Imagination while reading?

[delphidb96]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

Nope, I don't imagine what I'm reading visually.

I not only visualize, I tend to vreate listening soundtracks.

Derek

[afa]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

I can't imagine not imagining. Characters have voices, scenery has texture. Those worlds become real.

I agree.

I don't like to just read, I like to immerse myself in the story. I want to be right there in the think of it, in the plot, beside the characters. For me, visualising it is a large part of that. I appreciate that others might not need to do that for the immersion effect, but I do. As DixieGal said, I can't imagine not imagining it.

Many times, I would even modify the scene a little in my mind, to suit my preferences. Not a lot, just small differences, like a slight change in the dialogue or the 'look' of the scene. I don't know why I do that; it's not that I think I know better than the author. But sometimes, I can't help myself. I wonder if anyone else does that, too?

Of course, my approach does result in my taking longer than usual to finish a novel.

[Mercury]

Another non-visualiser here. I agree with Elfwreck, the speed at which I read would make it impossible to have a ful blown movie playing in my head, but I don't think of this as automatically a good thing.

I do find my comprehension of a books texts and themes can be good in general, but I do forget character names, which order the scenes happened in etc. When studying novels, I had to read once in my own way, then go through the book again making notes. I found the act of writing down info from the book was the only way to put the brakes on my reading speed.

Even when reading for full comprehension of a text, I don't visualise anything, I just don't think I am a person whose most important tool for interpreting the world is sight. I don't have a vision problem, I just am not very good at recognizing things by how they look, if that makes any sense! When I think of someone I know, I will think about their personality, and the way they talk. I only ever identity someone by how they look if they have a very distinctive, or peculiar, feature or style (for example, they have a huge moustache, or they always wear hats).

[SkyDream]

Always having pictures/videos on my mind when reading.
How else could you recognize what you are reading ?
And it makes a lot more fun reading a science fiction story and and the same time "see the movie".

[Sweetpea]

There are books, I just can't visualize. Those books I often find boring. Those books I adore, are the books I can visualize perfectly. Where I don't read the dialog, but where the characters say their dialog (I can even see their mouths moving!)

I also generally get confused when I've read a book, and then seen the movie. The movie actors almost never fit with how I imagined the characters (there are exceptions, naturally...)

[dreams]

I thought I pictured the story, but after reading though this thread, I think I just sense the story. I am in the story and feel what is going on. If that makes sense.

[Kevin2960]

I immerse completely, It is a Movie, Only FAR FAR better, though some films of books are very good, NONE are as good as my own imagination, without this what would be the point of reading ?

[Kirtai]

Originally Posted by Elfwreck

I don't visualize when I read most of the time. I certainly don't hear the conversations played out--I read a lot faster than people talk. I don't have a movie-version in my head.

I do get a "sense" of the actions going on, and imagine (audiolize?) the quality of the voices, but I don't hear individual words, or parse individual descriptions, most of the time.

I'm exactly like that too.

I wonder if this is a tactile/kinesthetic sense we're feeling?

[HappyMartin]

I never realized there was a way of reading a book and not visualizing it. Inevitably I dislike movies of books that I have read and it is usually because my visualization jars with the movie in some way. Perhaps people that dont visualize as much (sorry but I cannot even comprehend being able to follow a book without a movie in my head) dont get as aggravated by movie interpretations.

[Worldwalker]

A crutch? It's the whole point of reading for pleasure! You want to experience the story, not just read a report on it. I suppose visualization/immersion doesn't matter to someone whose only goal is to find out what all the words say so they can answer questions about them for next week's test, and that's valid so far as it goes, but how could one enjoy reading when just treating it as an exercise in data gathering?

As for the people who say there are no poor readers:

• Is everyone an equally good cook? If so, why hasn't Gordon Ramsay called me to be head chef in his latest restaurant?
  
• Is everyone an equally good baseball player? If so, where's the Red Sox uniform with my name on the back?
  
• Is everyone an equally good driver? If so, why did my month of May include watching other people driving in the Indy 500?
  
• Is everyone an equally good writer? If so, why didn't I sell the first story I ever submitted, the way Robert Heinlein did with Lifeline?
  
• Is everyone an equally good photographer? If so, why are Ansel Adams' pictures worth millions and mine not worth the paper they're printed on?

I can go on forever. There are millions of things human beings can do, and for each and every one of them, some of us are good at them and some of us are bad at them. That's why we have winners and runners-up and also-rans. It's why we have grades. It's we have performance reviews, promotions, and firings for incompetence. It's why we have book, music, and movie reviews with anything other than five stars. Look at your own life and fill in the blanks: "I'm a good ________; I'm a poor ________."

I'm a poor cook. It's a fact of life. I could get better at it if I practiced, but I haven't practiced and I'm not very good. I can successfully open a can, or microwave a frozen dinner, which gets me by. Do those people who say "there are no poor readers" also think there are no poor cooks? If so, could you please speak to Gordon Ramsay about my inexplicably missing job offer, and also have a word with the people who respond to threats of my cooking with "hey, I've got a Domino's coupon; my treat!"

Of course there are poor readers. Reading is a skill like any other. Some people are good at it, some people are so-so at it, some people are utterly terrible at it, and both interest and practice (and possibly some innate talent) are necessary to go from bad to mediocre to good, just like with cooking, making movies, or playing baseball. Believing otherwise moves beyond being politically correct and well into the realm of delusional.

[Lo Zeno]

Originally Posted by mrscoach

So, do you imagine the scenes from the books you read? I know people who read a lot are most likely "good" readers, because if you aren't you probably aren't going to do a lot of it, but I was wondering about this little cross section of humanity (or non-humans, if any be on here).

I always imagine the scene, the actions and the sounds in my mind... now.
But it's not always been like that with books written in English.

My first language is Italian, so I learnt to read that language first, and ever since I can remember, I have always pictured the scene and the characters in my mind, sort of like watching a movie.
But when I learnt English, and read my first full book in English, that kind of magic didn't happen: the effort of understanding what was written, the frequent pauses to look up a word in the dictionary, the need to read two or three times a sentence, made it impossible for me to create in my mind a picture of what was happening in the story.

As my English improved, it got easier, and now I do imagine what I read even when I read English books (most of the time, anyway, until I find a word or a phrasal verb that I have never read before).

[GeoffC]

Originally Posted by DixieGal

I can't imagine not imagining. Characters have voices, scenery has texture. Those worlds become real.

though as the years have continued to pass me by I find I can visualise less and less

[*reg*]

I don't see a 'movie' as such in my head when I read, I do not visualise everything.

I must have some sub-conscious thing going on though, as quite often when a movie of a novel is released the actor/actress is not how I imagined the characters to look like. In saying that though, I could not give you a clear definition of how I saw them, just that those people weren't it.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by dreams

I thought I pictured the story, but after reading though this thread, I think I just sense the story. I am in the story and feel what is going on. If that makes sense.

That seems like a good description how I read. I visualise some scene but not in full details. I also find most descriptive parts boring to read and cannot stand most fantasy that is written a a travelling book. What you are immersed in is the plot, the characters and so on.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by Worldwalker

A crutch? It's the whole point of reading for pleasure! You want to experience the story, not just read a report on it. I suppose visualization/immersion

Visualization and immersion is not the same thing. You can be totally immersed in a book without visualizing it (to the extent that you see a movie).