h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

What is the wierdest thin someone has told you about the way they think?

I was talking with a very very intelligent colleague the other day, and asked him if he dreamed in color (he's an American) or black and white... he said he does not dream in images at all... he has "conceptual dreams".

This is so wierd, I almost had to leave the room.

So - what is the wierdest thing someone has told you about the way they do things, or think?

In an old h2g2 conversation, a researcher said she dreamed in words, but not in pictures.

Hi there Potholer. Dreaming in words only is wierd, though I start dreaming with words before I dream with images.

This guy also said he had a photographic memory but couldnt visualise - he knew exactly where on the page of OTHER PEOPLES' notes an item was - but he couldnt visualise the page.....

Wierd?

I am a visual thinker, with a good memory, but not a photographic one in the sense that other people use the word.
However, when looking for a section in a book I've read previously, I often remember the position on the page, and whether it was a left or right-hand page.

I do understand the bit about not visualising. I remember the spatial details of scenes, but less often 'see' actual images from memory in a pixel-by-pixel sense. I presume I just remember things as they are after a fair amount of visual processing. Sometimes if I lose something, I'll know roughly *where* in 3D space I left it, but not whether it was on top of, under, or inside some other object.
When I do remember things as more like raw images, they are usually like video clips with sound as well as vision, rather than photographs.

When remembering roads I've driven on, I have a definite impression of what compass bearing I thought the road went in at the time. Even if a road was level, if I'm remembering a view when driving north, there's a different quality to remembering a view when driving south. The sensation is a *little* like the north-facing view was uphill, and the south-facing one downhill. If I originally thought a certain road was north-south, then later found it was more east-west, the sensation on subsequent remembering would be one of driving 'across', rather than 'up' or 'down'. (Maybe some connection with mapreading?)

I've lived in about a dozen different places over the last 18 years, and as far as I can work out, without consciously trying, I have usually ended up arranging my bed so I sleep with my head roughly pointing north. East/west, I can handle, but sleeping pointing south (especially, but not exclusively, when I *know* it's south) gives me a faint feeling a little like when my feet are higher than my head.

Now that sleeping north south thing seems pretty wierd to me, Potholer, especially since you say it is instinctive. But I have a thing about beams - I hate 'em! I am hoping to buy a cottage later in the year, and hating beams cuts down my options a tad....

Where to start!
I think the weirdest thing I have ever told anyone about the way I think (I know that doesn't strictly fit the subject line, but hey) is how I visualise my mind. It goes like this:
My mind is a circular room, with wooden floor boards. All over the walls are sleek grey metal drawers, quite small. I think the walls get higher as I get older, because the room is bigger than when I was four (I'm thirteen). Anyway, the sole inhabitant of this room is a small grey elephant. I'll explain more about what he does in a minute. Each drawer contains a fact, thought, memory, idea, etc., just a single one for each drawer, but connected thoughts link to the same "room". The "rooms" are just pieces of my mind that the drawers open into, and all similar drawers (that is, they contain similar thoughts) open to the same room. There are some rooms that I use a lot, like the chalkboard, gallery, theatre and music rooms. Because I "go" to these rooms so often, I don't have to "open" the drawers to get there, but if I want to, for example, find out everything I want to know about bats, I "send" the elephant, with its little trolley, around the room to find, open and bring back the drawers containing the informartion I need. All these facts etc end up piled in the trolley like a block of some clear substance. Once I've looked through the information I can go to the "bat room" (I've never actually been there) and from then on all the information will be there, but I still need to open a "door" (similar to a drawer) to get there. There is a room where I just think, but everything from there eventually gets sorted into drawers.

That must sound quite strange. My friend was very bemused when I told her.

About my memory; I remember things in much the smae way the Potholer does - where they are on the page, where they are in relation to my body and in relation to other things in 3dimensional space. I agree that there is a distinctly different "feel" depending on the direction I am travelling, and I have experienced the bed thing.

hoping you don't think I'm a complete nutter, EP

That is amazing EP, and no I dont think you are wierd.

Anyone else know as much about how they think?

agcB

oh I'm so glad you don't think I'm a complete idiot. I imagine a lot of other people (who haven't experienced h2g2) would. DOES h2g2 change people? hmm, new thread...

It's not the weirdest thing that happened to me, but it does fit in here.
I once dreamed of a particular smell. In my dream this smell reminded me of something I experienced in my childhood, which I haven't thought of in a long time.
Maybe dogs (they don't see very good compared to their sense of smell) dream in smells.

interesting.

duh duh duh duhhhhhhhhhhhhh
duh duh duh duhhhhhhhhhhhhh
*trumpets blare and banners flutter in the gale*
"Another weird-fact from Exxy's weird-fact life!"
"coming right up after the break"
I
I
I
\/
I remember in smells a lot, especially things from school. I remember what fragrance people have, ages after I've forgotten what they actually look like.

Often, an old smell triggers a long-lost video clip of my past. Oh, and I've recently discovered that I think in thoughts, rather than words. I have trouble stating what I'm thinking at the moment, because I'm not telepathic. Occasionally, I have predictive deja vu: I can remember what will happen about half a second ahead of time, but not soon enough to do anything. It _really_ creeps me out when that happens, though.

deja vu, that's an interesting topic. I've also experienced that feeling when you know what's going to happen a couple of seconds before it does, and not just 'cause it's predictable.

Apparently there is aquestion on the Swiss census form which asks "What language do you think in?" (According to The Times)

As to smells, there has been some research done in the theory that if a person was learning something, in the presence of a particular smell, that smelling that odor again would help with recall.

I think people think in all kinds of ways, according to their "weird". I have a friend who can be told how to do something a zillion (slight exageration here ) times, but if you show her, and actually walk her through it, she learns it perfectly straight off. (She is an avid fencer). I've also heard that some people learn better by seeing, some by hearing, and some can only learn while wandering around a room, rather than sitting still! Maybe we are all just wired differently as to our patterns of "thought".

SC

One of the ways of helping dyslexics is also altering the way you teach them to read. Can´t really remember the methods though.

Smells is something that is good at boosting your memory. Probably for some reason too.

Not all our thoughts are in language. That is why you don´t hear a small voice in your head going "type an a, then an h" and stuff like that. And it seems to me my thoughts aren´t in language, unless I kind of pay attention to them. I generally think in Danish, but when I am in England I am able to switch to thinking in English instead. That helps you to not accidently start talking Danish to anyone.

But what about blind people, I have never heard anything conclusive about how they dream.

Maybe in feelings/emotions?

It depends on whether they have been blind from birth, and how blind they are.

I guess your question relates to people who have been completely blind from birth.

The visual centres of the brain still work, even if they are getting no stimulation. There is no common language to describe experience, but as I recollect, it seems that they may "see" colours and stuff in their sleep. Like the visual noise behind your closed eyes.

agcB

Somebody at work came out with a sentence which had me gobsmacked!

"Chocolate is a waste of space"

Admittedly they were talking about energy values and the merits of eating "proper food", but this quote is one which will stay with me for a Very Long Time.

About the 'visual' memory, I think a lot of people have something like that - me for instance and it's quite embarassing at an exam: I see the page for my eyes, but I don't know what's written on it...
About the language I think in: Actually, being a Belgian who does speak French and then again Dutch a rather short intervals, I'm not altogether sure in which language I think (If I do think at all --> ???), it's the same for my dreams: yesterday I dreamt a quite horrible dream (someone was throwing a knive at a policeman and it remained stuck in his skull) in English and German... Strange.

My learning processes are so exclusively visual that I find myself incapable of learning a new word unless a) I can easily discern a workable spelling (nevermind if it is accurate) b) someone spells it for me c) I can read it from a piece of paper.