I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, and just realized how weird it is, after trying to explain it out loud to a friend who’s also neurodivergent.
I’m curious to know if it’s a common experience with other neurodivergent individuals.
My mind has three different depths:
- a very conscious one, capable of conjuring images and sounds from the void, capable of manipulating at will said images, morph them, move them… I can think « words » and have them be real in my mind
- a conscious but closed one: I can put words in it but without acting on them, only watching them. This one is the weirdest of all. There is a difference for me when I think about « dog » and just « look at the idea of a dog ». There are some things I don’t want to consciously think about (like things that makes me sad or depressed) so instead of thinking about them I’ll put them in this zone. They exist but it’s very different from having the words out loud in my mind, as if I was thinking inside my own mind. It’s like I’m in a museum watching thoughts behind plexiglass
- the dark zone, where I put things I don’t want to think about at all, things I want to forget. It’s literally a foggy dark place made of some kind of fluid darkness with no thoughts shining in it, I have to consciously want and try to pull things from it
A while ago, I read somewhere that the mere thing of being able to conjure images was « rare », like only 25% of people on earth can do it. Somehow I linked this idea to people being neurodivergent but I have no proof or source and I may just have made things up in my sleep or under the shower.
TL;DR: how does your mind works? Mine is weird
I process ideas and concepts mainly visually, in forms, colors and movement entwining (the movement especially is the most important!).
Verbal thoughts occur, but they are more of a chorus, or chord, rather than one voice - there is always several aspects sounding out together, and it can be hard to pick the dominant one to verbalize for communication.
There are thoughts which have already been translated to words before and I can communicate then easily, but also deeper areas or newly occuring “movements” which are still only visual, and I have to put in a lot of work to put them into words.
There’s more, but this is as far as I have pre-verbalized…
Only this - I once read a book that talked about minds as a rainforest, brimming with life and built in layers and impossible to fully grasp at once. I think that metaphor works pretty well.