[jongraehl]

??? If I may risk the typical mind fallacy, most people don't think in words most of the time. Just like typing or writing can serve as structure or canvas, imagining words is for special circumstances. For planning to say or write (and sometimes suppressing). For remembering something you heard or read. For imagining interactions or temporarily believing in hypotheses. For prayer, if you're into that.

(I have known people who talk out loud often enough about whatever preoccupies them that I must assume that they're in-their-head doing the same thing much of the time, so these people do exist - I just question if they're most people).

I do find myself remembering things I've read, said, or heard, when they seem relevant. I have vast amounts of "knowledge" that's waiting to be connected to real life experience.

That said, I wouldn't put too much stock into anyone's description of what their whole brain is doing. Why would we know? I find it's sometimes best to just pause, stop trying to steer, and wait for my brain to come up with something, no pressure. Just whatever comes up in response to a question or puzzle in the next X seconds (pick a small amount of time and commit to not act at all until it passes seems best).