I hadn’t heard the term “descriptive thinker” until tonight (which is what led me here). Although that sounds close it still doesn’t ring completely true to me, because it has nothing to do with the words, but the base concepts themselves – kind of like the “code” in The Matrix (not the picture of the letters falling from the top of the screen, but the bits and bytes in the background). If I want to remember something, my mind doesn’t need words (or pictures). Quite often it’s blank anyway so it’s not so easy to tell the difference.

In fact the idea of being able to ‘hallucinate’ at will sounds a bit freaky. I sometimes wonder if I’m rabidly schizophrenic but completely oblivious – can see no images, hear no voices.

I can sort of sometimes get a sense of space or of the colour of an object or even a shape, but it’s nothing I’d safely call visual (not like a dream). And I also find it gives me an unfair advantage when trying to gross people out, especially when they know I “can’t see pictures in my head”. It wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t know what I was doing, but I do still have a very good idea of what I would see in my head if I could.

I also tend to be a verbose detail freak, so I’d better leave it there!

I think in the same way when writing, reading and pretty much any scene. I have always thought of this as a handicap I guess and don’t understand when people talk about “seeing scenes in their head.” For a long time I just thought that people were bullshitting me. After the first Gulf War I was ordered to go through several therapies. One of which was a therapy involving visualization. When I told the Psychologist that I was not capable of visualization, he of course assumed I was lying and sent me to group therapy instead. I am a long time avid reader and RPGer, I don’t know if this would have anything to do with it or I’m just mentally handicapped?

Keith

Heck, I didn’t even have a map when I wrote The Conqueror’s Shadow and The Warlord’s Legacy. I just kept track of locations via a page of notes. When we finally decided to put a map in TWL, we had to go through and create it based on written descriptions.

When I read sentences like these: “They had entered a third of the way down the eastern side of the rock. The high point was ahead, a little to their left, the southwestern corner, buried in the mountain, and from there the massive pavement sloped diagonally all the way to the northeast corner…”, I’m compelled to stop and draw a map in my head.

Weird anomaly, but maybe it’s also why I like maps. I have one hall in my house covered with them.

Like I said, you and I may be more common than I think, but at least in my experience, we seem to be in the minority.

I don’t picture things/people/actions in my head, whether I’m reading or writing. The words are the thing/person/action. I have to actually stop and put effort into visualizing a scene from words. I can do it, but it takes conscious effort and it doesn’t seem to add much value so I seldom bother. The words have all the power they need without pictures (for me).

Though, unlike most people it was easier for me to picture the excerpt from the book. Of course I paused at every few sentences and let my mind translate what my eyes saw.