" … Her thoughts wouldn't get themselves organized and they didn't even seem to be actual thoughts but just clumps of words banging around in her head, bouncing off the side walls, having themselves a bit of fun … "

Bonnie Burnard: A good house (p. 194).
A recent Canadian novel which I wholeheartedly recommend!

clumps of words banging around in our heads

I sometimes think that the only reason we consider ourselves superior to the other animals is that we can coagulate our experiences into bunches of jabber.

Now that's interesting, paulb. I wonder if she was preparing to write something? I do try to think ahead and make what comes out of my mouth seem somewhat logical, but I find that I make my greatest effort at
organizing my thoughts when I want to write something. I suppose that started when I had to write all those darned research papers in college. I'd have a kajillion scraps of information and quotes all over the place, and would sometimes number them, then scratch each off as I included it, because I might have item #4 on page 2 of my notes, and what I decided to make #5 might be on page 3 of my notes.

Some months ago, I helped a friend with his PhD thesis.
My part was to organize his survey responses. Egads! These weren't nice little multiple-choice surveys--people had written free-form responses, and of course did not always stick to the topic. My friend had suggested categories the responses should fall into, and before I got through with the first batch, I realized his suggestions had to go right out the window. I finally just
cleared off my dining table and physically laid out all of the surveys, assigning categories as best I could. Trying to decide where all the "gray" ones went was...interesting. I think there were about 400 surveys; far too many for me to remember at #279 that #12 had had something similar. I had to lay them out, so I could find the first one. I am glad he isn't doing a second thesis!