Poll How Do You Think?

[desiderata310]

pictures first..story line out what's going on if I'm trying to solve a problem or communicate instructions.
swirling moving images and textures and colors ...Best in emergency situations. free association.
What's always been difficult has been moving from that to working WITH people to describe what you want them to do.
Words are clunky. They are ineffective symbols. I usually wind up SHOWING someone what to do otherwise my instructions wind up sounding like: 'grab that thing, put it in that and then make it go around.'
Not useful.
Worse in trauma world.
translating is clunky and painful. SPEAKING is sometimes impossible. Which is often why I will WRITE it first so that I at least have access to the words before I try to speak them.
Somehow finding words is a trigger. Sometimes it just leads to shut down.

@scout86 yes, those nights I really need to, I can call up my brother's voice and hear him calling me his 'baby sis.'
I can 'listen to' whole pieces of music. I blame that on being a former musician.
I realize that my images are distorted- based what PART was important at the moment I was trying to remember them.

 

[Deleted member 28740]

In the past few years I have started to write in my dreams. Sometimes no images at all, but dialog, of characters with a plot proceeding along, like writing a novel, and sometimes a screen play. Often wish I had a way to capture it down on waking, then it is more imagery and the dialog fades away. It might be a way to keep the flashbacks at bay by being too busy with making a movie/screenplay.

Dissociation is emotive and sensory, images, no words but silent screams.

 

[scout86]

Are thinking and knowing the same or different?

Good question! My working hypothesis is that some form of "thinking" had to precede the "knowing". On one of the days when my T was apparently channeling his inner Jedi Master, he said that there are more "parts" of our brains than we are aware of that want to act to keep us safe. Parts we aren't overtly conscious of and parts that we generally do not consciously control. He said that sometimes is appropriate to LET those parts operate and sometimes we need to DEMAND that they operate. He also said this takes practice. I'm torn between thinking it's cool and thinking he might be crazier than I am........ But this is one of the ways we wander off into "how people think".

I'm not sure what you mean by your last question...

What I meant was, if you can "hear" music and you want to listen to Bruce Springsteen, do you actually hear his voice, or is it kind of a generic voice (or your own) singing the lyrics.

yes, those nights I really need to, I can call up my brother's voice and hear him calling me his 'baby sis.'

This is WAY cool! I wish I could do that! I've found that, if I don't work at it, I often hear song lyrics in the same kind of generic "voice" that my thoughts are in. If I work at it a little, and have heard the performer often enough singing that particular song, I can actually "listen" to Leonard Cohen, or Springsteen, or my dad, for that matter. Because I can't "visualize" (yet) my T suggested I experiment with what I CAN do, so I've been playing around "listening" to things like Willie Nelson singing Bruce Springsteen's music....(I have a lot of time on my hands, driving between jobs. LOL)

When I try to "see" pictures...... When I close my eyes I usually see bright colors and patterns. Usually some shade of purple, but it's fairly easy to get blue, green, or red. Yellows, oranges, etc or harder. Earth tones nearly impossible. The patterns are usually moving. I can change the direction of the flow, stop the motion and hold it still (briefly) and change it from circular patterns to something that looks more like the northern lights, but I can't usually get it to organize into a coherent picture. The first time I did manage to get a "picture" to show up, my T had suggested I look at the wall across the room, then close my eyes and try to "see" the wall I'd just been looking at. (He naturally thinks in words and wanted to be able to visualize stuff, had a hard time doing it and this is what worked for him.) So, I was doing that and thinking "Why can't I see a PICTURE????" All of a sudden, clear as day, there was the image of a painting hanging on a wall. The painting was some old guy in a suit who looked like a banker or a lawyer or something. I could have described his clothes, counted the buttons on his suit, it was amazing. Then it was gone. I have no idea who that was. It was..... "a picture". Apparently even the part of my brain that's in charge of visualizing has a warped sense of humor. LOL

I'm trying to imagine thinking in pictures and I'm totally lost! Do you see things like they're happening now? How does "past, present, & future" work?

Where this has gotten useful in Trauma-land is that I'm learning to talk to myself better (if I'm suicidal, for example, it can be as simple as turning the pistol away from myself in my mind...

Because I so totally don't "get" the pictures thing, this is a little mind blowing, but it's also giving me ideas on better ways to EXPLAIN things to people.

 

[holdenmonty]

This is pretty cool. I know I'm probably crazy for saying this.... but I have conversations with myself/think to myself like a conversation. Luckily it hasn't gotten to the point where I verbally talk to myself but I definately have conversations with myself in my head...

 

[scout86]

@holdenmonty , my T says that that's not "hearing voices" it's "thinking" and that's a GOOD thing. LOL He also says I might want to be careful how I describe the phenomenon to "other people in his line of work." :wideeyed:

 

[jaccat]

Definitely words. A constant internal monologue. I get sick of listening to myself at times! But my mind is weird. I have a thing for patterns and pick up on them without realising, running them through my head. This happens a lot with numbers and music.

I border on having a photographic memory. If I bothered to train it, it would be photographic. As it is it picks up on what it likes instead. So I might not have a clue who's just walked past but I can recite a random 13 digit code I've come across at work. I can also recite back the tail end of a conversation I wasn't listening to by playing it back in my head (my friends have now picked up on this trick:p).

I can visualise images, sometimes in great detail, but the thoughts running through my head tend to drown them out unless I put in a huge amount of effort to hold on to them. I need to work on quieting my mind. It's why I suck at mindfulness. (Shut up head!:O_o:).

 

[Deleted member 28740]

Rethinking the question: How do I think (or communicate)? with self or others?

 

[holdenmonty]

I'm with you there jaccat. I tell people that my memory works on triggers which really sucks at times especially when I'm trying to remember something and it just isn't coming up because it doesn't have the trigger but also it sucks because since my regular memory works on triggers it feels like just about anything can trigger me because I was at so many different places when we had rocket attacks.

 

[holdenmonty]

@scout86 you know my therapist didn't make any comments about me telling her that I basically talk to myself but in a way she encouraged me to because she tells me to ask myself the different challenging questions for my thoughts. I just took that suggestion and ran with it. I talk myself down from getting angry sometimes by telling myself well this person that just cut you off in traffic could be running late, or could know somebody in the hospital and needs to get there in a hurry. In all honesty it is actually rather beneficial since I'm kind of shy quiet person in real life so insead of talking a lot to other people I just talk to myself.

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I think in words, always words. I even dream in a way that is more like reading a story than seeing a movie. Interesting question.

 

[scout86]

I've spent a good part of the afternoon trying to imagine "thinking in pictures." I find that the idea kind of freaks me out. That's probably because my own experience of "thinking/pictures" seems to be totally random and beyond my control. The rare, vivid flashback or weird stuff like trying to visualize the wall across the room and getting an image of a painting of some random rich looking guy. I suppose when you think in pictures you actually have control over it, so it's a whole different thing.

But that brought to mind another question. @FridayJones , you have ADHD. How does THAT work? I probably have a bit of that myself. I can get distracted enough with "auditory thoughts". If my thoughts presented themselves in pictures, it seems like it would be even MORE distracting. I'm thinking that the way we think probably affects things like how we experience ADHD too.

 

[Chava]

Movement, kinesthetic sense. Especially in my arms and hands. If my hands have to be still, I cannot think or talk. Brain freezes over.

Visual and spatial too...I have lots of maps in my head I "look" at in order to organize my processing of info.

I'm pretty verbal (bla bla bla), but I don't think in words all that much. I think it words mainly when typing, which is a fun hand activity. It would be a lot harder for me to dictate these thoughts and have someone else type them. I mostly need my hands for my brain to work. Seeing the words helps too. For me there is a probably a strong connection between playing an instrument, reading music, and getting my brain in order. Anything requiring less multi-sensory input and I'm kind of a mess.