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SteelMaiden
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21 Mar 2014, 5:37 pm

What is the experience like for you? How do you utilise your ability to think in pictures when calculating something, or studying etc?

For me, doing arithmetic is seeing coloured blocks and shapes fitting together to do the calculation. Algebra is more elaborate and quite pleasant to think of in pictures.

When I study, I take "pictures" of what I am reading and store the information in "chunks", and mentally glue them into a mental scrapbook that I can refer to when I want.

I never write shopping lists for food shopping as I memorise my kitchen down to every last detail and analyse what is missing and hence what I need to buy.

I can memorise a whole train map in 15-20 minutes and remember it for an extremely long time, if not forever.

Can anyone share their methods of using their ability to think in pictures to their advantage?


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Claradoon
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21 Mar 2014, 6:41 pm

Much of what you say is familiar to me. Math as chunks of colour is what I've always done - it took WP to tell me it's unusual! Yes, I take pictures of pages, but not the whole page, unfortunately (I mean pictures in my mind). When I was in school the page would come up of its own accord in response to a question, and I'd read off the answer. I wonder what my face looked like - blank? trance?

Now, shopping lists, that's another matter. I have no interest In the kitchen and no idea what is or should be in it. I stand in front of the fridge or cupboard wondering what to do. Then I make a peanut butter sandwich, for lack of a better idea. But I love eating, just not the how-to. I'm lost without a written shopping list. Fortunately, I get my groceries on-line.



Danimal
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22 Mar 2014, 12:00 am

Yes, all the time. I not only memorize what is in the kitchen, but I memorize grocery stores. I have 4 Walmarts memorized. I hate going to an unfamiliar store because I can't "see" the things I want. I am very distracted by other shoppers because in my visual world they don't belong there. It's silly, but there it is. I find this way of thinking very advantageous.



Lukecash12
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23 Mar 2014, 10:13 pm

Hmmm... I've only ever experienced this when it comes to visualizing sheet music. For whatever reason I always see music as notes on a stave. And while I have very vivid impressions, memories, and can imagine things vividly I don't seem to associate things with images like you're saying in the OP. Can this have to do with synesthesia being common amongst folks on the spectrum. Because while I do experience synesthesia regularly it's nothing I can use like that. It manifests itself more in ways like how I see colors when I listen to music, associate colors and sometimes specific images with moods and concepts. But numbers and theoretical figures don't really give me a distinct impression of an image.

With music though, I'll dream up whole pieces and visualize them on a sheet well enough to wake up and even write out all the parts. And what's even more strange is that I have real difficulty finding inspiration to compose something when I'm awake, but I compose things and write them down all the time in my sleep, even full blown piano concertos and string quartets from time to time. It's a really intense experience and because I always dream in music like this, I can never tell if I'm awake or not. It feels too real and it confuses me because I somehow get really self aware during this. I don't know quite how it works but I could listen to something like this and write it all down afterwards, even forming theoretical impressions of it as I listen and seeing the roman numerals for the cadences, and the chord names too, flash through my head as I listen:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RjhzTohsKo&index=25&list=PLE924CDC785F08BBB[/youtube]

Dunno why I can't have any "normal" dreams. There's always avante garde music and I'm always contemplating something at the same time. And it's practically the same as me contemplating this post right now. Like I'll literally argue with myself or with a friend, and only realize that it didn't happen after I woke up.


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Sylvastor
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23 Mar 2014, 10:30 pm

Claradoon wrote:
Yes, I take pictures of pages, but not the whole page, unfortunately (I mean pictures in my mind). When I was in school the page would come up of its own accord in response to a question, and I'd read off the answer. I wonder what my face looked like - blank? trance?

I guess it might look pretty blank, with that 1000yard-stare, or however it is called. :)
But it took the comment of a classmate two or three years ago for me to realize this isn't normal. :oops:

It has to be interesting literature though, otherwise I don't remember that well and it doesn't always work all that well either - or, well, it has to be something important at least, then I can spend the time in "consuming" the pages. I'm not literally reading from that "fictive photograph" though, but I just recall the main-information that were on the page. I don't know how, I know in what block of text they were stored and recall it by "looking" at that part, but I'm not reading it at least.

This is difficult to explain... I better stop so I won't confuse anyone, if I didn't already. :lol:

I can memorize pictures and photos very well as well. I think it was in 8th grade: I was drawing the Reichstag (the building where the german "Bundestag", the parliament, is in) for a poster we were making in a group-work. Years later I could still remember the details and could have redrawn it anytime . Unfortunately, now I don't remember every detail anymore, but I bet if I would spend some time looking at the picture, I might be able to memorize it as well as before. :lol:


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EzraS
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24 Mar 2014, 1:40 am

Have been told I think in pictures, but don't know how to describe it. It's just the way I think.



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24 Mar 2014, 7:31 am

I also think in pictures. I think it's one of the reasons I'm really bad with driving directions. When I think of going somewhere that I've been to before, I visualize the roads, intersections and landmarks around where I need to turn. The actual names of the roads don't automatically come to mind. If I need to go somewhere that I haven't been to before, I need GPS because I don't have a mental map of that location yet.

When I think about going grocery shopping, before I even leave, I visualize my car, the road in front of my house, the intersections and roads between home and the store. I also visualize the store itself. I see a map of the layout of the store and where everything I need, while also seeing an image of what I need to get, is located and then I think about in what order I should pick them up. Very little "verbal thought" happens when all this goes through my head.


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leejosepho
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24 Mar 2014, 8:10 am

Claradoon wrote:
Much of what you say is familiar to me.

Same here, and I can do mechanical design and troubleshooting in my mind before picking up the actual materials and tools. However, my failing physical vision over these past few years has somehow reduced these mental abilities proportionally.


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Wind
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24 Mar 2014, 8:14 am

I remember places I travel to, or am going to travel to, by thinking in pictures.

If I've traveled there, I remember each little turning and such, which bus routes to take, etc. and this could be a brand new place that I've only been once.

If I'm going to travel there, I usually only have to have a swift look of Google maps/street maps, and I can travel there remembering it OK.


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Jaden
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24 Mar 2014, 1:42 pm

I can usually "take something apart" in my head and figure out how it works. It comes in handy most of the time.


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jetbuilder
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24 Mar 2014, 1:46 pm

Jaden wrote:
I can usually "take something apart" in my head and figure out how it works. It comes in handy most of the time.


Me too. This is one of my most prised abilities. I can visualize how things work very clearly in my head.


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Jaden
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24 Mar 2014, 9:48 pm

jetbuilder wrote:
Jaden wrote:
I can usually "take something apart" in my head and figure out how it works. It comes in handy most of the time.


Me too. This is one of my most prised abilities. I can visualize how things work very clearly in my head.


Indeed. It's kind of cool when I can do it without previously knowing how something worked as well, it's almost like my brain is accessing the info from somewhere else. lol


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KWifler
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24 Mar 2014, 11:59 pm

I think of words as pictures and as sounds. I often see words in my mind when I hear them.
My mind is currently slightly broken right now, but before, I had a photographic memory, and I can still do a little bit of physics-accurate 3D interaction simulation in my head, as well as creating new 3D physics-accurate objects in my head. I work with 3D models in my mind all the time as a mental hobby. I love to create new things.


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