The current thread about using one’s imagination made me think again of something - people who “see” what they read. Apparently there are people who will read a story and get a vivid, on-going mental picture of what is going on.
I say apparently, because I don’t. At least not naturally; if I try very hard I can create a picture, but I usually don’t because I have to stop reading to do so. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out why people were gushing over the Harry Potter books for a specific reason: “reading helps kids use their imaginations!” I found that very odd, since the writer already did the work for them, so how were they using their imaginations simply by reading? Then I found out that there are people who get movie-like mental pictures while reading. (you’d of thought I’d have heard of this before I was an adult…) I find that fascinating, because although I enjoy reading, I simply “hear” the story, as if someone was speaking.
It’s pretty much the same when I write as well. I love to write fiction, but it always startles me when someone says “I could see it in my head as I read!” about something I’ve written since I don’t even do that. I hear my stories too, as if I’m telling them to someone. Once in a while I’ll get a mental picture, but even then it’s more of a postcard than a short film.
I dream in full-length color movies, though, go figure.
So what about you? Do you hear what’s written or do you see it in your mind’s eye?
Hear it, unless the author is deliberately creating a visual image with words, in which case I create it too.
Sometimes I find myself ‘casting’ my favorite theater actors in the ‘parts’ of people in a novel during long dialogue scenes, and then I can ‘see’ them. But usually I just hear the words.
Neither, I think. I definitely never see anything when I’m reading. Even if I work at it it’s really hard for me to come up with any sort of picture. I have a general sense of it, which means that the illustrations (and, of course, the movie adaptations) are always somehow wrong, even though I couldn’t for the life of me say what was “right” exactly. I don’t know that I hear it either, since I tend to miss most puns and sound-based allusions that aren’t hitting me over the head. I just kind of know what it says. I definitely hear myself saying all of this stuff in my own head as I write it, though.
Mostly see, but if something interesting is happening in the story audibly (vampires slaughtering a village and the cries of the damned…hehe that sort of thing), I can practically "hear’ it as well.
But yes, with a good author I get a pretty vivid moving picture of the storyline.
Mostly hear, but can visualize with a little conscious effort.
Usually skip over visualizing the parts where authors describe clothing (unless it’s relevant) for some reason. Guess I like to have my own image of what they should be wearing.
When people say “Both” what do you mean? You imagine it with a voice over like on Everwood or in A Series of Unfortunate Events? Imagining the characters speaking dialogue to one another isn’t what I meant by “hear”, for the record.
When I say hear I mean I hear the characters speaking their words put in their mouth, things blowing up, crashing into themselves or whatever else’s going on.
So a great sound effect department. And my mental programs that make scenery are good too. Although they do seem to go the cliche route since it’s easier.
The only problem with this is it makes it extremely hard to read texts that aren’t story based. Like Marx’s Communist Manifesto. I read and read but nothing enters. If I want to actually remember anything I have to read it aloud as if someone is lecturing me and that seems to help.
I see and hear movies as I read. They’re not quite as vivid as my dreams, which are like the OP’s. What I read is more pastel or fogged over. The light is a lot like those Hercule Poirot miniseries starring David Suchet. The voices are more like an echo, just under my normal “thinking voice.” They get stronger as the book goes on and the characters become more developed. When I write, it’s pretty much the same way – I’m narrating the action in my head.
I see it as if it’s happening, and hear it if people are speaking. All of my favourite characters have distinct “voices”, and each different character has their own voice.
If the story is being told narration-style - if the author addresses the reader often using phrases that specifically mention you, the reader - I’ll often hear this voice-over style, like a movie being narrated.
As for seeing, if descriptions are vague or not given, I fill it all in by myself. If I don’t know what something is, my mind invents something that I think is either similar, or just invents something new. Later on, I will go and look it up if I am stumped, and either go “Ohhhh!” and it is filled in properly then, or I think “hmm. Mine was better” and leave it at that. For example: years ago, I read a book that was describing the interior of a house, and mentioned “beadboard wainscoting”. At the time, I had no idea what that was, so in my mind, I made it similar to crown molding. When I later looked up beadboard wainscoting, I went “OHHH! Well that’s much better!” And the room was properly “renovated” each time I read the book afterward.
As long as I’m reading text, there is a voice in my head. I appropriate the ‘authors voice’ for narrating, which basically means I use either a stock female or male voice. I also hear the characters talking, and there’s always a strong sense of what their accent sounds like – even if it doesn’t really doesn’t fit with the story (isn’t it great how your mind can do all these accents that you can’t possibly reproduce?). I do see things, but the images aren’t very strong. The spatial relationships are far more concrete.
I don’t get sucked into the book in the slightest – I’m still painfully aware of the fact that I’m sitting reading. I always thought those “Take a voyage through your imagination” style library posters were a crock.
Fern Forest – good point. I suppose that’s why I also find academic books almost impossible to read.
Me too, I’m too engrossed in the full-scale movie playing in my head. grin
The only time I ever consider it a bad thing, is when a movie is made from a much-beloved book. 9.99 times out of 10, it just never lives up to the movie I already saw in my head.
My mind builds an image of what’s being described whether it’s person, place or thing; and I hear the characters speaking to one another. This applies to much non-fiction as well - even some technical material. Reading something like Hawking’s A Brief History of Time had my mind attempting to visualize a singularity and the Big Bang. I can’t imagine not “seeing” what I read.
I learned very early that if I’ve read the book, I cannot see the movie because the film is always so different from my mental images that I can’t relate to it at all.
