Can you see images of stuff in your head?

I just instinctively know where north is – I remain orientated most the time – when occasionally I lose it then I have to find it again or I get twitchy.  Presumably i am taking clues from things but its not conscious – its just ” north is that way”

I can visualise stuff in my head, it’s how I do most practical parts of my life considering my job is analytical. Good on manual DIY around home and fixing cars and bikes.

But when an IT implementation Team come in I call bollix.  Full of shoot or on drugs.

But when an IT implementation Team come in I call bollix. Full of shoot or on drugs.

One has to be on drugs in order to put up with project managers without strangling them!!

I actually had to think for about 10 seconds to figure which way north is, sat in my house, lol!

Which is strange as I have really good situational awareness with closer things, like I can immediatley visualise how to get from my house to another town or city, like i’ve got a built in GPS, my brain just doesn’t know which way north is automatically.

I can spell pretty well too,

It’s not exactly a hard word to spell though is it?

my brain just doesn’t know which way north is automatically.

I am the same.  I generally know where I am but wouldnt be able to say which way is north. I can find it if I need to but it would still be northish.

Only time I would really pay attention to that would have been doing precise navigation (something sadly I have mostly forgotten now) and that would be with map and compass to find north vs northish give or take a bit.

In a similar vein to quick reading, I can process a lot of information at once. I can be active in one conversation, listening along to another, sometimes even following a third, and then be picking up on other sources of information going on e.g., a TV in the background, where the waiter is, what is that person doing over there?

I’m on the fuzzy edge of the autism spectrum so it’s probably linked to that.

It can go wrong if there’s something annoying me as that takes all my focus. I’ve had gigs spoiled because of someone singing behind me that I can’t unhear

My partner can’t comprehend how I do it, she can only focus on one thing at a time

I’ve been able to do a full 3D visualisation of stuff in my head every since I was 11 or so, exactly like basic 3D computer modelling.  I instinctively know where things line up on opposite sides and can visualize stuff from technical drawings easily.  I can also ‘see’ how mechanical stuff works in motion, hard to explain but it’s like I build the machine in my head then run an animation.  My spacial awareness is very good too, have done tests for it and came out in the top tier.

I also have an internal monologue going all the time, it’s like an internal friend!  But then I do have a history of bipolar in the family so could just be that.

Can’t play any instruments, crap at maths and socially inept.

Undecided on whether that’s a good mix to have or not!

Interesting I enjoyed that BBC podcast. I do sort of see things in my minds eye, but would say I have to concentrate a bit to really ‘see’ details. I probably wouldn’t have described it as all visual and it definitely not like closing my eyes and seeing something as it’s on the telly.

I guess it must be visual though as when I read a book I do have a sense of what the characters and landscapes look like to me, and it can be ruined when a film or series of the book is made! I did daydream a lot as a kid too.

I wonder if some people hate reading because they can’t visualise the world within the book. I do read too quickly imo, because often after reading a book I can give a general overview but don’t remember specifics ( means I can go back and enjoy it again though).

I can do navigation in the countryside, I get turned around in cities. I can mostly align any cardinal point on the compass, although I’m not 100% reliable, often I think I’m going the wrong/right way, but sometimes its best to check.  Moderately fast reader.

On the apple test it told me that I’m a hyper visualiser, although obvs its a test on t’internet, so mleh.

burntembersFull Member

I wonder if some people hate reading because they can’t visualise the world within the book.

Yes that’s definitely true for me.

I once read somewhere that your ability to instinctively tell which way is North is influenced by whether your bed is aligned North-South or not.  Could be bobbins, I dunno, it was years ago.

2D/3D spatial awareness, check. I used to do logic puzzles where you’d get a net – a flattened out plan of say a die – and had to work out which 3D version it represented.  Easy, I can fold it back up in my head.  I can solve maze puzzles by sight unless they’re particularly intricate.  Remember the puzzles with cogs and pulleys, you’d to work out which way you had to turn a crank to make an output move in a given direction?  I can do those in seconds, again on sight.  Apple visualisation test, check.

Inner monologue, check.  Earworm susceptibility, check.  Both interfere with my sleep.

Memory is an odd one.  I’ll do that as a separate post.

I have no memory for directions unless it’s somewhere I know well.  Pre-GPS I’d ask someone for directions to their house, they’d reply in surprise “but you’ve been here before!”  And?  I was terrible in games like World of Warcraft, I’d get lost on the way back to an instance, half the time one on my party members had to come out to walk me back in.

I’m slightly face blind and not great with names.  One time someone recognised me, said my name, I had no clue who he was so was blagging as best I could.  There was a pregnant pause, I asked “so… er, what are you doing these days?”  He replied “I work at [company] with you, you bloody idiot!”  Then I had to feign realisation, “oh, of course!”  To this day I have no idea who he was.  Or, another time, someone on STW accused me of having a vendetta against them; I’d never seen their username before in my life.  It made moderation difficult, I had to take notes to keep track of problem children (and no, you can’t have a copy).

On the other hand, I have a remarkable memory for numbers.  I was at a funeral last year, at the wake I went round the table and recited everyone’s childhood phone numbers.  I used to joke that if a girl told me her phone number in a nightclub I’d never be able to use it because the following morning I’d have remembered her number but not her name.  (In fact this is only half-true because I can count the number of times that actually happened on the fingers of one foot.)

I’m pretty handy at mental arithmetic.  Someone earlier said they spell by visualising words, I think I sometimes do that, and with numbers also.

Remember the puzzles with cogs and pulleys, you’d to work out which way you had to turn a crank to make an output move in a given direction?  I can do those in seconds, again on sight.

I had to do one of those in real life when I was a teenager. A workmate was setting the injection timing on a diesel engine, which involved removing the timing cover and exposing the timing gears, which were a chain of gears driving the camshaft and injection pump. To set the injection timing, you’d have to turn the crankshaft with an 18″ Crescent spanner and set the injector to fire at the correct timing mark. Anyway, turning the engine against the cylinder compression over took quite a bit of muscle and my mate’s hand slipped off the spanner and his finger ended up between two timing gears. He was screaming in pain for help and I ran over, but I had to work back through the train of gears to figure out which way to turn the crankshaft to release his finger.  Given the stakes, I did it twice to double-check, with him screaming out to hurry the **** up. Probably took two seconds, but seemed like an eternity. His finger looked like a crinkle cut potato crisp when it came out. Those puzzles would have much better real-world validity if they had soundtracks of people screaming playing, plus electric shocks or something as punishment if you got the wrong answer.

I can “read” maps really well , make stuff from diagrams reasonably well. Can’t draw to save myself

Yes.

Carpenter, so being able to visualise how things go together or the finished look (aha being able to verbally describe it) helps a lot.

I wonder if some people hate reading because they can’t visualise the world within the book.

I have the opposite 🙂  Films are never as good as a book for me simply because the picture3s in my head are better than on the screen

https://youtu.be/g8vHhgh6oM0?si=3Zk61gl63RKQJGla

I had to do one of those in real life when I was a teenager.

Blimey, that’s a story!  How well did it heal in the end?

That Dilbert cartoon I’ve seen (I think I actually have the DVD).  I kinda cooled on Dilbert when it turned out that Scott Adams was a piece of shit.  Anyway.

I used to refer to this as “the spark.”  I was explaining this theory to my apprentices.  At the back of the lab was an engineer working on something.  Half an hour later an engineering team came visiting, saw their colleague, immediately went “ooh, is that the new 27,000?” and were practically elbowing each other out of the way in a stampede to take a look at it.  I just turned back to my team and went, “see?”

How well did it heal in the end?

Surprisingly well, I think he was lucky enough to just squash the soft meaty part and not crush the bone.