ex: I always view things in my head. I see the calendar year as a circle going clockwise. a week is a wide rectangle with gray marks signifying school, ABS, etc.
Just to make it easier, how do you view time in your head? Or, how do you think about things? Pictures? Sounds? Words? Sounds? I would love to know. I've been contemplating this subject a lot lately.
8 comments:
I view time and life as if it were a movie. My mind puts together situations it believes will happen when I think forward to events. Like tomorrow, my mind will put together images as if I were watching the movie of my life. It's like memories that haven't been made yet. Most of the time the larger things aren't accurate, but that's okay, because it's still entertaining. Once the thing actually happens, I can usually look back on it the same way. Though it may seem hard to believe, I rarely forget situations. I can often play back in my mind exactly what happened and what was said. Sometimes it takes like a week for me to fully remember though.
yeah, I'm weird
Everything is in words.
hah i see a week like you do
and my calendar year is in one giant semi-oval i guess it is like a "C".
i've actually thought about this quite a lot, but have never got up the nerve to ask people.
places and holiday, though are smells to me. and past "phases" of my life are categorized by songs that really impacted me during that time. so i guess all of the senses are used in different areas! :)
Hmm...this is interesting! P.S. you are such an artist, with your spatial, non-linear ways of thinking! : )
I'm trying to picture certain things without thinking too hard so I can accurately answer this question.
Let's try a calendar year. I think of it as a line of words. January February March April, etc...floating by. A week is the same way. Wow. That is really boring, hahaa!
Besides that, I think I just see in pictures. Or video. And there's ALWAYS a song being played in my head. I think that I also, like Ryan, use my senses a lot in thinking about things. Like, when I think of going to Del Pueblo, I think, first of all, of the way that it looks, and second of all the way it will taste.
I think of things in scenarios and events, replaying the past and the future and thinking of random things that could happen. In video and images. When I'm reading a book I try to think of it in pictures and video too. And a lot of time when I'm thinking in my head, I think I imagine my voice talking faintly. My thought process is very scattered and is always flitting from one thing to the next, kind of like me talking really fast.
Thanks for this! Now I'm going to think about this a lot. I've actually never really thought about it - I guess I just assumed that everyone thought the way that I did :)
Sorry to make my comments more like blogs : ), but as a side note I also count a lot. Whenever I'm walking I count, and try to make everything I do have a beat to it.
And how do you hear/see music in your head? Like I said, for me there's always a song in my head, and it always sounds exactly like the recording. I can pick out all the parts and turn up different instruments/voices to hear them more clearly as if I'm at a mixing board or something. But I don't see it - I more just kind of swim in the sound as if it's a huge stereo surrounding me on all sides. But I think that this is why I'm able to more or less play by ear for certain things. And if I'm trying to figure out a chord progression, I listen to the song and imagine me playing it in a certain key to try to figure out how it all works together.
Question for you: how do you think when you make art? For me, I have to visualize it before I make it. But I don't think like an artist like you do, so I'm curious!
Side note: My mom and I view time exactly the same, except her year goes counter-clockwise, while mine goes clockwise; and my days go bottom to top, while hers go top to bottom.
Ryan: That's reallllyyy cool that you think of things in smells :)
Molly: about music: That is really cool that you think about it like that. It's similar for me, but since I'm such a visually oriented person, it's more difficult for me to think about sounds without assigning them a line/color/abstract art concept in my head. So, even though I can do relative sounds (like, oh, this sound is this, so I hear this sound in relation to it), but I can't do it as good as you can. In order for my mind to be as musically oriented as yours, I would have to be able to see a piano key (for example) and know the note that it plays. Also, I am more likely to remember the timber of a musical note than the actual specific note.
Currently I'm trying to figure out if there is a certain visual characteristic (like the aforementioned color/shape etc.) I assign to a note subconsciously that I would be able to identify it by. But so far it hasn't worked. :(
About art: It depends. If I'm doing calligraphy, it just kind of happens. My mind sort of automatically sees elements of composition, so I put the line where it will be aesthetically pleasing.
If I'm creating a painting or drawing or whatever, it's more like, I know what I want the final product to look like, I just have to figure out how to get there. And also there's a big "What will be most pleasing to the eye?" factor here too.
And one more thing: After reading a book, I don't remember the words, I remember the pictures of the scenes in the book my mind has created.
This conversation is becoming increasingly interesting!
I love this topic! I've been thinking about it a lot today. And I read somewhere as I was looking on the internet about this that really good composers think about music in color. And for some reason a lot of them think about the key of C as a deep, bright red! Interesting...
But just to clarify, I do not by any means have perfect pitch. I'm just good at "recording sounds", if you will. One thing I've been trying to figure out is how people with perfect pitch must think. I mean, because I think that I have good relative pitch, but people with perfect pitch are able to relate music with words and colors and with other sounds. They can describe music in words, such as, this is what the frequency of "A" sounds like. However, for me, I can only think about music in terms of sound and music, if that makes sense. Like, when I hear a note, nothing else comes to mind except for more music. I hear the note and other notes that fit well with it. But I stinkin' wish that I had perfect pitch! I'm sure that I could maybe train my mind, if I worked really hard, to memorize certain pitches (like, sometimes I can remember middle C), but it would be really hard! haha.
Another side note, is that I also have noticed today that I count a lot. I like having a beat in my head, whether I'm counting numbers or my steps or whatever. I walk to a beat, tap my feet to a beat, and anything else to have a steady feeling. I usually put a beat to a song and sing it in my head. I also say the words that I'm typing (like, right now I'm saying everything in my head) or reading as I create them. And my mental thoughts are always in sounds, listening to me talk, as I mentioned earlier. I think that's also why journaling and such is so natural for me, because my thoughts about things (however complex or simple) are already in words, while for other people they think more abstractly. So I've concluded that for the most part I think either in plain images or sounds.
And something else REALLY weird...I've always wanted to ask others if this happens to them - whenever I get really close to falling asleep, or just if I have been laying in the dark with my eyes closed for a while, the images of people and such in my head begin to distort. The color gets distorted and people begin to get really skinny or really fat, and become more just figures than people. I have to like open my eyes and turn on the light to make it stop. Does that happen to anyone else?
Guess what? I'm pretty sure Mrs. Kristi told me one time that Shawn thinks about key signature in colors. :)
That doesn't happen to me about the people... But yeah, the mind is a random and amazing thing. It's so cool that God gave us something so powerful and complex.
Post a Comment