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!

I have ADHD as well.

Pictures - yes and I can change it. Though it's hard to "look" directly at it I can definitely see/picture it.

Yes can hear people's voices. If I have spent a long time listening to a podcast/radio/TV programme/talking to a real person, especially with a distinctive voice, sometimes my thoughts will be in their voice or my internal reading voice will be their voice.

Music always. I always have some music playing in my head. I can't really choose what it is. Annoyingly it's often something like the Paw Patrol theme tune If I really consciously focus on a different piece of music I might be able to change to that one. Sometimes I get a bit of a song stuck in my head but I can't remember the rest of it, which is really annoying.

Scenes - if I know the scene very well, yes. Or do you mean a completely made up one? Yes I can do that as well.

Can definitely imagine smells.

I have an internal voice but I rarely have one at a time because I have multiple thought tracks and they are all talking at once. It is usually my own voice (with the previous exception about having been listening to a different voice). In fact often they are not really "talking" but sort of flashing concepts/feelings by really fast so that I couldn't process it down into language easily. Generally the best way for me to sort my thoughts out into something coherent is to talk out loud to somebody, or write them down, or sometimes I try to organise them by imagining exactly what I would write or say, although this goes back and forth a bit and tends to keep me awake at night for example and I lose track.

All of those. I’m autistic and have ADHD.
I can also remember what people were wearing when I met them, passages from books and where to find them (page and paragraph) and I frequently smell things that aren’t there. (That used to be just before a migraine but has expanded over the years, if it’s bacon cooking it’s a migraine on the way, otherwise no rational explanation but it is surprisingly common).

Yes to all of them, neurotypical as far as I’m aware.

Yes to all, with ease and quite strongly. I have wondered recently if I have adhd. In fact when I was younger I would rewatch my favourite films in my head while I was trying to fall asleep, with perfect quality and detail, and hear the full orchestra version of all of the music. I always thought that was normal!

All of the above but especially the music and even more so G. I'm even monologging this text as I wrote it, after a conversation I'll go ober it and have alternative conversations that might have been better, have imaginary future conversations for next time. I never realised til lately that it was weird and I'm 42. Am neurotypical? I think so burn the more I read the more I question it tbh. My head is always busy.

All but b

My mind never stops. I’m either talking to myself or playing a song in my head. Even if I wake up in the night, I immediately start a song. I have to actually push the noise out.
It’s exhausting.

Yes to all. My brain wakes me up singing (the bloody idiot). I am NT

@EveningOverRooftops

Yes to some of those. Yes can’t change the images I have seen with my own eyes and recall but I can create fully imagined images and worlds iyswim but my brain also runs away with itself.

Most of my friends have a straight forward linear conversation. Eg we saw a ball we played with the ball then we took the ball home.
Whereas me it would be - we saw a ball and it reminded me of that one time I saw a ball and my friend max really wanted it and we went on an adventure to get this ball but we ended up with 5 balls and that was too many balls to play with but we tried anyway. Then I’ll forget what the story is I was talking about and/or the conversation itself.

My very good friends understand it and go with the flow. Strangers don’t so I don’t have many friends.

It happens with my thoughts in a similar way too and I’ll forget what I was going in a room for or why I picked up the phone to make a call.

I struggle with remembering names but can picture a person clearly and describe them but their name… nope.

I regularly have brain farts and forget a word but again can describe the word and what I mean I just forget the word

I’ve been told I have an overactive imagination and I do daydream a lot because I get bored easily.

Fwiw I have hearing loss, I’m very introverted and a chronic under achiever with ridiculous number of hobbies

It’s been the bane of my entire life but I’m used to it now. I’m just not thriving in the ways I know I could. It’s frustrating.

So much of this resonated with me! And I could have written parts of it word for word. Much of my journey is about those moments of "someone... someone else? maybe? Yes!" So thank you, and a reach out from my overactive, fantasy landscape filled brain to yours, for what that's worth!

Yes to all of them.
When I’m trying to fall asleep I play films in my head. Sometimes I recall films and play them but other times I make them up, they’re very vivid but I find it relaxing.

Ha I can’t do do any of them bar a very rare inner monologue what does that mean???!

Yes to all. Do others not?

I also have full conversations with people in my mind, including their part 🥴

Yes to all of them, with ease.
Like pp, I'm neurotypical, as far as I know! I often run a film in my head to get to sleep. Or listen to an orchestra.

I assumed everyone could do these things. I can't do TV scenes so easily but that may be because I prefer music. I do wish the brain chatter would just shut the fuck up sometimes though especially when I am trying to sleep.

@GeneLovesJezebel I do this too, especially if it's something I perceive as a conflict or awkward conversation. I'll build it up for days and days then the actual conversation will happen and it's all fine!

A) no
B) yes
C) yes some of it
D) no
E) no
F) no
G) yes all of the time

I have autism though if that makes a difference.

Yes to all

I have likely adhd

I don't think I do any of those things.

Yes to all. I have constant symphonies in my head to. I am awaiting Asperger's / ADHD diagnoses. I just thought they were all normal!

Yes to all. I'm diagnosed with ASD. It's never quiet in my head. Makes sleeping tricky.

@Dogshark

I don’t think it’s synesthesia. I believe that is when your senses merge and you ‘hear’ colours or ‘see’ smells, for example.

I think what OP has described is normal. Inability to do them is linked to ASD but in no way exclusively.

Inability to picture things, or a lack of minds eye is called aphantasia. It’s been quite widely discussed on here.

I can’t do any of them, at least no more than a very fleeting notion of the sound/image. Certainly not a video or tune. I am afaik NT but I have ND familial links.

The idea of ADHD being linked to possible an unusually increased ability is interesting. Possibly an inability to switch these things off which NT people can do?

Exactly this.

I can't imagine smell. I've not got a great sense of smell anyway.

I don't have an internal monologue as such I just have thoughts. When I pray I say the words "out loud" in my head.

Visual memory is interesting. Saw an interview with two Hollywood animators who might work together at Pixar? I think one of whom has complete visual recall so remembers every scene from a film so doesn't watch films twice and one who has no visual memory at all.

I can do all of those and I can also smell in my dreams, not sure if other people do that. I also have a constant dialogue, think internal and constant risk assessment ie what would happen if, which is probably linked to anxiety, but which makes me great at risk assessing for H & S.