Hi Nicolas, People who are good at visualizing don't have to close their eyes to do it. As an example, a lady I knew was once giving me directions about how to find a certain shop on the high street. We were elsewhere and indoors. She listed every shop along the street in such a way that it was clear she was 'walking' there with her mind's eye, seeing everything, - she was there except that her feet were inside a building. Of course, her excellent directions were of no use to me, but it was a fascinating insight into someone else's mind - and an impressive performance! A friend on a course once, was able to reproduce diagrams in an exam from her mind's eye, without understanding them, but she was stumped if the paper required the drawing to be a different way around! I had to understand them to reproduce them, but because I thoroughly understood I could draw them whatever was asked for. I think I know what you mean about the backend and frontend of the mind!
Hi Peter, I used to work doing occupational therapy with dementia patents, and members of my family had vascular dementia also, so I thought I'd reply to you. Dementia does progress, however slowly, so it seems to me likely that your Selina suffered a bit of brain damage while under anaesthetic. If so, that is kind of good news because there is no reason why it would get worse. Has she adapted at all to not being able to visualize?
Hi Tom, I'm in my 60's now, and it was when I was about 17 that a couple of things happened to jolt me into awareness that others visualize, and in a useful way. I was astounded. I can't remember which happened first. I was in the 'ladies' at college with my companion for the course and we were chatting about the test we'd just done. She told me she'd been unable to produce the diagram of a cell that the paper had asked for, and she said the problem for her was that the question required her to draw it the other way around. "How do you mean?" I asked. She explained that she'd have no problem producing it the same way around as in her class notes because she'd draw it from her mind's eye, but she couldn't turn it around in her head to draw it a different way. Of course, I'd drawn it from understanding of the components, so orientation was irrelevant. The other event concerned my classical guitar playing. I had done my first year of lessons, and it was the summer holiday. I'd done very well during the year, been told I was very musical, and had quickly memorized all my little pieces without trying to, which impressed my teacher. I had a two-year tutorial book. I turned some pages and found the section on memorizing music. It said to visualize the the stave and learn to play from visual memory. I was absolutely dumfounded. HOW CAN ANYONE DO THAT? !!! Anyway, I kept trying very hard to visualize an empty stave - 5 parallel lines - but absolutely couldn't. I continued with lessons for years, and continued easily memorizing music.
Hi Jennifer, Well, so far as I am aware, I rarely see anything in dreams, and I can't remember when the last time was - years ago I think. At times, I have dreamt that I was gazing intently at something or someone. The vision is as if through a keyhole or something, mushy and incomplete - maybe a mushy fragment. The interesting thing is that the straining to see it is kind of a substitute for actually seeing, and two people have been alarmed to find me lying asleep with my eyes wide open! I suspect this is a cause of sometimes waking with dry eyes.