It's frustrating when people suggest I can visualize and just don't know it. The way one thinks is the most first-personally obvious thing in the world, and I've been sore about the way I do it since I was in elementary school wanting to imagine strawberries to count with.

Despite the literature I never accuse visualizers of the reverse (ie that you only think you have mental images), but when I do challenge incredulous friends about their phenomenology some discover it's actually much less pictoral than they'd believed: eg, "imagine a tiger, how many stripes?" or "imagine an ant crawling across a checkered picnic table toward a jar of grape jelly, what color square is it on now? what about now?" or "imagine a 3x3 word matrix whose rows read 'too', 'aid', 'ole' -- read the column words straight off without sounding out or going letter by letter". Granted, others can do these with an ease that amazes me.

"Can you draw a stick human figure? Did it pop into your head when I mentioned stick human figure? There you go, you just visualized it."

Yes I can draw a stick figure. I'm not an idiot, and nothing pops into my head other than the sound of the word and some xkcd affect.

Meanwhile, it astounds me that a single picture can pop into your head: how do you know what position to put the stick figure in -- akimbo, Thinker? Imagine a flower -- ok, which, a rose or a marigold? Do you decide or does it just happen? How many different flowers can you visualize, and how quickly? Do they appear embedded in soil or just floating free? How many different varieties can you see at once? What prevents you from seeing more?

Re: dyslexia -- I drew this link too, as I have very mild dyslexia. My father is profoundly dyslexic but claims vivid imagery.

> "imagine a tiger, how many stripes?"

Well, for me imagining a tiger is basically recalling what it's like to look at a tiger (or picture of a tiger). I can have a photo of a tiger right in front of me, and know it's a tiger, yet not know how many stripes it has without counting. I might also not notice how the back paws look if I'm focusing on the front paws. Same thing when it's in my head (except less consistent, since it's just a memory).

> how do you know what position to put the stick figure in -- akimbo, Thinker?

This is no different from other senses. If I tell you to imagine the smell of soup, do you smell minestrone or pho? (Have you cooked those dishes? When you smell soup, can you tell what spices are in it?) If I tell you to imagine the sound of a violin, is it a six year old scratching away or Yehudi Menuhin playing a Beethoven concerto? (Depending on your musical training/listening habits, you may be able to imagine a concerto all the way through, or maybe just fragments of it?)

The interesting thing is, at one point I thought, like you, that I couldn't think visually. I tried practicing it, and either that worked or I adjusted my definition of visual thinking (or a bit of both), because I definitely consider myself at least partly a visual thinker now, and it's difficult to imagine it any other way. I've noticed that my visualization ability is sensitive to how much sleep I get though.

If you can think of chocolate, but not how it tastes, how it feels in your mouth, what a square looks like, what sound it makes when you bite into it ... maybe you just need to pay more attention the next time you eat chocolate :) And my ability to imagine other things - like music or food - depends strongly on how much time I spend on such things.

I appreciate the vividness of your minestrone, pho and chocolate examples, but I can't seem to do what you describe. I can't imagine smells or tastes -- both are as foreign as the visual modality (though much less missed). When I read the example I hear the words "imagine the smell of soup" I simply hear (in my head) my voice say the word 'soup', then, when asked to elaborate 'minestrone - pho' -- more words. I can sit with my eyes closed for the rest of the afternoon but the thoughts go no deeper, or I can silently direct my attention at the memory of the last auditory image, or repeat 'pho' in my head, or say something like 'curly noodles, light broth, deep green basil' and list off favorite attributes of pho, but it's low bandwidth audio and not cumulative in the way my dreamed pictorial representations are.

With respect to music, I can occasionally imagine a few concertos most of the way through in rich detail, but more often just in detailed fragments. I don't seem to have much control over how it sounds, what it is (usually Beethoven or BWV 1004), or when I can do it. I listen to a hundred contemporary songs for every one classical and I can't so much as summon the tunes or lyrics of any of them. Truth be told I don't listen to much music as I find it impossible to think while doing so, as if it's all on the same metaphorical channel.

edit: on the tiger, I'm not expecting the person to solve the speckled hen problem. People with stable mental images can count the stripes off the picture, none should simply "know" how many are there. Some believe (until confronted with such a challenge) they think in fuller, richer pictures than they actually do.

It sounds :-) like you may have more sensory representation than me - as you have some auditory representations.

I remember emotions but I don't remember my bodily sensations.

With regard visual images (in response to words) it is like part of my brain sees it but I have no conscious access.

However, I have had one intense conscious dream where in that dream at least I had full sensory representation in every dimension. It was wonderful! I remember playing with my dreamscape and transforming things visually before I woke up...and so I - at least - have some idea of what being able to visualise means to others

Are you saying you can't hallucinataste chocolate? The soft melting of a piece of milka, the soft stickiness of your tongue against your teeth, the feeling in your throat, and of course, the sweet cacao taste on your tongue? I don't know why, but if I think really hard about it, I can actually vividly imagine the experience of eating chocolate, but I can't have any other flavour in my mouth at that time. I can mix it with other imaginary flavours though, which is why i roughly know how a sauerkraut hot dog tastes despite not having eaten one ever. (Sauerkraut ufm wurstbrötl? Sapperlot no ma!)

One really curious thing that happens to me though is that when I smoke and smoke gets into my nose, the burn in my nose might trigger one of my taste memories, leading to me tasting some random thing in my mouth, from Apple Juice to seared steak. I do get some weird stares though when I suddenly say that taste out loud.

>>>Despite the literature I never accuse visualizers of the reverse (ie that you only think you have mental images), but when I do challenge incredulous friends about their phenomenology some discover it's actually much less pictoral than they'd believed: eg, "imagine a tiger, how many stripes?" or "imagine an ant crawling across a checkered picnic table toward a jar of grape jelly, what color square is it on now? what about now?" or "imagine a 3x3 word matrix whose rows read 'too', 'aid', 'ole' -- read the column words straight off without sounding out or going letter by letter". Granted, others can do these with an ease that amazes me.<<<

I'm not a freaking computer.

"imagine a 3x3 word matrix whose rows read 'too', 'aid', 'ole' -- read the column words straight off without sounding out or going letter by letter"

You might as well tell me to add 182748+37638373 in my head. The reason I cannot do this is that it requires short term memory and I don't have much of it. I can only remember four, five, maybe even six number in a row at a time in short term memory. You giving me a bunch of instructions to visualize exceeds my short term memory so I cannot do it. In other words, I'm not a computer, neither are you.

>>>Meanwhile, it astounds me that a single picture can pop into your head: how do you know what position to put the stick figure in.

Well if nothing pops into your head then I guess you really cannot visualize. The stick figure is usually standing up straight.