Found your site http://dfan.org/visual.html after searching for ‘I can’t see anything with my mind’, its been bugging me for the last 3 months (since I discovered that other people, literally everyone I asked, can ‘see’ in their mind).

I wish there was some kind of medicine/drug that would help me.

On a side note, I can’t really ‘hear’ anything either. My mind is blind and deaf… scumbag brain.

We have five senses: sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch. Any memory we make uses one or more of those senses. When people imagine something, they are using their past experiences to make a scene. If my teacher told me to imagine a rain forest, I would “see” raindrops falling from the sky; trees standing in the rain; and raindrops hitting the dirt and making it soggy. I would also hear the quiet “pitter-patter” of rain hitting the ground. I would feel the raindrops hitting my hands and making them wet (assuming I am in the rain forest). I would smell the dense watery air of the forest. If I stick my tongue out, I can get a raindrop to fall on it and I cna taste that watery raindrop a little.

Did you “see” any of those images? Did you hear anything or feel anything? If you did not sense anything, that is okay. As you konw, some people in this article have the same problem.

When I “see” something in my head, all I do is remember what that thing looked like. The same thing goes for the other senses. When I hear something (like the pitter-patter of rainrops) I just use my closest memory of what raindrops sound like.

My advice to you , Amy, is to use your memories from your past when you try to imagine something. Everyone has different memories, and that’s why we all imagine things differently. I bet everyone saw a different rain forest when the teacher asked them about it. That’s because they all have different memories of a rain forest from their past.

So, if someone asks you to imagine biting an apple, think about the memories you have of biting an apple. Ask yourself questions if you need to. What does an apple look like? What color is it? What shape is it? Does it have a stem? Think about the details one-by-one.

ok, those were the sights, now let’s think of the sounds. What does the bite sound like?
Think about the feelings. What does it feel like to hold an apple?
Most importantly, think about the taste. What does it taste like to bite an apple?

If you can answer these questions, you should have imagined an apple. That is how I would think of it, anyway. Let me know if this exercise helped you.

But I love to draw, and people say I’m a good artist. When I draw, I don’t really think about it, or have any vision in my head. I just start, and end up with something totally random.

I thought it was totally normal, and that everyone was like this. But I started to question it a few years back when my teacher told everyone to close their eyes and imagine a rain forest.

I didn’t see no rain forest. lol

I asked the teacher what we were looking at, because all I saw was the inside of my eyelids.

I don’t have any handicap conditions, I’m just a logical person. I can see “flashes” of images, and I can make them move, but the movement is just a sequence of still images I guess (like a cartoon).

I am trying to use the memory techniques described in books from authors like Domonic O’brian; Jerry Lucas; and Scott Hagwood; But I am having trouble because they require visualization. I think it’s all in my head, though, because sometimes my memory works well, and sometimes it doesn’t.
I will be watching this space .
~~Lance

The reasons I almost fell out of my chair are: I attributed my failure at computer programming to my inability to visualize (once I realized that it was not very common); yet I see you are a programmer. And not JUST a programmer, but helped build my favorite games. I tried learning how to play a real guitar after blowing away all of my friends on GH, but that didn’t take. Years later, I’m a huge RB fan, and at 38 have just started taking drum lessons. (And I’m having a BLAST!) This too, deserves thanks.

I am also a “gamer” in the sense that I play some video games but I also regularly play strategy board games (the kind that take 2-6 hours for one game). I usually come in last place, and sometimes I can’t help but blame it my relative inability to visualize, but keep trying anyway.

Which brings us back to the topic; as much as I can list the things I have difficulty doing, I try to identify things that are beneficial from not being able to visualize. One such example is something I just realized today after reading a friend’s (frustrated) post on his meditation practice. He explained that his teacher initially told people to try meditating with their eyes open because mental imagery (of the breath and so on) might be a distraction. I don’t have that problem.

So, it was nice to kinda meet you, and I hope you receive my message of thanks.