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I was talking to my therapist yesterday about something and it sparked an idea that I am curious about...
I have read that some people think more in words, and some think more in images and/or feelings but without a sort of mental inner monologue. And it's interesting because most grow up not realizing that there are others around them whose thoughts manifest in a different way.
I have an inner narrator. I do have some thoughts that are more of a visualization, but usually not a highly vivid or detailed one. Most of my thinking is in words.
And I was also an insatiable reader as a child, learned to read at a young age, and for most of my life I have one if not multiple books that I am reading at any given time.
What occurred to me, was to wonder if these things might be linked? Could being an early and avid reader contribute to one's mind developing a verbal narrative function in the way that they think?
So I thought maybe I would ask others here... Do your thoughts form as an internal narrative in words, or not? And did you grow up reading a lot, or not so much?
I have a very, very verbal inner monologue. My thoughts are exactly like talking out loud, only silent.
It was a surprise to me to learn relatively recently that some people think in images or feelings rather than words.
I was also an early (age 4) and very avid reader. Supposedly no one taught me, I just observed while my parents or older siblings read aloud to me and figured it out. The school suggested that I skip first grade, but my parents were against it (I wish they had agreed). I wouldn't be surprised if the two things, verbal thinking and precocious reading, are linked even if only because verbally is how a particular kind of brain works best.
I have an inner voice...a narrator I guess, but I'M the narrator. However I'm capable of imagining images. For instance, if you asked me to imagine an apple I would picture the fruit, not the word.
This seems impossible for me to answer because I really don't understand the distinction. What is thought and where does it come from ? Man, I have NO clue.
I am going to say that I think in words and not in images, but don't hold me to it. I just don't know.
I am an early and avid reader also, at least I was until the TBI.
My inner thought are strange now... I compare them to a flip book of images. In an instant, something can trigger the 'flipping' and so many things run through until the end.
It's cool, but sometimes it takes me way off topic, or down a deep rabbit hole.
I attribute my ability to do crossword puzzles (even Sunday Times) in pen with little errors to the early reading and extensive vocabulary.
I was talking to my therapist yesterday about something and it sparked an idea that I am curious about...
I have read that some people think more in words, and some think more in images and/or feelings but without a sort of mental inner monologue. And it's interesting because most grow up not realizing that there are others around them whose thoughts manifest in a different way.
I have an inner narrator. I do have some thoughts that are more of a visualization, but usually not a highly vivid or detailed one. Most of my thinking is in words.
And I was also an insatiable reader as a child, learned to read at a young age, and for most of my life I have one if not multiple books that I am reading at any given time.
What occurred to me, was to wonder if these things might be linked? Could being an early and avid reader contribute to one's mind developing a verbal narrative function in the way that they think?
So I thought maybe I would ask others here... Do your thoughts form as an internal narrative in words, or not? And did you grow up reading a lot, or not so much?
Wow. I'm glad this is in the psychiatric forum because that's where it belongs.
Any time I have been tested, my verbal skills have been at the top of the chart, and I am fairly certain that I've been that way since birth. I guess I already had some understanding of language structure very very early.
However and more to the point, I don't usually think in words, but in concepts and process. It can be difficult to describe, but as an example, as I am writing this, I don't have any idea what words will come next or what point I will bring up next. I simply start typing and it flows out of me, and it is generally grammatically correct. Sometimes I have to go back to flip thoughts or phrases that I inverted, or clean up the order of words, but often no editing is required.
Hmmm... when someone starts to tell a joke, even though I have never heard it before I can often listen to the first few words, process where it is going, and laugh before anyone else has even processed those spoken words or the joke has reached the punch line. That ability comes partly from knowing the structure of what is being said.
I also can visualize quite well, to the point that I can predict actions of objects that are about to be set in motion.
But again, that is based on understanding concepts.
When cooking, I often have no clue what I am about to put together. I just start. About 90% of the time it ends up being good, sometimes it can be very good. My GF just ran across a recipe written down by my late wife after I was tossing together a dish that she fell in love with. The way my wife wrote down the name of the dish was "Harry's Extraordinary and Sophisticated Curried Pumpkin Leek Winter Soup." When I started to cook it, I had a surplus of pumpkin and pattypan from the garden I needed to use, on hand among the other produce were a couple leeks, a Granny Smith apple that needed to be used and some spices and pantry items. I didn't translate what I was doing into words. I didn't measure what I was putting in the soup other than by feel. Post-facto, I'll try to translate what was going on in my mind into words to give an idea of the process. What was going on in my head was (without words being formed at the time.):
Too much ^^^ pumpkin - cook and use. blend will be bland :-( v . Add. Onion too harsh x*x - leek ~~~! Not sweet enough... - apple cooked, avoid sugar. Garlic, butter, braise, roux (odor), bullion, curry, taste, salt... other spice? x chenk x pepper? texture Cream? no - smooth now.
The takeaway is that I was not using representation systems as a crutch. I could see/smell/feel/taste what I was manipulating, and knew "this will do this" "this will add that" "this is coming towards a taste of" Again, I was working with concepts directly.
In writing computer programs, I orient by understanding relationships of operators, input, and what I want as output.
When I do translate to words in my mind, the words may have multiple meanings and often some of those are humorous or lead to humorous thoughts.
Generally, when asked how I did something or came to a unique conclusion, I just say "I don't think the way most other people do."
While I do use both imagery and narrator it depends on what I'm thinking about. When I'm imagining, planning, or trying to figure something out it's usually in images. If I'm rehearsing what to say or write to someone obviously that is narrated. I don't tend to narrate my life to myself but I do tell stories to others and that tends to be narrated. I visualize and dream in fine detail and full color along with other sensory input: hearing, touch and smell. Now that I am retired and have more time to spend on the computer recreationally, one interesting thing I've noticed is dreaming about text: typing and editing..."seeing" the text appear and disappear as it is revised. Sometimes in typical dream manner the sentences don't always track together, they jump from topic to topic. It can be quite funny or confusing. I don't visualize test while awake.
Last edited by Parnassia; 02-28-2024 at 04:06 PM..
Yeah, I don't visualize text when I think, it's more of a spoken voice kind of thing. Only silent, and it is my voice as I hear it when I speak out loud that I imagine in my mind. (And yeah I've done the thing of listening to a recording of my own voice and felt utter horror at how different it sounds from a perspective other than my own head.)
But for instance if I am thinking about what kind of house I may wish to buy one day, I am not visualizing a mental picture of things, I am thinking my own inner voice-over saying, "Definitely prefer privacy in the backyard, hate when you see the windows of the neighbors houses peering at you, in fact if I see the neighboring houses a few feet away on either side in the listing image, I'm gonna pass it by. Those cookie cutter suburbs are the worst. I'd like to have some trees, but not too many..." and so on. It becomes a list. Hell, sometimes literally, I make lists.
As soon as something silly happens in my life, I am spinning it into words to use as an anecdote later. I will mentally tell and retell the story until I feel I can remember the important bits, then share it to amuse my husband.
I saw a thing recently online where it had something like these words: "A woman with an apple on her left, and a pineapple on her right" and it asked, when you read those words, do you just hear them sound out in your head, or do you build a picture of it in your mind, and if so is it sharp and detailed or is it fuzzy?
I will automatically sound out the words in my brain, I won't automatically build the image. But when I'm reading a book, sometimes I will slow down on purpose to savor something descriptive and build some imagery before moving on with what's happening in the story. I CAN imagine scenes of imagery or other sensory information, I just don't do it by default.
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When I started to cook it, I had a surplus of pumpkin and pattypan from the garden I needed to use, on hand among the other produce were a couple leeks, a Granny Smith apple that needed to be used and some spices and pantry items. I didn't translate what I was doing into words. I didn't measure what I was putting in the soup other than by feel. Post-facto, I'll try to translate what was going on in my mind into words to give an idea of the process. What was going on in my head was (without words being formed at the time.):