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Original poster

Can you do the following inside your head?

401 replies

AmbushedByTheCake · 16/02/2022 20:44

... or brain.

Various conversations recently with people, and following my ongoing ADHD research, I'm interested how people can recreate sensory detail/movements/memories etc. Can you do the following:

a) Summon a picture of a specfic person/place thing? Can you change the picture?
b) Can you 'hear' the voice of that person/sound in your head
c) Can you play a piece of music in your head? Some or most of it?
d) Can you play a scene from a movie/TV episode etc?
e) Can you run an animated or moving scene in your head? (like a horse trotting, or a waterfall flowing I suppose
f) Can you recreate or imagine smells in your head?
g) (finally!) do you have a voice running in your head lots? A sort of monologue or tangent?

Disclaimer: curiousity only! Not a scientist - questions clumsily worded. Trying to understand my own brain - I think I can do most of the above or some version. I can hear sounds and picture things vividly, and I get some sense of a smell (for example bacon frying) I can 'rememeber' the taste/smell of it.

Interested to see what this is like for others!

OP posts:
EssexLioness · 16/02/2022 23:28

Yes to all of these, diagnosed autistic

ouch12345 · 16/02/2022 23:36

I can't do any of these things, I wish I could! I can't even picture DD's or DH faces in my head. I have ADHD.

ofwarren · 16/02/2022 23:36

@buddhasbelly

I'm very jealous of folk thag can picture things when they close their eyes. I have a job that requires me to be visually creative. This would help a lot!

I'd also love to be able to picture people. To see expressions on people's faces that aren't captures in photographs.

I close my eyes and see nothing but I get a feeling when thinking about xyz person.

I went through quite a lot of trauma when I was young. My DH when we discovered I couldn't see anything asked if maybe it was my brain's response to trauma so I couldn't see things. But i think lots of people can't see anything. So who knows!

You don't need to close your eyes. I see the images clearer with my eyes open

MrsArchchancellorRidcully · 16/02/2022 23:37

Wow. I can do them all. I had no idea some people couldn't.

I often have a conversation running through my head for some time.

user26147 · 16/02/2022 23:41

I can't visualise anything, but I do have an inner monologue and can 'hear' music in my head when I want to

DietrichandDiMaggio · 16/02/2022 23:42

@MaizeAmaze

I can do c) if it's a piece ive played on an instrument. No to the rest. How do any of you ever get any quiet if all that's going on in your head?
Well they're not going on all of the time. The OP said can you summon a picture of someone, so if someone said, for instance, think of Ed Sheeran or Buckingham Palace, I can picture them in my head, and then it goes when I stop thinking of them.
noblegreenk · 16/02/2022 23:43

Yes to all.

Dammitthisisshit · 16/02/2022 23:43

None. None at all. I only discovered recently that people can actually picture things.
I don’t dream in pictures either. I dream in thoughts.

In terms of what goes on in my head? Thoughts. If I empty my mind of thoughts then nothing! I love it. It’s peaceful.

ouch12345 · 16/02/2022 23:49

Reading this thread is so bizarre, I never knew people could actually do this in their head? So using an example someone said before about seeing an apple and then picturing it in your head, is that not the same as having a photographic memory?
If I try and picture something it's just black.

buddhasbelly · 16/02/2022 23:50

I can't do it with my eyes open either. Can't see people, places, nothing.

HelloDaisy · 16/02/2022 23:52

I can do all of them although only some smells are easily to pull up. Some smells I know were strong/putrid but I can’t recall them.

As for the running commentary, since going into peri menopause I have a constant health anxiety monologue in the back of my head ☹️ I can carry out all usual life stuff, chatting, working, cooking etc with the ongoing chatter about what aches or feels odd going on in the back of my head…

Rainbows89 · 16/02/2022 23:52

What, what, what. So when some people close their eyes you can SEE things?!?!

When I close my eyes I see nothing. It’s blackish red.

And another poster can see things with their eyes open?!!

How can we all be so very different?!?

GreenWhiteViolet · 16/02/2022 23:55

This is so interesting. I can do the audio ones - a voice or noise, a piece of music, the dialogue from a movie scene. Songs I know well I can play in my head all the way through, as vividly as if I were actually listening to them. There's also an inner voice whenever I'm not concentrating intently on something else.

I can't do smells or pictures, although if I think of a word I see the spelling, which is almost like the picture of a word. This happens a lot when I'm studying - I recall information by picturing it written down. In neater handwriting than mine!

The other thing I can't do is convert 3d to 2d in my head. Ask me to draw something I can see and you'll get an utter mess that bears no resemblance to what it should. Give me a photo of it and I can draw it.

I'm autistic, was hyperlexic as a child, and have cerebral palsy which affects my spatial awareness among other things.

DramaAlpaca · 16/02/2022 23:57

Yes to all, both with my eyes open and closed.

Roadtripconcept · 16/02/2022 23:58

Yes to all of them .
I always wake up with a random song in my head , usually one that I would never listen to by choice . I have had a few periods of depression and they have been the only times that I have woken up with no song.
I also have anxiety so quite often have the same conversation going round and round in my head .
I've recently started taking Sertraline for anxiety and depression . For the first 3 weeks I lost the ability to picture things in my head . I was worried that it might be permanent but it has returned . I still have conversations in my head and a running commentary . I don't seem to be able to have the anxious round and round , going over the same conversation that I was having . It's a relief to have those switched off .

thaegumathteth · 17/02/2022 00:03

No to them all.

DietrichandDiMaggio · 17/02/2022 00:05

I was shocked to find out that some people, when reading a book, don't see the story in their head. I just can't get my head around reading a description of a setting or a character and not forming an image in my mind.

Tequilamakesmehappy · 17/02/2022 00:06

Yes to them all, no diagnosis of any sort but I have two children on the autistic spectrum and find some of what they do I can relate to and understand better than my husband.

Staffy1 · 17/02/2022 00:07

Yes to all but G which sounds a bit disturbing.

bruffin · 17/02/2022 00:08

My mother lived in Cheltenham until she was 10. My DH was on a course there. I was talking to her on the phone telling her where he was staying and had Google maps up. She managed to direct round all the streets of Cheltenham to her old houses,school and church etc. She was in her 70's by then and could visualise the walks from over 60 years ago. It was about the same as Lion came out, he got lost as a child and ended a day's train journey away in India. He got adopted to Tasmania and used Google maps to find his way home to his mother. He didn't even know his proper name or the village he lived in. He could still visualise his walks round his village

thaegumathteth · 17/02/2022 00:09

Whenever I see things like this and the majority of people say they can do these things it makes me wonder if I can too but my perception of what I'm doing is different but I don't think it is.

Especially people who talk of hearing an inner monologue - I really don't understand that. I have thoughts but I don't hear them.

I do remember when my dad was very unwell in hospital when I was a child , I couldn't see him for a while and I felt like I couldn't remember what he looked like. I mean I'd have recognised him obviously and we had photos but I couldn't see him in my head - can people do that?

GreenWhiteViolet · 17/02/2022 00:10

@DietrichandDiMaggio

I was shocked to find out that some people, when reading a book, don't see the story in their head. I just can't get my head around reading a description of a setting or a character and not forming an image in my mind.
I can't do this, and I'm an avid reader and wish I could! I know what physical traits the characters have, based on the descriptions, but I can't picture them at all. Same with settings - I'm aware of the individual details that have been given but can't put them together to form the whole. I do get a 'sense of place' but it's emotive and associational, not visual.
PickAChew · 17/02/2022 00:11

@OhLordyWhatNow

Yes to all.

Not RTFT so not sure if anyone else has mentioned this; I also 'hear' food as musical notes. So citrus is a high note, chocolate is mid tone, and meat like beef in a stew is a low bass note.

That is synaesthesia. WHAT THE OP describes is like for like, though, eg being able to conjour up all the senses involved in eating a bacon sandwich (right down to my chin itching because some grease has dribbled on it!)
alienbotanist · 17/02/2022 00:20

a) Summon a picture of a specfic person/place thing? Only for my children/husband and MIL
Can you change the picture? No, not at all
b) Can you 'hear' the voice of that person/sound in your head that's v hard, but I can hear them faintly. I know exactly what their voices sound like, and could pick them out on a recording etc Confused

c) Can you play a piece of music in your head? Some or most of it? Yes- pretty much any piece I've heard I can re-play, including with full orchestration for concerti/symphonies etc

d) Can you play a scene from a movie/TV episode etc? No (DH has perfect visual recall- show him a still from any TV programme or film he's ever seen, and he'll be able to place it)

e) Can you run an animated or moving scene in your head? (like a horse trotting, or a waterfall flowing I suppose Not really- I know what it should look like, but struggle to make pictures
f) Can you recreate or imagine smells in your head? No (and I have a v poor sense of smell in RL too)
g) (finally!) do you have a voice running in your head lots? A sort of monologue or tangent? I have no internal monologue. DH and I have discussed this previously, as he has a near constant one (that helps him with work!!)

A parent and sibling have asd. I have one child with ASD, one with ADHD, and though I've not been assessed, it's about 95% likely I'm neurodiverse.

alienbotanist · 17/02/2022 00:24

I also have an extraordinary sense of place- if I've ever been somewhere, I can always find it again, even if it was forty years ago. In order to find places when driving, I just look at the map for a few minutes, then go.
Like driving from Hull to Bristol, say.