Visual Thinking?

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So it's like this. I only found out recently that it's not "ordinary" for a person to think in images and videos, and I find that confusing. When I have conversations with people, I process each phrase they say as a picture. It feels like I have a filing cabinet of images for certain phrases, and when they say a word or something abstract that I can't associate any image with, I see a color, or maybe the word written in my head in a color. When I make a plan, I always have the video of myself executing it in advance playing in my head, sort of like a cheesy planning sequence in a heist movie.

My mind wanders through pictures and videos of movies and television shows I've seen recently or years ago. I might relive conversations I've had with friends or teachers from a decade ago in vivid detail. Sometimes my brain acts like a radio station replaying some of the songs I've listened to earlier that day or week. I can recall some of my daydreams from when I was five in the same detail as they were then. For all of these reasons, I can sit in a car on a long trip, with virtually no entertainment, trapped in my own head for hours.

I've always assumed that everyone thought in images like this. If that isn't the case, then how do most people think? How does everyone out there on WP think? Is it different or similar to my experience? I would be very curious to know.

It's not normal? I've always thought that there where 3 types of thinkers: visual, auditory, kinesetic.. I just thought I happened to be a visual thinker. I know exactly what you're talking about with your process as mine is the same thing.

Hi,

This is funny because, I don't know how old you are, but I am a middle aged woman and it was earlier this past year while I was taking certain classes that I realized I really do "think differently". It sounds like we have a lot of similarity and I also have a very tactile experience. I "feel" as I "see". I have been curious about how people think in a 'regular' way. I mentioned that to my doctor because some people are more 'visual' and visual schemata is part of 'thought' according to cognitive linguistics - but, he indicated, no, this is different. Huh.

I can manipulate and order bits of things in my head which I really enjoy doing. I like symbolic logic, for example, because I see the sequence and then it is like a tetris game to work it out. I play in my head and I can feel my thoughts swirl. If that's not what I am doing, well that's fine - it is a subjective experience and that is what it feels like.

I think the same way.

Whenever I make something, I always picture the separate pieces, how they fit together and how I'm going to assemble it. It caused problems when I was in school, especially in art and woodwork. I never liked sketching out my ideas, because it was all in my head and I can always piece things together in my head better than I could ever draw them.

I'm a visual thinker (stills and videos, etc), although I do have quite strong auditory thinking too. I take a while to respond to people/ process info, because I'm picturing what they're talking about. It's part of the reason that I don't always use eye contact. Staring at some inanimate object is more neutral and gives me a blank canvas for my thoughts.

My friend and I were discussing how we remembered the base pairs in DNA (not a usual conversation for us). I told her I remembered that C went with G, and A went with T, because they look similar. She was like Wow. She just had to remember that they went together and had no method of recollecting why. She thought my idea was good, but I don't think her visual thinking skills are good enough to use it. I don't think I had even thought about it before, it was just an automatic way of doing it, for me.

My daughter is very visual as well. I'm trying to help her to use this for learning. For example, one of her spelling words this week is 'woodpecker'. She's only 6 and just getting to understand that c and k often come together like this. So, I told her to remember this word by picturing the woodpecker hitting its beak against the tree twice and making the sound 'c, k'. That way, she'll remember that both letters are used and not just one. I'm sure she'll be able to come up with her own images and associated sounds, for other words, and this will just get her started.

More on visual thinking (or not)
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt197814.html
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt174179.html

Yes, I am this way too, and it seems to be usual for autistic people - that is, far more autistic people seem to be visual types than is found in the general population. I also don't understand the concept of boredom, since I can just go wandering through the landscape in my mind and be thoroughly entertained by it. I am particularly good at being able to turn objects around in my head in three-dimensions.

It is interesting to note that all children think visually, which would indicate that this is actually the natural way minds work (given that other species lack language, it makes sense to assume other species on Earth think visually, too). As language is learned, most children begin to use that to think with alongside their visual images. People who are strongly visually or artistically inclined often retain part or all of their visual thinking, but the majority seem to replace it mostly or entirely with an inner language monologue. It is unusual to be an adult who thinks entirely visually (the majority either use a mixture of thinking styles or just the "inner monologue" type). I have to say I have difficulty imagining what the latter must be like.

I want to add that to me my thinking is not just visual but also "kinesthetic" - I don't know if that is the technically correct word to use, but what I am trying to say is that the way things feel have as much importance to my thinking process as the way they look. I don't mean the way they feel physically, I mean that as well as the way a word looks written down and the image I have of its concept, it also has a particular unique feel that I'm not able to put into words very well. For example, to me the word "daisy" has a sort of "bobbing" quality, the word apple has a "hollow" feel to it, and the word "joy" has a sort of "soaring-ness". I'm probably making no sense, and perhaps this is a kind of synesthesia, but it's vital to the way I experience the world and it is a bit frustrating that I'm not able to communicate it to others because I can't explain it using language!

I do think this is a really interesting subject - after all, our entire life experience is dependent upon the way our minds perceive and process the world.

I'm a visual thinker. I think that's the reason I find written instructions difficult, I need some graphics to make it make sense.

I also have the same thing as CosmicCastaway

At first I thought I was a visual thinker, but I wasn't too sure so I took this quiz http://quizstop.com/askpict.htm and it turns out "your brain operates with internal (conceptual) logic or sheer intuition".
I'm a visual learner, but that isn't the same thing.

I'm a visual thinker and my imagination is very rich. It is true that aspies have problems with imagination? (I remember reading about it somewhere)

My quiz results

It would seem that your brain operates with internal (conceptual) logic or sheer intuition. In other words, pictures do not form your primary state-of-mind.

My quiz rezult: