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!

Yes all of them. My brain is constantly leaping from idea to idea, over thinking everything and achieving little.

Yes to all of those, and often two or more going on at the same time (the inner monologue is constant).

As I get older I realise I have more and more neuro diverse traits and think I just learnt to 'hide' some of my more 'unique/quirky' behaviour as I feel like I'm constantly acting in an acceptable way rather than being me.

It's utterly exhausting as there's literally hundreds of different things going on in my head all the time. It was a revelation to me that not everyone experiences this!

Yes to all of the above, although the smell/ taste is less vivid than the seeing and hearing. I can hear things more clearly in my head than I can see them and I do have a constant monologue (actually probably 2 or 3 going on at once, a loud one and then 1 or 2 background ones)

When I see things in my head a lot of my images are quite still and based on things I’ve actually seen, I do find it hard to put together an imagined scene so for example I can picture a giraffe and I can picture my mum but it’s harder to picture my mum riding a giraffe. I also find it hard to add a lot of movement or a sequence of actions, so I might picture my mum sat in a chair but it’s harder to then picture her getting up and moving into the kitchen for example. I can do those things but it requires a lot of concentration and the picture is sort of vague and jumpy, it’s hard to picture a fluid scene.

i can do all except A really, i cant see a picture just an image, but i play music in my head with all the different instruments
I went to see Hamilton a couple of days before Meatloaf died and had a Mashup of Hamilton songs and Meatloaf 2 out of 3 aint bad, for days!
When i dont have music i have an on going discourse in my head.

@EveningOverRooftops I am the same , my mind makes lots of connections and goes off on tangents

don't know if it is relevant but I don't have any diagnoses of anything, but 2 of my (adult) dc have ADHD and, in researching to try and support them, I do keep reading things and thinking "Well, I do that". Don't know if that helps or not.

My DD has just qualified at an OT and one of her bosses suggested she had ADHD, she has a lot of traits and look at it so do I

Yes to all, I am autistic. I can't quite comprehend how other people can't. So if you can't play a scene out in your head, does that mean you just don't remember anything you watch?
The same for not being able to picture a person you know, how do you not know what your own mum looks like? What happens in your brain when someone says 'think of your mum'???

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

a) Summon a picture of a specfic person/place thing? Can you change the picture? Neither, I have aphantasia, I don't see any pictures but I do see (in) dreams.

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

c) Can you play a piece of music in your head? Some or most of it? all of it, note perfect and pitch perfect. Often have one piece of music or a phrase from it 'stuck' for a few days.

d) Can you play a scene from a movie/TV episode etc? No, aphantasia again.

e) Can you run an animated or moving scene in your head? (like a horse trotting, or a waterfall flowing I suppose No, aphantasia again.

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? Not unless it's helping me engage in a task, like giving myself silent instructions. 'Okay, I've opened the fridge door, what did i want from there, think woman'

I have constant music. Currently ZZTop Gimme all your lovin', then changed to the Stones Jumping Jack Flash

Never a dull moment in my head!

Yes to all apart from having a constant inner monologue. I have an inner monologue but it's not constant at all. I am easily able to quiet my thoughts.

I didn't think any of that would be particularly neuro diverse and it's definitely not synaesthesia.

I can’t do any of these.

I have ADHD.

All of that.

I have ADHD if that helps?!

Yes to it all.

Apparently some of it is also linked to dyslexia as well because if the way the brain processes imagery and being able to manipulate shapes which is why the translation often causes issues with letters ultimately causing dyslexia.

I have adhd

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

No, I can’t summon a picture. I could describe it with words if you asked me but I couldn’t “see” it in my mind.

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

Yes

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

Yes, but much better involuntarily. I can often “hear” songs stuck in my head better than summoning it.

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

No

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?

Yes, but I can also turn it off if I want to stop thinking.

I think entirely in words though, I can “picture” (but not visually) how words are spelt. I cannot at all see images in my mind though.

Yes to all but most of them are sort of like peripheral vision, or one of those optical illusions where you see spots that disappear as soon as you look directly at them. If I'm trying to replay a scene from a film it'll freeze & fade away if I concentrate on doing it. I can still sort of hear the voices though, but it's more like a feeling of hearing it than an actual, tangible sound.

I do have a constant inner monologue & a very over-active imagination. I spend large parts of my day almost trapped in a daydream but it's almost like listening to myself perform all the parts of a radio play & imagining what that might look like, like I get snapshots or short clips of the action but it's not like watching a film. A lot of it is emotion-based & the feelings of the daydream are the most realistic thing about it. I'll rewind sections & do them again with different outcomes until I decide which I prefer & only then can I move on with the story.

That's the best I can explain it... None of it is the same as actually hearing/seeing a real thing. I don't have a diagnosis but there's a variety of NDs in my family & I strongly suspect I'd have an ASD diagnosis if I'd been assessed by people who didn't use questions that required me having a level of self-awareness that I just didn't have!

@StillNoFuckingEyeDeer

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

So how do your thoughts and memories manifest in your mind. If I asked you to tell me about your last holiday, and what type of cake you wanted, what would happen in your mind?

Yes to all. I’m diagnosed with Asperger’s and self diagnosed with inattentive adhd.

Yes to all - sometimes excessively so! I have a v vivid imagination and have to be careful not to fall into a reverie hole (esp in dull meetings). I also make up conversations in my head then get flummoxed when I actually have the conversation and the person deviates from my script. I find it really hard to shut it all off to go to sleep.

I’m officially NT but as more of my family and friends are diagnosed with ASD and/or ADHD I sometimes wonder…

I can do all of those very easily except F. I can't summon a smell like I can an image, I can just imagine what it would be like, rather than recreate it as if it were real.

NT - yes to all, particularly F and G.

Yes to all of them. So what does that mean?

Update: I feel I need to also add I am not and never meant to claim that these things make me special or somehow better than anyone else. This is simply me listing ways in which my brain frequently works. To qualify further, especially in terms of how vivid and 'not turnable off' it is.

And G for me is also the idea of multiple voices/tangents.

Really interesting to read people's descriptions of what goes on in their heads.

This is fascinating.

I am a very visual learner. So I find it impossible to listen to podcasts and can’t focus on reading. But that makes sense if my brain is not generating it’s own pictures?

I know when I was younger and people would watch a film adaptation of a book and would be cross that the actress in the film would look nothing like the character in the book. That would always confuse me!!

a) I find quite difficult as the image tends to slip the more I try to concentrate. I can do it more easily for a place.
b) Yes, easily
c) Yes, most of it. Doing it right now
d) Not easily - like a, I find it slips if I try to concentrate
e) Depends - a waterfall or moving leaves, yes. People/animals are more difficult

Having looked at ADHD and autism, I seem to have some traits but not enough to make me tick all the 'necessary' boxes.
f) A few specific ones. Strong memories of a particular coffee smell at a particular spot in Muswell Hill from decades ago.
g) Yes and no. I don't always tune in to it but there is a kind of background narration.

Yes to all of them and very often some of them concurrently.

I also have a very active imagination and tbh, it all gets a bit tiring sometimes.

Some peace and quiet up there would be nice

I also make up conversations in my head then get flummoxed when I actually have the conversation and the person deviates from my script Lordy yes, this happens a lot- even when I've imagined several different versions of the same conversation.