# Weird psychology question regarding visualization. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 5, 2005, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938 "2005-04-05T23:35:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/101 "2011-11-09T18:28:21Z")
> [@NinetyWt](#): > > Wow. I guess I, too, took “visualizing” for granted. > > Y’all would really hate my daughter, though. If she’s studied a text for a test, as long as she can remember what page the needed information is on, she can _turn to the page and read the paragraph_. In her head. > > I think she’s a freak of nature. 😉 There have been people with prodigious memories examined by science, but there really isn’t such a thing as a photographic memory. She probably memorized the books and uses page numbers for reference to help find the information, but no one can snap a photo of a page and read it at their leisure later…they have to read the page first. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/102 "2011-11-09T18:49:56Z")
> [@Punoqllads](#): > > I don’t know about others, but for me, visualizing an object is pretty close to seeing. Zoom in, zoom out, rotate, distort; all that. If I’m really concentrating on visualizing, my perception of the ouside world closes down pretty hard even though my eyes remain open. Same here. I’ve always been curious how much of this is a trained practiced skill, or how much is hard-wired ability. As a test I quickly did the OP’s waterwheel test immediately with no trouble. Just for fun, I also included dancing meerkats on the wheel paddles to provide a physical source of power. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/103 "2011-11-09T20:13:59Z")
> [@GargoyleWB](#): > > I take it so much for granted that I often get surprised when people don’t (or can’t) visualize. > > I’m similar to a previous poster…I visualize as a “separate vision” but complete with color, motion, even tactile sensations like force and texture. Depending upon the degree I sink into it, my mind either multitasks with what my real world is, or sort of overlays my visualization simultaneously over my vision, or my real world perception just kind of grays out and gets nearly completely replaced by my visualization. It is also fully controllable, the waterwheel spinny thing is easy, although when I did it there was a Grimms-esque ogre that was poking his finger in the spokes of the wheel and spinning it forward and backward while befuddled fish poked their heads up out of the wheel’s water buckets as the water sloshed about. But that’s just me, if I need to visualize a wheel rotating forward and then backward, it helps a lot to also visualize a logical reason for the wheel to be doing so. > > I think that this is one reason that many people simply don’t enjoy reading fiction novels. When I read a novel, I visualize very intensely at the same time I am reading, I _see_ the shadows cast by Sting in the caves of Moria, they aren’t simply words on a page that I am parsing. Same here, and like Punoqllads. And I was going to add that I think I’m a “word thinker,” but are both of those being used like in your example of “seeing” the shadows you’re talking about reading, GargoyleWB? ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/104 "2011-11-09T20:29:41Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > I can picture the wheel…but only because I’ve seen this happen before; water drips off the blades as the wheel slows to a stop before going the other way. Probably in a movie. (why is the wheel intially going counter-clockwise? hmm) If I hadn’t seen it before, I’d have a lot more trouble doing it, because I think mostly in words. So much so that it took me \*forever \* to figure out what people mean when they said suchandsuch a children’s book caused kids to use their imaginations which seemed odd to me because the kids weren’t writing the story just reading it- I finally realized this didn’t click because don’t usually picture anything when I read, but a lot apparently do. I love to write but don’t really picture things that I’m writing about either, actually; I’ll get a few “postcard” images, but not like a movie how some people describe. Dreams and fantasies, on the other hand, are movie-like, go figure. That’s interesting because I like to write, and have Tips stuck up on my bulletin board. The first one says, “Make a mind-movie.” ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/105 "2011-11-09T20:50:54Z")
Haven’t read all the posts yet but, this is freaky! And it triggered a memory of when I was around eight years old. I’m one of those people who can’t do math—at all. But it wasn’t always that way. Up until somewhere around the 3rd grade I was just doing “regular.” But around that time I was going thru some intense emotional stuff and for some reason envisioned two black lines in my head. And I could never get them even. No matter how I tried, one would always be the slightest bit longer. I couldn’t get it out of my head, I couldn’t stop trying, and it was driving me crazy. I taked to myself, I prayed, I begged the powers that be to make it stop. And finally it started getting less and less until it stopped. Before that happened I was doing fine in math. Afterwards it might as well have been Chinese. Did I lose that ability to keep from losing my mind? ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/106 "2011-11-09T20:59:26Z")
It sounds like an obsessive compulsion, like people who have to avoid walking on cracks or taking even numbers of steps in buildings. I doubt the lines are related to math, math just got harder after 3rd grade and you couldn’t keep up? ---
**Author:** ![Cartoonacy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/848f3c/32.png) [@Cartoonacy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartoonacy)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/107 "2011-11-09T21:05:08Z")
Uh-oh. My fault for posting a link to this thread in another thread. I didn’t realize anyone would reanimate it after six years of inactivity. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/108 "2011-11-09T22:32:19Z")
I’m going to have to start looking at the dates…how does an old thread get revived? Anyway, I can certainly buy the OCD…among other things that were going on. But I hate to think I just got stoopid. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/109 "2011-11-09T23:14:56Z")
I actually find that this sort of thing hurts my head ever since my Klonopin withdrawal. But my real astonishment is with people who can actually see things. I would assume they were hallucinations. I can’t imagine seeing things that aren’t there without it being incredibly frightening. ---
**Author:** ![Jinx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/110 "2011-11-10T00:42:43Z")
In general, this must be why some people can picture some things (esp. abstract concepts) while others cannot. I had no problem visualizing the wheel as you describe, but there have been other times when, yes, it physically hurts (as you mention) to picture something. It’s like, your brain just doesn’t want to “bend” that way…like a yoga for the brain! ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/111 "2011-11-10T01:10:09Z")
Excalibre and I have the same brain blueprint, I think because that’s exactly how I work. All this stuff about “When someone asks you where your stapler is, don’t you visualize your desk?” No. I know where my stapler is, or at least the last place I put it in the same way that you know that 2+2 equals 4. It just is. When I visualize a water wheel, I see a indistinct wheel. The number of spokes is indeterminate and if forced to come to a concrete decision about them, I’d probably settle on the last number I came across. Any pictures or movies in my head are pretty much incidental to my actual thought processes. (I don’t see words on a page either. I don’t really think of any senses being used when I think. Stuff just happens.) ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/112 "2011-11-10T01:42:56Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > Anyway, I can certainly buy the OCD…among other things that were going on. But I hate to think I just got stoopid. 😛 I meant to post this but I was at work and pressed for time. Your post about being obsessed with the lines and not being able to not think about it reminded me of a WEIRD experience I can barely describe. When I was a kid I had a FAVORITE breakfast that I could only eat at Grandma’s during the summer because it was too unhealthy for my mom and stepdad to get: Eggo cinnamon waffles in little waffle shapes, with butter and this super thick syrup called Al Aga. Anyways one morning when I was maybe 12, I thought that there is corn in the waffles, and for some reason I thought that the corn must be black dead corn. For some reason I KNEW that was nonsense, but for an entire day I kept thinking about rotten black corn, and it made me physically sick to my stomach to think about. I didn’t eat my waffles for a few days until the thought of black corn got out of my head. :dubious: It’s very hard in text to describe the experience, to be conscious of having a neurotic thought but have it effect your behavior for a few days, and suddenly vanish. ---
**Author:** ![Becky2844](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/91b2a8/32.png) [@Becky2844](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Becky2844)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/113 "2011-11-11T06:52:43Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > I meant to post this but I was at work and pressed for time. Your post about being obsessed with the lines and not being able to not think about it reminded me of a WEIRD experience I can barely describe. > > When I was a kid I had a FAVORITE breakfast that I could only eat at Grandma’s during the summer because it was too unhealthy for my mom and stepdad to get: Eggo cinnamon waffles in little waffle shapes, with butter and this super thick syrup called Al Aga. > > Anyways one morning when I was maybe 12, I thought that there is corn in the waffles, and for some reason I thought that the corn must be black dead corn. For some reason I KNEW that was nonsense, but for an entire day I kept thinking about rotten black corn, and it made me physically sick to my stomach to think about. I didn’t eat my waffles for a few days until the thought of black corn got out of my head. :dubious: > > It’s very hard in text to describe the experience, to be conscious of having a neurotic thought but have it effect your behavior for a few days, and suddenly vanish. It’s really weird the way the mind can take a funny turn and then come back…hopefully. One time I was riding with my mother on the backroads going into town, just watching the road. And suddenly I went mad. Stark, staring mad. The road turned to dipping lava, (not dripping, dipping) the trees alongside made no sense, and I felt like I was suspended. And then I snapped back. And I thought, “I just went mad for a few seconds.” It’s made me sort of understand the "can’t find my land legs (sea legs?) feeling of mental illness. ---
**Author:** ![rushiil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/df788c/32.png) [@rushiil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rushiil)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2015, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/114 "2015-12-26T11:55:05Z")
Thank you dude. This exercise really helped me over come my mind block of not being able to visualize moving things. Immediately After this one exercise ,I was able to visualize any moving object in my mind. Thanks a lot ---
**Author:** ![Inner\_Stickler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inner_stickler/32/318_2.png) [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2015, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938/115 "2015-12-28T16:12:59Z")
Just out of curiosity, I tried doing SenorBeef’s exercise again before I read the rest of the thread and my ability to visualize hasn’t changed. Visualizing a waterwheel turning, stopping and then turning in the opposite direction is just foreign to me. I can do it but it’s work and doesn’t feel particularly useful. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-psychology-question-regarding-visualization/297938.md?page=5)