How do you think?

[M4cruiser]

legless said:

I don't seem to think in either words or pictures.

I have no inner monologue at all, which I didn't even realise was unusual until a few years ago. Bizarrely though, I'm not great at visualising things either.

My thoughts exist as a sort of language-less concept in my head, and don't have any picture either. It's really odd, and I have no other way of describing it to people.

It means that I often struggle to find the right words or to construct a good sentence out loud, as I have to translate between the thought and English in real time.

Interesting post.
My thoughts are too fast, by which I mean that when I'm talking to someone I don't make sense, because at first I have too many choices to make, so I pause a long time, and then my thoughts are falling over each other and causing me to mix up my words. I have to make a concentrated effort to slow my speech. And it's taken several decades to realise this and put the counter mechanism in place.

In the recent past I described it to someone like this: (If you can remember when we all used cash not cards!)
You go into a shop to buy a small item, it's 49p. You pay in cash,
You take out your coins (or purse or whatever) and you can see that you could use 2x20p plus 4x2p plus 1p, or you could use 4x10p plus 5p plus 2x2p ... etc etc. You simply can't decide how best to pay, and the queue behind you thinks you are stupid and are thinking very slowly and can't count to 49, whereas in fact you are thinking very fast.
.... when most people would put down a 50p and say "keep the change" and walk out.
Perhaps some of this will ring bells for you.

[W124]

AC43 said:

W124 said:

Also, I’m a musician. I can imagine a song, all the parts, the mix, the mastering - in my head. I can do this, and nod my head to it, whilst working on a totally different song. Even right at the start. I sort of save it up. I’m always one song ahead. The mind is crazy.

That's amazing.

The "headphone" bit I get; after I picked up a guitar when I was a student I learned how to pick out all the individual instruments and tracks in a recording pr in a live performance which make a big difference to how I understand and process music. And how I "listen back" to it in my head.

To this day I get genuinely excited by bands with strong rhythm sections as I'm now actively listening out for that and it's not just lost in a mush.

I sometimes dream in full music mode, sometimes imagine I'm making up a new tune in my head. Maybe I am. Who knows? But's full on, full volume big amp and speakers multi-track stuff.

Here’s one for you. I used to tour with a singer who was quite famous at the time.

He could only sing the songs in the original key. That is to say, if we chose to play in A minor rather than G minor, he’d sing the song in G minor. Unfailingly, the whole way through.

I still can’t understand how he did it. One of the most strong-willed people I’ve met. A totally different mind-map.

You probably are making up songs in your sleep. You still have the skill, awake or not. Happens to me a lot. Sometimes I can remember them still when I get to the studio. Rarer with age.

[AC43]

Mr Magooagain said:

AC43 said:

I'm a massive music fan but music mainly communicates to me in a sub-lingual way. I've always been astonished when people go to gigs and are able to sing every single lyric. Even for the bands I know the very best I can usually just manage a few lines of the chorus at the most. The words don't matter much to me; it's all about the mood and style of the music and how it makes me feel. At that level I find music all-consuming.

I’m similar to this, I know the tunes extremely well but not the words, I whistle tunes pitch perfect so I’m told and I have a natural rhythm. Music for me is extremely emotional and due to a few unpleasant memories I now can’t listen to music.
On the very rare occasion in past that I’ve been out and music is playing along with dancing, I go trance like and like you say it’s all consuming.

I've just finished Graham Coxon's autobiography (the Blur guitarist and co-songwriter) and he talks a lot about the process of writing songs. There was a Q&A at the end and someone asked him "how important words were to him". His basic answer that the words came "very late on". He and Damon Albarn would fk about creating snippets of music on various instruments then a chorus might emerge then other parts of the music etc. Eventually, at the very end of the process, one of them would think of some words that fitted the mood of the music.

S for them, the words come last. Kind of how I think about/process music. I know it's different for a lot of people who for example are enthralled by Bod Dylan's lyrics. I couldn't give two hoots - I find his stuff (musically) unlistenable. The fact that he writes "great lyrics" is lost on me.

[AC43]

sri16v said:

Fascinating thread.

A good example to see how different people think/ visualise is to ask how they count or do basic calculations.

For me I visualise numbers 1-20 going up vertically with a clear break at 10 and then vertically to 20 and then horizontally from 20 to 30 and then 30 to 40 is a line above the 30's and repeats all the way to 100 where it starts again.

Something like this:

120
^
102
101
100
90,91,92,93>99
40,41,42-50
30,31-39
20,21,22,23-29
19
^
10
5
4
3
2
1

Obviously it starts from the bottom!

Am I mad or do others visualise numbers this way??

I also visualise the 7 days of the week in a circular shape, with Saturday and Sunday being separate from the weekdays

Sat Sun
Fri, Thurs, weds, Tues, mon

Sort of like that but in my mind it's more rounded and tidier!

I had discussion with a colleague about this and how they visualise numbers and they were blown away by it.

If I hadn't recently hear David Eagleman talking about this exact thing on a podcast I'd have though that was borderline nuts. But it really is a "thing" for some people. Fascinating. But not how my brain does it.

[cheesejunkie]

AC43 said:

Mr Magooagain said:

AC43 said:

I'm a massive music fan but music mainly communicates to me in a sub-lingual way. I've always been astonished when people go to gigs and are able to sing every single lyric. Even for the bands I know the very best I can usually just manage a few lines of the chorus at the most. The words don't matter much to me; it's all about the mood and style of the music and how it makes me feel. At that level I find music all-consuming.

I’m similar to this, I know the tunes extremely well but not the words, I whistle tunes pitch perfect so I’m told and I have a natural rhythm. Music for me is extremely emotional and due to a few unpleasant memories I now can’t listen to music.
On the very rare occasion in past that I’ve been out and music is playing along with dancing, I go trance like and like you say it’s all consuming.

I've just finished Graham Coxon's autobiography (the Blur guitarist and co-songwriter) and he talks a lot about the process of writing songs. There was a Q&A at the end and someone asked him "how important words were to him". His basic answer that the words came "very late on". He and Damon Albarn would fk about creating snippets of music on various instruments then a chorus might emerge then other parts of the music etc. Eventually, at the very end of the process, one of them would think of some words that fitted the mood of the music.

S for them, the words come last. Kind of how I think about/process music. I know it's different for a lot of people who for example are enthralled by Bod Dylan's lyrics. I couldn't give two hoots - I find his stuff (musically) unlistenable. The fact that he writes "great lyrics" is lost on me.

I find this stuff interesting but unrelatable. I don't listen to music very much and my tastes are stuck 30 years ago and more. When people talk about modern signers I haven't a clue who they're on about.

I don't listen to lyrics. If I like the tune I'll listen. I couldn't tell you what many of the songs I like are about.

I remember friends in school reading the lyrics on their album covers. Some get very into them. We're all different.

[Chicken Chaser]

AC43 said:

Mr Magooagain said:

AC43 said:

I'm a massive music fan but music mainly communicates to me in a sub-lingual way. I've always been astonished when people go to gigs and are able to sing every single lyric. Even for the bands I know the very best I can usually just manage a few lines of the chorus at the most. The words don't matter much to me; it's all about the mood and style of the music and how it makes me feel. At that level I find music all-consuming.

I’m similar to this, I know the tunes extremely well but not the words, I whistle tunes pitch perfect so I’m told and I have a natural rhythm. Music for me is extremely emotional and due to a few unpleasant memories I now can’t listen to music.
On the very rare occasion in past that I’ve been out and music is playing along with dancing, I go trance like and like you say it’s all consuming.

I've just finished Graham Coxon's autobiography (the Blur guitarist and co-songwriter) and he talks a lot about the process of writing songs. There was a Q&A at the end and someone asked him "how important words were to him". His basic answer that the words came "very late on". He and Damon Albarn would fk about creating snippets of music on various instruments then a chorus might emerge then other parts of the music etc. Eventually, at the very end of the process, one of them would think of some words that fitted the mood of the music.

S for them, the words come last. Kind of how I think about/process music. I know it's different for a lot of people who for example are enthralled by Bod Dylan's lyrics. I couldn't give two hoots - I find his stuff (musically) unlistenable. The fact that he writes "great lyrics" is lost on me.

Musician (in the sense that I play instruments) here and quite often music comes to me at any part of the day. I have now taken to recording myself whenever that happens so I can use it later at a time when I can get to make it. Despite being an avid music fan, the words are also one of the things that I can never remember, while my wife picks up on the words almost immediately and finds it fascinating that I can't remember stuff that I've listened to hundreds of times.

[SpudLink]

Last week philosopher Daniel Dennett died. He wrote books on this very topic (none of which I have read).

The obituary in The Guardian is worth a read…
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/21/dani...

[Otispunkmeyer]

SAS Tom said:

Yes I also have aphantasia. Not something I thought about until recently but had a long discussion with my wife and other family members finding that I was the odd one out.

I’ve never been one for reading fiction and it seems like this is a big part of the reason. From the people I spoke to they almost have a film going on in their head. I don’t see anything. Same with relaxation stuff when they tell you to close your eyes and imagine something, I just see darkness.

I remember things/people/places but can’t see anything in my “minds eye”.

Music is another thing, it either sounds good or bad to me whereas my wife gets hung up on the words/story. I couldn’t care less as long as I like listening to it.

Think I am a mixture, but leaning more toward the words and constant internal monologue. I can think in pictures if I think about doing it, like deliberately trying to envisage something. But the default is words. Strangely I can have very vivid dreams from time to time, dreams you could swear are real, but day time thinking is generally not images.

I too haven't got much time for fiction, if I do read its usually non-fiction, factual books, magazines about a specific subject, biographies or the like. The only fiction I can really get into is the old Sci-Fi stuff like Asimov's Foundation or Brave New World. Stuff like that. Never got on with the more "fantasy" fiction like the Hobbit, LOTR or Potter. Even the films don't do it for me.

An extension all this is reading: Do you read words and understand them or does it all just jump off the page like you've scanned it all in in one go?

Edited by Otispunkmeyer on Thursday 25th April 12:04

[Otispunkmeyer]

M4cruiser said:

Skeptisk said:

A while back I was talking with my daughter and the topic of thinking came up. Personally I have a constant internal dialogue in my head ie I hear myself speaking to myself. If I am watching TV or speaking with someone it can go into the background. My daughter was very surprised as she thinks in pictures and not in words.

I was surprised because I had assumed (wrongly) that other people are similar. It seems that there are various ways of thinking.

I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised at I had also found out that I had aphantasia, meaning I can’t really picture things in my mind like most other people.

So how do you think?

Interesting post OP. It's only in recent years that I've realised that I "think" far too much, and a lot more than other people.

(One example of an effect is that I never need the car radio on. I can drive hundreds of miles with no background noise. I sometimes have the news headlines, but can't stand constant music.)

The result is that I'm never lonely when I'm alone, yet I'm very lonely when I'm with other people.
I'm disappointed that my parents didn't help with this when I was younger.
The link between all of this and autism is quite strong.

Yeah I can drive for ages with nothing but road noise. When I do have stuff on its usually talking podcasts. But even then I can literally come round after an hour and realise I've not heard a single word. Been so deep in thought before that I've completely driven past where I was supposed to be going. I wasn't even sure how I'd managed to keep driving without crashing. Like some kind of subconscious autopilot.