What We Visualize

Have you ever stopped to think about what you're visualizing when you're reading? We know that each person will see the characters/places differently, but do you ever think about what causes us to picture them the way we do. Are the scenes completely made up in our minds, or possibly something that we've seen somewhere in our lifetime? Do you ever visualize the same thing in different books (i.e. the kitchen in book A is the same as the kitchen in book B in your mind)? Do you think these scenes that we visualize while reading contribute to deja vu?

That's a very good question.

I've noticed that I like books that are verbose and descriptive (which is probably why I like Stephen King so much) because they help me 'set the scene' in my head.

I remember that even though I really liked James Ellroy's Black Dahlia it would bug me when he would breeze through the descriptions of characters and places.

I have noticed that if I have seen a movie version of a particular book I will imagine the actor as that character.

I've noticed that movie thing, too. When I read The Annotated Pride and Prejudice* last year, Darcy and Elizabeth "looked like" Colin Firth and Jennifer Elhe. Should I re-read Sense and Sensibility, Elinor Dashwood will probably look something like Emma Thompson.

Otherwise, if things aren't described, I tend to think of things as more or less generic. Same goes if things are so extensively described that I skim said description.

* Correct link here; it's the annoted version of this work

I think it's interesting to watch the movie after reading the book just to compare the scenery and how someone else interpreted it. Like with Harry Potter, I was picturing the train station completely different from the way it was in the movie.

Yes, I sometimes wonder about where my mind culls the landscapes and interiors it shows me as scene visualizations. I've never noticed my mind recycling scenes between books; in light of their vividity and seemingly infinite variety, I suppose they are combinations of disparate details once seen in real life or in pictures but no longer consciously remembered.

When I was younger, I seem to have often used the faces of film, game or cartoon characters to stand for characters in books: they've stuck and I can still recall them when I revisit those books. I remember no such associations in books I've read after my mid-teens.

I've always preferred parsimonious descriptions to detailed ones; needless visual detail is unnecessary interference with the flow of my imagination (is this the justification of “Chekhov's gun”?). The more detailed the description of a place, the more I have to adjust to what is being said and curb my own ideas — pictures and film being the ultimate no-no at the end of the spectrum because they impose visual truth on me and deny all use of imagination. I'll never forgive myself for watching the LotR films, ruining the balrog and Dimholt forever, and I second #2's experience with actors' faces. It's a terrible thing to happen…

I've actually thought about this and think I might be a little strange. I honestly can't say I visualize anything while I read. I don't really generate mental pictures of characters or places, although sometimes certain scenes will pop into my head while I'm reading, but it is few and far between.

I wonder if that is why I tend to find long descriptions in books boring?

>6 Jenson_AKA_DL:

I don't visualize much of anything either, in fact I tend to skim really descriptive parts. However, I find that a good deal of the description, especially of people, seem to make it into my head. Actors rarely correctly fit the parts for me when a book is made into a movie. In fact, one of the big things that bothered me about the movie version of The Other Boleyn Girl was the casting of some of the lesser male roles.

#4

I have to watch the movie either before I read the book or long after. Otherwise the movie will disappoint. I loved the movie version of The World According to Garp and even after having read the superior novel, I still like the movie.

On the other hand, after reading The Cider House Rules I immediately rented the movie and even though John Irving wrote the screenplay himself I was disappointed.

#1: Do you ever visualize the same thing in different books (i.e. the kitchen in book A is the same as the kitchen in book B in your mind)? Do you think these scenes that we visualize while reading contribute to deja vu?

-----------

I have indeed thought about this. I do tend to reuse the same sets over and over. It depends on my mood, and how descriptive the author is. For some reason I use my best friend from elementary school's house a lot. Even though it was really in suburban 1970s Vancouver, it worked perfectly for Mrs. Dalloway's home in chic, 1920s London.

I always get a picture in my head when I read. I am disappointed in movies usually because they aren't how I pictured them in my head. I get bored with
very descriptive books because they don't let me imagine the story.

#6- Wow! I think it would be weird to read and not visualize anything in my head. When I read it's like there's a movie playing out the details in my head.

When you talk to someone on the phone, do you visualize what they're doing/where they're at while you're talking?

#9 - I don't think I've ever used a place that I know I know in my visualizations, but that's an interesting thought.

#10 - I'm usually disappointed in the movie as well, but I think the comparison of the producers view of the details and mine are interesting.

For me it's also like seeing a movie in my head. I don't like too much details, because then I feel I have to reset the image in my head to fit the description.

Sometimes I even get confused about having seen the movie or read the book! ^^

I have to say that I was amazed by the movie adaptation of LoTR. It felt as if I was going back to the movie I had imagined myself, that was so weird!

>11 KymberK: Nope I don't do any phone visualizations either.

I'm feeling a bit jealous of everyone else though!

I don't stop and analyse what I'm visualising - that causes it to disappear. I'm aware than I'm visualising something, in that I'm not seeing the world around me, but I couldn't pin the details down.

"Are the scenes completely made up in our minds" - as far as I'm aware, yes. No real basis, certainly no deja vu.

I'm not sure whether I visualise the same picture on re-reading as I do, the first time around. I doubt it.

I too dislike long descriptive passages, as they break the picture I mentally build (whatever it is).

I don't normally watch the film versions of books I've read, if I do I hold them very seperate from the written one, and still dislike them compared to the vividness of the written scene.

I tend to build up a mental picture for each scene as I read, more like a painting than a movie, but I usually don't realize it until after I've finished the book and am trying to remember the plot. Then I get this sort of slideshow detailing all the memorable points of the story. (This has been helpful watching movies; sometimes I'm completely shocked, but generally my impressions of the scene in the book and the scene in the movie are similar enough to not be a problem. What I have trouble with are movies that don't follow the same pattern as the book.)

Something interesting I've noticed, though, is that I visualize in a lot more detail when it's an animal story or something like that, rather than a book that's mainly dialogue or character study. I have a lot of trouble coming up with a clear picture of a person's face when I'm reading, even when I've seen the movie and have an actor to go by. But I can visualize a mouse's expression easily.

#16 - I think it's interesting that you think the scenes in our minds are 100% made up and not based on things we've seen in our lives. I mean, how do we know how to visualize something if we've never seen it?

I generally do visualize places that have come from my life, movies or books I've seen, etc. They are not places I particularly remember, and perhaps I have rearranged them somehow, but they came from somewhere inside my head. Have you ever had a dream with people in it that you didn't know in life? Those were faces you saw somewhere but didn't take notice of, except in your subconscious.

I always have very graphic images while I'm reading. Not long ago, I read Wind Up Bird Chronicle, and it was as if I was in Tokyo in my head (in the bottom of a well even). Another I could see vividly was The Good Earth. It is as if I will be perfectly at home should I ever travel to Asia.

I always think of the images my mind generates while reading to be similar to dreams. As soon as I notice I'm seeing them and stop to think about them, I can't remember what they were very well. And, like dreams, I think I tend to incorporate things I see every day with things just randomly compiled from multiple sources with random neuron firings.

Comparing book visualization to dreams is something I hadn't thought of. We're always waking up saying, "man, I had a weird dream" last night, not thinking that the scenery is probably stuff we've seen before.

6: Same here! I think we are definitely in the minority.... I don't really "visualize" while I read, not in the way like I see it in my mind or anything. When I'm thinking about the book but not actively reading it, whether I'm pondering or just taking a bathroom break, sometimes I'll picture the characters or a recent scene, but most of my visualizations are basically based on the cover illustration.

Yes, I admit it, I rely heavily on the cover illustration in visualizing how the plot goes. I don't do it conciously, it just happens. It's the main reason why I won't buy a series book with a different edition cover then the kind I'm used to... the original BabySitter's Club books, for instance, paint an ENTIRELY different picture of what they look like then the later editions and later books. To me, those later books are simply not what they are supposed to look like, and I cannot identify the picture with the character.

Ohhhh crap. I just typed all that up, about not really visualizing when I read, and then I remembered a specific time when that was totally untrue. Reading A Wind In the Door for the first time, in 5th grade, I vividly remember visualizing every single concept. The strange places that Meg/Calvin/etc were in, the weird things... the images were very real in my mind. But maybe that was different because we read along while someone read to us, and so maybe I visualized it through the voice? Hmm. *ponders this*

I don't know if I'd read as much as I do if I didn't see anything when I was reading. I think I would get bored.