Wendy Mitchell

I am an artist/designer/writer who has only just in the last hour learned that some people actually SEE an apple when they're told to 'visualize' one. Honestly, I'm still unclear if I'm understanding all this correctly. You close your eyes and actually SEE an apple? Not just a bunch of blackness while you're just sort of 'knowing' what an apple looks like? In terms of drawing, I have always been able to realistically draw things that I am actually looking at... Sit me down in front of a crocodile, and I can draw a picture of that crocodile. Given enough time and patience (which I had way more of when I was in art school than I do now), I can eventually make it look pretty darn real. For awhile, back in school, I thought I might want to be a scientific illustrator. But if you ask me to draw a crocodile right now- without a photo of one and without a real one to look at- I'm completely hopeless. I mean, I know it has eyes and a tail and is kind of bumpy and greenish-brown and big teeth... But I can't actually SEE any of that stuff. I feel like people are often surprised by how bad I am at the game 'Pictionary.' I always assumed drawing from memory was just a completely different skill from drawing from reality: a skill that I definitely do not have. One time I had a drawing teacher ask us to 'draw one of your dreams.' I thought it was an incredibly stupid assignment. Little did I know that people can actually recall IMAGES from their dreams?! Real actual images they can 'look at' and draw? A few years ago, I learned that I have, like, zero visual memory. I knew this anecdotally, because I have zero sense of direction. I once got lost in a local bookstore. But at some point I started using the 'brain training' app called 'Lumosity', and I would score above average on most games... except anything having to do with visual memory. On those, I would be in something like the 5th percentile. At most I might make 20th percentile, but that was when I was somehow able to make up a verbally-based or mnemonic device like 'cross with a dot' or '3 squares space 2'. So you're telling me people close their eyes and see the actual squares in these memory games? Like, actually SEE them? My [completely verbal] mind in completely blown right now. I need time to digest.