Minds eye...able to visualise

Applegran Glad its not just me. I have put it down to stress.Although am waiting for an orthopaedic op and don't know how long I will have to wait so my doc has increased my meds to cope with pain so that might be another reason.Don't like the feeling.

Sorry! don't like the feeling

I’m the same as hildajenni. I can’t see anything when I try to visualise them. I kno what things look like and can describe them but can’t see an image. All of th rest of my family can see images but I can’t. I wonder if that’s why I can’t do relaxation with visualisation? Seems like it’s more common than the article says

I asked DH and apparently he can - although years ago he was puzzled by the concept.

I'm fascinated by Lemongrove's comment about visualising a map and never getting lost. People have always been amused at my hopeless sense of direction and as I've got older it causes me some distress. I have never thought about it being an actual 'condition' but I believe it might be now. I don't think I can visualise a route easily.
I have always drawn, or even scribbled, pictures as an aide memoire but thought this was because I like drawing. How interesting.

What an interesting and informative discussion.

Are we talking about different things I imagine how things look I can imagine scenarios when I read a book which I thought was my ‘minds eye’ but if I shut my eyes I only see blackness not real pictures
If you said to me imagine a house and garden my mind will think about a house, the colour, the curtains, the grass and flowers the path, but I don’t see a photographic picture of them only a detailed thought which I could describe it all to you so isn’t that my minds eye then ?
I do have a dreadful sense of direction and even somewhere I ve been before looks totally unfamiliar each time unless I ve been there a lot
I have no sense of loss as I ve never had anything different and always thought I was completely normal and perhaps I am I don’t consider I ve got a problem as I still can imagine everything and as a number of people on here have described it the same as me it can’t be very rare can it?

I visualise better with my eyes open rather than shut.

DS always had an amazing sense of direction even as a very small child.

When reading a book I can picture each character and setting, but if the book has been filmed it's usually not how I imagined it. An exception was the Swedish(?) version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo- just as I'd imagined it when I read it. The American version with lovely Daniel Craig was so wrong.

I can visualise faces in great and clear detail. Unfortunately when a person dies I gradually lose the ability,until the only way I can remember their features is by looking at a photogragh. It's rather sad.

Grandma2133, I experience the same sort of thing. I can close my eyes and these random faces flit pass of people I don’t know. As it usually happens when I am lying on the bed but not asleep I put it down to tiredness

Unfortunately my DH is unable to visualise
When changing decor I can visualise quite well, colours, room plan etc.
As with clothes DH does not instinctively know when certain colours just don't go together.
If someone describes a scene or situation I again can visualise it.
My husband can't.
There is a downside for me as I often
visualise unpleasant or bad things.
Resulting in anxiety.

Jordana Does your husband remember dreams?
I have vivid dreams virtually every night and can recall next morning.
However my DH is unable to remember any of his dreams and although he accepts that he probably does dream he is completely unaware that he dreams during the night.
As a child I was also what my parents called a Day Dreamer.
I wonder if there is a possible connection?

DH has great sense of direction whereas I have zilch

But when you are all saying you have vivid visualisation do you actually see photographic picture behinds closed eyes because I ve now talked to friends since reading this and none see actual pictures just memories and imagination
So if this is a rare condition it seems an awful lot of people have it and are without this photographic feature

I'm not quite sure what your friends mean by memories and imagination - is that thoughts ie words and imagined scenarios?

I see photographic pictures, some I have actually seen, some I have seen pictures of and some are imagined. eg I have never actually seen sheep jumping a gate except in my mind's eye and sometimes one will stumble and I can feel an 'ouch' if it knocks its leg.

NJalims same for me I can imagine a garden with red flowers and tall trees but I don’t see a photograph of them
I can imagine sheep jumping and yes I can imagine one stumbling but I don’t see a photographic picture of them
So I m really confused as to what these people with this newly named condition are actually seeing or not seeing or whether I and the poster husband have it or don’t have it
a number of posters including myself have said when we close our eyes we see darkness ...so when you close your eyes you dont ?

Yes, I think I said upthread that I can see these things when my eyes are open not shut.

Is imagination another word for your mind's eye?

When you say visualizing Jordana, do you mean remembering an image?
When my eyes are open I see my surroundings, when closed just blackness. If for example you said visualize a ball I would remember a myriad of different balls I had seen.
Dictionary doesn't help -- says to form a mental image. Really curious about this, do you actually see a picture in your mind of whatever you are thinking about?
Like pictures in a dream for example.

When reading I have an image of what a person/house etc looks like, this often spoils films etc for me if their "visulisation" doesn't match mine.

I can walk into any house & immediately "see" how that room would look with my furnishings & decor. I have no problem when choosing colours for a room, I spend a long time finding what I want but it's worth it to get the right result. It's the same with clothes, I know what I want & what colours will fit into my wardrobe

Im interested like you muddynsils ( amazing name by the way)
I m exactly like you, eyes open see my surroundings, eyes closed, blackness if asked to visualise something I use my imagination ( is this the famous minds eye) but I don’t get a photography picture pop into my head, so do I and you muddynails and others that have said blackness all suffer with this condition or do those that see photographs have a heightened sense of visualisation

Yes all these descriptions of what we "see" seem to be different. In my minds eye I would say is imagination. To imagine something as someone is talking of being somewhere. For example maybe they said they were walking through a park and there was a fountain and a little dog. I can" picture" it and"see" a daschund and a 3 tier fountain. Discussing this with my daughter she imagined a single tall fountain and an alsatian dog! My husband knows we were in a hotel last week but can't describe it. Tonight it came about he can't visualise his dead parents. He was out for lunch with a friend last week but can't describe the place or the person. It has never been a problem for him as he has never known anything else and in fact thinks I am strange to imagine things and places I have never seen. Unusual and as I said before we only realised we were different in this way in a general conversation. No he can't give anyone directions as he can't visualise the roads to describe how to get there.

But what I m trying to discover is do you actually SEE a photograph or do you imagine what you know I can imagine your fountain and dog and describe them as my mind is ‘imagining’ them but I can’t actually see a photograph of them
So which are we talking about seeing a photograph or imagining a scene, they are two different things

Like Jalima, I visualize better with eyes open. Hard to describe exactly, it’s not completely like a photograph. The one thing I find difficult to see in mind’s eye is a person’s faces.

Interesting and topical subject for me. About 40 years ago I visited an art gallery I was drawn to one particular painting. I never visited that city again, nor did I ever know who the artist was. Quite recently, I visited that city again and when I got to the gallery, I asked a member of staff if they could direct me to the painting. I was asked to describe it and when I closed my eyes, I could "see" it perfectly clearly; so clearly, that the member of staff recognised it immediately from my description and took me straight to it. It was exactly as I pictured it in my mind's eye.
In a similar vein, before decorating a room, I can visualise it, in my mind's eye, exactly how it will look when finished. My OH cannot and cannot understand how I can!

But you put ‘see’ in inverted commas so it’s your remberence and ability to recall it in your imagination more than actually seeing it
I can do that but I can’t photogrsphically see it

But I can "see" the picture now BlueBelle. It's as clear to me, and as vivid, as if I was standing in front of it now. I can the figures, the light and shadows; even the frame. I can see it just as clearly now as I have been able to see it for 40 years, without actually physically seeing it until recently. I was surprised at just how clear my memory had been! If it is just my memory retaining the information in such fine detail, I'm quite chuffed!