Visualising with your eyes open

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Just trying to get my head round the fact that people can visualise with their eyes open ie if they want to voluntarily visualise something like a cat, for example, they can . I guess this is what artists/architects/interior designers etc can do with ease.

That's just the normal way my thought processes work. Everything is in pictures and video. It doesn't require any effort. For years I thought that was how everyone's brain worked but I have a friend who cannot visualise at all.

Just normal thinking. For me anyway.

In fact I used to drive folks crazy because I would "hum one tune while another tune is playing on the radio....GAWWWDDD....how can you DO that????".

I have hard time visualizing. Even when I do visualize it's not precise, it's rather like an outline, a concept of what I try to visualize. For example now through the eyes of imagination I'm trying to see the face of a person I've recently met often and I think I see it (with quite an effort though) but if I tried to focus on any detail I'd have no idea how it looks. So yeah, I see only the "concept".

Edit: And whether my eyes are opened or not doesn't seem to make a difference.

I'm not a visual person & don't visualize at all

There are benefits and drawbacks to being a visual thinker. I once passed out - on a public transportation vehicle, no less - reading a book of all things. There was a part in the book that described someone shoving a needle under another person's skin in fairly high detail.

Now, I'm not a fan of needles. The very thought of having one under my skin discomforts me, let alone actually having a needle in there. So I was bound to faint right then and there.

I can't describe how its happening. It just does. It gets there by itself and requires no effort. I think "a cat" and I see a cat, I think "different" and the picture changes into a slideshow of many different cats changing very fast. It looks as if a half transparent hologram appeared in front of my eyes out of nowhere. I can choose to focus on it, on the scene behind it(reality) or both at the same time. For me it's even easier to visualize things with my eyes open than closed. I do it all the time - I am a visual thinker. I always walk with my eyes open and the scenery passes by me but I see something else: my memories, thoughts, imaginations, far away places, things, people. There seem to me another layer in front of my eyes, one you could probably see if you wore those glasses:

I am a visual thinker too. Years ago I was talking to an architectural draughtsman about a plan and he sat back in his chair and said “You can really see this and walk around it your head can’t you. That’s quite rare.” That was the first time I realised that not everyone thought like me.

When I think of the name Wrong Planet I see lots of messages in bottles floating in the ocean. I wonder how other visual thinkers see the name?

I can visualise with my eyes open quite easily, tends to just happen when I don't really try to think about it. My daydreams can feel quite real, and sometimes when I snap back to reality it can be a tad disorientating.

But, my visualisation is limited in some ways.

Limitations and cons

-Imaging things from a birds eye view is difficult for me.

- Sometimes mental images are unpleasant and involuntary.

E.g. An intense medical procedure which is described to me in detail, one that I don't particularly want to imagine.

Pros

-Useful when reading a story, or possibly writing one.

- I can make detailed digital 3D models of things just from memory.

-For some reason, I seem to have a natural skill with slider puzzles (managing to solve an 8 piece slider in under 5 seconds...I have a timed app full of them) and predicting what comes next in a pattern of shapes.

- Lucid daydreaming can be fun.