This is a carving out of how the mask is created, as we can track the institutional demand for a kind of presentation that is required. Thank you for showing with such clarity and acuity the experience of this kind of mind—your insights are a gift.
i loved this essay so much, Tiana. i’ve only started learning over the past year that i’m a gestalt / web processor, and it explains so much about my life. for years people told me i was psychic, but i’m realizing so much of what they were naming was pattern recognition. i could feel the trajectory of something, sense the relational tension, or see where a dynamic was going before other people were ready to recognize it.
that has been complicated in relationships and in systems that reward linearity, speed, and tidy sequence. and it’s also part of what makes me good at my work as a somatic depth psychotherapist.
and the piece about knowing before language really landed. i often know through felt sense, pattern, tension, image, or relational charge before i can explain it cleanly. if something does not make contact with my felt sense, nothing computes and my entire system buffers.
thank you for giving language to something i’ve spent my life navigating.
Growing into myself has been a process of learning how to fruitfully work with others while having this thinking style. The vision is prematurely spoken, and people are confused. Or, a related issue: when I like someone else’s idea, my intuition highlights the failure points - because I want their idea to work, not because I think it is bad. Learning how to bring these out, and when it is worth it versus not worth it, is the work of decades.
Well then! I have always known my way of seeing the world was very different from most peoples, and you have somehow managed to define the undefinable!
I learned very young that the adults around me did not appreciate my pointing out things that seemed glaringly obvious to me but that didn’t fit the “correct” narrative or the expected result.
I once had a wonderful conversation with Claude (yes, the AI) about how language models translate their parallel processing into linear speech and it ended with Claude writing custom instructions for me to give back to him so he wouldn't have to do that quite so much for me. Highly recommended!
Often I won't be able to have thoughts on a topic of discussion until others have oriented me to the domain they want to explore. A topic title lands like a blank page. I start with questions if I must speak before the topic is outlined. And then a lot of what I contribute I find outside the outline.
That makes sense especially if you have a wide range in particular domains. Outside the line thinkers are what society needs, even if they don’t think they need it.
Very well written. I have many experiences of ‘being too soon, too direct’ from a kind of naivety unprepared for the weird and largely unconscious politics and culture of wherever groups of people do stuff together as a system.
And at some point you do learn to question yourself. At some point you do learn to shut up and obediently jump through the many hoops neurotypicals have to jump through to arrive at new insights.
Also I’d like to keep ‘our type of thinking’ our of air traffic control rooms hahaha.
I have always called this magic. I feel it in waves. This is when I know the direction of my attention and my powers of perception are a node in a web of awareness, and matter, even if I don't say a word to anyone about it. The act of focus and recognition actually shifts reality.
“For those with strong whole-brain integration, what’s perceived isn’t neatly categorized. Emotional tone, symbolic form, logic, and future implications don’t come in separate channels—they converge. The insight is already synthesized before it’s spoken. That’s what makes expression difficult—not because the insight is unclear, but because it’s already complete in a different format. The knowing is immediate; the translation is what takes time.”
Thank you for sharing this well-researched and brilliant piece!
Yeah, it totally would especially if you’re pulling from multiple complex systems at once or experiencing meta thinking where words might not give something the justice it deserves.
The word that came to describe this in my mind is the insight and understanding became embodied; don’t know if that’s the appropriate word for it. I noticed that I didn’t lose the insight, it feels formless.
Thank you for such a clear breakdown. It's been about 6 months since I came across language like this and I tell you what, it has been such a game-changer. It seems to me that piece like these meet the moment so many of us are in, so thank you.
SO many thoughts about this (but glad you wrote it). I've always called this kind of thinking in myself as "Habitually viewing everything from 30,000 feet." I believe a huge challenge in this kind of thinking being accepted is that (especially in business environments) it requires linear thinkers to trust you. To trust that when you have an "intuition" but can't immediately produce facts to back it up, it's worth taking seriously. Facts are actually the enemy of acceptance here (because it takes time for us to produce them). And those of us blessed with Gestalt cognition should not think that we're sensing many different *facts* at once. At least with me, it's all *feelings,* all coming from my gut, as it were. I trust my feelings, absolutely—because at age 63, they have been largely accurate for my whole life. The challenge is getting others to trust them.
So for me, it’s not just feeling. It’s logic that’s missing pieces. The better and quicker I get clear on what I’m seeing, the better I can explain it to others. Feelings sometimes maybe produce a quicker response to something “feeling off”. Glad it produced lots of thought for you 😊
Same. Not so great at math but higher verbal ability. The cognitive tests they can administer now give a better picture if done correctly than just a few basic IQ scores.
Never in my long life have I even felt so profoundly seen and understood. Thank you
You’re so welcome ☺️
I was about to say that. Brought tears to my eyes.
Awww 😊
I was about to say the same thing.
😊🤍
Same. Thank you! 💗
You’re welcome.
Agreed! Brilliant 🤩
I feel seen, heard and understood. Thank you so much for explaining something so simple and yet so profound.
You’re so welcome 😉
me too!!!
Yay!
I too have sought for so long to find my place in this foreign country of the mind, and feel such profound kinship reading your words!
This is a carving out of how the mask is created, as we can track the institutional demand for a kind of presentation that is required. Thank you for showing with such clarity and acuity the experience of this kind of mind—your insights are a gift.
i loved this essay so much, Tiana. i’ve only started learning over the past year that i’m a gestalt / web processor, and it explains so much about my life. for years people told me i was psychic, but i’m realizing so much of what they were naming was pattern recognition. i could feel the trajectory of something, sense the relational tension, or see where a dynamic was going before other people were ready to recognize it.
that has been complicated in relationships and in systems that reward linearity, speed, and tidy sequence. and it’s also part of what makes me good at my work as a somatic depth psychotherapist.
and the piece about knowing before language really landed. i often know through felt sense, pattern, tension, image, or relational charge before i can explain it cleanly. if something does not make contact with my felt sense, nothing computes and my entire system buffers.
thank you for giving language to something i’ve spent my life navigating.
Gestalt processing is unfortunately so misunderstood. I’m so glad that this gave you the language to understand the experience 🤍
Growing into myself has been a process of learning how to fruitfully work with others while having this thinking style. The vision is prematurely spoken, and people are confused. Or, a related issue: when I like someone else’s idea, my intuition highlights the failure points - because I want their idea to work, not because I think it is bad. Learning how to bring these out, and when it is worth it versus not worth it, is the work of decades.
Agreed!
Well then! I have always known my way of seeing the world was very different from most peoples, and you have somehow managed to define the undefinable!
I learned very young that the adults around me did not appreciate my pointing out things that seemed glaringly obvious to me but that didn’t fit the “correct” narrative or the expected result.
Totally! Glad it gave words to your experience 😊
Great to know I am not alone. The continual task of translating into linear speech can be exhausting
It absolutely can be. I guess when we can learn how though, we can influence the world for the better eventually 😊
I once had a wonderful conversation with Claude (yes, the AI) about how language models translate their parallel processing into linear speech and it ended with Claude writing custom instructions for me to give back to him so he wouldn't have to do that quite so much for me. Highly recommended!
These words found me like a hug from a grandmother who has known me better than I know my self. I cried. Thank you for this writing 💛
Often I won't be able to have thoughts on a topic of discussion until others have oriented me to the domain they want to explore. A topic title lands like a blank page. I start with questions if I must speak before the topic is outlined. And then a lot of what I contribute I find outside the outline.
That makes sense especially if you have a wide range in particular domains. Outside the line thinkers are what society needs, even if they don’t think they need it.
I suspect most associative thinkers are animated in ADHD-adjacent curiosity and have a fairly deep and wide base of knowledge.
I’d say you’re probably generally correct ☺️
Very well written. I have many experiences of ‘being too soon, too direct’ from a kind of naivety unprepared for the weird and largely unconscious politics and culture of wherever groups of people do stuff together as a system.
And at some point you do learn to question yourself. At some point you do learn to shut up and obediently jump through the many hoops neurotypicals have to jump through to arrive at new insights.
Also I’d like to keep ‘our type of thinking’ our of air traffic control rooms hahaha.
🥹 I hope it helps.
I have always called this magic. I feel it in waves. This is when I know the direction of my attention and my powers of perception are a node in a web of awareness, and matter, even if I don't say a word to anyone about it. The act of focus and recognition actually shifts reality.
Yes!
“For those with strong whole-brain integration, what’s perceived isn’t neatly categorized. Emotional tone, symbolic form, logic, and future implications don’t come in separate channels—they converge. The insight is already synthesized before it’s spoken. That’s what makes expression difficult—not because the insight is unclear, but because it’s already complete in a different format. The knowing is immediate; the translation is what takes time.”
Thank you for sharing this well-researched and brilliant piece!
Thank you for reading 😊 I’m so glad you resonated with it!
Sometimes, after my brain make sense of it, I lose language of the insight. Does this happen too?
Yeah, it totally would especially if you’re pulling from multiple complex systems at once or experiencing meta thinking where words might not give something the justice it deserves.
The word that came to describe this in my mind is the insight and understanding became embodied; don’t know if that’s the appropriate word for it. I noticed that I didn’t lose the insight, it feels formless.
Thank you for such a clear breakdown. It's been about 6 months since I came across language like this and I tell you what, it has been such a game-changer. It seems to me that piece like these meet the moment so many of us are in, so thank you.
You are so welcome 🤍
SO many thoughts about this (but glad you wrote it). I've always called this kind of thinking in myself as "Habitually viewing everything from 30,000 feet." I believe a huge challenge in this kind of thinking being accepted is that (especially in business environments) it requires linear thinkers to trust you. To trust that when you have an "intuition" but can't immediately produce facts to back it up, it's worth taking seriously. Facts are actually the enemy of acceptance here (because it takes time for us to produce them). And those of us blessed with Gestalt cognition should not think that we're sensing many different *facts* at once. At least with me, it's all *feelings,* all coming from my gut, as it were. I trust my feelings, absolutely—because at age 63, they have been largely accurate for my whole life. The challenge is getting others to trust them.
So for me, it’s not just feeling. It’s logic that’s missing pieces. The better and quicker I get clear on what I’m seeing, the better I can explain it to others. Feelings sometimes maybe produce a quicker response to something “feeling off”. Glad it produced lots of thought for you 😊
When did we sit down and talk? I don’t remember it, but we must have! You’ve explained my brain perfectly!
Yes, it is good to know I have a tribe!
😊 I’m so glad it resonated!
My spiky profile is the opposite: high verbal score and average performance score. I was told that I was making careless mistakes in math.
Same. Not so great at math but higher verbal ability. The cognitive tests they can administer now give a better picture if done correctly than just a few basic IQ scores.
The ‘80s and ‘90s were awful!