As per title, I am curious. How does your mind / your thoughts work? I only ever experienced my own thoughts, so I’m curious how it works for other people.
I for one feel like my thoughts sometimes are like me talking to myself silently. Sometimes I can even let out a random short sound, which I’ve come to start disguising by laughing kinda quietly or coughing or whatever. Like it was part of something, and not like an inner monologue almost leaking out.
So, how do your thoughts work?
I had a serious TBI when I was a kid and more than 15 concussions so my eggs are a bit scrambled.
I can’t sustain a mental image, I can only visualize flashes of things. If I try to hold on to a mental image, it’s just a series of flashes that quickly become warped until the image just kinda dissolves and I have to imagine a new one. I also kinda of can’t remember faces. I can recognize people, but I can’t describe anyone’s face or remember/visualize details. I can only describe my own face as a list of features I’m aware of, but I can’t visualize it nor do I recognize myself in photos.
Verbal thought usually comes in the form of a dialogue between myself and an imagined other person. There’s no one there and I knowingly come up with the question the other will ask, but I can’t just think to myself without quickly losing track.
I also have ADHD, OCD, and major depressive disorder, so I also have the symptoms and episodes of those rattling around up there. I’m not sure if I’d call them thoughts though, because they feel different.
I have prosopagnosia (facial blindness) too. Unless it’s somebody I know really well, I will struggle to recognise them - especially if they are not where I’d expect them to be, or they’ve done something with their hair. I’m better with voices - if they speak I’ll usually work out who they are straight away.