Can you think with ideas/concepts consistently? (See post.)

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Almost always. I think the only time I do not is when I'm 'in my own world' alone and focused on something not idea-based, maybe sometimes in shut-down mode.

I agree with those who didn't understand. To get what is meant by the question I would have to see a list of possibilities... a range of thinking processes, and I don't see how anyone could classify that. I think in thoughts.

Make what you can of this:
I can hear songs in my head to the point that they get stuck there, but I can also choose the song I hear as long as I know it reasonably well. I have no particular gift with music, however. I don't do well with pictures... I remember colors and shapes only vaguely most of the time unless I am very familiar with the subject. I remember things better in words but none of my memory is reliable. I have trouble remembering street names and other specific words because I have synaesthesia and see numbers and letters and words in my mind's eye as having colors, and so mix up some letters because of their similar colors. I also have occasional OCD-like spikes in which I see suddenly upsetting imagery. I have learned to cope with this and it no longer troubles me as a rule, but it interferes with my ability to visualize because certain images bring certain reactions... say, body parts that automatically will not stay properly attached in the image I picture, causing me to feel queasy and give up. But if I avoid picturing living creatures in too much detail, I do better... I can see, if I concentrate, elaborate scenery, imagine I am flying and almost feel it, etc. I retain sounds better than pictures, but have a hard time processing something that is explained to me without seeing it as well, and even then have a hard time translating something from words into pictures or any other form. I have to read recipes dozens of times over while following them, study instructions step by step and stop to ponder them along the way just to get anywhere.

I write, draw and sing. I am frequently frightened while driving that I will miss something important. I can't tune things out on purpose but often do by mistake. I have trouble forcing myself to change gears, even to bathe, eat, or go to bed... and fall asleep easily because I am exhausted and because I can imagine something pleasant and forget to stay awake, once I am willing to try.

I don't know how that means I think. I think a lot of ways.

It took me several weeks and reading a handful of explanations to work out what I think anbuend means by thought not connected to ideas/concepts, and part of that process involved me catching myself doing it or something that seems like it (comparing what I experience to what she's described). It didn't make sense to me until I realized I do it occasionally, just not to the same degree and I don't think as easily/naturally as she does - and that's assuming what I experience is quite the same thing.

Sometimes afterward I only remember a blur of sensory impressions, but sometimes I remember seeing distinct things and not only not knowing what they were but not thinking about whether or not I knew what they were, that thoughts are entirely perceptions, and the perceptions themselves lack meaning in terms of ideas/concepts. Like seeing a child moving around in front of me, I didn't connect the concept of child to the child, or the concept of hands to the child's hands. I just see...shapes and movement, but the ideas/concepts of shapes and movement aren't there either. Or even the idea that all of the shapes are necessarily connected, or separate from other things in the environment. The idea of it either being connection or lack of connection is not there, either. When it ended I could recall what I had seen and interpret it, but while it happened it was not meaningful in a conceptual sense.

Sounds are similar - they're just sound, there's no meaning. I also know that I have no sense of time, and I don't recall how, if at all, I perceive my own body, smells, touch, and other stuff.

I can interpret my memories, somewhat but it's hard to describe a lot of it. I suspect there's more than one thing going on because sometimes I can clearly see what is in front of me and remember it afterward, but other times I don't think I am even able to clearly see it and am instead seeing things that are even less comprehensible when I try to recall them, although not necessarily abstract, just in the way they were processed.

Since this rarely happens for very long, and doesn't happen all the time (or even often), and I only really started paying attention after I connected what I was seeing/hearing to what anbuend was saying (before I just looked at it as zoning out, and not particularly a kind of consciousness/thought), I feel like my impressions are extremely incomplete. But I also think that explaining something like this well enough to make perfect sense is practically impossible.

Another context is in shutdowns: I tend to just want to lay down - except I don't go to sleep, I just don't move or speak, and my thoughts just swirl around until, without language input (and I don't think in words), they get further and further removed from ideas and it's all about sensing the environment around me and not interpreting it. Hard to describe.

If I am off-base, I apologize in advance.

Thanks Verdandi.

I admit trouble describing nonconceptual thinking. Sometimes I call it sensory rather than conceptual thinking, but then it can be confused with things like Temple Grandin's picture thinking that is still highly conceptual, and same goes for all conceptual thinking that uses one's inner eyes, ears, etc. as the thoughts, which seems how most people think.

Other times I go with those who say it's not thinking at all. Most people I know who experience it talk about it that way. (Of course that can be confused with simply the lack of words or images in a person's head, even if they're clearly holding onto enough concepts to understand, say, the objects around them.)

Which reminds me, to respond to someone on a prior reply, it's possible to have concepts yet not identify objects as what they are, but I suspect it's much less possible to identify objects in any remotely conventional way without concepts.

It's incredibly hard to describe nonconceptual thinking (or not-thinking) because words are conceptual. How do you describe something from within its opposite? You can only point at it and hope people get the idea.

I do know other people whose primary way of relating to the world is nonconceptual but few of them come here often. I admit I didn't expect to be the only one.

To the person who does both at once: Sorry for not thinking of that possibility. If I could edit the poll I would.

As far as listing different kinds of thinking... the problem is really the main aspect of what I'm describing is whether the thinking uses ideas/concepts or not. Not what form the "display" of those concepts take (which would be an incredibly long poll, I wrote a very long list once).

I can see what you mean by non-conceptual thinking, but I have trouble explaining it too. It's not my "first language"...

I definitely use conceptual thinking most of the time. I think in patterns of ideas. When I was very little I used patterns to say the right things at the right time; now I use them to get through rote conversations. I learn things by connecting them to the existing patterns of ideas.

Patterns can be non-conceptual too though. Visual or auditory data can have repeated patterns.

The kind of patterns I find in information seem a little more than just repetition, but it's very hard to describe what I do mean. It's like the words I use can mean one thing to someone who actually thinks this way, but can create a bunch of really confusing impressions to people who don't, the ones who seem to explain it best are people who are a little more solid with concepts than I am, but have at least some experience with what I'm talking about.

What is interesting to me is that sometimes I feel like I am pretty solidly dealing with language, ideas, concepts, and at times when I'm tired or overloaded (not shut down) I feel like holding onto these things is not really quite so simple. Like toward the end of some appointments I've had I start to lose sensory meaning and even while trying to pay attention, it slips away, at least for a bit - not solidly for long periods of time, but enough to disrupt my ability to maintain a conversation.

I did this, and do this. I remember more the times that I thought I was saying the right things and instead said the wrong things than anything else. That is, things that technically fit the pattern but were pretty rude (although I didn't always realize they were rude, or in one case, just how rude).

On one occasion I wasn't in a blur of sensory impressions and not "thinking" as such, I was also agreeing with someone that I understood her list of directions on what to do when I was able to get more information for her. It wasn't something I realized I was doing when it happened, but I zoned back into the conversation mid-agreement, which was kind of a "how does that even work?" moment for me.

Last edited by Verdandi on 14 Mar 2011, 4:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I guess I don't really understand. I don't know how I think. Memory-wise I'm very visual. For example if I can't remember something on a test a lot of times I can bring up the notes in my mind and see the answer but I don't really operate that way outside of memory. Even as a big language dork, I don't I don't really think in words either. Of course if someone's speech interests me (like using a dialectcal feature) I'll quickly take notice but I don't have words running in my mind unless I am ultra-focusing (more than just normal aspie hyperfocus). But ideas doesn't seem quite right either. That seems to be more abstract than I use in normal thought. Mostly I have thoughts that sometimes have visual sequences and sometimes don't have anything accmpanying them. I often think in stories I think, connecting everything together that way. I don't know.

It's interesting how this kind of thinking is not thinking, but other kinds of non-verbal non-pictoral thinking are "skills". Like riding a bike, playing an instrument by ear, interacting socially in an instinctive way. The intuitive reaction we have to things. Even dreams. Do you think non-conceptual thinking has a use that we haven't discovered yet, or do you think it is a form of rest?

Can you think with ideas/concepts consistently? Ideas and concepts can be impacted by the following: Petit/absence/TLE/complex partial, etc., ADHD Inattentive, central auditory processing disorder, constructional apraxia, face blindness, color blindness, etc. Some persons tend to think in pictures (artists); other persons tend to think in sounds (musicians). Words: whole (forest) vs parts (trees), sustained attention, sustained memory, sequencing, storyboarding in the brain/mind, storyboarding using a black pen on white paper, clear thought, foggy thought/brain fog, no thought, alertness, attention, wakefulness, waking up, sleep, dreams, Alzheimer's, senility, brain injuries, sports concussions, etc.

I guess I'm not any clearer on the concept than before... I find I always do better with examples and things to cross-reference... lots of them... when getting a new concept. This is what it is... >example< This is what it isn't... >example< That sort of thing. I'm supposed to be smart, according to the old schoolteachers, but as so many have since recognized, you can be smart and still have a blind spot.

Reading posts here has reminded me that I usually remember things in reference to other things. My husband said if he wants to remember something, he just remembers it (yeah, not always... but that's the process and it works reasonably well for him). I told him that was like a superpower! I have to have connections, and if I just try to remember something, as the day progresses, I will forget it as I move out of context with the time and place and even frame of mind that I set out to remember it. So certain foods will remind me of certain movies and certain movies might remind me of certain foods likewise because I ate the food while watching the movie... but I can note that I need to fetch a roll of toilet paper and forget about it by the time I leave the bathroom if I don't sing a little reminder song. I will forget to put something away unless I keep it in my hand until I have done so. But I remembered exactly what happened when I had to be a witness for a minor collision I saw because I remembered what I thought about the events as they unfolded, rather than clearly recalling the events themselves. That's a tangent, though... I remember things better if I put them into words myself, or create a structure in my mind for a design.

I used the one example I could clearly explain: I was in that state while sitting in a living room with other people and there were a couple of small children playing.

The other example was I lost some kind of coherence/interpretation that went beyond that, where all I can recall from the period is a blur of sensory impressions. I may simply not remember what I actually saw and heard or my sensory input was actually so disrupted that this is exactly what I saw and heard. Either way, the only "thoughts" in my mind were what I was sensing, nothing else. I wasn't day dreaming, thinking of something else I had to do, my mind wasn't wandering, I simply was not consciously present as I typically am.

Anyway, my memory is similar: I require contextual connections, often extremely narrow connections, to recall things or I just can't bring them up or even realize there's something for me to remember on some occasions. I wrote a post about it once:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt151907.html

.

Last edited by KBerg on 20 Mar 2011, 12:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I essentially never have trouble thinking in ideas and concepts, and I externally appear to fit the "hypersystemizing" stereotype. However, it's not quite that straightforward - my mind is actually split into "upper" and "lower" layers, with only the "upper" layer (which is usually dominant) dealing in ideas and concepts. The "lower" layer deals in sensations (and patterns of sensations) and emotions. The upper layer tends to be primarily verbal, whereas the lower layer tends to be primarily visual, but this is far from an absolute rule. I have a significant amount of integration between the two layers (and it is very common for both to be active simultaneously), but they are still definitely distinct. I guess you could say that my mind sort of works in the opposite way to anbuend's.

I think I might get it.. Do you mean something like just simply perceiving the things around you without any specific thought attached to that sensory input? Like if you are looking at a chair... You don't attach the idea of what it means to be a chair to it, and it just simply *is*... Like everything in the world is just a flow of sensory input without any meaning attached to it?

Yes I feel pretty sure that I think in ideas all the time. Those ideas are quite fuzzy, but they affect my decision-making. I find it quite important to convert the ideas into words so that I can scrutinise what's going on and correct it.......the initial ideas can be flawed, as if they're based more on emotion than on logic.