I have been reading about the idea of linear and non-linear thinking. Linear thinking is "ordered thinking in which one thought follows another in a straight line". This is in comparison to more non-linear thinking in which thoughts are "a bit more varied and each thought links to another in more than one way". This is my rough summary! Of course human beings and their thoughts are far more complex than this in reality.
If I illustrate these two types of thinking, it might look like this:
