizing and daydreaming?

First question - That depends on my state of mind if I get a good lock on something in my head, I can create some very complex and indepth visuals. If I need recall what someone said, I can't just go back and recall what they said unless it's something short, or I am asked "Did ???? say this?", but I need to, in a sense, play back in my mind a video of what they said in order to recall.

If I'm trying to think out the answer to a complex problem, I can immerse myself completly in visual thought. Back when I use to write computer programs, if a programming issue left me stumped, I would often lay down in bed and visualize each line of code running step by step like I was hitting the F8 key, and seeing what each line was doing, what the values were for variables, and where the code was going next. I could stop and ammend, remove, or add lines of code and continue on with out having to restart the program like I would have to do on the computer.

Second question - Difference between thought and daydreaming. Day dreaming for me is where I create visuals in my mind to entertain myself, and not to solve anything.

My thinking is visual, accompanied by an internal verbal dialogue. Similarly to what other members wrote, I see "movies" relating to everything I hear, read, say, write or think. The visualisations are detailed to a similar extent as my memory, and both are often difficult to tell apart. My visual memory is such that I am sometimes able to count objects by recalling the "mental picture", although usually within some margin of error.

Hmmm... I have exactly the same problem!

Sounds a lot like my thinking style too magic.

I'm not really sure how my thought processes work.... My problem is that they're simply too fast to be able to track without ultra-sensitive and high tech measuring gear

About the visual thinking, I think I am one. But to find out if I am one I would first have to find out what the oposite way of thinking is. I mean I sometimes think I think in a more complex and intricate way than the others I have talked too (NT people)
I mostly get the "movie-effect" at night when I think about stuff, and then one thought lead to another thought and so on. If I "loose" what I initially wanted to think about I have to go back in reverse, in the exact same order step-by-step, let's say 10 thoughts back, and then I will have the thought I started with when I layed down in bed.

The thoughts are all connected no matter how little they seem to have to do with eachoter. If I started out by thinking about a post I read on wrongplanet about depression, my mind might have wandered off to something completely different like what's for dinner tomorrow (bad example but you get the picture?)
It might have taken an hour, I am not exactly sure, but within that thought process I would have gone from depression too what's for dinner, with maybe 1 thought inbetween or 50.

I really hope I am making sense, as I am desperately trying to understand myself.

What I also do and what is annoying, is that I can't think without talking to myself in my head, and to write this post I must think in english, if not I won't be able to say anything at all. If I think about an episode of "Dawson's Creek" I do it in english too, but if I think about something in the local news it's in norwegian.¨

So is this visual thinking? I am sooo confused right now, but analysing thought processes are fun:)

I sort of have movies, but I don't know if they are as detailed as some people's.

I tend to think in a combination of both words and images. Sometimes words become more prominent, other times, images. When I am remembering something, though, it is almost always in the form of a video. For example, if I am remembering something someone said to me, I don't remember just the words, I remember the environment, and the position of the person who said it to me, as an image, and I "hear" them saying it (though sometimes I can't remember or picture who it was, it's just a figure in a certain position in my mind).

As for distracted thinking, oiy! Yes, I have this problem, but it is often my mind going back to the same thing over and over again, rather than going along so many different tracks, unless I am especially trying to think about a solution to something (like an art assignment).

Berta, I can describe non-visual thinking only as a flow of concepts and language absent of visualization. I only get into this state when focusing intently on using language, be it written or spoken. Everyone can use both visual and linguistic thinking processes and most often thinking is a combination of the two. However, each person has a stronger leaning toward one or the other. Extremely communicative people will most likely think primarily in language. Those with weak visualization will see generalized images, while those with strong visualization will see images that are very specific and detailed.



You have described here linguistic thinking, a flow of language in your thoughts. If during this process your mind was absent of images, then you were thinking in pure linguistics. If, while you were “talking to yourself in your head,” images were being triggered, then you were using combined visual and linguistic thinking.

See, you described the opposite way of thinking without realizing it: “talking to myself in my head.”