They’ll look in all the familiar rooms
Saturday, January 14th, 2006 03:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
erikaI realized tonight that I may very well have a rare neurological condition that has as of yet been unidentified.*
I cannot visualize anything.
(Visualization: The ability to form mental images in your "mind’s eye," retain or store them for future recall, or for synthesis into new mental images beyond your current or past direct experiences.)
Stealing from a page I found which Dan said:
Imagine a red square. Can you see it? I can't. I know intellectually what a red square is made of, but I can't see it unless one is in front of me.
Obviously, I may be totally excited/freaked over nothing. Maybe nobody can really visualize (although![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spr0cket claims she can, heh).
So OF COURSE my next step is to write a poll and find out how common this possible "syndrome" is among my lj friends.
(Please take this test to determine right-brain/left brain dominance first, unless you already know which side of your brain is dominant.)
[Poll #652144]
by the way: how this came to me was that I started readingtheferrett's livejournal as a link from the_xtina, and quite a few entries back he wrote about something whereupon someone else (ravenclawdrew) commented that Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek) was in Independence Day as the big haired scientist.
So I IM'dspr0cket and mused that I wonder if I have a borderline face recognition problem because of my inability to visualize.
Then she basically went 'wait, WHAT?' And I said "yeah, I didn't get that Mike Myers played Fat Bastard AND Austin Powers AND Dr Evil either." (Haha, laugh if you must.)
Then I googled "inability to visualize" and basically realized that there is NOTHING out there for that. There is nothing on Wikipedia, there is very little on Google. Andsprocket suggested I do a poll to see if other people have the same issues.
(Another page I've found on this for further reading:
Somebody asks Google Answers about it. Salon Health & Body describes someone who writes in with the same problem as an isolated developmental disorder. A blog post about it. )
Oh, and I found a page on some kooky visualization self-help guru who said:
An interesting point about those who "can't visualize," however. Many people have told me of this "limit" over the years and so I frequently ask them if they can remember the color of their first car. They ALWAYS remember. How is that possible unless they visualized the color? I have a hard time believing that they heard, felt, smelled or tasted the color. Didn't they have to see it to know what it was? Perhaps they need practice visualizing so they can develop this skill more fully."
Let me explain to you how I "see" things. Let's say you think about a fabric—plush, for example. You can think about it without actually feeling it in your hands like it was there, right? And you know what it would feel like if you were to have it in your hands.
You also know that plush feels differently than silk, I'm sure.
That's sort of what seeing colors or images is like for me. I can describe them, but I don't actually see them—I just know what they would look like IF I saw them. Just like you'd know what plush felt like if you felt it, and you can even describe it, even though when you describe it you're not actually feeling the sensation of the fabric plush at the time.
Now do you think that it's impossible to recall something, even something visual, without actually experiencing it?
Gah, that guy is an idiot.
Feedback is totally welcomed.
*(I'm completely serious. Although I'm not sure if it's rare, the fact that there's almost nothing (and I mean a mere 3 appropriate results) when I googled it is a huge clue. Although it could just mean that everyone has problems with this and I'm totally overreacting.)
Edited to add: On an 'OH THAT'S WHY' note, I have just realized that this is why I hate puzzles.
I cannot visualize anything.
(Visualization: The ability to form mental images in your "mind’s eye," retain or store them for future recall, or for synthesis into new mental images beyond your current or past direct experiences.)
Stealing from a page I found which Dan said:
Imagine a red square. Can you see it? I can't. I know intellectually what a red square is made of, but I can't see it unless one is in front of me.
Obviously, I may be totally excited/freaked over nothing. Maybe nobody can really visualize (although
spr0cket claims she can, heh).So OF COURSE my next step is to write a poll and find out how common this possible "syndrome" is among my lj friends.
(Please take this test to determine right-brain/left brain dominance first, unless you already know which side of your brain is dominant.)
[Poll #652144]
by the way: how this came to me was that I started reading
theferrett's livejournal as a link from the_xtina, and quite a few entries back he wrote about something whereupon someone else (ravenclawdrew) commented that Brent Spiner (Data from Star Trek) was in Independence Day as the big haired scientist.So I IM'd
spr0cket and mused that I wonder if I have a borderline face recognition problem because of my inability to visualize.Then she basically went 'wait, WHAT?' And I said "yeah, I didn't get that Mike Myers played Fat Bastard AND Austin Powers AND Dr Evil either." (Haha, laugh if you must.)
Then I googled "inability to visualize" and basically realized that there is NOTHING out there for that. There is nothing on Wikipedia, there is very little on Google. And
sprocket suggested I do a poll to see if other people have the same issues.(Another page I've found on this for further reading:
Somebody asks Google Answers about it. Salon Health & Body describes someone who writes in with the same problem as an isolated developmental disorder. A blog post about it. )
Oh, and I found a page on some kooky visualization self-help guru who said:
An interesting point about those who "can't visualize," however. Many people have told me of this "limit" over the years and so I frequently ask them if they can remember the color of their first car. They ALWAYS remember. How is that possible unless they visualized the color? I have a hard time believing that they heard, felt, smelled or tasted the color. Didn't they have to see it to know what it was? Perhaps they need practice visualizing so they can develop this skill more fully."
Let me explain to you how I "see" things. Let's say you think about a fabric—plush, for example. You can think about it without actually feeling it in your hands like it was there, right? And you know what it would feel like if you were to have it in your hands.
You also know that plush feels differently than silk, I'm sure.
That's sort of what seeing colors or images is like for me. I can describe them, but I don't actually see them—I just know what they would look like IF I saw them. Just like you'd know what plush felt like if you felt it, and you can even describe it, even though when you describe it you're not actually feeling the sensation of the fabric plush at the time.
Now do you think that it's impossible to recall something, even something visual, without actually experiencing it?
Gah, that guy is an idiot.
Feedback is totally welcomed.
*(I'm completely serious. Although I'm not sure if it's rare, the fact that there's almost nothing (and I mean a mere 3 appropriate results) when I googled it is a huge clue. Although it could just mean that everyone has problems with this and I'm totally overreacting.)
Edited to add: On an 'OH THAT'S WHY' note, I have just realized that this is why I hate puzzles.
