Trains of thought

[Troublems]

Often I can be having a conversation with someone and refer, almost word for word, to something that they said at an earlier time relating to the same topic. They are unable to recall it but I am certain that they said it. Is it that I am able to remember it, or was it perhaps a conversation I constructed in my mind with them? I have no clue.

Another sort of thing that seems to happen often enough is when having a conversation I bring up something and the listener replies with "I don't see how that relates." Which, quite truthfully, leaves me frustrated and them bewildered. For, everything I say, all input I put into a conversation, makes sense to me. Even if the idea I have presented is not difficult I seem to get those glazed over looks a little too often. Part of me thinks that my trains of thought go at lightning speed and the connections I make are perhaps obscure and hence nonsensical to others. The other part? Well, I'm unsure and confused. An uncomfortable predicament for an INTJ.

Thoughts, theories, ideas?

[chocky]

The glazing thing is a reflection I think of how much excess information most people have to process in their lives. We are brain tired, a lot of us. We are trained to think in short snappy sound-bites of predigested propaganda, and flooded with such a stream of it that anything requiring real attention just can't compete for brain space. If you really think, and get excited about thought and want to convey your revelations, you're effectively jammed. Most people can't receive your message - they just hear noise. White noise and lots of it.

That word perfect conversation recall you mention? I was that way as a child and teenager, but I've been unkind to my mental faculties.

[logan235711]

Often I can be having a conversation with someone and refer, almost word for word, to something that they said at an earlier time relating to the same topic. They are unable to recall it but I am certain that they said it. Is it that I am able to remember it, or was it perhaps a conversation I constructed in my mind with them? I have no clue.
I would 'recall' certain things during my younger years, yet my SJ brother would be there to show me that I hadn't really recalled it. He would quote word from word while I would sit there and say 'ah, you are correct.' The point is, what I think I was recalling word from word was actually concept by concept with a few quoted words thrown in. I took what was said and translated it into some concepts that I felt those words meant. I could certainly quote specific words, but all that I was really doing was translating it into something that made sense from how I viewed and had experiences of the words that the other person used, not how they had of their own experiences and uses of the words. So often times it might be our N-function translating it into a form that fits perfectly into our neat little system of thoughts, but since we are the ones who live in that system, not other people, we can often times assume that other people hold the same system(s) of interpretation.

Another sort of thing that seems to happen often enough is when having a conversation I bring up something and the listener replies with "I don't see how that relates." Which, quite truthfully, leaves me frustrated and them bewildered. For, everything I say, all input I put into a conversation, makes sense to me. Even if the idea I have presented is not difficult I seem to get those glazed over looks a little too often. Part of me thinks that my trains of thought go at lightning speed and the connections I make are perhaps obscure and hence nonsensical to others. The other part? Well, I'm unsure and confused. An uncomfortable predicament for an INTJ.
To continue this thought, I would say when I do muster the nerve to explain the connections 'word-by-word' (spelling it out) I cannot recall when I have ever been misled in my own thinking so that my initial thought about the relationship wasn't correct. To be frank, the other person probably has many relations with idea/sensations/experiences that you don't have so would have just as much to elaborate on should you be more open to consider how he views the connections, not how you do. You could have two of the same concepts, but each person could use different quantifiers and connectives to relate the two leading to different end-results. This is what can be interesting to go around finding in people. Nevertheless, most people do not probably consciously think of it this way so may be a bit bored or awkward to fancy your inquiry.

In any case, it gets to the point where the things you are relating are so obscure that almost no one else bothers to consider relating them or gets to that point, so you develop such a vast amount of relationships that most people don't even have that it gets harder and harder to talk about them specifically as time goes on. You can't even fancy an inquiry that doesn't exist in others and I'd say it leads to a bit of isolationism overtime. I get plenty of annoyed when I put effort out to try to relate an idea but people are giving 'huhs?' cause they don't follow. One solution is to spend a lot of time understanding how other people connect their concepts so that when you speak to them you are relating it in a manner that they understand, that they might follow more naturally in their train of thought. So you carry this other line of thought that you use for other people, yet still have your own that you develop independently. If you develop this, you can also begin tying them together at some point for more experimentation and inspiration and the more views you have of the world and of even a single concept the better off you are at everything in general. More can be said obviously.

[TruorTupnm]

For the first thing, it sounds as if you've merely got a decent memory, and the other person has a horrible one.

For the second thing, that has happened to me enough times that I am most oftenly planning how I will say something as well as how I will explain that I got to my conclusions. For when I forget to plan that stuff out, yes, I am oftimes frustrated while they are confused. I gots to go back and remember how I got to that point, waste time with explaining it, and eventually get back to the point I was making. No large deal, though.

[rwyatt365]

Ok, this is just plain spooky 'cause I just went through this experience just last night!
Often I can be having a conversation with someone and refer, almost word for word, to something that they said at an earlier time relating to the same topic. They are unable to recall it but I am certain that they said it. Is it that I am able to remember it, or was it perhaps a conversation I constructed in my mind with them? I have no clue.
I have been told, "But I didn't say that!" so many times that I have taken to carrying a tape recorder to verify what has been said to me (BTW – I don't do it any more). What I found out was that I might not have remembered the conversation verbatim, I did remember the gist and tone of the conversation very well. I think that the INTJ type takes in other peoples words, removes the excess, boils it down to "conceptual shorthand" and then stores that away. When it comes time to recall a conversation, we refer to the shorthand and reconstruct the conversation. That reconstruction is not exact, so the person says, "I didn't say that" – meaning, "I didn’t say exactly what you are telling me I said", but ignoring that the substance of the original conversation remains in the recalled one.

Another sort of thing that seems to happen often enough is when having a conversation I bring up something and the listener replies with "I don't see how that relates." Which, quite truthfully, leaves me frustrated and them bewildered. For, everything I say, all input I put into a conversation, makes sense to me. Even if the idea I have presented is not difficult I seem to get those glazed over looks a little too often. Part of me thinks that my trains of thought go at lightning speed and the connections I make are perhaps obscure and hence nonsensical to others. The other part? Well, I'm unsure and confused. An uncomfortable predicament for an INTJ.

Thoughts, theories, ideas?
I think that this is a consequence of the associative power of the INTJ brain. We hear something and our brains begin pulling together associations and connections that leap well beyond the typical person's ability to comprehend. It's as if we have done the mental equivalent of warping space-time and stepped from NYC to LAX in one step, whereas everyone else is stuck on the Jersey Turnpike. Of course they cannot see any connection, we have done the impossible and leaped from A to Z (because we already know all of those other letters are there, why bother to mention each one in turn).

[Ijz]

Often I can be having a conversation with someone and refer, almost word for word, to something that they said at an earlier time relating to the same topic. They are unable to recall it but I am certain that they said it. Is it that I am able to remember it, or was it perhaps a conversation I constructed in my mind with them? I have no clue.

Another sort of thing that seems to happen often enough is when having a conversation I bring up something and the listener replies with "I don't see how that relates." Which, quite truthfully, leaves me frustrated and them bewildered. For, everything I say, all input I put into a conversation, makes sense to me. Even if the idea I have presented is not difficult I seem to get those glazed over looks a little too often. Part of me thinks that my trains of thought go at lightning speed and the connections I make are perhaps obscure and hence nonsensical to others. The other part? Well, I'm unsure and confused. An uncomfortable predicament for an INTJ.

Thoughts, theories, ideas?

The problem lies not in your train of thought nor in your logical abilities. The keyword here is "communication". Like Rwyatt said our brains work differently (more abstract) than most other people. If you want to communicate those thoughts to another person you have to keep in mind how that person thinks.

My personal experience is that when that person is very different from me (mentally) I have to do a lot of effort to explain myself. If they are on the same wavelength, a couple of words is sometimes enough. Also if the person is very differently then I can only explain myself if I really understand my own train of thought. This is where communication becomes essential. To make the other person understand I have to communicate all the necessary information that he or she lacks. In order to do this you require two things, "People knowledge" and understanding your own train of thought.