I think I know what you are getting at. You may have something like dyscalculia[1], but I'm not a doctor. There are several mental models used for picturing nu

I think I know what you are getting at. You may have something like dyscalculia[1], but I'm not a doctor. There are several mental models used for picturing numbers. I think the most popular is the number line [2]. Common Core uses this in a clever way. I've never found it useful personally. I suspect some people might see numbers as purely symbolic and perform purely symbolic operations. When the symbol 2 and the symbol 3 have the operation 'add' applied, it yields the symbol 5. Or something. I think I mostly visualize the numbers as a quantity of solid objects. So I think of 3 as 3 things. This has limitations. I can break objects apart but how do you visualize 3.767? So some of it is intuitive. There is evidence that the human mind can only encode exact quantities up to four [3], after that they use an estimate. [4] So maybe your situation is the norm. What I mean is, sometimes it can feel like everyone else has 'got it' and you're the one lacking, when in reality everyone is just as bad. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyscalculia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyscalculia [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_line [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_individuation_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_individuation_system [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximate_number_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Approximate_number_system