I imagine it is like representing code with a flowchart. Suddenly you are a lot less restricted by your mental representation and you can draw arrows any way yo

I imagine it is like representing code with a flowchart. Suddenly you are a lot less restricted by your mental representation and you can draw arrows any way you want. I often experience something similar, even though I'm not blind: When I'm doing algebra I sometimes get stuck 'looking' at the equation and systematically trying patterns on it. But what works much better is to really load the equation into your brain so that you have an intuitive idea that guides your pattern matching. If you are blind, I suppose you always need to load it up.