this post was submitted on 15 May 2025
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Could somebody please explain to me how somebody can not think like this? I always thought this is the normal way to think. There are people who don't think like this?
I guess some people also can't imagine things which seems so odd to me.
This is actually the case. It's called aphantasia. Most people can think of a cup and an image of a cup will appear in their mind. People with aphantasia can't do that.
They still might get a mental concept of a cup pop up though, just not a mental image if that makes sense.
I probably have aphantasia, or at least very close to having it. If someone mentions a cup I can still think about a cup, I just don't "see" it
I think it's kind of hard to describe if you can't do it. I don't literally see the cup; I'm imagining that I can see the cup. Can you imagine other senses? For example, can you imagine how chocolate tastes, or what it sounds like when somebody's knocking on a door?
Some people can get very vivid mental images though, with lots of details. If you think it's hard to describe if you can't do it, then maybe you're actually in the same or similar boat as me. I never realised I can't actually get "mental images" because I assumed whatever pops up in my head is what people were talking about. Just thought it was what people ended up calling the mental concepts, didn't consider that most people can probably actually "see" mental images to some degree.
And no, I wouldn't say I can imagine tastes or smells but I can imagine sounds somewhat.
Edit: when I say "see" I mean having an image pop up in your head, like you mentioned in an earlier comment. I don't get images popping up. I get concepts of something, with kinda attribute labels attached to it. I know a rainbow is a curved shape with the spectrum of visual colours and so on but I don't get an image of one in my head. I just remember stuff about it.
I’m in the same boat as the other commenter. I can imagine smells just fine, sounds alright. But images I stick to a general concept of a thing.
It kinda goes with an aphotographic memory as well. I can’t describe what people look like for example and if I try I get it wrong.
I can't imagine smells much, but sounds I can imagine somewhat.
Oh yes I'm also terrible at describing what people look like. Unless I happened to notice very specific things about them so my mind "took notes" of attributes. But even then I can get it wrong.
David Hume wrote about this exact thing in (I think) an enquiry concerning human understanding.
Essentially he said all thoughts come from 3 processes:
Cause and effect - think of smoke so think of fire etc.
Continuity in time and/or place - think of kettle so think of toaster etc.
Resemblance - think of a photo so think of the person etc.
The above example would be continuity in place, the carnival lead to thoughts in the same place.
Also cause and effect...why do bees die but wasps not?
Actually possibly resemblance too, as bees and wasps look similar.
I wish I could remember more, it's been about 20 years since I last read it though.
I'm going to look into it. Thank you.
I think something like 40% of people don't have an internal monologue at all, so...
Metacognition and usage of an inner monologue have nothing to do with each other. I don't need to talk myself through things to conceptualise.
That whole thing sounds made up. No one hears voices in their head unless they are schizo or under the influence
Sounds like you may be part of that 40%. The majority of people seem to have an inner voice and can create visuals and imagine sounds. Even auditory hallucinations are quite common.
One should never assume everyone's inner reality is the same as their own.
I appreciate the input. I responded to another comment here in this same thread and I'd like to hear your thoughts as well: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/comment/18751476
I can play back music in my head when I'm bored or watch an entire movie. Sometimes even just with my eyes open. And I don't think I have those disorders but who knows
I think I'm just hung up on semantics of it.
I can certainly conjure visuals from data in memory, I can play music back like you said and even change the notes and sounds like a MIDI file being played with a soundfont, but it's not like a movie where there's a slightly reverb'd version of my voice in my head dictating out thoughts involuntarily as a voice. Thoughts are thoughts, they're a separate data type to me than audio or visuals.
A line of thought to me is a sequence of concepts represented by some unknown malleable fuzzy data structure in my brain, not an .MP3 file playing like what "internal narrative" seems to indicate.
At any moment a thought can be cast to another data structure like an image or video or audio, but it's not anything but a thought until I make the choice, likewise this isn't limited to just memories but imagination in equal amounts. I can just as well conjure visuals that aren't real and/or events that didn't happen and experience them in equal amounts and clarity. This is what I understand as daydreaming. But it's not exactly like watching a film, or even to the level of vividness of an actual sleepy-time dream.
I'm very much known by my peers IRL from interactions there and my comments on the interwebz for philsophizing and intellectualising as well and often been told by people as a kid and young adult that I have a very vivid imagination if I share some idea in my head, and it wasn't even an insult I'm pretty sure haha!
Thoughts as its own data structure, not associated with a language or words, sounds so interesting and yet so foreign to me
Tbh that sounds much, much cooler than anything I have experienced in my own head.
I find the breadth of difference in how consciousness displays from person to person endlessly fascinating. For me, my head is full of constant chatter and background music. I have often described it as many interconnected trains of thought, and the best real example I can give is this portion of a Tame Impala song. I can hone in on any one thought or hop aboard that train but it is easy to get disracted and find myself on a different track. I've been told this is ADHD actually lol. Most of my deliberate thinking to myself is just a line of words, sometimes repeated compulsively. I am not a visual thinker at all, but I can visualize if I choose to do so deliberately. Again, it's way too easy to get sidetracked and the visualizations are fuzzy unless I'm meditating or half asleep. It is interesting to note though that in a half asleep state I can achieve something closer to a sequence of semi-related fuzzy conceptualizations, as you describe.
I love to philosophize too, mostly because it's basically my default mode, something I can literally never turn off, only choose to ignore, like a constant dripping tap. I would have majored in philosophy in college if there was any money in it. But I have never been told I have an active imagination lol I would love to be able to trade perceptions with people momentarily. What an eye opening experience that would be. What a difference it would make in the world.
Pretty sure everyone does, but they will take you through it first, not drop the topic change without context.
Also it's considered weird and off topic, so even if they think it they don't bring it up
I think people generally think in paths like this. The difference is the impulsive conversation topic change, not the train of thought. Some neruotypicals (like my wife) can find it jarring.
I think it's also the speed and number of connections leading to the topic change. I think many neurotypicals would jump from the carnival to the rodeo, or to the bee story, but they wouldn't jump all the way to wondering about wasps from talking about the carnival in one go.
From the outside, the topic change is so different that neurotypicals can't follow the connections.
I never would have thought that a random post would chance my world view. I am genuinely stumped.
Neurotypical here and yeah my brain often works this way and I believe it does for many others. What’s missing in this vignette are social skills from both parties.
Abruptly shifting topics like that often works better in a conversation with some sort of segue or acknowledgment of the shift: “This is off of that topic but I have a random question.”
The second party could reasonably be confused but when the thought process was explained to them they could have just accepted it and moved on without being denigrating.
So they both just need better social skills is all that I see.
I have a friend who's the same age as me and we are both ADHD. He pointed out to me once that we were having three different conversations at the same time. I guess that's a little strange for neurotypical people.
This seems right. Their mind wanders, too, but they don't mention the tangents that come up, or if they do, they specifically state why they're now thinking about the new topic.
My instinct would be to think that they do that too, but at a much slower speed, and are less aware of how they got there. So when you explain a train of thought clearly the speed which u topic switched and the number of times it happened feels overwhelming to them. We also tend to intellectualize a lot of stuff and others do not, so they have probably never internally studied how their own thoughts connect before, so it would seem forieng when explained.
But I'm speaking from instinct here, no evidence.
AFAIK I'm neurotypical... No, trains of thought like these are common (see also other respondents on here), and they can also happen in the blink of an eye. It's just that when the question or comment has formed, I'll make a mental note to either ask/mention it later after the current topic has concluded, if I think the other person also has interest in hearing it, or to google it later if not. Or to just drop the thought if I come to the conclusion that it doesn't matter all that much to myself either.
You mean you’re able to, gasp, use filters on your thought and exert self-control? What is this dark magic, get outta here