Visual thinking

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This is something I've been wondering about for a long time.

My thinking is visual, or mostly visual (certainly not logical/sequential). I don't have an internal dialogue; the only time when I'm aware of words going through my mind is when I'm thinking about my writing, and am making a conscious effort to think in words. Sometimes I have those spells when I'm completely silent inside and don't seem to be thinking about anything at all, and am only seeing and hearing and touching things. My whole mindset seems to revolve around visual imagery; I notice visual details first of all anywhere, and on the whole I seem to focus on small details and empirical fact, rather than on concept.

I had trouble with math and other tasks that required abstract thinking up until the final grade of high school. It seems I also had some trouble generalizing, singling out the most important points about something (one of my mother's main complaints was, "you can't tell necessary things from unnecessary ones, ever!") or summarizing stories until I was 13 or 14. I'd hear or read a story and could imagine it very well, almost as if I was present there too, and if I heard it a few times I could retell it by rote. But when it came to telling what it was really about, I had difficulties.

I remember being very surprised when I was studying psychology and one of our tutors mentioned that people usually think in words, and have an inner dialogue going on. I can recall wondering if I was the only one who thought in images and whether there were others like me. Then, later, I happened upon some of Temple Grandin's books (not "Thinking in pictures" though - I'd love to read it but I never had the chance), and it suddenly made a lot more sense.

I wonder how many people have the same kind of thinking, whether AC or NT. Temple Grandin seems to say somewhere that almost all autistic people think in pictures, but I now know that it isn't so. I also wonder whether this is a particularly HFA thing. Apart from it, and a couple of other things like being not very articulate and having trouble forming full sentences (while being very talkative at times), I fit into the AS profile. Makes one think just where that line between HFA and AS really is.

I think visually a lot.

Tim

People with ADHD produce more theta brain waves. Daydreaming is primary theta
brain wave state. Daydreaming is primary visual thinking. Most people brains produce
very little theta waves while awake and more often are in an alpha wave relaxed state or a beta wave focus state. In such states word thinking would be more natural.

ADHD is a double edged sword. The theta waves give you great creativity
but give you little focus to complete task. Treatment is a doubled edged sword to. If you take a stimulant you get more focus to complete task but you loose alot of creativity.

Yeah, I agree with themachine1. I am TRYING to think more in a feeling way, but am not quite there yet. I say feeling, because it is between verbal and visual. That is probably the way EVERYONE thinks at the lowest level. I guess if you want to be fluent at multiple languages, or read REALLY fast, you have to deal with this third type in some form. It is almost automatic, and you just KNOW.

Steve

I think in all senses, really. I sometimes have an internal monologue, especially when writing, but I think in colors as well--each concept in my head has a particular image tied to it, usually a color-scheme but sometimes a motion or even a particular scent or feeling. Often I experience these rather than narrate to myself, especially when I read.

I have an internal dialogue but I also have a visual, as well. A lot of the time, when speaking to someone, I wish I could just place my WHOLE thought into their mind instead of having to explain every single fine point.

If a picture is worth 1000 words, then whats a universe worth?

I think in words, and in something resembling wordless concepts or the "feeling" way that SteveK mentioned. I have a very hard time visualizing.

i have both!

but when i tend to daydream.... the words kinda become this hushed creek that kinda bobble on by.... like i can tell my mind is rambling something but i dont have to pay attention... i usually just watch the show.

however... if i have a keyboard handy... i like to try and practice trying to keep up with those words and just type them out furiously.... stream of concious stlye.... makes for some interesting random writings! but if i do this... it eventually cuts my daydream short. i think the words just flow by too fast and it snaps me out of my daydream when i try to catch them.

it reminds me of when i was younger and played the piano... that same kind of focus... of just playing music from your head and channeling it through your hands to make the music. (im not a good pianist... just liked to make my own little ditties!)

I definitely do have an inner dialogue going (or more appropriately a monologue, unless I am thinking about explaining something to someone, which I actually do quite a bit). However, I find that, like Sedaka said, this is a kind of "stream of consciousness" babble and consists of repetitively bringing up the same ideas over and over.

My most creative way of thinking, as well as the most efficient for problem solving, is in fact visual. If I'm not thinking visually too hard I can think verbally at the same time, but if I'm really trying to be creative or work out something complex, my verbal thinking shuts down temporarily (or at least it goes outside my "attention bubble" so I don't know it's going on).

I also have a kind of "feeling" way of thinking, but I don't think it's the same as the one some of you are referring to, in that it doesn't help at all when reading or interpreting most language. In fact it's a lot more closely tied to the visual mode of thinking. It's sort of like a simulator that keeps track of how things change over time, as if their positions, velocities, sizes, colors, etc. were being graphed.

i think i also do this "feeling" thing too

i work in a devlopment lab where we study gene expression in embryos via in situs; which stain gene expression in a 3D sense throughout the embryo. you subject embryos at different stages of development to the stain and then cross section the embryos to look inside and see where the gene expression is... then you assimilate it back into a whole 3D structure and compare the gene expression in all the various embryos... so you get like a timeline of expression patterns.

it's like creating a 3D movie! i love it... i really get into invisioning this kind of stuff as the ebryos develop and interpreting what it means... and how it all physiologically fits together. it's very visual.

i'm a total nerd

My thoughts are more visual than anything, sort of like a quick slide show or movie, I also think in my other senses as well. I do think in words at times, especially when writing, but my words that I have are like a elaborate graffics display racing across my field of vision, so it still is visual. I go into a blank mind state as well. It's like standby, or autopilot.

I usually think in pictures than with words. It just makes more sense that way.

Exactly. I often have the feeling that the images in my mind are much clearer than words could ever be, and I wish I could make the person I’m talking to see them directly, rather than have to explain them to that person in words. That would mean conveying *exactly* what I want to say. On the other hand, the explaining never feels complete enough.

My thinking could be the reason why I’m not really articulate and have trouble finishing sentences. My thoughts are normally not in words to begin with, and it takes time to translate them into those. And even then, the “translation” rarely feels adequate and doesn’t seem to get to the point of what I want to say.



Actually, your job sounds extremely engaging.

I visualize in 3-D mode a lot when reading about animals. I “see” each species in my mind’s eye, sitting still, then moving, behaving the way it is said to, etc. Sometimes I turn the picture of the animal round in my mind, so that I can see all of it. It’s like seeing a wildlife movie. Lovely.



Same here.



That’s the best description of it I’ve come across. To me it feels most like autopilot when I’m depressed (usually during my seasonal mild depressions every winter). Then not only my mind is blank, but the things that surround me are dulled also, and I feel dead inside. As if I were made of stone or something. I’ll walk around, do the things I usually do, even understand them, but when it’s over it feels like some wasted time when nothing was going on, because things were so flat and I was acting more like a robot than a person.

When I’m feeling fine, the “blank” state usually isn’t disturbing. It’s often quite pleasant, really. Things will be glowing and I will be watching them without thinking, and feeling a sort of deep tenderness that’s difficult to describe. Like just melting into the world around me.



I seem to have a “feeling” way of thinking too, which seems to be somewhere inbetween the visual and the verbal, but probably still a lot closer to the visual. It’s odd, really, when I think about the more abstract concepts that don’t have a direct empirical image attached to them, I tend to think of them on several levels at once. For example, when I think “love” I will think first “bright sunny yellow – white – dark plum color – darker yellow” (the colors of the sounds/letters), then “sunny yellow and gold, euphoric gladness, sweet taste” (the color and general sensory scheme associated with the concept). Then, maybe, I’ll see the image of two people hugging or holding hands.

I seem to attach visual symbols like this to all abstract concepts - for example, "separation" would be two parts of a metal clasp, a little like the one that joins two railroad carriages together, moving away from each other; "fear" would be darkness and something obscure and threatening lurking in it, like a shapeless monster of sorts.

That's excactly what i figured out last year when i failed my english literature essays, the assistant was so very verbally and for me the symbols were always represented visually.

In the end we couldn't possibly understand each other (an exemple : the story about two deaf people, and a man that dropped a key, for me -especially bcs these people were deaf- this was an ultimate visual symbol of a 'key appearing out of nowhere' (since they didn't hear the dropping of it on the ground) and a key always makes me think of a treasure ( i can see the two images of a key and a chest) but the assistant was talking about an opening to a another mental state all the time.
In the beginning i didn't grasp what our misunderstandings were based on but when i saw her spitting(while talking) on the students of the first row, i realised that she was not aware of her own behaviour until this would have been expressed in words (while for me this had an almost nightmarish visual impact)

But of course i do understand and use words quite accurately (otherwise i wouldn't be able to study literature ), although it always is some kind of struggle ( i've drawings of myself in a literal fight with words )

At the same time i noticed i'm incapable to understand words or sentences or texts that cannot be translated into a visual equivalence, and some people's words really don't make any sense for me. And my interest in listening to others is not very high when their talking contains only few visual captures. ( i do my best though )

i never had any problems with maths (i see it as a visual world on it's own)

i often find when i try to make a joke... that the "funny" part of my jokes dirive from the pictures of my mind that i have for the given topic... so most people just don't get them cause they don't see what i see... and it comes back to that whole "having to describe every aspect of something" that to me is so obvious... it just doesn't need to be explained. so by that point... the joke is lost on whomever.........

as a result.... many many many people have described my humor as nonsequiter... well, my thoughts in general too.

I've always been puzzled by this assertion about verbal thinking. Why would you do it that way?

I remember as a child lying at night waiting for sleep, counting: flying around each number in three d. Yes, I know everyone does it now, but that was the 1950s