If you don't think in pictures then...

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This is the same for me

I think in either narrated pictures or just words. Which is apparently normal.

Usually like I'm talking to myself silently. I'm an aspiring author, and most of my daydreams are basically stories writing themselves in my head. Occasionally there'll be pictures, but it's not necessary, and the pictures are usually fairly indistinct.



Memories for me are highly visual. Usually still pictures though instead of movies.



With the word 'cat', I do see my own cats and sometimes other cats. But if you said 'autism', I'd be more likely to hear my inner voice spouting off facts about autism than to see an autistic person. If I do see a picture, it's more likely to be the puzzle symbol or that rainbow Moebius strip than an actual person (even though I know many autistics). Or I might see the layout of a medical journal page - that comes up with a lot of conditions.



I don't see nothingness. It's more like I'm just not looking than like there's nothing there. If I do think 'what is in my mind's eye' something always pops up, but if I don't draw my attention to visual thought I don't always experience it.

My thoughts are like reading a book. I generally think in words, if I'm trying to think of something specific then I may be able to picture a vague image but nothing extremely realistic.

I am very curious on what kind of music you listen to?

I think in pictures that moves swiftly in my brain. It goes fast and I get irritated when people around me does not get the same information that I get. When for instance a group is given a practial task, I visualize the problem in my head and the solution usually appear quite rapidly. Then I am realising that I have to explain what I saw to the others in the group. First I have to use valuable time explaining the problem, then the solution and finally how to best solve the problem and get to the solution. Usually there are protest underway with several "what if" deadend solutions hampering the progress. I guess everyone in a team like to participate with their "knowledge".
Arghh....I hate working with others.
I know I sound like a twat, I probably am one for not being patient enough with others, but I hate wasting time when it comes to stuff like this.

I would like to think that i think in using all my senses. I tested as a very visual detail excellent memory person. To recall yesterday, its a bombardment of different images, (like as in video playback) also smell, sounds.
All my senses contribute, mainly my visual ones.

I use to be a visual thinker I imagine. however I am two inpatient and anxious to visualize things so I draw then, watch a video or look at a actual picture instead .

So either visual or none.

I would like somebody to explain what it means to think in words. Do they see the word or is it just there? Its all very confusing to me.

While I think mostly in abstract concepts I do think in words when I am "scripting". For me, thinking with words involves me hearing the words; I talk without vocalizing. I can hear words in my mind as clearly as if I spoke out loud, but it's just for me. I do not see the words at all, I can't really picture things in my mind generally.

When you speak of "thinking", do you mean "all the time"/"consciously" ? I can't really determine the way I think, maybe because most of the time I don't "think". I'm not a really good "thinker" when it comes to consciously tackle a problem. I rely on the "background processes" of my brain, that do the work. Sometimes, for example when I can't feel asleep, these "processes" seem to appear to me a bit in the foreground (which explains why it becomes even harder to fall asleep) but I can't really describe them. My infra-conscious "thinking" seems to be a persistent rush of all kinds of data that go to and fro. Something is thinking, but it's not really "me", and I mostly enjoy the results or bemoan their absence. It's my δαίμων, so to speak.
If I want to think consciously, either I can in some way partly gain access to those, or I have to build a reasoning, which I rarely do fast and effortlessly (maybe because I rely, by laziness, on what I've just described). But I don't know how to define it, and the descriptions of "thinking in words" here are maybe not really what I experience... Or I would say that if I'm really "blocked" (without the support of my "below-conscious" processes), it becomes a "thinking in words" (as in "heard in the head") that can be sometimes really slow... I remember some laborious and painful oral examinations when it seems I could only rely on this, which made me look like an idiot, sometimes to the bewilderment of the professor (if he knew my results in other exams), and other ones where I just let my brain speak, with success... It's paradoxical and it happens in writing too.

Not naturally. I can try to visualize, of course, if I want, but my memory doesn't really work that way.



I visualize nothing.



There is nothing to see internally. Except if I consciously want to visualize, but then the results are not the same as those of visual thinkers.

I believe I think non-visually or "in words".

I don't see things visually, not as movies nor as pictures. I group them in "boxes", building everything from the bottom. I don't see any boxes visually, they are just there abstractly. In the same way the numbers 1,2,3,4,5 are there abstractly. They aren't really there, only if you for example count 3 apples.

For instance I make a distinction between the living and the non-living. They are put in two different boxes.

So I think of things abstractly in terms of their properties. I don't see a red bike in front of me when you mention "red bike". I think of it in terms of it's size, colour, function and so on. In other words I think of "red bikes in general" not "a specific red bike".

It can mean a few different things.

My Mom thinks in written text. She says when she's thinking, she sees text scrolling by as if she's reading what she is thinking. She even makes typing motions with her fingers when she's deep in thought.

My Dad primarily thinks in pictures, but when he does think in words, he hears them spoken, just like he sees his visual thoughts. When he's quoting someone who speaks with an accent, for example, he will hear and imitate their accent as well as their words. He can also hear nonverbal sounds in his head, such as the sound of an orchestra playing.

In my case, I typically think in narrated pictures. Kind of like those abridged classics that have a large chunk of text plus a picture, except the text is spoken, not visual. But I don't exactly hear the words, it's more like I hear their 'essence' or whatever. I can't imagine or recall any sound I can't make myself, and when my imitation of the sound distorts it, I remember it the way I make it instead of how it actually is. So it's sort of like my voice is saying all the verbal/auditory thoughts I have. Also, since I have only one mouth, I can only imagine one thread of sound at a time, so I can't imagine harmonies and so forth.

So, yeah, verbal thought can be written or spoken, and the perception of spoken verbal thought can be more or less true to reality.

I am mainly a visual thinker, often seeing a concrete picture with particular details. Say :"Cat", and I picture a black cat with some white from the chin down. One black and one white set of whiskers and so on.
Sometimes I can answer questions by reading aloud from an inner picture of a page.
Thinking in sound means classical music accompanied by graphic scores, colors, feelings and aesthetic impressions.

Synesthesy (correct spelling?): When I paint/work with colors, I tend to swim in a sea of symphonic sound, whereas I see colors when playing music.
I used it early in school. I have dyscalculia, so I couldn´t deal with numbers in my head. I then pictured coloured pieces of wood moving in different rythms and took them down as numbers, when I needed them
When I was to learn the intervals, I had a problem because I saw the color before remembering the name.

Solutions to do-it-yourself tasks show themselves as bits coming together. The rest is about drawing and calculating measures and angles.

Whoa! I didn't know that, either! I can't imagine anything different. I think in pictures, sound, and touch.