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It's odd to hear people talk about visualisation as if it's a choice. That's not really how my mind works. I mean I can deliberately visualise something but usually if someone starts to describe something then I "see" it. Even if I don't have all the details.
For example if someone says, "I was walking my dog in the park today". I'll imagine (involuntarily) that person walking a dog. I may or may not know which breed their dog is. If not it'll be a sort of generic mutt. Depending on who it is I may not know what park, or may not know the park even if I do. I'll probably see them walking through something that looks a lot like the nearest park to me.
There are definitely times when I can't see something. In particular my spatial reasoning is poor. If an author describes the layout of a set of rooms say, then I may get confused. I used to get frustrated by this but now I reckon if it's important to the plot that you can get from the kitchen to the bedroom via the back stairs then they'll let me know. Unless it was a murder mystery and that was something that was a clue. Well then it's a clue I missed, hey ho.
I do try not to skim (or skip) passages but that's more my OCDish tendency to want to feel I've read every word. If I find my mind wandered I do go back and re-read passages that I read but didn't take in.
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