@HImom Well everyone has different ways of memorizing things. I like to use both visuals and words but I don’t recall a time when I used feelings to remember something important unless I’m remembering the times I got hurt and how it felt.
I can’t memorize the route to a location unless I’m the one driving. I could ride to a particular place with my husband driving a hundred times, and I wouldn’t know how to get there. But if I drive the same route myself two or three times, I’ll remember how to get there for years.
I have no idea how this works or why. My husband thinks it’s ridiculous.
I have this :neutral: This must be why meditation is so difficult for me. I do dream very vividly when I sleep, but if I just close my eyes, all I see is blackness. I daydream in words, sort of describing a place/time to myself; and it takes a lot of concentration. I didn’t realize this was not normal.
Wow, I had no idea that this was so different for different people. I can see in perfect 3D every room of every house that I ever lived in ( although it might take a minute to connect on the dining room in OK that we only occupied for 10 months… but given a second I can see the rough beams, the chimney repair guy rescuing the mockingbird from the fireplace - holding her gently in his rough hands.).
I can’t remember any words that were said (except extreme few ) but can remember the feel of the memory.
Unfortunately this visual memory hasn’t helped me at all with spelling, but I’ve always been a whiz with directions and maps. In fact, I can still see in my mind my 8year old self sprawled across the back seat with a street map of the property my parents were looking to buy.
There’s a reason I’m an architect and part-time artist I do tend to see things visually, but I’m more a snapshot type rather than a run the videotape type. I sometimes amuse myself by drawing floorplans of all the houses we lived in (a lot as we moved every two or three years). But sometimes I’m more like Proust and it’s smells that evoke memories. There’s a certain sort of smell of wood attics that smells like our cabin in Vermont, and another slightly sewerish smell that brings back happy memories of living in Somalia where we recycled the gray water in the garden.
I’m wondering about the comments of “I can close my eyes and see…” If I’m remembering a visual of something, the memory is in my mind. I don’t need to close my eyes to “see” it. I’m seeing it in my mind. Not sure if people are just being metaphorical or not with that.
Agree. It’s not seeing as much as recalling, with the images.
Very rare is hyperthymesia. I first heard of it re Marilu Henner. It’s the ability to remember everything, even by date.
I don’t need to close my eyes. I think of it as a movie.
When I was healing from my childhood I deliberately began at my earliest memory and experienced ( or reexperienced in some ways) going forward. It took months. When I was done I was done. It was extremely cathartic for me. And, no, I have never thought this was common. It is a mixed thing- I can be on the beach or I can be in a hurtful past event. Mostly I try to just stay here?
I thought I’d learned in psychology classes that all people dream, just not all people remember them. Is the current thought on that changed?
I remember some of my dreams but only the ones that made a huge impact on me. Some other dreams I can remember when I wake up but I end up forgetting them the next day. Other dreams I would usually forget by the time I wake up but I knew that I had dreams about something when I slept that night.
One of my favorite things to do is visualize my childhood home. I can remember and "see’ tiny details. I feel like it is a trip home. I don’t do it often though because it can make me melancholy.
I can remember and think about every detail of my childhood home and anyplace I’ve spent time in for at least some time - different homes throughout my life, vacation rentals, etc. Enough detail that I could easily draw it or create a map or floorplan with accuracy. I can think out a mental map but it doesn’t come to me as images, just thoughts.
I do see things in my mind’s eye, but probably not with the detail described here by others. Heck, in real time I don’t notice detail as much as many people do. I would be a terrible eye witness to a crime.
Thanks for posting this! I have the same thing and have long been aware of it, never knew there was a name for it.
I find it frustrating when so many times it is assumed everyone can visualize. For example relaxation exercises where you are to “see yourself on a quiet beach”, or memory tips for learning foreign language words where you are supposed to “visualize as strongly as you can” some silly image to remember the sounds of the word.
What I find interesting is that I know I can conjure up images since sometimes I will wake and realize I was just dreaming and I was seeing in the dream. So I can have a sense of vision for things that aren’t coming from my eyes, I just can’t do it under conscious control.
What makes it weird to me is that I can describe some things that normally you’d think you need to imagine visually to see, but I don’t know how I do it. For example if asked to count how many windows are in my house I mentally walk around the house and count them. But I can do it eyes open or closed, and I have no sense of visualizing anything. I wonder is this is akin to blindsight in which people with functioning eyes but who are functionally blind due to a stroke or something can walk down a hallway and avoid objects even though they have no awareness of vision.
With the name for the condition I found an interesting article on Scientific American about it at https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-the-minds-eye-is-blind1/
So, you don’t get a visual when, say, you think about a grandparent or family holiday?
@lookingforward For me, know. Just thoughts and feelings and memories but not pictorial or visual. And until reading this thread, I thought I was “normal”. 
I had no idea I am supposedly in a small minority.
For the most part, when I think about things, I think in words. When I remember things, I sometimes remember visually - but that seems to be more the case for memories involving family members or memories of happy times with family/friends. But I can’t remember eye color or hair color, stuff like that … my visuals are not that visual, I guess. Even my visuals are mixed with more “feelings” than “seeing.”
Wow this is fascinating. I didn’t know it was a thing. I always try to explain why I don’t like to drive, and this is it. I just can’t visualize where I’m supposed to go.
@zoosermom I understand how you feel. I always visualize where I’m supposed to go before driving but I can’t visualize where I’m going if I’m in the middle of driving and a family member tells me to drive to a new location that I didn’t plan for. Unless I know the area well, I get really confused and could possibly lose my sense of direction. It’s already hard for me when I can’t visualize where I’m going. It must be extremely annoying to not even be able to visualize where to go at all.
I don’t see images, though I have memories - just not in much detail usually. My memories are spotty too. Does the house come before the turn or after? When I get there I’ll remember. If I’m giving directions, unless it’s a very regular route it’ll be 50/50 whether I was right or close.
I guess this is part of why I’m severely artistically challenged. I can’t visualize things without seeing them. It explains a lot. I had no idea folks could see images in their mind. Like others on here, I assumed that was a figurative thing. I can think of a place I’ve been - say - Kauai - and recall there are gorgeous beaches and mountains (facts), but I don’t literally see them by thinking about it.
I also don’t recognize faces and would be a terrible witness to any crime unless I heard a voice or saw a gait, etc. Those I can remember, but put similar folks in a lineup and I’d have no idea - esp if one changed their hair, etc.