I can't really visualize things. What's it like for you?

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Here's something I've been thinking about for quite some time (I might have talked about it before, I'm not sure):

I've heard that it's quite common for people on the autism spectrum to be so-called "visual thinkers" and that they find it easy to imagine things and visualize things. That's something I personally can't comprehend because I have a very hard time visualizing things and my imagination is poor. When I for example read books it's not like I "paint a picture" in my head of the things I read. I read the words on the pages, the words form sentences, my brain processes those words and sentences so they make sense to me and I understand them. Books are words to me, not pictures. I can't really see the things I read in my head. I don't really know what the characters look like and I don't really know what the settings look like. I just know they exist. Let me try to explain.

If you were to ask me to imagine a room with, for example, a person sitting at a desk, I wouldn't be able to give you any sort of details about what the room or the person look like. I'd know I was in a room and I'd know there was a person sitting at a desk but I wouldn't see it. I don't see any colours. I don't see any details. I don't see any contours. I just know I'm in a "room" and that there's some sort of entity sitting at a "desk" that I can't see, but know and feel is there (it's really difficult to explain so bear with me). It's like everything is covered in a thick fog.

It doesn't really bother me. I'm used to it. It just makes me curious about what other people's inner worlds are like. My thoughts are very concrete and factual. Very literal and very two-dimensional (one-dimensional perhaps?). I see things the way they are. Every time I "daydream" the thoughts are based on realistic conversations, feelings and words. No images. The only time I really see things in my head is when I'm asleep. Then it's like my brain compensates for the lack of imagination used during the day and bombards me with colours, sounds, three-dimensional images, futuristic worlds, open fields, beautiful architecture, deja vús, false awakenings etc.

During my assessment the psychologist made me do a memory test where I had to look at a quite detailed picture and copy it by drawing it on another paper. She took away both the original picture and my copy of it and we talked about other things. An hour later the psychologist reminded me of the fact that I had copied a picture (though she didn't show it to me) and she asked me to draw it again, from memory. I did what she told me to do and without letting me know how I did the psychologist took away the paper and we kept on talking. An hour after that she asked me to draw the picture from memory again. I did. She then showed me all four pictures (the original picture and my three copies, drawn at one hour intervals) and I had gotten every single detail right at all times, which she said was pretty unusual (though I don't know about that). But in my head I didn't see the picture, I just knew what it looked like and drew it without any problems whatsoever. I still remember it even though the memory test was three months ago but I still can't see it.

I'm not a visual thinker. I think I have a good visual memory but I don't think in pictures. So, I'm wondering if this is common among people with some sort of ASD as well? Is this way of thinking something that's typical for people on the autism spectrum? Also, feel free to tell me how you think when it comes to these things. I'm just curious.

EDIT: Spelling mistakes.

This is the same for me as well. I have trouble explaining "how I think" to people. For example, my hubby is a visual thinker and fellow autistic so he describes worlds in his head full of vivid imagery. He has difficulty speaking as well, he has trouble getting the "pictures into words". I, on the other hand, am the opposite, I can describe forever a picture using a huge vocabulary, I can also draw from my imagination without visualizing what I'm drawing first-- it just comes out on paper, I can link a drawing for reference purposes though just to tell it they are highly intricately detailed drawings (such as if I drew a dragon it would have individual scales on it's head each shaded, etc.).

Also all the stuff you said about reading a book, I know what's happening, I remember that George was wearing a red suit and killed his mistress, etc. but I can't SEE George in my head or any scene playing out that I'm reading. The memory aspect is HUGE though, I remember almost every book I ever read and most "facts" that I have found to be true I remember them forever (even if things change, like there are actually now only eight planets instead of the nine I grew up knowing) I'll remember not only the actual fact but what it USED to be!

Elephant memory, huge vocabulary, think in constructs (not just words, but thinking in IDEAS themselves), excellent drawing from memory, fluent verbal skills with a keen ability to pick up new words and information very easily (people quite jealous of me in taxonomy type courses in school (for biology major).

Also hyperlexic.

Any of this for you too?

That's really interesting, kirayng, and I can relate to some of it. Especially things like "George was wearing a red suit and killed his mistress" but not actually seeing the scene play out. I can also very much relate to finding it very difficult to explain how I think (I find it difficult to translate thoughts into words that others can understand) and being able to pick up words and information easily. My friends often tell me they envy my memory and my ability to learn things so quickly. When I'm taking exams I can often remember what the lecturer's handouts looked like (the order and structure of those notes and therefore approximately where to find the information I'm looking for) even though I don't see them in front of me (in my head that is). I just know what they look like. I don't have an eidetic memory or anything, not at all, but I just seem to remember things well. Do you know what I mean?

I don't think I was hyperlexic. I learned to read when I was three years old though.

You mentioned that you think in ideas. Could you please try to explain that a bit? I'm not sure I understand what you mean.

That's interesting. I have always found the 'visual thinking' stereotype difficult to identify with, despite being diagnosed with HFA. As a mathematician, the only bits of the subject I ever struggled with were the bits which involved visualising shapes (e.g. 3D geometry) or mechanical intuition (e.g. Imagining what would happen if a ball rolled down a slope). I think I do have some basic images in my mind when I think, but they are not at all refined or realistic, and most of my thinking is structured in conversation type inner dialogues and proceeding according to lists of instructions/"recipes" stored in my head. Difficult to explain, but I'm definitely not a visual thinker. Definitely not an artist either - my drawings resemble an average ten year old's - and reflect my lack of observation on the details of how things look.

I'm good at visualizing. If I'm reading a book it will play out in a three dimensional movie in my head.
But I don't really understand thinking in pictures. Understanding how I think is difficult.

When I think, it is mainly making connections between concepts and ideas that are supported by pictures and words and have to be translated into words and sentence formats to talk about them.
I do this when I am thinking about things, but sentences and thoughts in my head are repeating and looping and incomplete, and not in any organized linear form and it's difficult to actually have to explain something in writing or talking.

I think being visual per se is not in itself anything to do with autism. For people who DO have it, it can bring with it a photographic recall, the ability to draw in great detail from imagination and memory alone, but it's not just a gift. It's something that cannot be switched on and off at will, and like some other autistic traits, the blessing can also be a curse...

I'm extremely visual and was gifted at accurate drawing from a very young age, but my visual thought and memory muddles all sense of the world and becomes as much of a nuisance as any other sensory problem...

Take conversation, for example. In conversation, every single word flashes before me as a movie in a highly detailed way. It makes me extremely slow to understand what is being said to me, where I spend more time correcting the detailed images that flash before my eyes than understanding what has been said to me (for example: someone saying "I've lost my train of thought...") gives the obvious steam train speeding along full pelt over a high viaduct with smoke billowing out, 'lost' evokes that TV program with the crashed aircraft (which in turn sets off images of different air crashes - I have an entire catalogue of all those in my head so it's guaranteed to make me lose track as various different disasters divert my attention). The same happens in reading, where I have to make sense of words that each stand out on their own with often-incorrect images.

The other problem from being overly visual is that it creates false memories. My thoughts are as clear as real memories, and I find it extremely hard to recall whether something is a genuine memory or something I accidentally pictured. I've lost track of how many arguments I've had where I've insisted that I know where a missing item is located, because I can 'see' it clearly in my mind - perfectly - as if looking right at it. In fact, when the item is NOT there, it feels impossible, like someone is playing a cruel trick.

I can't explain thinking in ideas, just that they aren't pictures, aren't only words either, more than words and different layers... probably associative?

I have trouble visualizing what I read in books. Whenever I imagine it, it's always taking place in my own house or places where I've been. I also sometimes see movies and years later I think the images were a certain way until I watch it again and realize I was wrong. This happened to me recently with IWTB.

Sometimes, though, when I see things in a movie or a series, I can figure out what the opposite ends of the room the actors are in would look like from their point of view. Weird, I know. I have a lower than average visual IQ of 88 with a superior verbal IQ of 120. However, when I do my maladaptive daydreaming or stimming, I visualize things and it seems detailed but yet it really is the same as when I am reading.

Like for example I have fantasies of meeting famous people at SDCC and I think of it in detail but yet it always looks exactly like the basement of my old church where my childhood science fairs were held. I guess I just relate those things as part of geekdom.