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The Rarest Kind of Brains on Earth

Pursuit of Wonder | June 3, 2026



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In this video, we explore the diverse ways people think. Do you think primarily with visuals? Some people can’t at all. Do you think primarily with an inner voice? Some people can’t. Not only is this diversity of thought deeply fascinating and somewhat unnerving, but it has real implications on how people live and who they become.

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Comments

This post currently has 41 comments.

  1. @basma7430

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    I have a aphantasia and it's so scary how everytime I think about a loved one no matter how hard I try I dont see them and then I worry that I will completely forget how they look with time

  2. @impaledface7694

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    It's all quiet in my brain, and after having an extremely negative inner monologue for most of my childhood I am happy about this. Everything has pros and cons toward each instance of one's existence. I live almost all my life in the present due to this… reality.

  3. @jonasbrinkworse5436

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    I have no inner voice. Yet I have no problem thinking about words without speaking them out. Why say that bullshit? Lots of people don't have an inner voice. Inner voice is creepy. Why not just think instead of that schizo compartmentalizing phobia of language where it can only be conversed not used as a conceptualizer itself. How the f do you think people without inner voice think about songs or poems? I write songs. I've written dozens. Since I was a kid. I have not ever sung any of them while writing it. Or spoken a rhyme to hear it myself, I can easily construct that in my head. I am deeply offended by this statement. That people without an inner voice are not able to think about words except if they speak them out loud. How stupid is that? Really? How stupid you think? I am especially offended because I love your content and your videos. I bought your fucking book. Are you loosing it, is that it? Forgot yo listen to what you were saying, forgot to think critically ? Maybe not listen to that inner voice, clearly it can't be trusted to proofread.

  4. @wahidurrahmanriad7371

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    Well, I think I'm images words, feelings and in sounds as well… 😶😶 But it comes with a cost cause my negative feels extremely real. I am extremely sensitive to if I get flash back of some traumatic past as well as if I try to think of future and it seems bad I feel that it intensely…

  5. @ipos1070

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    I use all those types of thoughts on a daily basis. I can switch between them depending on what I am doing. I can build an object in my head and manipulate it, I can have conversations with other people from their perspectives in my head, I can talk to myself and I absolutely love abstract thinking. I’m also able to hold a single idea in my head and hold different outcomes of that idea in my mind.

  6. @crayx48

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    As a person with aphantasia, being also (as probably most with aphantasia) able to describe stuff in great detail, but based on… well, memory, rather than a mental image, am quite certain, that what we call "way of thinking" is rather our conscious representation of our thought, than our actual thought process. I hope I was able to express myself in a way, that is understandable and am eager to read about differing views on the topic.

  7. @anovosedlik

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    I have hyperphantasia. When I then developed C-PTSD, things got brutal. My CNS thinks I'm living my traumas over and over in the real world, not just in my head. I've developed serious heart problems, even though I'm very thin and relatively young. How your brain parses the world hugely impacts how the rest of your body functions, unsurprisingly.

  8. @malinastwhdbavsj

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    7:50 thinking about what is not it more often an involuntary rumianation of brain that cant be focused on present (state caused by hiperstress or trauma) its none of an achievement, its curse

  9. @psychedelictoastcrunch

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    I've always had inner monologue, but when I was the subject of 10 ECT treatments I lost all ability to visualize in my head. Only after going back to college and using my brain more have I been able to develop that ability again. Aphantasia is so weird

  10. @cadenpadua

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    My girlfriend has aphantasia. Cannot picture anything or remember memories as a video like I can do in my head. That being said, she is the best and most talented artist I’ve ever seen. She has so much attention to detail when drawing from imagination because she is fully present and not drawing what she thinks something looks like from her head. She has no mental image messing her up when making art. The result is just stunning.

  11. @Secondone-l9x

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    You were doing so well in being neutral that these are all simply different ways of thinking, so why the switch up at 6:50 when aphantasia is suddenly weak visualization? Thinking in concepts or feelings as described earlier, is exactly why they are successful in STEM fields.

  12. @XxXRoninXxX

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    Ever get the feeling God is trolling you… I have Aphantasia . You all want to know what Aphantasia is like, Imagine going to the theatre but the popcorn has no butter, you find your seat because it's numbered, you sit down and while everyone enjoys the movie for only you the projector never turns on, You can see everyone react when the dolby starts blaring but for only you it's silent. all you know is the lights have turned off and it's pitch black and so quiet you can hear a mouse fart. You all seem to me to be describing schizophrenia on acid. Though interestingly DMT but not acid works on me(as far as the visuals are concerned)(Don't know about the rest of us)

  13. @Qrulez

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    I don't have internal voice or visual thinking at all. But I do have strong musical and geometry memory, which give sound quality and shape to feelings and concepts. Thinking process is a little like stacking musical tetris blocks to me, but more dimensions.

    It's interesting to learn how others think differently!

  14. @VandeBharat-IND

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    I am using method of loci since 8 months for my studies. And it’s very helpful. Because my rot learning is very bad but my problem solving skills are great, and because of method of loci my weakest thing is now somewhat became very good.

  15. @andrewpotzler9629

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    There’s no way to know how rare your brain is because your brain is the one telling you how rare it is; you can’t verify the quality of other brains because it’s YOUR OWN BRAIN telling you the quality of the other brains

  16. @Godwinsname

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    I can do quite a number of different ways: thinking visually, inner voice, inner dialogue with whomever (my fantasy of whomever), no thinking, intuition.

  17. @creative_hii

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    1:28, rather i think why this works for recalling key points, is because of momentum. while we are static, our mind will stay the same, like still water. whereas, when we’re up and about, we’re using the movement as an additional “textile” to add, which can link our brains to associate that form with. and movement is especially good when you want to brainstorm ideas as well. once you experience it, you’ll know exactly what i mean

  18. @hoot_645

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    When I was a kid I used to wonder about what it was like to NOT have ADHD after learning I had the condition. It quickly became even more fascinating to realize how completely impossible that is, to ponder a different brain.

    Or to explain to a deaf person that there's always music stuck in my head. And why that musical memory is absolutely perfect and without error, but with the drawback that the music in my head loops 10-30 seconds of a song, unlike other memories which are largely fabricated

  19. @CyberDopamine

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    Through rigorous Brian scans from doctors and many surveys and conversation, we found out I have hyperphantasia. I can totally envision things in front of me like they’re really happening. I can see smell and taste thoughts. It’s only that. I have a hard time reading and comprehending words so much that it’s affected my life in a very hard way. But it’s honestly a blessing and I wish I could pass it on to my children. From manifesting to predicting patterns and seeing outcomes first hand, I feel that I have somewhat an advantage but lack in many other places

  20. @HeckinGoodBoiI

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    Most of my thoughts are shapeless moving parts that contribute to a larger "machine", the value of the thought is how and where it fits in with every other idea I've held on to. Mental images and inner dialog are rare but intense, they usually only happen when I'm highly emotional. It's strange because I rely heavily on intuition rather than logic.

  21. @yoshi2413

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    I don’t have aphantasia but I don’t believe my mental images are very strong whatsoever. It takes a lot of concentration to even attempt to make any images and they’re more or so ideas and outlines of what I’m trying to think of. But my memory with numbers and sequences is very strong. Like memorizing words numbers and such like my phone number or card numbers and even my very long WiFi password stay in my head forever. People think differently, we process differently from each other and that’s part of our each unique experience in life.

  22. @jarosawjaskuowski3179

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    It is not always an inner voice, and it is not always a visual movie in the mind, and it is not even always a clean abstract verbal idea.

    Sometimes, when I hear something, what appears is not the concept itself, but the whole field around it: related concepts, associations, context, implications, atmosphere, sometimes even traces of sound, smell, or other sensations. It is more like a network of meaning than a sentence or a film.

    So it feels misleading to reduce thinking to inner speech vs mental imagery, because for some people thought seems to emerge more as an activation of everything connected to the idea, not as the idea in isolation.

  23. @nova4841

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    Its not the negativity of the inner monologue that is the problem. Its internalising negative voices and messages from the environment that is

    I’d gladly take vivid mental imagery and an internal monologue over aphantasia and no internal monologue

  24. @mariazamora4595

    June 3, 2026 at 12:55 am

    In my perspective it is not a method: it is how the brain process the information. Pattern thinking, systems thinking, Spatial, abstract. Its is something you have it or not. This means you born with this type of process the information.
    System thinking works with visualization and with pattern thinking.
    In this era, psycology, technology information people are lying a lot, and people want to have Introverts cognitive functions. It is a very dirty and disapointing era.

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