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| What do you see inside your head? |
John Green who created this meme was astounded that people could visualize as real pictures to greater or lesser degree. His visualization was based on words only. On the other hand, I am at a level 1 as I visualize in great detail. I can lie in bed at night and see, one closeup frame at a time, the farm where I grew up. The details of fences, gates, trails, water troughs, barns and out buildings, every crack in the cedar posts and every rock or hole in the trails to the pasture, the cows, horses. I can do the same for our home in Mar'yanivka, the trails, the gardens and so forth. I have never tried to visualize a new thing, only things I remember. But if you draw me a picture, I can see it and maybe even build it.
And what thoughts ramble through our minds? Mine is never quiet, there is always a flow of thoughts expressed as silent words in my mind. Sometimes they bounce around like the balls in a pinball machine. Oh, look a squirrel, as my daughter says. Which is why talk radio or podcasts make me crazy as they are too slow to hold my attention. I prefer the printed page.
Are some minds totally quiet? I see so many people with headphones on, walking or riding the bus, as though they are afraid to be alone with their thoughts. If I need music away from home, I can sing inside my head, usually in the style of whoever recorded it, though I enjoy music videos and have a wide selection of music on my computer.
Temple Grandin thinks in pictures, not words. Where as we will go from abstract to specific, she has to start from specific and work her way to the abstract. One example she uses is a church. She has to start with a specific picture of a specific church and work her way to the generalities of churches.
I am curious how my readers think or visualize and invite detailed comments so I can learn.
You might be interested in this CBC article from a few years ago about the 5 ways of thinking:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/inner-monologue-experience-science-1.5486969
I have experienced all 5 ways. I have a very rich inner life, plus I'm an introvert, so that's why I enjoy my own company so much, LOL!
I even dream (mostly) in conversations which says how far from visual I am. Just the same it is never, ever quiet in my head.
ReplyDeleteMy dreams have people and things in them though I rarely remember when I wake up. I have got up in the night and picked up the dream where I left off which is really weird. Never quiet in your head describes me too. Read the article Debra posted the link to above.
DeleteThank you and Debra: My inner monologue is LOUD. And frequent.
DeleteMy inner voice talks almosts nonstop, it seems. I always have to go to sleep while listening to a podcast. That way I can silence my inner voice, because I'm listening to other voices. So my brain seems to slow down. My usual podcast is of a daily one-hour radio program in which a male presenter (I've listened to him for more than 20 years) interviews three different people, each for about 20 minutes, on all kinds of subjects. I almost always fall asleep in the middle of the 2nd interview! But he only produces four programs a week, so for the other three days I have to find equally soothing talk podcasts to help silence my inner voice. For some reason music just doesn't do the job well enough.
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DeleteSoothing podcasts would put me to sleep too. What a good idea to slow your mind down. My daughter listens to podcasts all the time that would keep me awake - crime and murder stuff. Not recommended
My inner monologue never shuts up unless I'm reading or concentrating on music. And whenever the monologue slows down, my inner soundtrack takes over: I "hear" the same short phrase of music and lyrics repeated over and over, sometimes for weeks at a time.
ReplyDeleteI think my inner monologue is one of the reasons why I write - words are always cascading through my head anyway, so I might as well write some of them down (and hopefully make them more entertaining than the ones I can't stop).
The only way to slow down my inner monologue is for me to switch to visualizing pictures or memories, rather like what you describe. Concentrating on every visual detail gives me a bit of a break from the words and music, but there's still a whisper of words in the background describing the thing I'm "seeing" in my mind.
I didn't realize that not everybody has brain diarrhea like mine. Now that I know, I think I might envy those who cruise through life with quietly-visualizing minds!
Ah, yes. Ear worms. The secret there is to have two or five and rotate them. Writing, which you do well, is a good way to make use of those words tumbling through. It helps me too.
DeleteWhen my kids had papers due in highschool or university, they would always write them the night before under deadline pressure but they had written and rewritten it many times in their heads so it was a matter of putting it down on paper and going with it
We are of a different time and place. This can be the only reason why we think and envision differently than younger generations. My brain is constantly thinking and is always wanting to know and see more in life.
ReplyDeleteI don't know that younger people think and envision differently than older people in the sense described by the above article. I suspect they do think differently in terms of life understanding.
DeleteI think I am pretty much split between visual images, auditory images, and thoughts. That said, I think we live in such an overstimulating world sensory-wise that many people have to be hit over the head to feel much of anything. TV commercials change scenes with strobe-like frequency, and some of the game shows have sets so intense as to cause an epileptic to have a seizure.
ReplyDeleteWe Certainly are subject to sensory overstimulation . I did not know that game show sets could trigger seizures. Not good.
DeleteHere's a reference link regarding the kinds of lights that can cause epileptic seizures: https://www.epilepsy.com/what-is-epilepsy/seizure-triggers/photosensitivity. Peggy and I don't watch commercial TV aside from the half-hour news and the half-hour program Jeopardy, but I usually turn my head when the commercials come on because the images are bright and oftentimes change every second or less. I know that few people have outright seizures, yet I wonder if such effects aren't harmful in the long term, particularly to children who are exposed to many hours of them by the time they reach 18.
DeleteThanks for the reference. Good information. We just watch movies on TV (no ads) but the advice of turning away is worth passing on.
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