I did so because I feel that I have a very good imagination. It just isn’t visual.
I expect I’m closest to the “like someone reading a book” choice but that sounds like a lack of imagination.
When I imagine stuff (I seldom use the word visualize and never in reference to myself) it is a narrative. I’ll sometimes get a brief flash of a picture but that’s about it. Like a fart in the wind.
Like you I read quite a lot. I “see” nothing when I read.
Strangely, when I read, if I am conscious of the words - by which I mean my internal voice is reading aloud along with me - I can read the same page a dozen times and it’s like I’ve not read it once.
If the internal voice is reading silently then I sail along.
No problem with faces but I’m shitty with names and how I know people. By which I mean I’ll see you, I’ll recognize that we know each other but I’ll have little to no clue who you are or how we know each other.
I visualize all the time (I’m an artist), especially when working out a problem that involves spatiality, abstract geometry or other math. But it’s never like watching a movie. If anything, it’s like a double exposure . . . watching a movie with one eye, while still seeing reality with the other.
I’m a graphic designer -decades in the business- and a decent illustrator and photographer; my visualization abilities are toward the bottom of the OP’s scale. My usual description is that I see a pool of dark Karo syrup from which bits and pieces of objects vaguely appear for 2 to 5 seconds and fade back into the murk.
But it’s enough to get a concept, and once I get a few marks on the page, or objects on the screen, I can see what’s working and what isn’t. And if I’m drawing from life it’s no problem to get down what I see in front of me.
I am probably about in the middle in terms of what I visualize when. I have a poor visual memory, generally, except for certain images which will get stuck in a horrible loop. The images are almost always something traumatic. (This is one of the reasons I avoid gory movies/pictures. I get the image in a constant loop for a long time afterward.)
I’d be able to intuit based on the knowledge I like as far as colour palettes and what works together but I would not be able to “see” it in my mind.
I am, however, able to intuit spacial relationships such that I have a better idea of what will physically fit in any given room than my wife does. She does have a very good imagination but tends to shrink the size of things in her mind so they fit where she wants them to. The more she wants a particular item the easier it is for her to imagine fitting it into an impossible space.
I just posted this on the other poll thread about audio imagination, but it’s appropriate here too. You might find this Richard Feynman essay interesting, especially near the end.
TBH, “what would this look like on my bed” is not even a question that it would occur to me to ask. I would just be asking “do I like the look of this object?”
Nothing actually goes with anything in my house anyway. It’s just got a bunch of objects in it which either a) I liked the look of, or b) were available at a time when we thought an object of that kind would be useful.
Can’t visualise my bedroom. I could describe it pretty accurately, but I can’t see it.
I can’t vividly imagine something unless I’m going to sleep. Otherwise, it’s kinda fuzzy and only the details that matter stick out. I also find that I can’t really imagine faces. I can remember more details of faces I see all the time, but even those aren’t complete. I can recognize people’s faces, but I can’t hold on to exactly what they look like.
Sounds are fine, though. Not as vivid as when I sleep or real life, but pretty big. I more often imagine conversations when dealing with people.
Nope. I can draw you a 3D sketch of the bedroom but I can’t see it. In fact, I have to draw it out in order to describe it in any detail. I don’t actually have to put pencil to paper, I can draw in the air and “look” at it, so my fingers remember it, but my brain can’t picture it.
I’m really bad with remembering colors because they can’t be sketched by “pencil” e.g. black and white.
Oddly enough, my color sense isn’t bad, and I can do clothes shopping for people I know and can pick clothes which match them, but it’s all subconscious. I don’t “see” the people, but I know that a given color will work with them. I’ve helped a friend pick out jewelery for his girlfriend and specified the color of gold because it would match her skin tone, even though I can’t describe the color or see it in my mind. Weird?
I can get a really vague picture of people, but only from photographs of them. The only muddled visual memories I have of my father are from two photographs.
Yet, I have very vivid dreams of people I know, so obviously the information is there in my head. I just can’t access it freely at will.
I had a friend who have a house built about the same time we were having ours built back when we were in Japan. I sketched out a drawing of the place and he said that he was envious, because while he could picture things really well himself, he couldn’t transfer it to paper, making the precess of conveying is thoughts to the designer a painful process. Of course, I would have killed to be able to have the ability to see things like he can.
