You assign words to your strong emotional states in the moment, or typically afterward? And with music?

@resserts afterwards, the feeling/ gut response comes first. Music is sometimes started by words, sometimes i find myself thinking of a tune and when i realise what the song words are it’s often relevant and sometimes humorous my dreams can also involve music.

@girlwithsmiles Ah, interesting. Are you musically inclined in general? I'm not especially, and I have only a casual interest in music as entertainment, but I really think in terms of music or dream with music involved.

@resserts I’ve always loved music, but only trained later in life. Have always thought and dreamt in music though and compose ditties and write rhymes too.

Ah, so not just a mix, but specifically involving aural conceptualization. Do you tend to focus on sounds over sight in your daily observations? Thanks for your input.

@resserts you say daily observation? See with eyes, hear with ears a lot of my daily thoughts are sound discussion type like as if hearing myself talk to myself thinking in conversation.

Thanks for your comment. Do you feel like you have to work a little to put your thoughts into words, or does that come naturally to you?

@resserts It comes pretty easily. The processing of words, either writing down notes while listening or articulating thoughts to another is a very powerful memorization or comprehension tool for me.

Thanks for your reply. I thought about including a "both" option, but I didn't want it to be the default because most people can summon mental image as well as put words to thoughts. I was afraid it would detract from the question rather than enhance it — but I'm glad you brought it up.

@resserts Music is one of those things, I listen to mostly jazz so it will be a riff of some piece I know but if it's something say from Sinatra the lyrics are there.
Now that I think about it, it may not be Picard but the voice if there is one will usually have a bit of the British accent.

@silverotter11 Haha! So posh!

How great it would be to hear Picard in your head though! I don't think everyone puts every thought into words, especially deep emotions, but that continual terrain of thought and stream-of-consciousness monologue sorry of ribs over the top — for me, anyway. Thanks for your reply.

I do that a lot too, sometimes I have conversations with myself that make me mad. I have to wonder why I would do that to myself.

I sometimes do the internal dialogue thing, too, but usually I stick with a detailed monologue. Do you find it easy to write your ideas down?

@resserts I've never tried to write the thoughts or conversations down. The ideas tend to pop through quickly, unless I'm planning something. If I can focus on planning a project that helps to quiet the conversations with others. The conversations are usually things I wish I had said, or would like to say in a given situation. In general, since I got removed from a toxic situation, the conversations with others are now receding. And because I have good news to plan for, my thoughts are generally better now then they were 2 or 3 months ago. OTOH, in the last 4 years I have been terrified for what kind of retirement I will be facing if f--kface stays in the WH. Those are not getting better, but I have hope for November. Not alot, but time will tell.

Ah, so you don't just think in abstract ideas but actually think in images. That's fascinating. While I can summon a mental image when needed, it's not my default setting. Thanks for your perspective.

@resserts SMost of the time it is hard to even translate what I have been doing for over 40 years professionally into words. I wish it was not this way but I get what I got. I am also dyslexic, turning numbers around. Fortunately, we work in a shop where math is not trusted, what I mean by this is we make a job stick with all the dimensions and details drawn upon it, if one has a problem with the numbers they can just take the stick to the project and see what is going on. This is great for me as I am a math person, but the dyslexia gets in my way.