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How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

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Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#31

Post by _dain_ »

CommieBobDole wrote: post #4

So, wait, are people normally actually seeing images, with their eyes, when they imagine what something looks like? Like, the brown-blackness of the back of your eyelids gets replaced with something you actually see, like it's projected there? I can imagine what something looks like, and I guess I sort of 'see' it, but closing my eyes doesn't make it any more real. It doesn't seem to involve the eyes or any part of t…

Yeah it's not a figure of speech, there's LITERALLY another framebuffer (or whatever you want to call it) in my mind in addition to the ones from left eye and right eye. I don't need to close my eyes to do see it (but it helps). I can draw to it, with some effort . Daydreams get painted on it when my mind drifts. It's the stage on which I experience memories.

Most people are like this, with variation in the degree of vividness and control. Some people can make realistic detailed scenes, for other people it's harder and their images are often blotchy or lacking in detail and colour. I'm in the latter group.

If you don't have any of this at all and you're surprised by the whole idea, you are probably aphantasic.

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#32

Post by zeehio »

davidhunter wrote: post #8
CommieBobDole wrote: post #4

So, wait, are people normally actually seeing images, with their eyes, when they imagine what something looks like? Like, the brown-blackness of the back of your eyelids gets replaced with something you actually see, like it's projected there? I can imagine what something looks like, and I guess I sort of 'see' it, but closing my eyes doesn't make it any more real. It doesn't seem to involve the eyes or any part of t…

Yes. I am like you in that I cannot actually see anything visual in my minds eye but I can still 'visualise' it. For example, I can rotate a die in my minds eye without actually seeing it. It's hard to explain. It was a revelation when I found out that most people can actually see things visually in their minds eye. A friend of mine can actually place imagined objects into their field of view, like AR.

When I had to study and memorize some text at school I used to remember the page where the text was written and then mentally read it. Some of those pages are still in my head (for instance multiplication tables).

Once I was on an exam and I could not understand my own writing in the page I was remembering because I had written it too small on the corner. It was frustrating to not be able to answer the question. Afterwards, when I went to my real notes and I struggled to understand what was written there. I was happy that my memory image was accurate although frustrated for not managing the space in the page properly.

I thought everyone could remember things in this way.

Sometimes I have to write things down to see them and remember them, because mental speeches are harder (and less efficient) for me to remember.

I guess there are many ways to learn and remember stuff we just have to find the one that works better for us.

Being a teacher should require knowing about all this learning diversity I guess.

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#34

Post by thinkingemote »

zeehio wrote: post #32
davidhunter wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I am like you in that I cannot actually see anything visual in my minds eye but I can still 'visualise' it. For example, I can rotate a die in my minds eye without actually seeing it. It's hard to explain. It was a revelation when I found out that most people can actually see things visually in their minds eye. A friend of mine can actually place imagined objects into their field of view, like AR.

When I had to study and memorize some text at school I used to remember the page where the text was written and then mentally read it. Some of those pages are still in my head (for instance multiplication tables). Once I was on an exam and I could not understand my own writing in the page I was remembering because I had written it too small on the corner. It was frustrating to not be able to answer the question. Afte…

I find reading from paper books better than digital for this reason. Spatial memory. Its quick for me to find a passage as I seem to know where to look. I don't remember the words or the passage I want but I know where to locate it. The section of the page, the bit of the chapter, the pattern and shape of the text (better if there's illustrations) the weight of the pages. I imagine it would be a little bit of a jump to use it to memorise the words themselves. I should give it a try with some bible verses but thinking about it all my bibles are formatted differently depending on translation edition etc. Different than most books.

With digital this seems to not be active and instead I have to guess the likely words and jump around the search results.

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#35

Post by teekert »

davidhunter wrote: post #8
CommieBobDole wrote: post #4

So, wait, are people normally actually seeing images, with their eyes, when they imagine what something looks like? Like, the brown-blackness of the back of your eyelids gets replaced with something you actually see, like it's projected there? I can imagine what something looks like, and I guess I sort of 'see' it, but closing my eyes doesn't make it any more real. It doesn't seem to involve the eyes or any part of t…

Yes. I am like you in that I cannot actually see anything visual in my minds eye but I can still 'visualise' it. For example, I can rotate a die in my minds eye without actually seeing it. It's hard to explain. It was a revelation when I found out that most people can actually see things visually in their minds eye. A friend of mine can actually place imagined objects into their field of view, like AR.

Hmm I can imagine what something will look like in a position in a scene but I wouldn’t call it AR like. This is a really interesting thread. I always thought people were much the same. But recently I also learned that my wife just sees words when reading a book whereas I see a “movie”.

Also I will project words in my mind to inspect them visually to see how to spell them, and if they look ok. And when studying I recall pages of books with the info in the place where it is printed, much like zeehio describes. This is super helpful when memorizing entire books ie when I studied biology.

But from this thread I still get the idea there are people that really really see things, whereas for me it stops at “visualizing”. Which does help when composing a picture but perhaps there is more? I think I’ll try this exercise.

One weird thing I often did (or try to do, doesn’t always work) as a kid is stare into the blackness of my closed eyes until I sort of got convinced there was a massive boulder looming over me. It would feel quite real and I’d really feel the massiveness and it would make me feel very small and even make me feel adrift. Strange, this thread actually made me remember, didn’t really do that for a long time now.

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#37

Post by _dain_ »

krapp wrote: post #9
CommieBobDole wrote: post #4

So, wait, are people normally actually seeing images, with their eyes, when they imagine what something looks like? Like, the brown-blackness of the back of your eyelids gets replaced with something you actually see, like it's projected there? I can imagine what something looks like, and I guess I sort of 'see' it, but closing my eyes doesn't make it any more real. It doesn't seem to involve the eyes or any part of t…

> are people normally actually seeing images, with their eyes, when they imagine what something looks like? Like, the brown-blackness of the back of your eyelids gets replaced with something you actually see, like it's projected there? No. >I can imagine what something looks like, and I guess I sort of 'see' it, but closing my eyes doesn't make it any more real. It doesn't seem to involve the eyes or any part of the…

>No.

ahem. yes we do. we really, really do.

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#38

Post by malauxyeux »

kylebenzle wrote: post #2

Great post, I wish we had more of these types of pragmatic techniques from zen buddhism/yoga. I've heard of this one as both a way to induce lucid dreaming and as just a yoga meditation but this post does not seem to mention that some people say the best results are often had right before falling asleep.

> pragmatic techniques from zen buddhism/yoga

Not Zen, but there's "kasina" meditation that sounds similar to this. You might stare at a light source or a colored disc, then close your eyes and watch the afterimage. Repeat. That's it really – very mechanical.

That can lead to wakeful closed-eye hallucinations, some of which are described here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-eye_hallucination

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#39

Post by LoganDark »

davidhunter wrote: post #8
CommieBobDole wrote: post #4

So, wait, are people normally actually seeing images, with their eyes, when they imagine what something looks like? Like, the brown-blackness of the back of your eyelids gets replaced with something you actually see, like it's projected there? I can imagine what something looks like, and I guess I sort of 'see' it, but closing my eyes doesn't make it any more real. It doesn't seem to involve the eyes or any part of t…

Yes. I am like you in that I cannot actually see anything visual in my minds eye but I can still 'visualise' it. For example, I can rotate a die in my minds eye without actually seeing it. It's hard to explain. It was a revelation when I found out that most people can actually see things visually in their minds eye. A friend of mine can actually place imagined objects into their field of view, like AR.

> A friend of mine can actually place imagined objects into their field of view, like AR.

I'm so jealous.

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