Imagination

Lucid Lounge
21

I can do all five ‘primary’ senses well, even to the point of beyond normal human ability. My problem is doing all five at the same time though. Sight and sound I can combine together fairly well, but if I try to add another one of the remaining three sensations, one of those primary two goes down. Mainly sight.

It’s also hard for me to visualize voices other than my own. Not too sure why though, sounds I can do just fine. Oh, and having two or more sounds in my mind is nearly impossible for me, though trying to fix that.

22

I seem to have a good imagination and I’m creative, but I’m not good at experiencing touch, smell or taste when I imagine them. If I try hard I can experience them, but it doesn’t come easily to me.

However, my sight and hearing is really good. There’s something strange about the way I imagine them though - most of the time I imagine them normally but sometimes, instead of experiencing a scene I words write about it in my head, scrawling across my mind in different fonts depending on my mood…I can see the letters and words clear as anything when this happens but as for anything else…

It’s just bizzare.

23

Sound: excellent (I can mentally maintain beats with several instruments simultaneously)
Sight: good (but not very stable)
Touch: okay
Taste: poor
Smell: poor

24

definitely for me, visual and emotions, feeling, touch.

lately, emotions seem to be the key in recognizing dreamsigns and inducing a LD. things like falling (fear), attack by alien bugs (shock), or parting with a friend (sadness) are all visually, emotionally connected, and bring about a self awareness for me that reminds me I’m dreaming. :smile:

-mega mouse pickle

25

Sight is probably the easiest for me. I have a tendency to daydream and get so lost in my thoughts that I lose awareness of my surroundings. When I was a kid, I would walk back and forth in my basement for as much as one or two hours almost every day just imagining things.

Sound is the second easiest for me. I can usually hear a song in my head when I’m trying to play it on the piano.

Taste and smell are harder for me. For the most part I can’t evoke a taste or smell without spending at least a couple of minutes trying to conjure one up.

26

When you guys talk about “sight” or “seeing” things, do you mean that you’re seeing things with your eyes as if looking at a computer monitor or in your head?

27

When I was younger I could close my eyes and basically have a really vivid day dream, like a movie… actually ‘seeing’ everything. It’s more like looking at a computer monitor, because you actually see it in your head.

28

Sound: very bad (i really am just thinking about what it should sound like)
Sight: okay(sorta)
Touch: none (never feel annything i’m thinking about)
Taste: none (nor can i taste it)
Smell: none(nor can i smell it:P)

29

Hm, well you should feel lucky then, because when I close my eyes and imagine something I can only see it in my head, in front of my eyes there’s just darkness. I can see two things at once, one with my eyes and one in my head, but my goal is for these things to cross over. So like, I imagine a cat floating around the room, but out of my eyes, I can’t really see it, I want to be able to see that cat! And from reading I think that some people actually can. I just hope and wonder if there’s a way to work up to being able to do that.

30

Ilovelucid, I was wondering something along those lines as well. I always wondered if it was possible at all to actually superimpose an imagined vision over what one is seeing, to the point that, say, I imagine an apple on my desk, and I can really see an apple (although, of course, I know it’s just imagined).

For me, visualization is so difficult–so much more than I ever remember it. The only way I can imagine anything is to close my eyes, cover them with my hands, wait a bit for the phosphines to calm down, and only then try to visualize something. And even then it’s so faint that it’s more of an idea of an image than an actual visual imagining.

Notwithstanding, I’m best at touch and other physical sensations. The others I’m not so good with.

31

Visual very good, spatial not so good.

Audial very good, particularly if it’s really audial recall or a human voice.

Touch, good when I focus. If I try I hard can imagine some of intense physical sensations, but not so much pain.

empathic/emotive. I’m very good at imagining other people with depth of character. Emotive though takes some deal of focus.

If I’m focusing enough I can very easily get lost in my own imagination. When I was little I used to create and enter inter-connected worlds before bed whose boundaries seemed to expand as I got older. It’s a little too detailed to get into but basically I’d realize the character I identified with was only a creation of someone else, or that the someone I was identifying with had a much more expansive universe than I’d imagined.

If there’s something going on outside of me to encourage my imagining it’s usually much more effective, like if I’m actively framing something going on around me subjectively or consciously taking on a role. If there’s distracting noise at odd intervals I have trouble. But if it’s a constant noise, even if it’s a lot of different overlapping noise, I have an easier time.

32

i can imagine anything except tastes…
:cool:

33

I’d say my imagination varies. There’re times where my imagination is so vivid that I get lost in my mind and aspects such as mental visualization and sensations are as clear as tangible reality. Then… there are times where my imagination is faded like a age-worn photo, which really becomes frustrating because I practically live in my head… which can really become a bad habit.

On a regular day, my sense of taste is the best - no falter. I can imagine it with such clarity that it actually feels as if I’m, not only tasting, but eating something. It never satiates my hunger, though…

Touch is just below taste. Basically, if I can imagine it, I can feel it. It isn’t limited to simple, neutral texture-style touch, but pain and pleasure also - such goes for emotions, too. I may have more trouble with my “erogenous zones,” but with enough concentration and can emulate/simulate a feeling.

With smell, I get almost absolutely nothing. It takes considerable concentration to reproduce even the faintest scent.

Speaking visually and auditorily, that’s where my imagination fluxuates most, and often. Not so much in mental sound as in mental sight. I do notice that I can “see” in my mind’s eye with my physical eyes open as opposed to closed. The only time the clarity when closed reaches that of open eyes, or even physical reality, is when I’m in HI or dreaming. I do realize, however, that some people have trouble visualizing even beyond shapes and colors, or simple objects. I speak of much more complex imagery.

(I read somewhere, though - maybe even here - that reading more often can help to improve mental imagery…)

Overall, though, I’d say my imagination is pretty good.

34

So you can imagine an enormous fat cat sitting next to you and look over and see him?

35

Sound and taste are very easy for me. I can imagine smell, feeling and vision quite easy too, but it is kind of blurry.

36

Keep this topic going, and if anyone has any advice on how to improve visual imagination, I’d be very grateful. I can see things in my mind, and I thought that was as far as it went for everyone, but reading this topic and asking around, even a few of my friends can actually imagine a little man tap dancing in front of them and see an outline of it. I can’t see anything :sad:…

37

Sound, taste, touch, smell…

Not so sure about visuals, though… XDDD

I can imagine REAL people and such, but when I try to create someone new, the image is so vague in my head. :lol:

38

Tactile Visualization (Feeling) comes naturally, I am moderately good at Visualization, but I stink at everything else.