How do you think?

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I think in pictures and numbers.

For example, I don't write shopping lists for food shopping. I go through my cupboards / fridge visually in my head, and then I trace back a week and visually search through my cupboards / fridge and compare them to see what I need to replenish.

I have memorised several train maps just by looking. I know the periodic table. I can "see" whole journeys that I've done by train.

As for numbers - I can easily memorise several hundred decimal places of pi. And if I want to, I can memorise 90% of the numbers I see in my life.

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How do you think?

Is it common for autistics to be visual thinkers?

I don't much.

I think a lot in pictures too. Not so much like OP but definitely visual. I make images of the words like I am making a film.

I think in pictures and numbers too, also sounds and movements, basically lots of non-verbals and not verbal narratives, which makes communication hard and some other things easy, like I never write anything down, I keep it all in my head and recall it when needed, I can see a bunch of spreadsheets that I am working on in my head right now and I see the numbers on them, so I remember.

I think I'm a hybrid.
I check the cupboards, fridge, etc before writing a shopping list.
The list is to keep me grounded when I go shopping.
When I get to the shops I go down the aisles in the same order every time, and as I go by a section where there is something on the list, it's almost like the word I wrote on the list comes up in my mind, or I hear my own voice say the word for the item I need.
Typically I collect all the shopping this way, and check the list when I think I have everything.
I usually manage to get about 95% of all the items I put on the list before I check it.
Writing the list reduces my temptation to make impulse purchases.
I also find that I remember to buy some things I have forgotten to put on the list, because my mind is in the right place.

I can remember my way to my cousin's house, which is the house my dad grew up in, and that my grandmother used to live in.
I have never needed a map to find the place, even though it is nearly 800km from where I live.

I used to deliver pizzas, and would only need to look a the address, reference number, and briefly look at the map once to find my destination.
I have a quite reliable sense of direction, and can usually find my way to a familiar location, even quite some distance away without reference to maps, GPS, or directions. This is the case whether the location is walking distance, a short drive, or may take several days to arrive by car etc.

When I listen to music, I can usually make a fairly accurate attempt at duplicating the tune on my guitar, sometimes with only one listening.
I remember faces, but not always names.
I can't delete some info out of my head, like family birthdays (even though I have no contact with my family), and some phone numbers.
When I think, I can hear the sound of my own voice in my head speaking the words; such as whilst writing this it's like I am narrating my own post.
It's not a literal thing, I don't auditorily hallucinate, but I imagine the sound of my voice speaking the words.

I wouldn't say I have a photographic or eidetic memory, but I can strongly remember images of things, kind of like a photo, especially things that have a strong attraction or attachment for me, like both of my grandmother's homes (both long since passed away), or the house I grew up in.
When I go back and find they don't match my memory, because there has been some sort of change, I feel cheated because it doesn't match my memory and expectation; such as the house I grew up in had a new fence and guttering put on, so it didn't feel like my old house anymore.

I think I sense things emotionally first, then try to translate to spoken language, images, or a concept, like home, work, house, etc, but first and foremost it would be whether or not I associate the place as good or bad, as in whether I feel safe there, or I find it confronting.

It is common for autistics to be visual thinkers, Temple Grandin's book "Thinking in Pictures" was about this, and at the time Temple assumed that like her, all autistics thought in pictures.
I think some are visual, some are verbal, and some like myself are hybrids.
Probably the same with NT's, though their actual process is different.

^ Yes, much more like this. Personally, I have a bit of an aversion to numbers, I'm much more language oriented - to the point that I find algebra maddening because they keep inserting alphabetic characters in place of numbers - letters represent SOUNDS, not DIGITS. My brain just rejects that, on principle.

I'm still thinking about it.

.I have constant conversation in my head too though. And sometimes I make associations with textures or colors. Sometimes rather than words or distinct pictures I see patterns like grids and reds and blacks or dark purples or yellows.

Someone asked me once if I liked to eat mussels and I said no. Then they asked me if I had ever tasted them and I said actually no I had never tasted them. And so they asked me how I knew I did not like them. I said that I could taste the texture by looking at it and I did not like the texture. They asked me what I thought the texture tasted like and I said it tasted like yellow. Of course it was a bit difficult for them to understand but it was all 100% perfectly crystal clear to me.

Well we went out to eat with some friends a few weeks later and one of them got mussels and asked if I wanted to taste one. I said okay and I did. It tasted EXACTLY to a tee how I had always thought it would and I hated it!

Last edited by skibum on 11 Aug 2013, 5:09 pm, edited 3 times in total.

I am a visual thinker but not in the way a lot of you say. I like numbers but prefer to use my imagination more and have several stories/worlds in my head at once that I jump through.

That's cool! I have imaginary stories like a little kid in my little head world. But mine are not different worlds.

I can remember numbers, words, sounds and pictures. I only need to look at a password once to memorize it, for example. I have my IDs, bank accounts and passwords all in my head. I can also remember songs for years.

The most extreme example I can think of is Pink Floyd's Breathe, which I listened to a year ago and immediately recalled that my father had their album, The Dark Side of the Moon, back when I was 3 years old and we lived together. Before that, seeing the cover of the album made me remember that I used to feel very uncomfortable about the six-coloured rainbow in it: I remember wanting to correct it by adding a seventh color.

I also played Chrono Cross (a PlayStation RPG by Square Enix, then known as Squaresoft) once for a few hours, in my cousin's home. Years later, I still had this song in my head until I finally acquired the game for myself.

Both at school and at work, I do not bother taking notes, either: I can remember what my teachers and superiors told me, as long as I am interested enough to pay attention.

And I also have a few imaginary worlds and stories in my head: I used to write about it from when I was 12 until I was 15 (I wanted to make a computer RPG), but I still have most of it in my head and I have even developed other unrelated ideas (although I like to think that my universes are all the same, but taking place in different planets and/or periods of time. Even though the one I worked on for longer is a high fantasy world, while the others include a space opera setting and a superhero in modern times setting).

And I am always talking to myself. Usually, it is an internal monologue, but when I get too distracted thinking, I can speak to myself in the same tone I would talk to another person.

I think in a combination of still pictures, video and seeing the words spelled out. I am frequently thinking, when I see how a city or name is really spelled, "I did not spell it that way".

I actually talk to myself out loud like I am talking to someone else. If others are around I do it so no one else knows.

I almost had car accident while thinking in pictures yesterday, like my awareness withdrew into my head to look at pictures and play videos, so I wasn't processing road and traffic anymore and almost rearended car ahead, but braked in time, with swerving.

This plus asking people questions and, because my awareness goes back into my head, I miss their answer. It's like the crew on the Starship Enterprise face away from the viewscreen. It is also like my attention/awareness is a magnet and it is constantly attracted to my inner world, like two magnets.

Me too.
More than 1200 decimal places.
In school I was not able to remember what was said, but by writing context from books down and remember it photografical what I did write myself.
Into detail how writing a letter and spaces between letters.