Can you do the following inside your head?

[AmbushedByTheCake]

... 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!

But what about imagining your beach holiday or wedding or seeing someone you've not seen for ages

For me, none of those are images!

I'll have a happy anticipation feeling, and the knowledge of what I'm going to do/what will happen.

Like I say, I get a fuzzy single image when thinking of someone and possibly a sound, but mainly I've just got a feeling/knowledge of what they mean to me. It kind of includes all our history, but without any images.

Yes to all. I believe I'm NT.

I often watch 'Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown' on a Saturday morning. This morning, I woke up with the theme tune blaring in my head, over and over.

All of then vividly. Its hard to imagine another way tbh.

@trilbydoll

Yes to all of them except not taste or smell. I thought most of it was the product of a slightly overactive imagination. I can control it though, I don't have a monologue running that I can't stop.

I think some of us need lessons. I have to sing in my head to shut her up and she still interrupts

Gosh yes, to all of them I thought that was entirely normal

None of those except g. My internal monologue is constant!

@bluesugar

I can't do any except'g'. What does that mean?

Same as me!

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

Yes I can do all of those things. I'll be honest I thought most people could?

I can do them all if a bit fleetingly.

It would be lovely to turn the monologue off sometimes, but that's just how brains work, isn't it?

All those things are neurotypical, surely?

Yes to all and I'm neurodivergent.

Yes to all. I knew some people didn’t have an internal monologue, but I didn’t know not everyone could do the other things.

Doing all of those things is neurotypical though neurodiverse people (as well as NT people) may have differing abilities in all of them.
I cannot visualise places. I am NT (probably)

I don't visualise the future. It's abstract. I know I need to go to the shop to buy milk later. I certainly don't need to visualise the shop or the milk to plan that! Do you?

I don't need to, it just happens. I will see the shop in my head and the carton of milk. All my thoughts have images.

Even abstract words. So if someone says "control" I will usually get a flash of a song with that name that I like, think of a remote control, think about robots, or about evil kings and queens, or Sauron and Voldemort .

When I say "think", it doesn't mean I'm sat in thought for ages, just images flash in my head.

"Do you have eggs?" and now I'm thinking of a wicker basket filled with eggs, farms, Jemima Puddleduck, baking...

If I am looking at a view, my brain will be thinking "Wow, look at the colours, ahhh that shade of green is lovely, I'd love to try and paint this with watercolours even though I can't paint... AHH I remember that Beatrix Potter film where she was painting watercolours at the start and it began raining.... Ooo, imagine a life like Heidi... Or the Shire, it looks like how I imagine the places in those books... What if I were a farmerwife and we had 5 kids, what would I name them? I wonder if I could walk over there and go up those hills... Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pale of water... Vinegar... HM, fish and chips would be nice... Ah, I must remember to get The Rainbow Fish book!! Oh look, I think I see bluebells, we had loads of those in the woods when I was a kid ((of we go down memory lane....)).

@Alonelonelylonersbadidea

Doing all of those things is neurotypical though neurodiverse people (as well as NT people) may have differing abilities in all of them. I cannot visualise places. I am NT (probably)

Yeah TBH the two groupings are nearly identical in their mental abilities (compared to, say, gerbils or blackbirds or goannas). It just happens that the tiny differences that do exist, like ability to correctly guess other humans' feelings and react in certain ways, to express needs and wants, to read, to control the focus of attention, to speak fluently, are in areas where humans are capable of very fine discrimination and lay great importance on any idiosyncrasies. Autistic or ADHD ppl are far more like other people than they are like anything else.

It's important not to understate the massive impact of those tiny differences, though. We're all human and we're not that different from the rest of humanity — even those of us who can't care for ourselves or communicate easily — but it's the massive impact of the relatively tiny differences that makes life hard.

a) Summon a picture of a specfic person/place thing? Can you change the picture?
Yes
b) Can you 'hear' the voice of that person/sound in your head
Yes- just about
c) Can you play a piece of music in your head? Some or most of it?
Yes
d) Can you play a scene from a movie/TV episode etc?
Yes

e) Can you run an animated or moving scene in your head? (like a horse trotting, or a waterfall flowing I suppose
Yes
f) Can you recreate or imagine smells in your head?
Yes
g) (finally!) do you have a voice running in your head lots? A sort of monologue or tangent?
Yes - almost all day everyday. Quite often I wonder if I said something out loud or if it was internal

Yes all of this. I thought everyone could?

Then again I thought everyone associated words objects and people with colours too I literally sense people in colours, I though it was normal for a long time. I usually have two or three songs playing at the same time in my head I call this chatty head!

I have bipolar and I suspect some sort of adhd but I'm well and it's well managed

I don't think I can really do any of them - I have to read to get to sleep because otherwise boring everyday thoughts invade my brain.
I asked Dh last night though and he can do most of them. I think ds16 can probably do them all. Both of them potentially have ADHD to some degree, although neither are diagnosed. I'm very NT to the point of dullness.

a) Summon a picture of a specfic person/place thing? Can you change the picture?

No, I always wondered if I was doing it wrong but turns out I just can't

b) Can you 'hear' the voice of that person/sound in your head

Not really. I can imagine it fleetingly if I really try. If I am around someone for ages and they have a thing they say a lot it can feel imprinted on my brain and I can hear it for a few hours then it is gone.

c) Can you play a piece of music in your head? Some or most of it?

Not very well. I can almost replay singing.

d) Can you play a scene from a movie/TV episode etc?

Not at all.

e) Can you run an animated or moving scene in your head? (like a horse trotting, or a waterfall flowing I suppose

No

f) Can you recreate or imagine smells in your head?

No.

g) (finally!) do you have a voice running in your head lots? A sort of monologue or tangent?

Only when I am reading or writing, or sometimes when walking I talk to myself, it's more of running to do list.

I have inattentive ADHD, what I have learned is I am an aural learner. I have excellent recall of a journey if I have taken it once I can usually find the way again. But I am shit with visualising anything.

I can do all of these things and am flabbergasted that others can't. I had no idea that it wasn't the same for everyone. I hear voices when I read the posts on here and sometimes see pictures in my head of the people too (but I doubt the pictures are correct).

I used to work in sales and a woman I worked with used to get very vivid images of the people she spoke to on the phone despite never having met them. She used to describe what they looked like and if she ever did go on to have a meeting with the person she was often right.

Yes to all

I can do all of them, and like many others I assumed everyone could.

All of the above. The inner monologue is exhausting- I’m currently changing jobs to something with more going on as I’m so bored of living with my own meandering circular thoughts.

I have whole conversations in my head (mostly with my ex!) over and over again, replaying real events and inventing new ones. I can’t imagine being able to switch it off - am quite envious of those who can experience real silence and stillness.

If I sit in silence it goes a bit like “ooh it’s so quiet, I can hear the clock ticking - remember that time XP said how quiet this house was, not with him strutting around on the phone talking loudly it wasn’t” - - - “stop thinking! Just try and enjoy the peace. Switch off those thoughts…..I’m not thinking about anything, my mind is totally blank…aggggh why can’t I stop thinking words and just be…Like this. Yes that’s it. Nice and quiet……no words….just silence” etc

When I read an email or text I read/hear it in that person's voice

@RoyKentsChestHair I'm exactly the same! I've never been able to meditate or 'clear my mind' or practise mindfulness as my brain never shuts up! I can only get to sleep by having podcasts running all night to give my brain something to listen to so I can sleep

I do/have all of these except g. I constantly have a soundtrack going at the same time as doing all the usual stuff. Is this not ‘normal’ for everyone? I’ve recently started to think i might have adhd but weirdly it only seems to present itself in a domestic setting! I am awful at home organisation, keeping tidy, noticing mess, anything at home that involves fine motor skills like hanging things up and also cooking. It’s only really become glaringly obvious since becoming a single parent and having to do everything.