Does anyone else think in sounds?

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I hear a lot about autistics thinking in pictures, but, while I do some of that, I'm mainly an audio learner. My brain is more tuned for sounds than for sights. So, when thinking in words is too slow, I switch to my own audio language of strange-sounding beeps, squeaks, hums, all alternating on/off sort of like Morse code, except much faster and more complex.

Sometimes, my thinking is fuzzy and difficult, and that's when I most often switch to the "audio language" method of articulating my thoughts to myself. Then, I find my thinking notably sharpens. They're just completely raw sounds I produce deliberately, but not really controlledly, which have meanings. I even express complex emotions as sound configurations.

Hmmm, interesting... I'm thinking of whales, and especially dolphins right now, and how those highly intelligent creatures use very complex clicks and squeals to communicate. Maybe I'm part dolphin. But seriously, does anyone else do this? I haven't heard anything about it, yet it must be common for some autistics to think in sounds if others think in pictures. Often I'm not aware I'm doing it, but sometimes I'm very aware indeed. Often, when I can't articulate a complex emotion in words, internally, I'll invent a sound for it. And that sound "sounds like" the emotion I'm feeling -- even though it's a totally random and raw sound, like an electronic sound.

Can someone explain to me how to know how one thinks? I always get confused by these threads. Obviously I think, but I don't know how. Or how it varies.

Not long ago my sister and I were talking about Dr. Grandin's book, "Thinking in Pictures" and she told me she does not think in pictures at all, she cannot visualize things. For example, she said, how wide is my apartment, and I thought a minute and pictured myself lying down on the floor end to end and told her your apartment is so many feet wide, because I know how tall I am and how many of myself it would take to reach from one wall to another. She said, I cannot do that. Apparently she thinks in sounds. I can't imagine (there's that visual again!) what it is like to think in sounds. I will have to ask her more about it. I am an extremely visual thinker; all I have to do is close my eyes and I can create an incredibly detailed scene in my mind. It is like watching a movie.

That is way cool. I'd like to hear what it sounds like. Have you ever tried making some kind of approximation in midi with a sequencer or something?

I'm a musical thinker, so yes, I do think in sounds, and it's very cool! although I also think in pictures and "video". But I honestly thought everybody thought like that.

In my family, we communicated with my autie sister in sounds, sometimes. There was one sound which, roughly approximated, meant "Aw, please?" There was another sound, sort of a series of sounds we would make prior to falling asleep, which meant, "Good-night." It's been ages since I remembered this! Also, I seem to automatically make full length videos to go with music I am hearing. Some words have a flavor, or a color.

I can easily visualize complex scenes, which I have to then translate into words, which can take time. I was just thinking of the word "friends," and I hear this delightful chiming noise, like two objects that sound pleasant when they bump into each other.

I tend to lean toward both. I learn visually and by audio. At a class, I was categorized as of those who use the right side of their brain when learning. So, I'm not that good when it comes to learning things manually even though I read a lot. Guess reading's different.

Probably all of us capture and retain sensual input. That can be audio, visual, feelings, taste, touch etc. Thinking is being able to manipulate these inputs by making variations of the components in our heads so a musician can change instruments and all the other variables of music, visual artist can play with colors and shapes, a cook can play with flavors and then each of these people can try to bring these new conceptions into reality by manipulating actual material. I do all of these things and, when I write poetry I manipulate sound and meaning in my head. It is surprising to me all of us cannot do all these manipulations.

I think in voices.

I think in pictures, and in entire 'movie scenes' sometimes. Sounds annoy me.

I think in words and pictures, just like a movie with narration.

I think primarily in the form images, diagrams, and melodies; making me right-brained. I do think verbally, but not nearly as often, and such verbal thoughts tend to be echolalia-based and pallalia-based and is usually accompanied my me talking out loud or "sub-vocalizing" (doing the mouth and throat movements of the words silently).

I think in holograms . . . like from Star Trek. So real that you can't tell it's not.

I think in musical sounds and pictures.