What is your consciousness like?

What does your stream of consciousness look like? I was talking to a friend and we realized that we have radically different manners of thought. For example, I am always talking inside my head. I think words at the speed that I speak, and I am always thinking in words. Of course images and whatnot too, but there are always words and sentences. I kind of feel subpar knowing that other people could be progressing through ideas in their head faster than they could speak them, as I feel like I think at the same rate I think.

My brain has so many different modus operandi i cant really tell anymore.

I'd say i think in terms of analogies and pattern. These analogies mostly take form in speech (which I can logically validate and therefore they're precise), abstract languages (like math or programming languages) and sometimes music and visuals. These last two mostly happens when i make analogies between, lets say, a final exam and a music and what mental images that music generates in me. For each test I take, I always associate it with a song, and in consequence, a fantastic situation, but i do things like these all the time not only in events like tests and etc. If you are curious, this is what i was listening to weeks before my calculus II final, two or three years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIawKwYcgSI Still, thats just an aspect of my consciousness, one of the first that come in my mind when I think about it.

>>985 >What does your stream of consciousness look like? Very random and very unorganized, but not always in a bad way. I guess my brain always tries to find patterns or connections in everything I observe. >....that other people could be progressing through ideas in their head faster than they could speak them I don't think that's really the case with most humans. Ideas are just like terms, if you understand the definition you can proses it faster in your head.

>>985 I'm the same as you but also have an additional mental state I fall in too often while daydreaming, doing tasks that require very little focus, or drifting off too sleep; where I visualize some steadily unfolding scene and set it to music the song are usually always pretty top tier so I get sweet new beats all the time. my visualization is pretty poor and I find it impossible to visualize myself somewhere else from first person in dreams or just in the day, in some of Nikola teslas writings he states he could visualize things overlayed in real life and they'd appear so reAl they'd be indistinguishable from reality, wish I had that power.

a very clear internal monologue, surrounded by a torrent of abstract thought. It's sometimes overwhelming. Very little visually most of the time. Sometimes I slip into a natural pulse or rhythm. It can be very accelerated and overwhelming at times.

Um it's not I don't think that we are progressing faster you just are thinking in words and thats that. This is something I think about and talked about a lot and the only connection I can find is that people who don't think in words tend to be more creative or artsy. Things don't really have to make sense in speaking in order for them to be brought to life which is what makes things really unique. But people who think in words are better at articulating themselves and are often more rational/logical. I can only think in words by actually mouthing them out almost. Sometimes I don't even have to move my mouth but it's as if i'm thinking what i'm about to say, I like hear myself saying it, but then don't let it come out. And usually even if i'm not mouthing them out my tongue is doing little micro movements. the best way I can say what I do is I think in feeling. I always got really good reading scores I think because of this. I don't really have to read most of a page just some of it to get a "feeling" for whats going on. But it also makes me horrible at remembering dates or number information because my brain doesn't register it as important, it just needs to know "oh this took place in an older time" or to imagine the setting. when im learning something new I have to understand it completely, because then it like "clicks" in my brain and I can execute. I almost can't remember information I don't understand, it has to be integrated in my brain in a way that is intuitive. And then once it's reached this point I have trouble explaining how to do something in words, because I don't think in steps or words. It just "makes sense". I only can give information or general ideas that helped me and people often get frustrated like "I just want to know how to do it" when that's just not how my brain works. Say if i'm learning how to use photoshop, my brain just clicks around stuff and uses it till it figures out. And it stores things like "oh thats somewhere around there" or "you kinda just do this". So I learn things much faster and can do things others can't, but the trade off is that it actually takes me longer in the end. Because I don't for a fact know where anything is, I just generally know how to get to it and will. It's like I have a relationship with it, and it's about understanding the program as a whole and not in individual pieces. If i'm going to be honest i'm kinda bitter about it. I know many people don't think how I do and it's caused me a lot of grief in school and with people. I can feel like i'm using way more brain power and that while in the end it always benefits me in short term I just look dumb, scatterbrained,etc. I also have a total bias against detail oriented people, as they always have given me soykaf. I can't say i'm jealous of you because I have a superiority complex to feel better about myself with regards to how I think, but I know people like you have more "common sense" and can talk to people better which I might be a bit jealous of.

It depends on what I'm doing at the time. Reading is the best example. Sometimes I read as if I'm reading out all the words, but I can also read at a faster pace, where it feels like I'm only limited by how fast my eyes can focus on the next line.

>>985 My stream of consciousness is watery. Thoughts gradually emerge out of it like a train out of the tunnel. I think words at the speed that I speak too, but I am also able to think with my emotions when it comes to moral matters. I can visualize things pretty easily, although not in a very complex manner, visuals and emotions are for me always unconsciously embedded into words. Sounds help me if I have to count up until a large number.

>>1010 I feel you. It's very easy for me to understand the nature of something, so I get confused if others are asking about the details. It enables me to have a good time with tools and operation systems, but I am crappy at remembering phone numbers or adresses, I just know where everything is kinda.

My brain has something like an active "thread" which runs almost all the time, randomly alternating between English and my native language, and a background thread which takes care of processing stimuli unconsciously, deals with mental calculations, most logical operations, etc. Imagery is stored in the unconscious and processed by the background thread, complex tasks are relayed to the foreground thread and are solved consciously: [complex problem detected by unconscious] =relayed=> [conscious mind] Solutions are explored in a literal way, as if talking out loud but inside my own head, this seems to help differentiate between the two threads, since complex problems can be ultimately broken down into smaller problems, which are simply relayed back to the background thread to solve: [conscious mind] =[p1][p2]...[pn]=> [unconscious mind] where p is a sub-problem that the background thread can deal with Solved sub-problems are sent back to the main thread and the solution to the complex problem is assembled and stored in memory: [unconscious mind] =[s1][s2]...[sn]=> [conscious mind] =final solution=> [memory] where s is a solution to a sub-problem Although I have a precise way of thinking, I don't consider myself uncreative or "unable to read in between the lines", I'd say it helps a lot when it comes to reaching quick solutions when there's only one or a few correct answers, if I have to apply creativity to solve a problem, I simply let the background thread deal with all the work. >>1010 >And usually even if i'm not mouthing them out my tongue is doing little micro movements. This happens to me a lot, although it's not really noticeable unless people look at you from up front. >but I know people like you have more "common sense" and can talk to people better which I might be a bit jealous of (responding since both OP and I are word-thinkers) In my case, being able to think in words, or rather, sentences that follow a logical sequence (since you could just be thinking in nouns or gibberish or illogical sentences) helps express my ideas and virtually "win" any argument in real life or on the Internet [talking to people better, business sense], however it doesn't help at all when it comes to relating to people [talking to people better, personal sense], since most people think in a very "feeling" kind of way, as you mentioned, or think in sentences lacking logical progression, so most others' thought processes don't make sense to me, and my thought processes don't make sense to most others. As for remembering (relatively meaningful, i.e., not a phone number, address, etc.) facts and numbers, I'd say I'm remarkably good at it, but only when there's a theoretical background behind the data, as in something that makes sense only if certain parameters are present, and therefore I either know or figure out the parameters when the need arises. I think that has more to do with the way storage occurs within my brain, which I'll now try to explain: Whenever there's a new, meaningful piece of information, as obtained by my unconscious mind, the one doing the processing, the data is stored into a "node", which is then added to a net of interconnected "nodes", representing my memory as a whole. Memory can be divided into short-term and long-term "sections", and new info is placed into the short-term section and connected to relevant nodes within memory. Nodes which either: haven't been accessed for a long time, or have few connections to other nodes, are apparently "erased" from memory, leaving space for new nodes with relevant information to occupy brain space (brain storage seems to be limited). So, if some random new data, such as the diameter of Earth (12,701km) shows up, I'll relate (connect) it to existing relevant data (Physics, Astronomy, Math) and be able to access the number whenever the situation calls for it. The piece of information will likely never be forgotten, since there's many links to other nodes which I access regularly. As for non-meaningful info (think, random digits like phone numbers, not just data that has no practical applications but is nevertheless useful), I'm really just average at remembering them. I forget my damn passwords all the time, too.

>>985 I am also constantly speaking to myself in my head, and at the same rate at which I speak them. I can't go more than a few seconds without talking to myself. I only think in pictures if I am working on a spatial reasoning problem or trying to imagine what something would look like or imagining a story in my head. There have been only a handful of times when I've thought entirely by "feeling" the concepts without words, which only happens when I'm dealing with very difficult and very abstract problems.

I am not privy to my highest seed of thought, but it is coherent and serial. Filtered from that, my conscious ingests with speech or sight, by the numbers or the letters.

i also think at the same speed i speak. the voice i use is my voice.. but if i'm around a friend for long enough, it will switch to his voice & it will upset me. my thoughts feel faster though, my speaking speed can't catch up with them, and to limit my thoughts to voice kind of blocks my thinking process. i'm trying to use my voice less in my head.

>>985 Just an avalanche of random soykaf flowing uncontrollably through my head most of the time, words and images etc. its very random and stops me sleeping. it keeps me up all night. i've tried everything to just fuarrrking sleep but the avalanche of thoughts just never fricken stops. its annoying as fuarrrk but its not like i want it to stop completely, just for a while so i can get some sleep. has anyone tried hard liquor? does it work?

>>985 I reconstruct the world as an avante garde movie/novel. This is the only respect in which I can connect to others on an emotional level. Everything else is basically total chaos which accelerates and decelerates out of my control - almost dreamlike in its utter subversion of convention,

>>985 i think in abstractions like your friend, but i sometimes struggle to articulate them verbally which is frustrating

I alternate depending on some factors between difrent languages, pure concepts and monologues/dialogues. I have some knowledge of the biological and philosophical side of mind, so that helpse expand my range of thought. I won't go into details of neuronal excitement or proteins involved in formation of short term memory and it's consolidation into long term memory, so here are some footnotes. Essentially your frontal cortex is your own holodeck or the matrix that is constantly running simulations, you construct scenes, fill them with objects and go through the motions retrying different things or the same thing differently each time like a rehearsal. That same way your dreams (which are controlled hallucinations while your body is temporarily paralysed so you don't harm yourself) Don really follows timelins very well and are just journeys through the multiverse. You ever notice how when you look at a ledge some part of you wonders about the fall? It's your frontal lobe simulating this scenario and alerting you to the presence of danger. There is a thing called the default system that is active while you don't really use some parts of your brain. It's theorised that it's function is to keep them connected so that when it's needed they flow better. The increased functioning of the default system is associated with introspection and depression and the lowered functioning has the opposite effect. I'm bilingual so there's also that part. English is much more business like, I can also easier accept some things that make me cringe when spoken on my tongue, I guess it's allowing me some sort of distancing. I think freely in both and sometimes switch without noticing. I'm also bipolar so I have the thing where you are essentially on endogenic speed, you really do think before you can move and speak, so you become very agitated and precise movements and word combinations are more difficult. In depressive phases I'm very introspective and have long monologues or simulated conversations with a copy of myself of someone else I know and modelled to talk to me. I also listen to a lot of audio, so I essentially have a background music player thst plays songs I remember in the background. Sometimes I don't even notice until I'm halfway into a song. There's also a lot more I can go into like the cognitive distortions. if someone is interested, let me know.

I process most thoughts 'out-loud' by speaking them in my head like many lainons here but there are rationalizations that happen almost automatically. Like event X will happen and I will conclude A, but I will realize that A is wrong before I can speak it out, or I cut myself off and acknowledge B instead without really 'thinking' A. It is weird because I don't fully acknowledge A on a higher level, my head just cuts off to conclusion B before A is even fully internalized. I just notice afterwards that there must have been a conclusion A before I got to conclusion B. This often happens in chains of my mind going from A to B to C in a few seconds and I only speak out C to myself. I don't really 'think' either A or B. Otherwise, my thoughts are very linear, and I would say my brain is a fairly slow synchronous text processor. The few exceptions are things like music, or art in general, things that I just 'feel' and can't really describe or translate to word mindspace. They influence me somewhat separately from my logical mind. Perhaps a better analogy then would be of dividing mindspace into two processes: a logical, word-thinking process, and an abstracted 'feeling' process. Both have some limited inter-process communication, but they fundamentally different processes with different address spaces.

>>6267 Lainon, please go on. >I have some knowledge of the biological and philosophical side of mind More about this specifically. And cognitive distortions as well

>>6271 Well it's a very broad topic but scientific research made some interesting forays in the last 10 or so years that have not yet disseminated into general culture. The main one in my opinion is memory Here's a good overview https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4246028/ It is a very difficult process but at the same time surprisingly applicable to everyday life. The main thing is that there are 3 types of memory: sensory imprint, short-term memory and long term memory. They all get consolidated into each other in that order and have specific proteins connected to some of the stages that were identified by the temporary silencing studies (where the production of specific proteins is stopped and the effects are then observed to determine the function of the protein) If you block the formation of theese proteins for a long time (3-4h usually) the lesson or information that is given is consolidated and so even though the test subject did remember it in the short term, they did not commit it to memory. Sleep is also very important because during sleep the received information is restructured to consolidate more efficiently by throwing out of some details and structuring a narrative that is then integrated. That's why it's always better to read a book for an exam once and sleep on it that to cram it all night without sleep. By constantly repeating the same material it keeps being overwritten and in the short term status. It's also an interesting part. When you remember something it is reconsolidated and reconsolidated again so if you silence the proteins while triggering a memory, this memory can't reconsolidate and is forgotten. That also means that every time you remember something you are remembering what you remembered the alst time and so the snowball effect kicks in. This creates an interesting dinamic that the more events are important to you the more likely you are to remember them a bit wrong after a while due to the constant re-remembering while you can have a pretty clear memory of something less impactful but still important enough to not get thrown out this ryou can re-remember pretty clearly many years later because it hasn't been distorted much. It is a known fact that witness testimony is terribly inaccurate for a mirriad of reasons, and that seems to be one of them since you are likely to re-remember the events a lot of times in a row. This can cause the discrepancy and holes in the narrative and here the frontal lobe comes in again to fill the gaps. Here's a good example of what I mean. We all have blind spots in our eyes where the optic nerve is located but it's only noticeable if you try to find it. Most of the time the brain just fills the gap by predicting what should be in that spot. An opposite example is tuning out the sounds. For example, a ticking clock that is just cut out until you pay attention to it. We also hear a lot of the sounds that our body makes but tune those out toom. People put in sensory deprivation chambers start to hear their bodies after a while and find the experience weird and uncomfortable. That's just some random snippets that I found interesting. As for cognitive biases they are usually our insticts and brain's tendency to find patterns and fill the gaps backfiring. Here's a Wikipedia list, there is even a nice atlas I want to make a big poster of at some point. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_bias To explain this a bit, you must keep in mind that our brain is different from other brains due to it's evolutionary history. It's evolved to exist first in the forests of the Eastern Africa and then in the savannah after the climate facilitated deforestation. Thus to survive tribal instincts were formed by the hunters and gatherers that would eventually evolve into the first anatomically modern humans. By walking upright we created the ability to use hands more and those hands got access to tools and somehow along the way quadrupoled their brain size. It was already mich more neuronaly dense in great apes due to it's design, but now in just 3 million years which is alarmingly fast and unprecedented this big leap happened. Some say that this was so owerwhelmingly powerful than basically every other system received a downgrade. We are much weaker, with smaller intestines, have a lot of complications at birth and our children are helpless for a long time all because our brain Iz so big and it grew so fast. The human brain consumes twice as luck energy than the chimpanzee. Specialty it consumes about 20% of our energy and has it's own special separate metabolism focused on glucose just to keep it going. Also there is a mechanism for producing glucose in our kidneys that kicks it when there's not enough coming in with the food. That's why eating a bit of chocolate before the test is actually a good idea as it gives your blood sugar a bit of a spike that corresponds to the increased brain activity. Some interesting things. The reason for the fact that the best visible combination of colours is black on bright yellow might be because of the bees and the leaopards. Leopardz come up a lot actually, they were something of an arch enemy of the people before people became their own arch enemy. As such, we have adaptations to counter them like seeng their colour combinations better that others or finding house cats mesmerising and attention grabbing. We also have some instinctual reactions for stuff moving in peripheral vision and something crawling on our skin as a defence mechanism against insects and snakes. Infant children have some interesting atavism in their behaviour. If you give them a piece of fur they will grab it because it's a holdover instinks to hold onto a hair on their mother that has not yet been phased out. Lots of interesting things. I must say that even though I'm saying all that so confidently, science is not sacred and is up for changes at any moment and I'm not extremely well read on the latest findings and thought about that a lot so I probably have some biases made that way. How's that for an expansion?

I don't seem to think when I think, if that makes any sense. I'd say that the best approximation would be images/scenarios/patterns, but it's automatic to the point where I have to deliberately stop myself if I want to remember how I came to a conclusion 5 minutes after the fact. It's not uncommon for people to walk up to me and tell me I look deep in thought, when in reality I've just been in blank power-save for a while. I have had an internal monologue pop up on occasion (usually when high or extremely exhausted/stressed). It feels distressing and unatural and I usually end up trying to make it stop.

>>6272 Very good explanation, anon! I enjoyed it. Now off to read that paper >science is not sacred and is up for changes at any moment Exactly. That's why personally when I find out some interesting stuff about memory or thinking I get immediate thought "Is this really, really true?". I guess a test of time will show if papers are correct

>>985 >>985 >nk words at the speed that I speak, and I am always thinking in words. Of course images and whatnot too, but there are always words and sentences. OP that is a different person and it is radios my opinion is your thoughts look like agreeing with everything the radio says i dont like you ans think you are going to poison me with radios

>>7977 everyhing you see and hear which is not in real life is radios and it is bad shout at it raiser it like your soykafmouth spazpid child make it punish itself for asking for you

My stream is a lot of deliberate noise to keep the bad noise out. I always have a song playing in the background in my head. My mind is a mess. I usually have words to go with my thoughts but I can suppress the words for a short period. I am aware of impulses as they arise in my mind but I am still learning not to always follow them like most people do. I can slow and stop much of the noise sometimes when I am feeling well which is not too often.

passively, my thoughts will be made of idle observations that are soon forgotten in the form of words, pictures, and sometimes music. when i am actively thinking, there may be internal conversations, digging through past things ive said, heard & read, imagining potential future conversations. alternatively, i may decide to fill my mind with rich visual imagery which are made of potential drawings, attempts to replicate what places im in would look like from various angles, and sometimes things that resemble architectural schematics. music has its place in my thoughts as well, but it feels quite removed from me now so i'm not quite sure how to describe it.  i did not always have such useful thoughtforms, but i have always had a very active imagination. i was deeply afraid of ghosts as a child, and i've experienced psychosis a number of times. it took some research and mostly active considerations on how to improve myself in order to think in the way that i do. being totally honest, in 2017 i fell for the tulpamancy bit. i have imaginary friends that keep me company. without active effort on my own part, they will speak to each other and to me. i can't very well imagine my without them.

>>8029 Imaginary friends are the way i interact with other people. I fashion puppet models of them in my mind and try to get it as close to the other person's mind as i can imagine, i then hold conversions with these models instead of considering others as other. It's safer that way. I believe this must be how we all do "interaction" but i take it to a high level so imaginary people are integral to my experience in life. Isn't it practical to hang out with your friends without them having to be involved? I cheer myself up by tweaking them to think or say pleasurable things about me in imaginary scenarios. As far as i'm concerned these good people only serve to feed info and updates to my personal version of them so i don't reveal my way of thinking as to not be rude. On their end they obviously enjoy me seemingly absorbing the whole of their selves without judgment during an interaction so i have good relations with people and it's not such a horrible situation. Suffice to say: Tulpas pretty cool.

>>5983 yes it works. no dont try it

Useful nomenclature: https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/codebook.html > Inner speech is the experience of speaking words in the person's own voice, with the same vocal characteristics . . . as the person's own external speech, but with no external (real) noise. [cf. "subvocalization", which consists of aborted speech motor commands manifesting as subtle movements of articulatory muscles.] > Partially worded speech is the experience of speaking in one's own inner voice, except that some substantial number of the words that are being spoken are absent from awareness. > Unworded speech is the experience of speaking in one's own inner voice, except that there is no experience of the words themselves. > Worded thinking is the experience of thinking in particular distinct words, but those words are not being (innerly or externally) spoken, heard, seen, or voiced in any other way. > An image is the experience of seeing something that is known to be not actually present. > Imageless seeing is the experience of seeing (of looking at, of visually apprehending) in inner experience, except that the thing seen (usually called the image) is not itself directly in awareness. > Unsymbolized thinking is the experience of thinking some particular, definite thought without the awareness of that thought's being represented in words, images, or any other symbols. > Inner hearing is the paying attention to the auditory characteristics of an inner phenomenon. > A feeling is an emotional experience, including sadness, happiness, humor, anxiety, joy, fear, nervousness, anger, embarrassment, and so on. > A sensory awareness is a sensory or perceptual experience (itch, hotness, pressure, visual taking-in, hearing) that is itself a primary theme or focus for the subject. > Just doing is being engaged in some activity but with no awareness of thinking about it. Furthermore, no other aspect of inner experience is in awareness. > Just talking is talking aloud but has no other aspect of inner experience being simultaneously present. > Just listening is hearing another person talking aloud, and comprehending what that person is saying without any other aspect of inner experience being simultaneously present. > Just reading is reading and comprehending what is being read without any other aspect of inner experience being simultaneously present. > Just watching TV (or movie or play) is watching a representational medium and being absorbed in the action without any other aspect of inner experience being simultaneously present. > Multiple awareness is two or more separate, mostly unrelated processes ongoing simultaneously. More from Hurlburt on these phenomena and the nature of observing inner experience: https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/sampling.html#blog1 More Hurlburt: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C35&q=hurlburt&btnG= Unsymbolized thinking: https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C35&q=unsymbolized+thinking&btnG= The Nature of Unsymbolized Thinking, Vicente 2016 (PDF): https://scholar.archive.org/work/qkmmbf3dwzfdfdzhkfydnvokpi/access/wayback/https://philpapers.org/archive/VICTNO-2.pdf > The explanation about the phenomenon of [unsymbolized thinking (UT)] that this view about inner speech suggests is the following. In inner speech we form the non-conscious intention to express a certain thought, recruit semantic, syntactic and phonological representations, and issue a motor command to produce overt speech that is subsequently aborted. The result of this is a prediction about the sound of the aborted utterance accompanied by a prediction about its meaning. Suppose, however, that we abort the process earlier, in particular, before the message is ready for emission. In that case, only one kind of prediction will be issued, namely, a prediction about the meaning of the message, which will be experienced as such a meaning -- and only a meaning. This would be [an unsymbolized thought (UT)], i.e., a non-symbolized, non-perceptually vehicled, propositional entity that we can easily recognize and verbalize. It is not clear how many stages can be discerned in speech production (or even if they are really stages), but suppose that a speech act begins with the intention to express a certain thought, and involves, inter alia, mobilizing semantic representations (so that the thought is expressible), and recruiting word representations that are given a certain syntactic structure. Below that, we find the level of phonology, where it is specified how words are expressed and how sounds are articulated. Finally, when everything is ready for pronunciation, the information is passed to the motor level. Our hypothesis is that we experience UTs when we abort a speech act before we reach the level of phonology. The output is a string of abstract word (or maybe just semantic/conceptual) representations that categorize the world according to the semantics of the language we speak, has the syntax of the language we speak, and conveys the thought we want to express. That is why we easily recognize what the thought is about and why it is also easy for us to verbally report its content. Attached: Investigating Pristine Inner Experience: Moments of Truth, Hurlburt

>>5983 Energy goes where the mind direct it, so if you want to get the energy out of your head, focus your mind elsewhere.

When I'm actively thinking it's a monologue. But when I'm focusing on something outside of my heads it's a chain of "videos" of images.

>>985 >I kind of feel subpar knowing that other people could be progressing through ideas in their head faster than they could speak them, as I feel like I think at the same rate I think. I comprehend things much faster than I can substantiate them with words. This creates the illusion that the comprehension itself is somehow empty, while the slower process of making it concrete and linear is the "real" thinking, but the more I reflect on it, the more convinced I become that it's precisely the other way around. Has it never dawned on you, all at once, how two seemingly unrelated things are analogous in some complex way? Or how a problem that you've been struggling with, can be solved by drawing a new distinction for which there is no established concept? Sometimes it can take several pages of writing to substantiate such a thing, hours to find the right sequence of words, and all the while you are guided by that initial flash of comprehension.