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!

None except g.
I have ADHD.

It’s utterly exhausting @AmbushedByTheCake when I’m with others. I get all peopled out. I have a DC who I strongly suspect has ADD (also some other issues hence I’m their carer) and displays the classic symptoms which makes getting all peopled out even worse.

Rest of the time just me and my head were a pretty good combo. I just don’t really get very much done especially if other people get in my loop. Mostly because I’m distracted and procrastinate like crazy then go on a mind walk and it’s like 5hrs later but when I do get focused I’ll be at it for 10hrs straight.

I do read a lot but find I read better in the bath. Must be something about the water or the heat that makes it easier for me to devour a book.

When it comes to sitting and drawing or doing design work (pre unpaid carer I was in design and still do some now) I have to have music on but it’s got to be music I know not new aka novel music as known music becomes background noise but new music I actively listen if that makes sense.

I can’t listen to audio books as I get lost with my own brain but books I can back track so as you can imagine presentations without visuals are a nightmare. I used to have to record lectures at uni because I’d never get it all and I can’t take physical notes and listen as I’d miss stuff.
But I’m also conscious of people getting irritated if I double check dates or ask them to repeat themselves in part because of the hearing loss but most of the time I hear it but it just doesn’t register

I can write like a demon when I have a subject but to stand and say it all. Yep, lose track and off on another wild goose chase and sound like an idiot.

Omg knitting is like my drug of choice though. I’ve been doing it constantly since I was a kid. Something about the repetition of it but also it not being repetitive as it shapes and creates something and having to follow a pattern if that makes any sense at all.

Yes to all the above. I'm intrigued and look forward to reading all the comments

@bruffin

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

Oh god yes. The tangents.

Worst part of it is if I’m listening to someone and I don’t mention ‘oh that’s like X’ my brain still pursues it and I look like I’m not paying attention. Its no wonder I’m always tired and hungry

All of it. I didnt know other people couldn't do these things!

a) Summon a picture of a specfic person/place thing? No, I KNOW what the person or place looks like but I don't see a picture.
Can you change the picture? No
b) Can you 'hear' the voice of that person/sound in your head I can 'hear' certain voices and phrases but not everything. I can hear the sound of wind, rain, waves etc
c) Can you play a piece of music in your head? Some or most of it? I hear music a lot of the time. I have my own soundtrack playing a lot. Often I will get the most bizarre mash ups as 'earworms' that I can't shift and that drive me bonkers. However, I cannot transfer the sound in my head to a singable tune. For example if there is a hymn at church and DH looks at the number in the book and asks me if I know it I can hear the tune BUT I cannot sing it to DH so he will know what it sounds like.
d) Can you play a scene from a movie/TV episode etc? I can play the script of the background music but I cannot 'see' the scene visually.
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? My brain never shuts up. I'm either talking myself through a task or planning the next millionty things I have to do or wandering off into a tangent about stuff.

My memories tend to be aural or what I describe as muscular - I can hear the conversations and I can imagine what my body was doing.
When I was learning sign language I could practice while driving the car because I could 'move' my hands in my mind without them actually moving at all. When I was doing karate I would 'practice' my Kata as I went to sleep - again in my mind. And now that's how I rehearse my dance steps as I go to sleep.

My daughter and son are both ND - ASC and ADHD. I suspect I am not NT

Yes, to all of them.
Plus I can 'watch' a journey inside my head - so for example if you ask me for directions I will visually take the journey whilst giving you the directions. I always assumed everyone could do this though, and I cannot give directions any other way!

I can do all apart from a... I can't see faces ... my mum can't either ... can't remember what it's called

I can do c and g. In fact, I find it hard to avoid doing c and constantly have the g. @PitchImperfect’s description of her mind sounds very much like me- how things slip out of my mental grasp and I experience them as incomplete flashes. I have ADHD and think there are quite a few autistic traits hanging around in there too.

At one point when I was teaching visualisations became a 'thing' in maths teaching.
A bit like this...
Imagine a square. Make it purple. Label the corners 1,2,3,4. Fold corner 1 to corner 4. What shape have you got now? Draw it on your whiteboard.

I used to have a devils own job convincing the math co ordinator that not everyone could actually do that.

Yes to all of them. I believe I'm neurotypical but there are autistic males in my family.

Yes to all. I have ADHD.

Sounds in my head are much more vivid and constant than visuals, though. I constantly have music in my head, as well as multiple, overlapping trains of thought.

It's bloody exhausting.

Wow, I do all of them effortlessly all the time and had no idea others don't do the same.

I'm particularly fond of watching films in my head, like whole films that I've seen before. Occasionally I'll change the ending or put myself in it as one of the characters. It's a great way to pass the time waiting for appointments.

I have autism. I don't know if that's relevant.

I can do tunes. I have constant interior monologue. I cannot visualise.

Yes to all.

No to all of it.

I can recall music - but it me singing (silently) in my head and only because I choose it, it.doesnt randomly happen.

I have no inner dialog.

None for me. What does that mean...?

@JamieFrasersSassenach

Yes, to all of them. Plus I can 'watch' a journey inside my head - so for example if you ask me for directions I will visually take the journey whilst giving you the directions. I always assumed everyone could do this though, and I cannot give directions any other way!

Yes, I'm the same. Also, If I've used sat nav to get me to a destination I haven't a hope of finding it a second time without sat nav. Drives DH mad - he'll say you literally drove there yesterday! Yes I did but I can't summon up the visual image in my minds eye. Although I was driving, and looking at the road, I wasn't 'seeing' it and can't recreate the journey without help. But if I found my own way there, I'll always be able to get there.

I can do all of those and thought this was normal?!!

Can't do any of the visual ones but have a permanent continual monologue in my head.......... Sometimes I get on my own nerves and wish it would 🤐😳

yes to all to a degree,

with g) more of flash forwards of potential outcomes based on x at a specific moment in time, think episodes of charmed where one of the sisters would sorta have a flash forward of events, only with mine is not always on so to speak, more as and when,

Yes I can.

Yes to them all especially G it never bloody shuts up!!
I found the hearing ones the easiest and the visual I had to work at. The animation was like an early 80's computer graphic, basic and clunky.

Yes to all except the running commentary, although I do have that sometimes. What does it mean? I did an adhd test and scored extremely low

I can do all of those. Can most people not?

Your brains must be very quiet.