Thinking without a mind's eye, ear, nose, etc.

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I do have a limited ability to visualize and I do think a lot in words but I can relate to Poke's description of the way he thinks. For instance the lettuce/spinach question brought up a flash of a vague round lettuce shape and a brief impression of Popeye. Both were more impressions of shape rather than images. As far as the colors were concerned my thoughts were more 'what color is a lettuce? - light green. What color is spinach? - dark green'. The colors were just details in my memory rather than visualizing a green lettuce.

Well, I can only speak for myself but I usually try to occupy myself - reading, making something, browsing the Web. If I have to sit still and not do anything then I am usually planning what I will be doing or designing something.

I actually had to look that one up on Wikipedia:
Nope. Sorry, I don't do that. About the closest I come is planning a design for something I intend to build or a program I am going to write. There is almost nothing visual involved in those thoughts. I was talking to a counsellor a little while back about relaxation techniques. She suggested I imagine myself walking along a beach. I tried but my brain just threw the mental equivalent of a blue screen. Can I turn that one around and ask you the same question - What are day dreams like?

For me it doesn't exist. My senses are separate. For others - who knows?

It is very difficult to imagine another person's way of thinking. Your thoughts are central to who you are and how you perceive the world. I would like to be able to think more in pictures but I can't imagine thinking almost exclusively in pictures.

I think people tend to assume that their ability to form mental imagery, etc. is normal for no other reason that it's impossible to make direct comparisons. I'd suggest (to anyone interested in "measuring" these abilities) paying very close attention to the descriptions other people give of their visualization abilities.

There are questions you can ask a person to get an inkling of what their visualization is like. I often start by asking people to visualize a baby sitting on an alligator and holding a balloon. Once they say they've got the image, I ask them follow up questions. The first one is, what color is the balloon? Their answer will tell you whether they are actually getting a clear mental image or merely thinking about the concept of a baby on an alligator (note that I lived 30 years thinking nothing of people telling me to "picture this" or "imagine this" as I thought they meant for me to simply think about the concept, not actually conjure up an image in my mind). Then I ask them about the quality of the image. Many people who I take to have lesser visualization ability report that they see a black and white image, vague "shapes", or a cartoon drawing. My fiancee, whose impressive visualization ability I've written about before on this forum, immediately produces a vivid, full-motion mental movie of a real baby sitting on a real alligator with a picture quality that she compares to a blu-ray copy of some Planet Earth type show. She can visualize anything instantaneously. I can't say things to her like, "imagine that the room is full of evil looking clowns" because she will do so immediately and it will be so realistic and vivid as to upset her. Other people in her family report similar visualization abilities.



To me, this description indicates some level of impairment. Most of the people I've talked to who do seem able to visualize do so effortlessly/automatically. Reports like this have been quite rare--and believe me when I say I bother people about this stuff all of the time.



This is a great description of, coincidentally, a concept I've wanted to crystallize for a long time now. I relate to this passage a great deal.



Probably the same stuff anyone else does, I would think.



I am unable to daydream in the conventional sense.

Yes, that's what I was trying to get at. I guess my phrasing was very awkward.

Poke, I'm curious. You say you have asked a lot of people about visualization. How common is it to only be able to visualize a vague shape? What would you say is about an average ability?

It's difficult to say, but the impression that I get is that it's normal for people to be able to visualize a) more or less instantly and b) with a significant amount of detail. What seems to separate normal visualizers from "super" visualizers is the realism are strength of the images produced (regular visualizers seem to keep everything "in their head" while "super" visualizers can actually change their perception of the outer world in a realistic way, like my fiancee filling the room with clowns). It's impossible to accurately compare people's inner experience but if you get a few people to try their best to describe/compare their experiences, different levels of ability quickly become apparent. You just have to think of little tricks/tests/tasks for people to try--some will clearly be able to pull them off, some won't.

Going by my experience, reports of only being able to visualize vague shapes are uncommon, as is a complete lack of visualization ability.

Sounds like your talking about "hypnagogic hallucinations"? Just thought it from young people.

edit:- Is it only clowns filled up? Young person was a person who had a fear of spiders & they were all over the room.

http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Hypnago ... ations.htm

Interesting. I never thought that if you imagined a balloon it naturally had to have a color; mine don't, unless the color is significant. I just pull up the "balloon" concept in general. But I don't think that represents an impairment; it's just a different style. Someone who immediately imagines a round, red balloon tied to a bit of woolen yarn looped around the baby's wrist would be imagining a very specific thing, and by generating that image immediately exclude all other possibilities for balloons and ways to hold them. When I stay with the concept, I don't get a clear mental image, but I also don't exclude any of the possibilities generated by the concept. There are benefits to either style.

Incidentally, I do use mental imagery for some things; my idea of math is heavily geometry-oriented, and I see numbers as having shapes and sometimes weight or density. As a young child I had problems with math because I am unable to memorize anything I don't completely understand at a basic level: I had to have a general solution for multiplication (i.e.,each multiplication fact as a special case of x*y) before I could memorize the multiplication tables. Essentially, I had to use my concept of volume, area, and density to connect to the concept of numbers so that I would have a path of associations to arithmetic. I'm one of the few people I've met who learned arithmetic and algebra simultaneously.

A few things here. First, when I (or most anyone else) says "picture a baby sitting on an alligator holding a balloon", I mean for you to produce an actual mental image, in which case the balloon would have to have some sort of color (or no color, if perhaps it is black). If you naturally respond to that question by thinking of the nonspecific concept of a baby sitting on an alligator without a clear mental image, it doesn't mean impairment unless:

a) you have no choice, meaning that you are unable to produce a clear mental image of that scene, or

b) you are able to produce a clear mental image of that scene, but it takes you an unusual effort to generate it (and that's why you default to the "general concept" way of thinking)

Of course, neither of those could be accurate (although you did characterize your visualization ability as requiring time and effort, which in my experience is unusual and probably representative of some sort of impairment). It could just be that you "misunderstood" the request, that I really meant for you to conjure up a clear mental image of this scene, even if it took you a moment to do so and involved committing to a certain baby with a certain balloon of a specific color.

Your (your mind's?) reluctance to "commit" to a specific baby/balloon/color is perhaps related to a sort of "intellectual honesty" that many people seem to employ in their producing mental images. When asked to visualize something, many people (Temple Grandin for instance) begin cycling through a variety of specific images of that sort of thing--if you tell these people to imagine a car, they start cycling through a number of different makes and models, some rendered realistically, some as paintings or cartoons, etc. This is not quite what you are describing, as it still involves clear mental images, but it seems like it might be related somehow.

Keep in mind that when I ask you to imagine a baby sitting on an alligator, there's no good reason to avoid "committing" to a specific image. You are only being asked this question as part of a casual conversation on which nothing important hinges and the "intellectual honesty" of your not committing to a specific image has no utility--rather, as I described, it serves as a placeholder for the thing that I really want you to do (visualize a baby). Now, it very well may be a good mental "habit" in general (perhaps it's a component of real, general intellectual honesty) but for the purposes of this conversation it's more of an obstacle than anything else.

I can do the mental image thing--make it very specific--but like you said, it takes a lot of time. The more specific it is, the more time it takes. Even then, it may just be that the concepts are getting more specific.

You mentioned drawing, and that interests me: I am quite unable to draw from memory, but I can "copy" anything I can see with reasonable accuracy.

Thought is the process of consciousness continuing to exist as it always has and always will. Consciousness does whatever the f**k it wants. People like to say 'Everything happens for a reason'. This is true, but it's not a truth.

Everything happens.

THAT, is a truth. Anything can happen, therefore Everything DOES happen.

Everything ever started as a thought which developed inside of consciousness. From the eternal to the eternal everything that can be, will be. It must simply be provoked into creation.

Everybody has a different pattern of provocation. Everybody has different thought processes. Everybody has different thoughts. Even mirrored thoughts are different perspectives of different understandings.

Total area covered by the mass of consciousness expands. Obviously those towards the middle have a higher concentration of similar mirrored thoughts than those pressing the expansion.

There is a pattern to our frequencies. We operate at wavelengths because we wanted to and continue to do so. There are a lot of different wavelengths. NT's have a hard time tuning their radios to our spectrum same as we have such draining experiences tuning our own down to theirs.

Enjoy your thought process. Enjoy being able to share its uniqueness.

Well I have a mind eye and everything and I truely believe that if I lacked them I would not be as autistic as most of my austistic behaviors relate to inner withdraw and disconnection that would not be possible if I had nothing inside. I really cannot comprehend how thought can work without any form of imagination.

I can definitely say that over the years, I more and more developed my English skills from a "word" to a "thought" basis. Maybe because words form thoughts, but it just takes time. I never got to that stage in French. In French I still form sentences by thinking about every word.

In linguistics, there are two theories on language acquisition. One says that ever language is unique and has its own thought pattern. The other says that there is a basis for all languages. I think I prefer the second theory because I always felt language works that way. I feel language before I put it into words. What's probably true is that each language is a different interpretation of the world.

Although I have very little visual or sensory imagination, that doesn't mean I have nothing inside. While others may have a fantasy world or similar visual/sensory imaginative retreat I use concepts or words. For instance I may design some software in my head. Planning out the structure and functionality does not need any form of pictorial representation. I use concepts and words instead. Instead of having a picture I just know the structure.

I also use fiction a lot, effectively using someone else's imagination for me. Again, while reading I don't have much of a visual or sensory image of what is happening, it is more based on concepts and thoughts.

I can comprehend a lack of visual thought, or a lack of auditory thought, but I cannot comprehend a complete lack of sensory thought.