sarahs mum said:

Overactive visual imagery is thought to play a role in addiction and cravings, as well as the development of anxiety disorders such as PTSD.

https://theconversation.com/blind-in-the-mind-why-some-people-cant-see-pictures-in-their-imagination-86849

Uh huh.

Well we always see things in our mind, but the article is about seeing things clearly (or not) when they are not physically in front of you.

I’m at or close to the opposite extreme to Sarah’s Mum.

I really wonder if that is as rare as implied in the article.

Why, for instance, do most engineers and scientists like to sketch things, if they can see them clearly just by imagining?

The Rev Dodgson said:

sarahs mum said:

Overactive visual imagery is thought to play a role in addiction and cravings, as well as the development of anxiety disorders such as PTSD.

https://theconversation.com/blind-in-the-mind-why-some-people-cant-see-pictures-in-their-imagination-86849

Uh huh.

Well we always see things in our mind, but the article is about seeing things clearly (or not) when they are not physically in front of you.

I’m at or close to the opposite extreme to Sarah’s Mum.

I really wonder if that is as rare as implied in the article.

Why, for instance, do most engineers and scientists like to sketch things, if they can see them clearly just by imagining?

I’m certainly in the sketch it mold.

Perhaps SM, being a creative artsy person, is better able than the average pleb? FWIW I also see things in my mind. Helps with mindfulness, meditation and writing activities.

>Why, for instance, do most engineers and scientists like to sketch things, if they can see them clearly just by imagining?

Telepathy has its limits, although it could be just a brag, like the geniuses do most of their communications telepathically, but leave a few hints around.

A bit like an alien lodging a flight plan back home, from earth. The local inhabitants speculate about aliens, rumors of a few people having seen them are going around, so the aliens drop the seeds of invention around the place, and before you know it the inhabitants are drawing stick pictures on their cave walls.

I see pictures while listening to people talk. Sometimes the visuals are at odds with what the person is actually talking about. I see pictures when I read. This picturing sometimes amuses me.

Detail from ‘Imagineering Metaphors.’

This series of work was prompted by reading that the salmon is a metaphoric symbol for the Scottish diaspora because salmon always return to the source. My mind is particularly vulnerable to visualising metaphors. Becomes unstuck because of stupid and funny.

I’m on the “needs to sketch” side of things for the most part. I can construct an image in my mind, but this is basically mentally sketching. I am not able to think “apple”, close my eyes and see an image of an apple in my mind. I need to mentally sketch the shape, mentally add the colour, mentally add the blemishes and even then i can only hold a vague wavering image.

However, this is only true for me in a normal state of consciousness. Affected by some drugs, or asleep and dreaming, I don’t have to do this mental sketching. I’d never really considered it as such before, but I’ve just realized that this difference is one of the primary effects I associate with being in an altered state of consciousness; detailed images appear both deliberately or spontaneously. It’s one of my favorite aspects of both drug use and sleeping.

Anecdotal of course, but I thought interesting enough to add as I hadn’t seen it mentioned in the link or by anyone else that they can have both experiences at different times under different conditions.

FWIW I’m also terrible at remembering and recognizing faces, remembering the past, and navigating (the last not in the sense of being unable to use maps, but rather in the sense that I don’t easily end up with a mental map of a building that I am walking through or exploring which is new to me), which were all mentioned in the link.

esselte said:

I’m on the “needs to sketch” side of things for the most part. I can construct an image in my mind, but this is basically mentally sketching. I am not able to think “apple”, close my eyes and see an image of an apple in my mind. I need to mentally sketch the shape, mentally add the colour, mentally add the blemishes and even then i can only hold a vague wavering image.

However, this is only true for me in a normal state of consciousness. Affected by some drugs, or asleep and dreaming, I don’t have to do this mental sketching. I’d never really considered it as such before, but I’ve just realized that this difference is one of the primary effects I associate with being in an altered state of consciousness; detailed images appear both deliberately or spontaneously. It’s one of my favorite aspects of both drug use and sleeping.

Anecdotal of course, but I thought interesting enough to add as I hadn’t seen it mentioned in the link or by anyone else that they can have both experiences at different times under different conditions.

FWIW I’m also terrible at remembering and recognizing faces, remembering the past, and navigating (the last not in the sense of being unable to use maps, but rather in the sense that I don’t easily end up with a mental map of a building that I am walking through or exploring which is new to me), which were all mentioned in the link.

There was one person in the comments section that commented on the use of LSD and how that made his imagining of object easier.

> I am not able to think “apple”, close my eyes and see an image of an apple in my mind

as I read apple, I saw apple, eyes open looking at this screen, a green one, which I don’t like that much.

thing about imagining as I just did, is it imposes on the images of what i’m doing (that in front of me), so in-practice it needs be somewhat transparent (or porous if ya like), and transient (not persist too much, or vividly).

Curious, for those that do easily visualize things like transition saw an apple, does a phrase like

Colourless green ideas sleep furiously

conjure any mental images?

esselte said:

Curious, for those that do easily visualize things like transition saw an apple, does a phrase like

Colourless green ideas sleep furiously

conjure any mental images?

:-)

well, the gymnastics of trying to conjure something resulted in a chuckle.

lol

I realized recently when I embarked on reading some Dickens, that I don’t actually picture the characters. And yet I don’t generally watch TV adaptations of books because they rarely look like they should to me. Odd. I generally can tell you that I’ve seen a face before, but I will almost never remember a name. On the other hand, if I am the one who writes up the patient record card, with the person standing in front of me, the memory is better.

I always learn by writing out. Just reading doesn’t make it stick.

I don’t think I have pictures in my mind.

I seem to able be able to see just about anything in my minds eye

Cymek said:

I seem to able be able to see just about anything in my minds eye

people that think they do less of it probably do a lot more than they think, just walking around a corner required ideas of the expected and unexpected. That the ideas aren’t flooding the big screen of awareness is not at all bad thing, it saves a lot of terror.

transition said:

Cymek said:

I seem to able be able to see just about anything in my minds eye

people that think they do less of it probably do a lot more than they think, just walking around a corner required ideas of the expected and unexpected. That the ideas aren’t flooding the big screen of awareness is not at all bad thing, it saves a lot of terror.

I wonder if seeing detailed images in your mind is related to living in your own head, which I do a lot of

Cymek said:

transition said:

Cymek said:

I seem to able be able to see just about anything in my minds eye

people that think they do less of it probably do a lot more than they think, just walking around a corner required ideas of the expected and unexpected. That the ideas aren’t flooding the big screen of awareness is not at all bad thing, it saves a lot of terror.

I wonder if seeing detailed images in your mind is related to living in your own head, which I do a lot of

dunno, I could have three neurons and live in my head, but I wouldn’t know it and the question unlikely would ever visit me.

but, to your point of the home in the head, most people live there.

something interesting I think, is that if i’m negotiating my way around in the dark I don’t project stuff onto the big screen of imagination as when awake (it’s different anyway), like getting from bed at night to the door, or light switch.

the reason for that may be that one can imagine something in completely the wrong place etc.

so it could be misleading, dangerous.

transition said:

something interesting I think, is that if i’m negotiating my way around in the dark I don’t project stuff onto the big screen of imagination as when awake (it’s different anyway), like getting from bed at night to the door, or light switch.

the reason for that may be that one can imagine something in completely the wrong place etc.

so it could be misleading, dangerous.

has me wondering now about the evolution of feel-see, internal maps of external environment.

interesting, for me anyway. I’ve long thought something of vision systems lent to consciousness (self awareness, variously the projection system/s involved).

> Why, for instance, do most engineers and scientists like to sketch things, if they can see them clearly just by imagining?

For the same reason that composers like to sketch out music when they can clearly hear it in their mind. There’s no difference.

mollwollfumble said:

> Why, for instance, do most engineers and scientists like to sketch things, if they can see them clearly just by imagining?

For the same reason that composers like to sketch out music when they can clearly hear it in their mind. There’s no difference.

Often your mind sees the big picture. It needs a sketch to focus on the details.

Tamb said:

mollwollfumble said:

> Why, for instance, do most engineers and scientists like to sketch things, if they can see them clearly just by imagining?

For the same reason that composers like to sketch out music when they can clearly hear it in their mind. There’s no difference.

Often your mind sees the big picture. It needs a sketch to focus on the details.

this.

when i was planning to build a piece of furniture i would plan it in my head first, usually in bed. I would “build” it to see where problems might arise.