If I really try I can put myself in a place, I can imagine for instance going to the grocery store with my kids: I’m in the parking lot holding their hands. I feel the sun shining too bright in my eyes when I look to the left, I feel a slight breeze on my arms and face, then the automatic doors open, and my boy is fussing so I pick him up, and I can feel his arms around me, then I put him in the cart, and he’s heavy. I hear the beeping of cash registers and the murmur of people talking. One wheel is bad on the shopping cart and it squeaks and pulls to the left. The handle of the cart is smooth plastic, it’s translucent but with a red stripe painted on it. I reach for the cucumbers and I can see that they’re waxy but also the end of the first one I see is wrinkly, meaning that it’s starting to shrivel. You get the idea. I see it all in detail and I can feel certain sensations and hear sound too. Yeah visualizing with that much detail takes effort but I can do more than just visualize an apple.
It’s not exactly the same as watching a movie. But I think if I was doing this and you moved something in front of me, I wouldn’t see it. It would be an interesting scientific experiment. Certainly people have told me that when I was staring into space that they waved to me and I didn’t respond.
One way this is really useful is if I’m packing for, say, a camping trip. I can put myself in the campsite, and I first want to gather firewood, but it’s too thick to break, so I pick up a saw. -ok write that down, a saw. At night we climb into the tent and when we get inside it’s very dark -write down flashlight- and then after unrolling my sleeping back I notice that it’s uncomfortable without a pillow -write down pillow. That kind of thing.
I can do this with music too. Sometimes that’s how I write songs. I’ll work the parts, hearing them all together while I’m taking a shower, then later ill go to the music room and play the whole song one instrument at a time.