Preface
This is the first real deep dive into how my brain works. You’ll notice that I’m trying more and more to fit in my Brain Factory™ analogy into my stories.
Enjoy!
Visual Thinkers
I’ve started reading a book by Temple Grandin called Visual Thinkers. In it, she broadly categorizes brains into two ends of a spectrum: visual thinkers and word thinkers — with the latter being more common. Templeton identifies herself as a visual thinker. In her own words: “I think in pictures.” If you’ve read this blog before, you already know this about me too: I think in pictures.
Pictures
In chapter one she also describes that the visual thinkers can be split up, binary, into two groups. Object thinkers and Spatial thinkers. Object thinkers are the ones who think in pictures — like Templeton Grandin herself. These are often people like engineers, artists, architects… people who see things in concrete visual form. Then there are the spatial thinkers. They think in patterns, systems, and relationships. Musicians. Scientists. Software developers. Ehh, Software developers too?
Her belief is laid out very clearly in the book: You’re either an object thinker or a spatial thinker. Both? Doesn’t seem possible. And at first, I thought: Well, I know I think in pictures. So that must make me an object thinker, right? But here’s the thing: I’m also a programmer. I think in systems, in logic, in the bigger picture — that would make me a spatial thinker?
But then again… I don’t see patterns. Not visually at least.
Not like some kind of mental blueprint floating in front of me, or some complex flowchart like you’d build in Enterprise Architect. Because the truth is: I have no idea how I see patterns.
I just know they’re there — instantly.
So… does that mean I feel them?
And that got me thinking.
Weird?
I know I’m autistic.
I know I think in pictures — but not quite the same as Templeton Grandin.
I know that the way my brain processes information — across senses — is different. And there are some other oddities too
So how weird is my brain, really?
Time for a deep dive into the system. (And yeah… another hell of an intro, don’t you think?)
One very important note before we dive in: I’m not writing this to brag. Not some “look how different I am, yay me!” kind of thing.
Hell no. The opposite, really.
I just genuinely enjoy exploring how my brain works. I’ve had 48 years of living inside, and with, this thing — and trust me, I’ve spent countless hours being stuck in it. 😛
This is just me opening the hood and poking around. Let’s see what’s in there.
And hey — I’m also really curious: Do you explore your brain in a similar way?
In other words:
“Buckle up Dorothy, ’cause Kansas is going bye bye”
Pictures again
If I want to remember something, I just need some kind of hook — or index, really — to find it. 99 out of 100 times, all I need to do is think of the place. Once I have that, it’s like I can scroll through the memory. I can literally see it in front of me.
And here’s something I noticed recently: When I try to recall something visually, my actual vision seems to drop in priority. As if part of my visual cortex gets rerouted — like the system says,
“Hold up, we’re gonna need part of your GPU for something internal.”
So yeah, real-time vision drops to a lower priority.
And yes… that means I get distracted easily when I try to recall something.
But hey — that might just be a guy thing. We can only do one thing at a time anyway, right? 😛
Temple Grandin can remember intricate details when she pulls a picture from memory. I can’t. My pictures have some kind of blur applied. Some details are there — but not all. But the metadata is almost always fully loaded: the weather, the time of year, who was there, and so on.
And here is where it gets interesting: I can rotate the image in 3D — manipulate the distance from the camera to me — sometimes even see myself in first person or in third person — and even fly through the image like a drone!
WTF?!
Patterns
I think in systems — I truly love to know how everything works. I’m very good at detecting patterns. And now it gets a bit nerdy.
For the folks reading this who still remember old modems with those weird sounds: Before the connection was even fully established, I already knew the trained speed of the modem. Whether it was 14400, 19200, 28k8-VFC or V34 — I just knew.
How?
No idea.
At work, a similar pattern emerges (pun intended?). So many times I’ve said:
“Hey, I’ve seen this before… wait…”
And then I go digging — and yep, I find that exact same pattern.
From days, weeks, sometimes even months earlier.
No clue how I do it.
Oh, and trust me:
It will get a LOT stranger.
Talking
And I have a vivid inner conversation. Yes — I talk with myself. (And no — I do not have split personalities!) (Even though all the managers in my factory have names… but I’m digressing. :P)
So ehh… I think in pictures and short clips. I can’t see patterns — I feel them. And using words also has an inner meaning attached to it.
What?!
That means I somehow belong to all — but not quite — the categories mentioned in Visual Thinking??
System thinking, my way
Again: I don’t see patterns — I just know that they are there Sometimes I even know there is a pattern based on a gut feeling, but I can’t explain it yet to someone else.
I don’t just think about isolated facts or steps. I always see the bigger picture behind it — even if I don’t literally see it. It’s like my brain throws everything — data, feelings, context — into one huge mental bucket.
And somewhere deep inside, the system starts weaving. It builds layers, connections, cross-references — without me even noticing it consciously.
Although… that last statement is not entirely true. I do notice it sometimes. I can feel when my factory is busy chewing on something.
And suddenly — Eureka.
A full system clicks into place. Not because I logically built it piece by piece — but because somewhere in the background, my mind already mapped the entire structure.
I don’t just solve problems. I feel how the system fits together.
And the same thing happens when we’re discussing a problem at work, for instance. The new data gets fed into the system — and sometimes, even before someone finishes their sentence — it clicks. And again — I don’t see the solution. But I feel it!?
I still have no real way of describing how this works. It just… happens… Yes — not knowing how this system works is a bit frustrating. 😛
Would be interesting to see how this looks on an fMRI. Is my whole brain activated when I’m chewing on a problem?
My brain: More LLM than CPU?
If you look at how my brain works, it’s actually more similar to a Large Language Model (LLM) than to a traditional CPU.
I don’t really think in rigid, logical steps. I don’t follow strict if-this-then-that instructions. (Even though that’s my own analogy for how my mental script works. :P) Yes — I’m actually contradicting myself here! 😛
I somehow work in layers. In patterns? In weighted connections between concepts, images, sounds, and feelings. My answers surely don’t come from a checklist. But more like a system of connections that “just feels” when something is right.
It’s not classic logic. It’s emergent pattern recognition.
Just like an LLM?
(And even funnier: I didn’t even exactly know how an LLM worked up until a week ago. :P)
And again: It would be REALLY interesting to see what this looks like on an fMRI. Is my whole brain activated when I’m chewing on a problem?
Senses
My five senses are… ehh… well — weirdly configured? You know: see, hear, smell, taste and feel.
Let’s imagine all five as departments in an office building.
Tasting department
Well, this department has a whole floor — just like the others — but ehm… only a handful of co-workers actually show up.
Do I have an exquisite taste palette? Hell no.
Skimmed milk vs. full milk? Eh… I can hardly tell the difference. Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola? Yeah, both taste like cola. I do prefer the latter tho. 😛
And the link between this sense and my memory storage at floor -1? Not the best connection. So far, I’ve only had one (yes, one) flashback triggered by taste.
It involved an apple I always ate with my granddad. I never knew the name — just the taste and the moment. And only recently did I find out what kind of apple it was: Cox Orange Pippin.And yes! I have the same tree now as well 🙂
Smelling department
My smell department also isn’t that great. Also only a handful of co-workers here. One of them — and I mean one — has a desk dedicated to only one smell. That desk has a trunkline straight to memory and to my CEO.
And that specific smell? The additive they put in natural gas.
Long story short: I know the dangers of natural gas. I know why they add this specific additive. As a student, I spent a few years working for the local energy company, reading gas and electricity meters. And in one particular neighborhood… a lot of those meters were faulty — and leaking.
And I can still literally see that gas mechanic walk up to me — cigarette in his mouth, big chunky guy in a greasy orange overall. Luckily, he killed the cigarette before opening the door to the cabinet that housed the eight gas meters from that specific building.
“Oh, that one is faulty…
oh, that one too…
and yeah, this one is leaking as well.”
Like it was nothing.
And not only that apartment building — but the one next to it too, and the next, and the next.
Yikes!
The co-worker sitting at that desk in my factory did a good job later though.
One evening, I was cycling back home after a handball training. I crossed an intersection and thought I smelled gas. Turned around to double-check — and yes, there it was: that faint odor of the additive. My dad worked at the energy company.
I told him what I’d noticed.
The company checked it out — and yes: there was a gas leak. In a main line running right under that intersection.
And somehow… I had smelled it — through all the layers on top, including the pavement and the tarmac.
Feeling department
This department is fully equipped and full of co-workers. Problem is — manuals?Most are missing I guess :P.
I’m not fond of being touched, especially not by strangers. And honestly… this department has no idea what to do with these inputs. There is no trunkline to the CEO or other departments except for one…
This department has a trunkline directly to the Motor Department. And let me tell you — that’s not the most ideal trunkline to have.
Touch me unexpectedly… or poke me in my side… and chances are I’ll jump in reflex. (Insert Kris Kross — “Jump” here :P)
Hearing department
And now we’re entering weird territory.
My Hear Department is huge — insanely huge. Co-workers stacked everywhere. Most of them are constantly overworked.
A few of them work 24/7, reporting the same thing over and over again: a two-tone high-pitched sine wave I hear constantly. (Yes, really. All day, every day.) Upside is — I can ignore those co-workers most of the time. 😛
Trunklines are everywhere. Memory. CEO. Visual department. More on that later. And besides all the trunklines, there’s also a dedicated hotline, the red phone, straight to my CEO.
I also suspect there’s a direct trunkline from my Speech Center inside the Motor Department — linked straight to my Hearing Department. There has to be.
This is by far the fastest processing department I have.
My hearing is easily one of the most developed senses in my system. I can single out one instrument in a music piece — I can hear if it’s in tune or not — I feel the rhythm — I recognize patterns and almost instantly link them to similar tracks I like. Also — I can locate a single instrument on the stage just by hearing. Audiolocation? Is that even a thing?
And honestly? This is still an understatement of what my hearing department — and the processing behind it — can actually do.
Seeing department
This department is also insanely huge — almost as huge as the Hearing Department. But there’s one big difference: The co-workers here are relaxed and not overworked. And that trunkline from the Hear Department? Yeah — it terminates here.
Why? No idea. But this is where it gets really weird: Under certain circumstances, I can see sounds. Yes — see them. Not as colors, but as movement. Sometimes as small “explosions” in space.
Weird? Yes. Fun? HELL YEAH.
Besides that — when I close my eyes and it’s dark, I can see colors everywhere. Patterns forming and moving across my inner vision.
It’s as if my department thinks:
“Hey, you’re depriving us of input… guess we’ll just generate our own workload!”
And at that moment the Hear Department is like:
“Hey! Seems you guys aren’t that busy — mind if we reroute some of our workload to you?”
And again — trunklines everywhere. To the Thinking Departments, down to the Memory Department. But the biggest thing here? There is no hotline to the CEO.
And that is why the things I see are always processed and integrated later than everything that comes through my ears — the reason why I suck at recognizing sarcasm, for instance.
When a memory is retrieved, it gets processed right here in the Seeing Department. Which explains why I give less attention to the outside world when I’m seeing a memory.
I’m seriously curious what an fMRI would reveal.
Put me in a fully blacked-out room — let me “see” sounds or retrieve a memory — and let’s see what lights up.
Would my visual cortex kick in without real images? Would my memory floors send data — through one of the trunklines — full of sensory information, upstairs?
No clue. But honestly — I would love to find out.
Logic or illogical?
A few years ago, I did an Insights training.
In this model, people are categorized into four colors:
- Red: the natural leader
- Blue: the analytical thinker
- Green: the empath, the helper-type
- Yellow: the social enthusiast, the people-person
According to this test, I’m as blue as it gets. I’m the analytical thinker — the one with the archive cabinet for a brain. A structured system where everything is filed, tagged, and retrievable.
And to make it even more interesting: what was literally written in my report?
“Je bent een wandelende archiefkast.“
(Yes, in Dutch — and yes, they were spot on.)
It translates to: “You are a walking filling cabinet”.
Sounds about right, eh?
And that is where it gets weird!
I also did an MBTI questionaire. MBTI assesses people across four categories:
- Introverted/Extroverted
- iNtuition/Sensing
- Feeling/Thinking
- Perceiving/Judging
That gives you 16 possible personality types.
And based on my Blue personality, you’d probably expect me to be something like:
- ISTJ:
- INTJ:
- ISTP:
- or maybe INTP:
All pretty logical, analytical, structured types. Makes sense, right? Just look those four letters up — you’ll find more than enough descriptions about the different types.
(By the way — doing an online MBTI assessment is actually super interesting. Highly recommended!)
And now, drumroll, my type!
I N F P, The healer, idealist
- Introvert — Sure!
- iNtuition — Ehhh. vs logic?
- Feeling — Ehhh again.. vs logic?
- Perceiving — Ehhh yet again, vs making decisions with logic?!
Description
Source: https://www.16personalities.com/infp-personality
Although they may seem quiet or unassuming, people with the INFP personality type (Mediators) have vibrant, passionate inner lives. Creative and imaginative, they happily lose themselves in daydreams, inventing all sorts of stories and conversations in their mind. INFPs are known for their sensitivity – these personalities can have profound emotional responses to music, art, nature, and the people around them. They are known to be extremely sentimental and nostalgic, often holding onto special keepsakes and memorabilia that brighten their days and fill their heart with joy.
Ehh. Blue… and INFP? and Autism? How the hell does that even make sense?
From the outside, it really looks like a hard contradiction. To the outside world, I’m that autistic guy who relies on logic. And honestly? I even make the same analogy myself: using IF/THEN/ELSE scripting to mask my autism.
But yes — it’s true. And yes — daydreams, conversations in my mind — that sounds about right. Music and nature too.
I can even feel the internal battle when my logic system and my INFP people are having a meeting.
Whenever I have to make an important decision (e.g., a new job), I already know logically what the answer is.
But my internal INFP people?
Yeah… they’re not agreeing yet.
And the other way around is also true. Sometimes a decision feels perfect — but my logic system still says:
“NOPE.”
In the Brain Factory™: Engineering finishes the calculations, HR sends back a memo with “This feels wrong.” Sometimes, the CEO just sighs and schedules another meeting. And I literally feel it when both parties have finally come to an agreement.
Motor department
But the weirdness doesn’t stop here. My Motor Department is a story in itself. “Normal” people are either left-handed or right-handed. A certain percentage can use both hands sometimes.
But me?
When I’m playing soccer: Lefty.
Playing handball or any ball sport — dribbling the ball: Lefty.
Throwing: Both. (Righty preferred, but not exclusive.)
Writing: Righty.
Dominant eye: Righty.
But when it comes to using tools? Both.
Left hand, right hand — doesn’t matter.
When I’m sowing seeds? Again — depends on what’s more convenient.
It purely depends on the situation whether I pick up a screwdriver with my left or right hand.
I guess you could say my motor system is context-driven, not preference-driven.
Lack of pruning?
In early childhood, a lot of connections between neurons are cut — or pruned. It’s known that in autistic people, this pruning process works differently.
And honestly? That would be the perfect explanation for what’s happening inside my factory. The pruning process simply worked differently in my brain.
Trunklines everywhere — and even more trunklines going to and from my memory.
Interconnections between departments.
Departments that hack each other’s Wi-Fi signal.
Hotlines from one department straight to my CEO — but no hotline for another.
Missing handrails in staircases.
Elevators that stop on some floors — but skip others.
It’s a mess.
It’s my mess.
And it works!
Epilogue
The drawback of all this?
There’s no manual.
If you’re looking for one — you won’t find it. I’m still reverse-engineering the whole plant, one department at a time.
But! The system has been running for 48 years now. Not only does it work — I understand it better and better.
And honestly?
I get the feeling…
it’s still improving.
Notes
@Templeton Grandin:
If you’re reading this — I would love to share thoughts about autism in general, and how we both think differently in pictures.
Would be an awesome discussion!
And for every neurologist or other professional studying autism and brain activity: If you ever need a test subject — you know where to find me!
I would love to see all the different areas of my brain light up.