> I don't know if this is the same thing or not,
>but I often dream in words. I think it has
>something to do with the fact that when I make
>up stories, I think of the WORDS I would use to
>describe it, and not necessarily the pictures.
>I also think in words. Does this happen to
>anyone else? And is it the same thing as
>reading in a dream?

Hrm.

I don't think I've ever really once in my life "thought in words." I'm not even sure what that means. The very first thing that popped into my head when I read that was seeing yellow words floating on a black background. Then I immedietly realized that was just as visual as seeing fully-realized pictures and scenes.

I'm an extremely visual person, although I'm deficient in several ways even so. I always think in pictures and scenes and whatnot. When I write, I'm seeing the scene in my head like a movie. In fact, when I stumble over the words I want to use instead of having them just come easily, it drops me out of the "internal movie" and I have to stop writing for a bit to try to recapture the scene.

However, the visual scenes I see when writing and when just daydreaming aren't very clear. In fact, I tend to see things the way a writer might describe them--two or three throw-away details that are clearly defined, then a whole lot of fuzzy, indistinct stuff.

What bothers me the most is people's faces. I have an extremely hard time summoning and holding in my head a clear image of someone I know, even if I know them extremely well and/or see them every day. It takes a supreme mental effort to get the image to solidify in my mind, then it's gone with just the slightest disruption in my concentration. It really bothers me to no end.

I can't hold entire outdoor scenes in my head, either. There are very few scenes I can hold in my head with any sort of vividness, and those are things I know very well, such as my parents house or the state camp I grew up on. And even these are dark, fuzzy, and indistinct in most places unless I concentrate extremely hard. This bothers me too.

But all that being said, I can't even *fathom* thinking in words. I think words often enough, but they're always part of a conversation I'm hearing in my head, almost always between people I'm also picturing at the time. If I'm not picturing the people, I'm hearing the words, practicing the conversation, while picturing something ELSE. It's weird. Actually, *I'm* weird.

-- Dave