I experience numbers as being on a line that runs left to right, swerves to the left at some number, continues upwards, and then returns to running from left to right. My experience of temperatures, people's ages, and the days of months is similar, but with different patterns of where the turns are. However, I think it may actually go right to left somewhere in the millions, though I'm not sure. Negative numbers run to the left forever, as far as I can tell. Calendar years are slightly different, in that they take more rounded turns and seem to be capable of going in any direction. The months of the year are very different. They make a letter "D" curve with January at the top and December at the bottom, but the link between January and December seems to be "pinched" rather than connected by a straight line. Also, the days of the week have different shades, Monday-Friday are all slightly grayish, while Saturday and Sunday are bright.
I also experience the letters of the alphabet, numerals, punctuation marks, months, days of the week, and various mathematical symbols as having genders and personalities.
I seem to be unable to think without internal monologue and visualization both being active. Whenever I imagine something, my internal monologue is describing it, and whenever I think verbally I visualize what I'm "talking" about.
I have an exceptional memory for auditory information.
I am usually almost completely indifferent to adult suffering.
I can get lost in deep thought such that I may forget where I am or the time of day or what I'm doing, etc. In these episodes, it may be quite difficult to get my attention.
I can hardly look at an object or person without them having a strong influence on my line of thought.
I conceptualize manipulations of mathematical expressions as movements consisting of slides and "flips".
Partially to help reduce the typical mind fallacy and partially because I'm curious, I'm thinking about writing either an essay or a book with plenty of examples about ways by which human minds differ. From commonly known and ordinary, like differences in sexual orientation, to the rare and seemingly impossible, like motion blindness.
To do this, I need to start collecting examples. In what ways does your mind differ from what you think is the norm for most people?
I'm particularly interested in differences - small or large - that you didn't realize for a long time, automatically assuming that everyone was like you in that regard. It can even be something as trivial as always having conceptualized the passing of years as a visual timeline, and then finding out that not everyone does so. I'm also interested in links to blog posts where people talk about their own mental peculiarities, even if you didn't write them yourself. Also books and academic articles that you might think could be relevant.
Some of the content that I'm thinking about including are cultural differences in various things as recounted in the WEIRD article, differences in sexual and romantic orientation (such as mono/poly), differences in the ability to recover from setbacks, extroversion vs. introversion in terms of gaining/losing energy from social activity, differences in visualization ability, various cognitive differences ranging from autism to synesthesia to an inability to hear music in particular, differences in moral intuitions, differences in the way people think (visual vs. verbal vs. conceptual vs. something that I'm not aware of yet), differences in thinking styles (social/rational, reflectivity vs. impulsiveness) and various odd brain damage cases.
If you find this project interesting, consider spreading the link to this post or resharing my Google Plus update about it. Also, if you don't want to reply in public, feel free to send me a private message.