To ask how you think?

[IMissVino]

When I’m stressed or upset, my thoughts get what I’ve always described as ‘messy and tangled’. It’s like I can see them in my head, and they are untidy. I really hate this, so I calm myself down and ‘tidy’ them.

Most of the time, my thoughts are in neat, gleaming lines and A clearly leads onto B. It’s how I think, how I communicate and how I process the world.

I was talking to DH about this and he genuinely doesn’t understand what I mean! As in, he couldn’t even begin to visualise what I was describing and was rather stumped by my ‘so what do your thoughts look like, then?’

So, now I’m interested in if this is just a ‘me’ thing and what everyone else’s thoughts ‘look’ like. How would you describe your thought processes?

I just have thoughts not in order or anything just thoughts.

When I am stressed that thought is alll consuming and seems to appyat the front of my mind and I can't think of anything else.

Oh said the other day he can't see pictures in his mind. He had memories but not as pictures. Only sees pictures in his dreams.

Funny how we all think.

So you visualise your thoughts is that what you mean ?
I don't do anything like this... how interesting !!
My thoughts are more obsessive when I'm stressed to be honest , and I have ocd and end up counting things in 2's !

I can't visualise anything. I have aphantasia which means I don't have a visual mind's eye.

So I'm not really sure how I think. I just do.

Yep visual thinker here- flash thinker- sometimes rollercoaster of thoughts- a lot of visual- apparently there are people out there who don’t have inner monologues either. Like wuuuuut- imagine how clear your mind would be though lmao

Massive visual thinker here, I can 'see' most things in my head. I'd say a lot of my thoughts are accompanied by pictures.

Are you quite an organised person OP? What you describe is how I think and I'm a very organised person.

I often feel confused and can't think clearly, but I can't visualise the tangles, I just know when I have conflicting thoughts.

Also a lucid dreamer and have mad dreams every damn night some that are so real they make me feel weird- but I’m quite creative I love writing and not going to lie when I was younger I would legit set aside time to fantasise! Maybe it’s an escape thing- what helps me is writing and a good clean: organise of my space and it’s like it declutters my brain. I think I must be automatically solving the issues in my brain as I clean- or maybe the problem was the mess and the thoughts calm down- who knows,

Yes too visualisation, but also, I think in lines, I guess. It’s all very clear and linear, unless I’m super upset, then it’s all in bunches. Which I hate.

Is the image in your head the image of the actual thing? Like, if I’m thinking about a party and birthday cake, those things are images in my mind, but they are images of the thoughts ‘party and birthday cake’, not of actual parties or cake.

Does that make any sense at all? 😂

I can totally relate to this OP and what Cookie says, I think. I'm v organised in life but my mind is pretty random but v fixated at times. Difficult to describe

Extremely organised in certain ways, but very messy with my surroundings. DH refers to it as the ‘controlled chaos of my genius’ as he tidies around me. 😂

I almost never dream! Or, at least, I almost never remember them.

However, I also used to set aside time to just think my thoughts and fantasise when I was a kid. I basically still do, in bed for about half an hour before I go to sleep. I’ve never thought about that before!

Yes, this is me too. Can't quite organise my thoughts. I'm finding OP very interesting, I could maybe reorganise my thoughts

Placemarking

What's the difference between 'thought cake' and actual cake.

If I think of cake, I visualise an actual cake. I can also visualise the word cake. Both are usually accompanied by me voicing cake in my head.

It’s just different. The thought of cake looks like the thought of cake. Which, for me, isn’t the same as actual cake. It also looks like the thought of the word ‘cake’ (which isn’t the actual word), but not the sound.

I "look" in different areas of my brain for things, if that makes sense? Recent memories are at the front above my right eye and old memories are on the same side but at the back. Things I'm planning tend to sit at the front above my left eye. I've never really thought about it until this thread, it's interesting how we all "think" so differently!

I'm another lucid dreamer, which I love, but I also suffer with horrible sleep paralysis, which I do not!

My thinking is a mixture of endless music, rambling and images. The music is actually a big problem for me, I think it’s known as broken record syndrome. It’s a side effect of an anti seizure medicine I take. I love music but rarely listen to it now as it can become overwhelming. I feel like a never get a moment’s peace inside my head.

I wonder if you are a creative person.

My brain is more literal. My mind's eye sees only what I've seen. No 'thought cake' for me dammit.

My thoughts are like a carousel, clicking round and round as I go through each one. Boxes of thoughts.

Tasks to do go in boxes and slotted into a calendar. If a thought is about a place I use a map to figure out what I'm thinking about.

I have a really good mental map and can figure out where I am in a strange place quite quickly. The mental map is built up in my brain and stays there. 8f I think of a place, eg Copenhagen, I whizz through the streets we walked along and remember places.

Oooh, so I have to actually dig or sift through thoughts to get to memories, sometimes. Like ‘this is stored here’. But, I’ve never thought about where they were physically/geographically(!) located in my head before. It’s more like my head is this enormous space and there’s lots of stuff stored in there (generally tidily) and some of it is stored further away than other bits.

That sounds like a lot to deal with. I’m sorry.

@Awrite No 'thought cake' for me dammit.

🤣🤣😁

This sounds exhausting. My thoughts and memories are just there. I don't have to pull them from anywhere or line them or untangle them. I just think. It's sound rather slow to have to untangle, line them up, pull from different areas of your brain etc
Maybe I'm just not that deep but if I want to think of something I do, if I want to visualise something I do. There isn't a process, it doesn't look like anything.