Minds eye...able to visualise

I do not actually 'see' anything when I shut my eyes. Just the shapeless pattern caused by the circulation of blood and the play of light on my eyes.

My 'minds eye', is much further back in my head and is more a memory of exactly what something looks like in great detail, rather than anything I actually see.

Nfkdumpling, DD has something like the problem your neighbour has. It is called prosopagnosia. the person afflicted cannot remember faces, or only after very long exposure to them.

DD has done enough online tests to know that she has a problem, although not extreme enough for an official diagnosis but is due to change jobs in a fortnight for the first time in 12 years and is both looking forward to her new career and dreading the first couple of months as she struggles to learn to recognise her new workmates. She is praying that initially there will only be about 5 or 6 and others will come into her life one at a time, that way she can often guess who she is talking to.

I have suggested she just tells people her problem when she starts, so that they will understand it if month later she doesn't recognise them if she sees them in the car park. After the first six months she should be OK.

Just normal to me, never known anything different. When I shut my eyes I can't picture my husband, children, grandchildren. They think it's strange. Sometimes they'll ask me what they're wearing when they've been with me all morning and just gone into a different room, I have no idea! I know all my children have dark brown eyes but as for my daughters/sons-in-law, no idea. My husband looked up the condition a couple of years ago and told me it was called aphantasia - I never knew it was a condition, I thought I was just extremely unobservant.

OH has this. He says when he was at school and the teacher told them to 'close their eyes and imagine' he had no idea what the other children were doing. He can, if he really tries, summon up a fuzzy picture of my eyes or DCs eyes. I think that this is why he has an amazing memory because he's never had a visual memory to help him remember things.

I can and do visualise everything. I can remember individual lessons I was in from fifty years ago or recall where on the pages in a book a particular quotation can be found. I certainly visualise scenes in a book when I am reading and find this a great contributor to the pleasures of reading. My DH seems to be the same but he is better with spatial memory and often sits ‘reading’ maps while I am reading a book.

Sometimes this vivid recall can be a problem, as, for example, nightmares can be overwhelmingly realistic.

I am another one who has great trouble recognising faces (unbelievably embarrassing at times!). I would be absolutely hopeless at describing someone to the police or picking someone out of an identity parade. However, I think I can see things in my mind's eye as well as the average person, going by the posts on here. What I 'see' are not clear, detailed images, but a sort of semi-visual memory, and the most vivid of these are often triggered by sounds or smells.

Ljp1 Have you read this month's book from the GN Book Club? The Colour of Bee Larkham's Murder.
You could find it very interesting as it is about a boy who has prosopagnosia

(I’m very good at picturing things and recognising people - although I sometimes go a blank on their names)

We’ve lived in our present home nearly 15 years and there’s a lady a few houses down the road who I always used to say hello to if I saw her. In fact I’ve had conversations with her when she’s been with other neighbours. She’s even shown me around her garden. Every time I have to say who I am and where I live. But now I’ve given up and just walk past. She always looks at me as if it’s the first time she’s seen me. No recollection of me at all. Some of the other neighbours have the same problem so I don’t think we’ve done anything to upset her.

I cannot 'picture' anything - no 'mind's eye'. It can make life very difficult as I can't remember faces. I cannot remember maps either and need reference pictures / sign posts to find my way anywhere. I had to learn to read by phonics - thank goodness look and learn had not been invented then also that I'm not Chinese / Japanese with characters rather than letters for words - I should be a very ignorant peasant.

My DH is used to it now but other people find it difficult to imagine. I can walk past any of my family without recognising them if I am not looking for them.

That was 65 years ago.

I've always been able to picture, in full colour, past events (small or large) and places. I even get the taste of food if it played a part in the memory.
When I was 8 the family stayed in a b&b in Blackpool for the Illuminations one November. The owner's name was Mrs Mockson and my brother and I slept in a double bed with a bolster between us to stop us rolling into the middle. I can see the room now, as I write and still get the taste of the thick porridge we had at breakfast. Even thinking of a number, conjours up the colour I associate with each.

Ahh so we are there at last, we are all doing the same (some with a brighter imagination than others) BUT not a real photographs as it sounded by first posts

I see blackness but I can imagine in my minds eye whatever it is I m imagining but there is NO photograph, it’s ‘seeing’ in another way

So none of us have this condition just that some have a more vivid imagination than others and it’s really about our ability to explain what our brain is doing

Maybe your husband is just not very observant or open to imagining things ( sounds like most men?)

Good point bluebelLe. When my eyes are closed I see blackness but still "in my minds eye" I can visualise places I have been during the day and people I haven spoken with. I can still"see" their expressions and what they were wearing. Hard to explain I know, but am sure others will find the same and just not easy to put into words. So blackness yes when eyes closed but still something there in background

So when you close see your eyes do you see black and recall the picture in detail or does the black actually become the picture and is no longer black That’s the bit I m trying to nail

I am thinking that"seeing" in this context is the same as imagining or visualising. Possibly if day dreaming as others have said is imagining. Another poster asked if my husband dreams. He does and funnily enough can describe the dream! I hadn't realised that until the poster asked the question. Since I was curious about this discussion I asked 2 work mates who both saw in their minds eye. One of them remarked that there is a photograph on the Web which she brought up on the computer. A woman wearing a striped dress and asked what colours we saw. We both saw cream and gold and yet the other work mate saw 2 shades of blue! Funny how the mind works. Am not even going there to ask husband about that one!

I was interested in the discussions about visualising faces. When I have migraines I can't recognise faces even though I know perfectly well who they are, for example when watching TV I can only tell who familiar characters are by hearing their voices. I return to normal when the migraine is over. Has anyone else had this problem? The brain is a strange and complex thing!

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!

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.