Or people who don't have an internal dialogue. This is probably the most weird to me because it is common and I can't comprehend how they manage their thoughts.
Another common one is when trying to explain complex interactions that are quite simple in 'no-words' and I have to start diagramming things, then explain the diagram in language.
Related is when you forget a word. You've got the specific meaning in your mind, and you know there exists a word for it, and it's in your brain somewhere, but you just can't get the appropriate neurons to fire to give it to your conscious mind. (And then it might randomly appear to your during some other random task.)
at other times (when I was a teen) when I’ve specifically tried to think-without-words, I thought I had, and then shortly afterwards either realized or thought I had realized, that I had been thinking with words, and had just been hiding the words from myself?
That's actually a really simple parlor trick.
There's a formula involving modular math. Takes an hour or two to learn it.
Lol, I am someone with no such internal dialog. The idea that you self-narrate every thought in your brain seems utterly baffling to me. And... It sounds absolutely maddening, and really inefficient. Like that must be SO annoying?
I think largely in the form of something I call "thought-shapes".
Also does it extend to visual imagination? I think of myself as having an internal cinema rather than just monologue.
Try these things out.
Count in your head at a steady pace using words and try to hold a conversation at the same time without losing your timing.
Then imagine a moving image of the same numbers steadily ticking over and again try and hold a conversation without losing your timing.
The 2nd scenario should be easier.
You can do similar things with memorising numbers. Next time you have to enter your OTP, sound out the digits to memorise it before entering it.
Then try memorising a picture of the numbers before entering it.