Page 3 of 4 [ 50 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4  Next


How do you think?
I think in words 33%  33%  [ 25 ]
I think in images 37%  37%  [ 28 ]
I think in sensations 13%  13%  [ 10 ]
I think in a different way than the above 16%  16%  [ 12 ]
Total votes : 75

fluffysaurus
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 3 Oct 2017
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,723
Location: England

30 Nov 2018, 10:46 am

It's seems random to other people but I think emotionally, the emotions connected by subjects of interest and

bits of information that I have in my mind.

naturalplastic wrote:
How many nations does Europe have?

I can visualize a map of the Cold War era Europe in my head, and then count them accurately from my mental picture.
I stumble a little with modern Europe, and all of those new countries made from the fragments of the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia. But I can come pretty close.

Same with Africa, and states of the US.

The picture comes first, and the counting second, and done from the mental picture. So that would be an example of visual thinking.

So my version of naturalplastic's How many nations does Europe have? would be completely different. My visual

map is blurry but using the different emotions that different peoples inspire at different times and some theatrical

props to give me a little bit of visual as a backdrop to my emotions It would go like this.

France-Bonaparte-Corsica-St Helena-Where is Elba? back to France-horses hooves-the Iberian peninsular-

Andorra-Spain, Wellington-Guerrillas,Portuguese-The horses, the German Hussars-north to Belgium.

I'll stop before I bore everyone to tears but you see I would be following the connections but this does lead me off

into tangents eg I'm going to look up Elba and St Helena to see exactly where they are.



harry12345
Deinonychus
Deinonychus

Joined: 26 Nov 2016
Age: 49
Gender: Male
Posts: 316

01 Dec 2018, 6:28 am

I can see images in my minds eye. Invariably they are static or very short clips.

My thoughts are probably mostly in words - like a conversation/monologue in my own head.



QuantumChemist
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 18 Oct 2014
Gender: Male
Posts: 2,065
Location: Midwest

01 Dec 2018, 11:19 am

I am an extremely visual thinker, but I can also sense touch and smells on certain things that I am thinking about. For example, when I think of butyric acid (a four carbon strait-chain carboxylic acid), I not only see a floating image of it in my head but can also smell a trace of it (scent of rotten butter). In x-ray mode, the molecule can be mapped to view the flow of electron density around the molecule that can be used to determine chemical reactivity under certain conditions. I can also "see" the individual particles that make up the atoms within the molecule and the movement of each particle in slowed down motion or at near full speed. I can sense the magnetic field vectors for each one during this process, almost like the touch of a finger. I can also do this when thinking about multiple molecules (for bulk properties) at the same time (either same or different ones) and watch the interactions between them.

It was not until I was in college that I learned that not everyone had this ability. I just assumed that everyone mentally "saw" and "felt" what I did.



nick007
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 4 May 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 27,781
Location: was Louisiana but now Vermont in capitalistic military dictatorship called USA

01 Dec 2018, 8:55 pm

I also sometimes think in black & white with no grey area. Things are rite or wrong, good or bad.


_________________
"I don't have an anger problem, I have an idiot problem!"
~King Of The Hill


"Hear all, trust nothing"
~Ferengi Rule Of Acquisition #190
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Ru ... cquisition


SplendidSnail
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 2 Jul 2017
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Posts: 887
Location: Canada

01 Dec 2018, 10:20 pm

strings wrote:
puzzledoll wrote:
Here's a question, can you conjure things like scents or sounds? I've taught visualization to a lot of people and some people who can't do images can do emotions or other senses.


Hard for me to answer, because I'm not really sure what is meant by conjuring up a scent or a sound in my mind. It was quite a long time after I first read about aphantasia before I could really accept that when people spoke of "seeing images in their minds" they literally meant it. (Since I had no conception of what it meant, and I just assumed that people were wildly exaggerating when they said they could see images!)

So similarly, I'm not sure what it means to conjure up a sound, or a scent, in one's mind. Obviously (at least to me it is obvious!), I don't actually hear a sound, or smell a smell. I can imagine a piano concerto that I am familiar with, and I "know" how it sounds. But a certainly don't "hear" anything as I run through it in my mind. So I don't know whether that would count as conjuring it up in my mind, in the sense you mean.

This is exactly the same as me! There's no doubt in my mind that I can't "picture things" in my mind. I also can't make myself "hear" something as if for real, or "smell" something as if for real, but both hearing and smelling a way, way closer to being "real" than seeing.

It's really impossible to describe - there's a "knowing" that comes with the hearing or smelling that isn't there with the seeing. And yet, if you ask me to close my eyes and describe to you how something looks, I could still do it, even though I'm not seeing it.


_________________
Level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder / Asperger's Syndrome.


puzzledoll
Snowy Owl
Snowy Owl

User avatar

Joined: 10 Apr 2017
Age: 48
Gender: Female
Posts: 167
Location: the mountains by the ocean

02 Dec 2018, 3:59 pm

QuantumChemist wrote:
I am an extremely visual thinker, but I can also sense touch and smells on certain things that I am thinking about. For example, when I think of butyric acid (a four carbon strait-chain carboxylic acid), I not only see a floating image of it in my head but can also smell a trace of it (scent of rotten butter). In x-ray mode, the molecule can be mapped to view the flow of electron density around the molecule that can be used to determine chemical reactivity under certain conditions. I can also "see" the individual particles that make up the atoms within the molecule and the movement of each particle in slowed down motion or at near full speed. I can sense the magnetic field vectors for each one during this process, almost like the touch of a finger. I can also do this when thinking about multiple molecules (for bulk properties) at the same time (either same or different ones) and watch the interactions between them.

It was not until I was in college that I learned that not everyone had this ability. I just assumed that everyone mentally "saw" and "felt" what I did.


Yes! Isn't it weird to learn for the first time that people don't? I think in a very similar manner to you, I think. I also have emotions, sensations, and sounds in there as well.



graceksjp
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 17 Aug 2018
Age: 24
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,719
Location: Down the rabbit hole

02 Dec 2018, 5:16 pm

Almost entirely words with some images thrown in. I think in numbers a lot too. Oh and song lol. My brain has background music :lol:
My dreams and daydreams however are of such perfect clarity I sometimes have a hard time not realizing the events in them didnt happen in real life.
I definitely cant think in emotions or senses. Like I might remember something smells terrible, but I cant remember what it actually smells like till I smell it again.


_________________
*404 Error: Inspirational quote not found*


fluffysaurus
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 3 Oct 2017
Gender: Female
Posts: 3,723
Location: England

strings
Sea Gull
Sea Gull

Joined: 27 Jun 2016
Gender: Male
Posts: 241
Location: Texas

02 Dec 2018, 5:26 pm

SplendidSnail wrote:
It's really impossible to describe - there's a "knowing" that comes with the hearing or smelling that isn't there with the seeing. And yet, if you ask me to close my eyes and describe to you how something looks, I could still do it, even though I'm not seeing it.


The "knowing" is really hard for me to characterise, in my case. For smells, I have absolutely no mental inner awareness of what they are like, but as soon as I actually smell something in real life that I am familiar with, I will instantly recognise it. So in that sense, only, I "know" the smell. For sounds, I can run through the sound or the music in my head, but not hearing anything at all, just a knowledge of how it goes. For images of people or things, I "know" what they look like but I see no mental imagery at all. I could draw a familiar object from memory, if it is geometrical. For faces, I could manage little more than a childish scribble of an oval with two eyes, two ears and a nose and mouth; even for people I know well. Same if I was asked to describe someone I know well; two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth.



Last edited by strings on 02 Dec 2018, 8:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

graceksjp
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 17 Aug 2018
Age: 24
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,719
Location: Down the rabbit hole

02 Dec 2018, 6:46 pm

fluffysaurus wrote:
^ :heart: the avatar.


Aw thx. Ur little piggie is cute too!!


_________________
*404 Error: Inspirational quote not found*


SilverProteus
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 20 Jul 2007
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,915
Location: Somewhere Over The Rainbow

02 Dec 2018, 7:25 pm

It depends on what I'm thinking about, but it's mainly in words and images, coloured by sensations.


_________________
"Lightning is but a flicker of light, punctuated on all sides by darkness." - Loki


Arganger
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 30 Apr 2018
Age: 23
Gender: Female
Posts: 1,707
Location: Colorado

02 Dec 2018, 7:30 pm

Multimedia


_________________
Diagnosed autistic level 2, ODD, anxiety, dyspraxic, essential tremors, depression (Doubted), CAPD, hyper mobility syndrome
Suspected; PTSD (Treated, as my counselor did notice), possible PCOS, PMDD, Learning disabilities (Sure of it, unknown what they are), possibly something wrong with immune system (Sick about as much as I'm not) Possible EDS- hyper mobility type (Will be getting tested, suggested by doctor) dysautonomia


NorthWind
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 23 Jun 2016
Gender: Female
Posts: 577

03 Dec 2018, 11:58 am

I think mostly in words.
I do not need the 'imaginary situation where I'm having a conversation with someone else' like starcats described but sometimes I'll have them too.
I think that's because I also daydream a lot and for me it is somewhere in between daydreaming and thinking about the topic the imaginary conversation is about.
Daydreams are visual and auditory but sound feels less real than the images. They're like a movie, but unlike what some others have described, I actually see it like a movie and not from my perspective. The same is true for actual dreams. I see myself as if it was a movie.
If I'm immersed in a daydream there can be emotions and other feelings too. Only smell and taste do not occur. Characters in a daydream can like or dislike a taste or react to a smell but I don't have a mental representation for it. There's also usually no music in my head.
I can think in pictures (also when it's not a daydream) if the information I'm trying to access is primarily visual. For example when I'm trying to follow a map I had a look at previously I'll visualize it and place a small person on it to see where left and right is. In the example someone else mentioned about counting the countries of a continent I'd also try to visualize it (but my knowledge of geography isn't particularly good, therefore there'd be too many areas I couldn't resolve). I also need mental images for drawing or for memorizing and recalling things that can't easily be described in words (JiuJitsu techniques for example - but of course to actually do them they need to be kind of automatic).



Skilpadde
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 7 Dec 2008
Age: 47
Gender: Female
Posts: 27,019

03 Dec 2018, 7:49 pm

I think in words and emotions.

I recall in words, emotions, images and videos, and that is also how I dream


_________________
BOLTZ 17/3 2012 - 12/11 2020
Beautiful, sweet, gentle, playful, loyal
simply the best and one of a kind
love you and miss you, dear boy

Stop the wolf kills! https://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeact ... 3091429765


IsabellaLinton
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 1 Nov 2017
Gender: Female
Posts: 72,422
Location: Chez Quis

03 Dec 2018, 7:58 pm

In real-time, I think in words like a running dialogue in my mind but my memories are based on colours and non-literal representations of colours, sounds, smells, textures etc (synaesthesia). Every letter, word, name, place and thought has a colour and when they overlap I can see swirls. My memories are 3D and I kind of lose where I am in reality when I go to them. Last week I walked through a 'time warp' for a moment and I swear I relived a memory from when I was about nine. I was transported momentarily with all of my senses.


_________________
I never give you my number, I only give you my situation.
Beatles


jamthis12
Toucan
Toucan

Joined: 12 Oct 2018
Gender: Male
Posts: 277
Location: Arizona

03 Dec 2018, 8:33 pm

I generally think in a combo of images and sound. Like I can visualize maps for instance. And I also remember what something sounds like too. Oh and you know how if you mouse over a Youtube video and it shows a bit of it? That's me with songs in a playlist or something. After I've listened to one a few times, when I look at the song title, the opening bit plays in my head and then I can identify it better.


_________________
Rdos: Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 133 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 79 of 200
You are very likely neurodiverse (Aspie)