Since the 1970s, of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, has been beeping people six times a day to write down their thoughts, and following that up with interviews. His work suggests five basic modes of thinking:
Inner speaking Hearing words in your own voice
Inner seeing Seeing a visual image in your mind鈥檚 eye
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Feeling Any strong emotion
Sensory awareness A sensory signal that overwhelms all else. Can be imagined, e.g. thinking of something soft
Unsymbolised thinking A concept unattached to any mental words or images
Often, these thought modes are mixed up, as in this example:
鈥淓mma is cleaning up her kitchen鈥� she had picked up a glass from her counter and had noticed two vases of mostly dead flowers鈥� she鈥檚 putting the glass upside down into the dishwasher; the seeing the glass and surrounding glasses and the trying to get it to fit are part of her experience鈥� she innerly hears the crunchiness of dead flowers (as if she has picked up some fallen rose petals) [(Imagined) sensory awareness]鈥� Simultaneously she innerly sees the two vases of flowers and the countertop with the dead petals [Inner seeing]. This imaginary seeing is in color and detail鈥� She has a sense that the cleaning up of the flowers can wait; the sense of can wait is somehow present without words or symbols [unsymbolised thinking]鈥�
In this example, is Emma thinking about clearing up the kitchen? Dead flowers? Or nothing in particular? The complexity of such thought processes, and their variation between people, leads Hurlburt to argue that it is almost impossible to assess the content of thoughts, let alone decide their 鈥渘ormality鈥�.
If you accept that these were Emma鈥檚 thoughts when the beeper went off and want to categorise them, says Hurlburt, 鈥渢hen you have to throw your hands up and say 鈥業 can鈥檛 do it'鈥�. When science captures thinking it tends to be more big-picture thinking, he says 鈥� and that type is fairly rare. 鈥淭he Emma example is closer to what people actually do, and I don鈥檛 think science has fully grasped that.鈥�
Read more: 鈥�Is your mind normal? 7 reasons it probably is鈥�
