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[Kuramu]

I saw this thread and was amazed by some of the responces.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=310467

in short, someone wanted people to imagine a spinning wheel changing direction, and there were people who acted surprized that when... well look:

What?!? People can visualize literally? Like visuals you see when you dream? I'd always thought that asking, "can you visualize something" was just a petty phrase. Like when you ask me to visualize this wheel, I can't see the dang thing at all.

(snip)

So, am I nuts? Or am I thinking now that "visualzing" isn't really what I'm thinking you're all saying -- you can really see this stuff? And why can't I? What have I been missing my whole life?

Turns out he wasn't the only one. So how about you guys? I'm like this guy:

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.

well, i'd say the things i'm "seeing" are much weaker and more unstable than really seeing, or even dreaming

 

[Stryder]

I visited the thread, and tried the experiment.
I too can't get the wheel to slow right down and spin in the other direction. I see a new wheel take place of the old one when trying to visualize it doing these things.

*shrugs*

 

[Kuramu]

i can understand having a hard time moving the wheel, but some of them were saying that they don't even see the wheel

on a side note, i always thought it was interesting that i can easily imagine how something looks or to a lesser degree, sounds, but i can't imagine how things tastes at all

 

[SKluck]

I have no idea what you are talking about.

I can think about objects moving and changing direction or whatever. Almost like an extremely faint videoscreen in my mind. It's nothing special, it's not really visual at all.

 

[Kuramu]

this guy is even incredulous:

How do I remember things? In WORDS. Everything in my head is WORDS. I may have a hint of some picture brush through my mind but it's not known; to KNOW it it has to be in WORDS. The idea of pictures of things in your mind is completely incomprehensible to me. I guess I basically don't believe it. I think you are describing something to yourself in words so vividly that you think you see it. But my brain does not have any pictures in it.

 

[whytemyke]

wow. strange. I've always just visualized shit like this.

I wonder if there's a correlation between stuff like this and legos/k'nex as a kid.

 

[Chrono]

A friend of my dad is some sort of genius. You can show him an entire page of numbers, he'll read it once, and a month later he'll tell it to you in whatever order you want. He's also fat and rich. Bastard. :lol

Anyway from what he says, the 'key' to train his brain is imagining things. Like imagine a cow exactly half black and half white. Just close your eyes and focus on the image until it becomes clearer and clearer. The more 'real' it looks the better.


And to stay on topic, I don't have trouble visualizing. Actually I hate it because when day dreaming many disturbing images turn up.

 

[sprsk]

The solution to this is to be as descriptive as possible.

when you see the wheel stop, how does it react to being so abrupt dont just visualize, think about what would happen if it was in front of you.

 

[Date of Lies]

Would the wheel be spinning against the current of the water if you vizualized it spinning the opposite direction?

Something weird happens in my head when I vizualize the scenario, it's like my head goes into a "THIS IS NOT REAL" state and tells me I'm dreaming.

 

[miyuru]

I can do it, suckas!

 

[Zaptruder]

In the process of training myself to draw, I've developed a pretty strong visual thinking system...

but it's not quite strong enough to have me fully visualise an image and put it to paper... it's almost there... but jeez it's hard; it's taken a lifetime to develop it so far, and I day dream a lot.

That said, I can imagine the wheel spinning anyway I damn please. Twirling, exploding, reforming, melting, etc.

---

But I think the guys are freaking out because we make it sound like we actually see it... we don't have it in our visual system, overlaying our retinas or some such. It's not even like a dream where our brain fools us into seeing very strong perceptions... but it's definetly an image that can be imagined and can even be expressed as a drawing; if you could hook up machines that could read the mind, and convert what was going on, you'd see pictures a long with words and maybe sounds.

 

[Kuramu]

I just never imagined that there could be people who couldn't see in their minds. This guy simply thinks we're fooling ourselves our something:

I guess I basically don't believe it. I think you are describing something to yourself in words so vividly that you think you see it.

i don't know how i'd sort though my brain-files without imagery

 

[Stryder]

but i can't imagine how things tastes at all

I can do this to the degree that I will salivate if I'm imagining something tasty or get that bitter/sour feeling in the back of my mouth (kind of like that feeling of sticking your tongue on a 9v battery) if thinking of something bitter.

 

[StoOgE]

yeah, I took a course on this kinda shit and was shocked that there were people that didnt have mental images... for me I can here and see shit and its pretty much like watching a movie.

I mean, it would bug the hell out of me if I couldnt picture a friendly face or replay a past event in my head.

 

[Kuramu]

cyan

I think very few people actually "see" the car and the store as if they were actually looking at them, though some can.

this person isn't experiencing the same thing i know i am and others too, or he wouldn't have said it. Hell, i not only see the car, i see useless other things, like the trees near the store and the re-max blimp that was near my childhood supermarket.

edit: what i mean is, perhaps he too is underestimating how many people see with great detail

 

[Date of Lies]

people that can't vizualize watch too much tv

 

[Joe]

??

i can visualize all that pretty easily, i even got the water slopping around and can "visualize" the sound effects. am i not reading this right or am i gifted?

 

[SpeedingUptoStop]

I don't understand what's so hard about this...unless I'm doing it wrong. Just visualize a wheel speeding up, then slowing down and change directions, right? Pretty easy...

 

[God's Hand]

This is ridiculous.

 

[Archaix]

This is ridiculous.

Why, exactly, is that?

 

[LakeEarth]

I can do the "boat wheel reversing" thing in my head only if I zoom into the wheel really close as it slows down. I can't do it at a distance for some reason.

 

[God's Hand]

I can picture Link in the new Zelda morphing into a wolf and running throughout a lucious village at dawn when the sun slowly rises and paints a beautiful red and blue sky over the stars. And I see the Kokiri villagers doing their daily routines, like shoveling hay into a wagonwheel and milking cows and building a new store. And as the wolf runs through the village, I hear it pant and I hear every footstep it makes. I also hear the symphonic qualities of nature. I hear the villagers muttering things. I see and hear a waterfall in the distance. I can stop running and explore the village, inside and out. I see this as if it were running on the new Zelda engine.

How hard is that to do? This is even something I've never seen before, and I can still imagine it. Imagining a wheel turning is no impressive feat.

 

[Mejilan]

This is easy.

My only stumble was when I "sped up" the slowing down and reversing process. I wiped my mind, started over, and got the "visual" to work. *shrugs*

 

[Dujour]

You know how wheels move so fast they look like they're moving backwards? That's what I can't get around.

 

[God's Hand]

Okay, I just did that. What was hard about that?

 

[Crow]

Comes pretty easily to me considering i have spent most my life in day dream.

 

[Archaix]

Okay, I just did that. What was hard about that?

Yes, and, as illustrated in this thread and the original linked thread, just because you can do something means everybody on the planet has the same ability.

 

[Rorschach]

For someone who has so much "vision," he's pretty ignorant.

 

[aoi tsuki]

i imagined the wheel as one on a steamboat, and had no problem with it spinning until i tried to image it spinning backwards. At first, the wheel spun backwards, but the water was still moving as if it were spinning forward, and the boat was still. So i fixed the water, but the boat was still not moving. It took a few seconds to get everything moving correctly.

i don't have a problem envisioning food, how it tastes, or smells. Fairly often at work, i "taste" people's drinks in my mind, so i can compensate for any shortage or obvious inconsistencies in ingredients. It helps if you cook fairly often, or have done it for a while. i'd really like to learn how to tap into these kinds of abilities on a more conscious level, whereas now it's more instinctual, and still far from perfect.

 

[Seth C]

I'm sort of the opposite of the guy who remembers everything in words. I remember everything in images. I can close my eyes and, I can't say I can see the words, or remember the words, but I can remember a page of a book, and then see the words ON it. I can also remember sounds, play them back in my mind. I can play black music I've heard in my mind, too, with full instrumentals and vocals, and then single out specific instruments or vocals if I want to.

My frustration has always been that I can visualize things in far greater detail than I am able to express on paper in art. My drawings simply aren't very detailed. Oddly enough, I can express myself much better in words.

Oh, and I fully lack any real ability with math. I struggle with it, and it just doesn't make sense to me.

 

[Crow]

I'm sort of the opposite of the guy who remembers everything in words. I remember everything in images. I can close my eyes and, I can't say I can see the words, or remember the words, but I can remember a page of a book, and then see the words ON it. I can also remember sounds, play them back in my mind. I can play black music I've heard in my mind, too, with full instrumentals and vocals, and then single out specific instruments or vocals if I want to.

My frustration has always been that I can visualize things in far greater detail than I am able to express on paper in art. My drawings simply aren't very detailed. Oddly enough, I can express myself much better in words.

Oh, and I fully lack any real ability with math. I struggle with it, and it just doesn't make sense to me.

Being able to recall entire pages of text by picturing it in your mind is pretty special. Very few people can do that and it's called 'Photographic memory'.

I can remember faces extremely well, I just can't remember names to fit with the faces. I can also create entire worlds in my mind rich in detail, full in sound. and walk through them. I had spent many a maths class doing that very thing. I loathed maths it made no sense to me either.

But picturing entire pages of text and reading word for word...I take my hat off to you sir.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

This is a strange phenomenon. I always thought it was a matter of degree rather than not having the ability to visualize at all. But I have a friend who swears that he doesn't visualize images to any extent at all.

He's kind of an a-hole, is there any correlation?

 

[gofreak]

I found it pretty easy too (imagining a water wheel, slowing it down, reversing it etc.). I didn't think some people couldn't do that...although I had heard before, in relation to mathematics, how some people just can't "visualise" the problem as well as others. However, as far as math goes I don't think I visualise it much at all, though I've always done quite well at maths.

edit - Having thought about it a bit more, and reflected on my own "visualisation" of that water wheel, I'm wondering if some are concentrating too much on the detail. My own visualisation wasn't perfectly seamless. It was the same wheel, and it slowed down/sped up appropriately but it was kind of like I was watching seperate sequences of animation of the same wheel, not necessarily all smoothly joined together.

 

[OpinionatedCyborg]

edit - Having thought about it a bit more, and reflected on my own "visualisation" of that water wheel, I'm wondering if some are concentrating too much on the detail. My own visualisation wasn't perfectly seamless. It was the same wheel, and it slowed down/sped up appropriately but it was kind of like I was watching seperate sequences of animation of the same wheel, not necessarily all smoothly joined together.

If my visualization of the wheel was a videogame, GAF would say it sucked because its framerate wasn't 60 fps.

 

[flsh]

I can visualize things and imagine nosies easily, seems wierd to me someone can't O_O
I know my abillity to imagine taste\smell is not common (and I can't really control it, I have to think hard of things and it doesn't always work). Sometimes I imagine things and I can feel them (I have this day dreaming nightmare of being crushed. Sometimes I can feel "crushed" and it freakes me when it happens), but I know some people that this happens to too so I guess this is pretty common.

But not being able to imagine visuals and sounds? how can you remember things? They must have developed a great skill of describing things in words.

 

[gofreak]

If my visualization of the wheel was a videogame, GAF would say it sucked because its framerate wasn't 60 fps.

Yeah, that's a pretty good description of what I'm talking about! It's like the "framerate" is better in some parts than in others, and some frames get dropped.

 

[ManDudeChild]

It's a pretty easy exercise. What, imo, is actually difficult is to train your head to do Lucid Dreams, or focus enough to increase your adrenaline whenever you want.

 

[Litigation Manuel]

I can imagine it easily enough, but maybe due to watching movies and tv for so much of my life, I can't imagine it in one shot. Unless I focus, my mind will view it from different angles, just like it were in a movie.

 

[Mumbles]

Actually, I automatically think of things visually. I thought of a bicycle wheel as soon as I saw the word "wheel" - spinning and rotating out in free space. Sounds, smells, and textures are pretty much instinctive as well. Kinda like Seth, except I have no trouble with math or physics. EM theory, for example, was pretty much intuitive for me, although I bumbled the formulas for them every now and then.

It's true, though, that the normal vision is still there when I'm visualizing - and this is actually helpful most of the time, since I can use it to stabilize an object, or rotate it more easily. For example, I can "grab" the object with my hands, and then manipulate it. I usually can do this on my own, but sometimes my mind gets overactive, so the actual vision helps. I have gotten overloaded in a few situations, though - and when that happens, I simply can't think.

And actually, I *can't* think well in words. I usually just translate my thoughts to words when I want to discuss them for some reason. I have a rough time telling some letters apart - say, "b", "d", and "p" - when presented on their own, because they're basically the same thing to me. I have a hard time with verbal directions, too - especially if I'm not familiar with the area, I try to put together a mental picture for every step, but I end up with too many images at once - and none of them have anything to do with the trip I'm going to make.