Observations on Mental Visualization
I find my mind can only visualize one concept at a time.
Ex: I can imagine the texture of a wood desk in high fidelity. Like a close-up shot. It's basically perfect.
But if I imagine the entire desk, I lose fidelity.
It's like there's a lens. And within that lens you can see in high quality. Everything else is blurry. Or rather, you get the impression that it's there, but you're not actually seeing it.
You can change the size of that lens at will. Ex: the lens can contain an entire person or just their face. The bigger the lens, the less you can see fine details.
Maybe the lens can only focus on 1 concept at a time. Where a concept is like "shape" or "texture", etc.
I would assume you can focus on 4 things at once (working memory capacity) but what is a "thing" and is the number even 4? It seems in my mind that I cannot visualize 4 things at once. To me, it seems more like 1 thing, perhaps 2.
If I look at something hard and then close my eyes, I can imagine that thing vividly. But I won't remember all the details. Ex: I can't look at a lined notebook page, close my eyes, and then count how many lines the paper had.
Anything not in that region of focus is blurry and broken into its general shapes and colors.
If I did not realize something was there, it won't show up in my visualization.
If I look at something quickly and close my eyes, it basically recreates it from memory. This memory will fade soon.
If I don't focus on any objects specifically and instead do an "everything snapshot" (a quick mental freeze frame), then my visualization will be rough shapes and colors. If I do have any detailed stuff, it's likely because my brain is pulling in a past memory of that object.
But when I focus on that detailed object, the rest of the visualization fades away (leaving the impression that it's there, but I'm not actually visualizing it).
Then you can take each point of focus and zoom in more if needed. But if you zoom in, you will either be making it up from memory of other similar things, or you won't have anything to latch onto and will struggle to visualize it.
When reading fiction, it's often hard to visualize characters unless I have an irl lookalike to latch onto (or a drawing).
Ex: a book will say "he had green hair, blue glasses, and a big nose"
That's too much to visualize at once. My brain literally cannot do it. It can focus on 1 or maybe 2 details at a time. (Though it creates almost the feeling of perceiving them all at once, but I don't think I am.)
Ex: I can see "big nose with blue glasses" as one "chunk". I can imagine those together. But any other combination and I can't do more than 1.
If I try to imagine it, it feels like I'm just rapidly switching between visualizing green hair, big nose, and blue glasses. Never all 3 at the same time.
Whenever I struggle to visualize something (like two distinct concepts at once), everything fades away, and I am left with the impression that something is there. It feels like gray slush. If I try to imagine that person all at once, I get the impression, but cannot actually visualize all 3 at once. I can do 1-2 at a time.
I think the way my mind builds the impression of a detailed scene is by rapidly switching between details. Ex: if I'm imagining someone running through a fiery field, I'm switching between:
- semi-detailed person
- semi-detailed fire
- a blurry "everything snapshot"
For things I've actually seen irl or in a picture, the fidelity is much better.
Ex: that one famous image of Barack Obama. I can imagine his entire face, including his hair, in great fidelity. Or rather: I can imagine the entire "shape" of his head (which includes hair, blurry facial details, etc). And I can imagine his face (not including hair) near perfectly. My memory of the photo does not include details about how his nose looked exactly, so I can't "zoom into" that. If I try, it's blurry. If I make it high fidelity, I'm not actually imagining his nose — I'm recreating a semi-random nose from memory.
Visualizing things I've seen in images is not more vivid than things I've seen irl. Though sometimes I get the impression that it is.
The way to make something not feel blurry, and feel 4k, is to visualize the close-up details. Ex: scratches on a wood desk.
I know it's possible to imagine things as vividly as I see them. I've never done it at will. One time as I was falling asleep, the visualization was very vivid.
Observation:
Was half-dreaming. It was vivid. I tried taking control over the dream a bit. It immediately went blurry / not that vivid.
I notice my lucid dreams are not as vivid.
