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.
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.
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?
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.”
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?
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?
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.
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. 
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.
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!
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.)
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.
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
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.