do autistics think in pictures? how do you think?

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I am visual, I have an exceptional memory, and it revolves around pictures and events. I don't impress people with recollection of facts, but past experiences and conversations. "How did you remember that?" Pictures are usually the link to the events and conversations I remember so well.
The most intensely, long-sustained focus I've ever had without breaks was making sport highlight mixes on youtube, synchronizing the rhythm of the song, to abrupt motions of the highlight or scene transitions in the video, strategically randomizing (if that makes sense) and spacing apart scenes based on the athlete, the type of highlight, and the quality of highlight. I tried to master the art of taking a bunch of videos and meshing them together to make more aesthetically pleasing than the sum of their parts. When comparing an aspie's mind to a big ship (ie the big ship vs little boat theory), it never gained more steam then when I was making those movies. Things that I see give me the most pleasure, and take the least amount of mental energy.

You must love the command line in linux; are you a network admin?

I read that a memory trainer say that it's imposible think without mental pictures

I'm a very visual thinker

Lots of people can't think in pictures.

That´s funny! As child and youngster, I "characterized" people with bits of music. I linked their appearance to bits of music, I knew, a harmonic pattern or a bit of my own invention

No, I'm not a network admin, but I remember being fascinated by electronic circuit diagrams and logic diagrams (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Logic_diagram) as a 14-year old. These diagrams felt like a natural language from my perspective. I actually designed and built a number of digital electronic devices. One device included a massive tangle of wires that would have given any network admin a heart attack

Later I studied mathematics, and professionally I have been using visual graphs in all kind of domains, including supply chain modelling, industrial automation, software engineering, and insurance product design.

Some mathematicians in academia like John Baez apparently are also fascinated by networks (http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/networks_oxford/).

It's hard to say how I think relative to other people, I've thought the same way my entire life and have nothing to compare it too. I would probably agree that I am visual thinker tho, I've always been able to visualize thoughts in my head even things created completely in my head. It's kind of hard to explain I guess but I always thought that was normal.

I think when we read or write, we play out the words like a mind-film. In the case of reading we are translating the words into our film. In the case of writing, we are translating our film into words. That is how I do it, anyway. I would be interested to hear from people who do this some other way.

It's interesting how so many people here have some kind of connection with music! For me it is completely the opposite, I totally suck with rythm, like I hear a song and may remember the lyrics but can't sing it because I can't store the rythm. Also I don't like to hear music much because I am usually already stressed by sensory processing.
I have a question for you girls and guys, to what extent can you speak in a normal rythm and/or understand jokes and sarcasm? because it seems weird that you can recognize music rythm but not speech rythm. what is the difference to you?

awesome!



and I think in my case this is related to executive dysfunction.


I am pretty sure it is like that for everyone, but some people can imagine better and more detailed movies than others. I think some of the people that don't like reading are like that because the movie in their minds in of a very poor quality or almost non-existent, or they have trouble convertig the words to movies.

I noticed another thing about the way I think, it is that I usually revert the thinking pattern. A very silly example, instead of saying A causes B, we have A thus B is the conclusion, I say we have B and before we had A, and that's because B is caused by A.
In pages long academic works and exams this kind of reverted arguments can get very confusing for the people that are reading. More than once I received a "WRONG" in an exam answer because I had written an argument in another order and the professor didn't recognized I was saying the same thing.
I constantly revise what I am writing because if I am not careful I am going to write arguments in a different order. When I speak it works like that too sometimes, like I say: "father took the key, I stayed home, that's because there is one key." people say: "what??" Then I think and re-order: "I stayed home because father took the key and we only have one". But maybe this has to do with the fact I am good at learning languages like japanese that has a very different word order.
another thing is that I always need examples. I think it is because I need to visualize things, and also I like defined concepts. For instance, some says "he is weird" I say "weird how? Give me an example". I want to be able to visualize it and notice the details of him being weird so that I can see what she is talking about, but also the concept, rather than having a general concept of what weird means, I am very aware people use words differently. Like people have different intersections for words (I imagine words like circle-like shapes that have complex intersections and borders in meanings), so I always ask for the definition or examples,

I tend to be a very visual thinker. I also enjoy doing arts and crafts.

I think in words.

Lots and lots of words.

*raises hand*

People like me.

if I remember correctly in another topic you wrote there is a huge gap between your verbal iq and your visual iq, right?
how is it not being able to think pictures? for instance if you see a noun don't you picture what the noun means?