Associational Thinking

I have a good friend I work with and our conversations are something to behold. One time we were teaching together and we just kept riffing (as the jazz folks say) off of one another. We ended up talking about everything the students needed to hear but it certainly didn't come out in any linear sort of way.

I tell my students that there are two different ways of thinking: linear and associational. Linear is what one hopes a good lecture is going to be. If I am sitting in a graduate school class (something I hope never to have to do again) and the professor is lecturing, I want to know that when the professor says, "there are three significant aspects of this phenomenon" that I will hear "first...," "second...," and "finally..." In fact, it frustrates me if I don't. If you are going to give a lecture, it has to be structured like an academic text--with a series of points that are placed in a logical order. It's nice if the professor outlines the lecture so that I know where things are going.

So, linear thinking has its advantages.

However, associational thinking is more fun! This is one of those Aspie things--although it happens with other creative people, as well, such as my colleague. I think the difference between an Aspie associational thinker and an NT associational thinker is that my associations will probably be stranger--a function of my ability to remember odd sorts of facts that seem insignificant to other people. I will think of something as funny because I associate it with some song I heard 35 years ago that definitely wasn't on the charts, but that I listened to over and over again (another Aspie characteristic), so if I reveal the association to other people, they look at me with that "Huh???" expression on their faces.

My brain is filled with an amazing array of facts that I cannot bring to mind in any sort of logical, linear way, but when I free associate, will pop up, seemingly out of nowhere. There are some people on the autism spectrum who have a definite interest in one thing, like the Aspie I knew who liked Macedonian music and culture. Then there's me. I can never predict what fact will stick in my mind or when it will again make itself known. There are books I know I have read on topics I have been interested in at one time or another (Algonquin Hotel, Lewis Carroll, Louisa May Alcott and the transcendentalists, the early modernists, etc.), and I can't remember them directly. But a Dorothy Parker quote might occur to me when someone says something to me that is completely unrelated in a direct sort of way.

Recently I had to take my husband to the doctor on two separate occasions, with one day in between. As I drove the same route the second time (I'm an Aspie--I develop the most efficient route I can to a place and then stick with that route!), I could remember the exact conversation we had had during the first trip. If I drive that route again in a year, I'll probably remember that conversation. But if you ask me, "what did you and your husband talk about on the morning of such and such date?" I won't be able to tell you. That's associational thinking for you. It's fun, it's creative, it's unpredictable.