/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10156570]

>actually visualizing the characters and setting
You disappoint me so often /lit/, please tell me none of you actually do this.

[Anonymous No.10156588]

>>10156570
I do it a little. Not so much when I'm reading but when I'm day dreaming after. There's so much "post-processing" that takes place. I find it helps to give them a more material existence.

[Anonymous No.10156616]

>>10156570

I don't, but just because I can't.

[Anonymous No.10156639]

>>10156570
I do, all of the time, really adds to my enjoyment and I read slow as fuck anyway so I might as well savor the details.

[Anonymous No.10156665]

Depends on the text, but sometimes, yes. Why do you mock that?

[Anonymous No.10156667]

>>10156570
I only visualize references to words
do humans actually "see pictures"?

[Anonymous No.10156668]

>>10156665

It has something to do with Nabokov, I suppose.

[Anonymous No.10156675]

I do this a lot for playrights
And novels
And Epics

[Anonymous No.10156689]

>>10156668
I don't understand. I searched "Nabokov and visualization," and all that came up were a few comments on Nabokov's aestheticization of words (see "poshlost"), nothing about visualizing characters and settings.

[Anonymous No.10156693]

Of course I do, and the only reason I can think for someone not doing it is that either they can't because they are retarded or becouse they feel better about themselves if the read the words faster, sacrifising savoring the book,

[Anonymous No.10156699]

>>10156667
Yeah. It might be a bit embarrassing to admit, but I was great at visualizing before porn became my main fap material. It's a skill that can be trained and honed to memorize entire poems or even second language vocabulary. We as humans have a bias for locational, emotional, and visual information. Our minds are primitive like that, but it can be exploited with strong visualization and intuitive associations (imagining a guy named Baker dressed as a baker in your house.)

[Anonymous No.10156745]

>>10156689
I don't get it either. It's half the enjoyment of reading, and it's basically essential for writing. If anyone has more information I'd be glad to see it, because ai really don't get what the point could be. (OP might have meant it as "actually drawing them", which I think I remember Nabokov doing for Madame Bovary or something in one of his books of lectures,but I don't know).

[Anonymous No.10156751]

>>10156745
It's a(n ironic) speedreader meme about subvocalizing. It really doesn't make sense to suppress it outside of reading nonfiction where the goal is just to absorb information.

[Anonymous No.10156753]

>>10156570
it's the best

[Anonymous No.10156759]

>>10156751
Oh, ok, thanks.

[Anonymous No.10156762]

>>10156570
Holy fuck are you a loser.

[Anonymous No.10156966]

>>10156570
I struggle to do it. I can kind of picture characters but 3d spaces fuck me up.

[Anonymous No.10156983]

>>10156966
It takes practice, and it's sort of a use it or lose it thing, but not a lot of people are willing to learn these days. Try spending five to ten minutes everyday visualising your room in great detail.

[Anonymous No.10157041]

>>10156699
Stop watching porn. If anyone begins playing porn in front of you just say no and walk away.

[Anonymous No.10157112]

>not getting the intended emotions streamlined directly to your amygdala without any prior collateral visualization/understanding

[Anonymous No.10157120]

I cannot for the life of me, imagine a face or person out of thin air.

Sometimes I just pick an actor or actress and cast them into the role, other times I don't imagine them at all depending on their importance to the plot.

[Anonymous No.10157130]

Oftentimes I will, but the images will usually be silly and grandiose since the writer will add in a bit of flair and my retarded brain takes it often literally.

[Anonymous No.10157192]

I do it unconsiouscly, it just appears in my head when im reading

[Anonymous No.10157196]

>not visualizing book scenes as anime

[Anonymous No.10157219]

i do it but its all blurry and the characters constantly switch appearances

[Anonymous No.10157247]

>>10156570
I do and even worse I visualise everything as an anime.

[Anonymous No.10157329]

I have instant and automatic visualization. Thanks to my visual memory and the immense amount of movies/series/games I've watched/played. All fiction I read turn into film in my head, I even have sound effects.

[Anonymous No.10157343]

>>10156570
>actually understanding the book
Bet you plebs do that too.

[Anonymous No.10157444]

>>10156751
in the case of lots of ninfiction it also helps to understand it - if you are able to 3d visualize the described machine component then how is it bad - vice versa it will just help you

[Anonymous No.10157945]

>>10157343
This is /lit/, of course nobody does.

[Anonymous No.10157950]

ITT: liars, you can't picture a thing in your "head"

[Anonymous No.10157983]

>>10156570
You mean while reading or while writing? While reading you obviously should, though I try to avoid it when writing for the same reason I don't like listening to music while I write. It becomes a component of the piece that only the author has, causing the writing to feel incomplete or wrong when other people go over it without those additional elements.

[Anonymous No.10158137]

What does /lit/ think of him and his books?

[Anonymous No.10158156]

>>10156570
Are you implying this can be controlled? It just happens.

[Anonymous No.10158170]

>>10156570
Point to where you are on the spectrum please

[Anonymous No.10158184]

>>10158137
Garbage

[Anonymous No.10158260]

>>10157247
Lol, this made me remember that I used to do the opposite. Whenever I watched any film of TV, I tried to have a running commentary in my mind to visualize how it would be written on a page.

[Anonymous No.10158264]

>>10157950
Kek

[Anonymous No.10158413]

Wait, how do you find Infinite Jest even remotely enjoyable if you don't visualize the scenes? The way Wallace describes things creates hilarious visuals. Why waste that?

[Anonymous No.10159249]

>>10156616
>>10156966
>>10157120
I was completely unaware that this is something people struggle with.
Like >>10157329 everything I read almost instantly translates to a detailed "movie" in my head, including sounds (background noises and even different voices for characters etc.)

I never thought of this as something I was particularly "good at", I just thought it was normal.

When thinking of a book I've read the first thing that comes to mind is an image of a scene (or a setting, rather), not a quote from the text.

[Anonymous No.10159308]

This is impossible to not do. Why are people falling for this obvious bait.
Visualization is a key principle of conceptualization even abstract principles get visualized.

[Anonymous No.10159371]

>>10156570
>He thinks how fast you read a book is what decides your worthiness as a reader

Wew man

[Anonymous No.10159384]

>>10159308
Tell me then how to "visualize" virtue

[Anonymous No.10159393]

>>10159384
subjective, but you do
just like you visualize infinity

[Anonymous No.10159399]

>>10159384
One could personify virtue or portray someone as virtuous. Even the world itself could be viualized through word association, but i dunno.

[Anonymous No.10159401]

>>10157950
Explain dreams

[Anonymous No.10159406]

>>10159308
Get a load of this pleb

[Anonymous No.10159409]

>>10159393
Describe your experience of this because this is not at all what happens with me

[Anonymous No.10159528]

>>10159393
>Implying there is a one-to-one mapping between words or concepts and mental images.
this is retarded. There are many cases in which no mental picture corresponds to my usage of a given word or my understanding of a particular concept. Furthermore, in many cases, a single word or concept is associated with multiple mental images, and conversly there are many cases in which a single mental image os associated with multiple words or concepts. E.g with respect to infinity, how does a mental image of aleph null differ from a mental image of aleph one? If they differ in any respect, its probably wholly irrellevant to their meaning.

[Anonymous No.10159538]

I visualize images even when reading philosophy and mathematics, get on my level, losers.

[Anonymous No.10159539]

Damn his do-rag meming ass, he wasn't even bald. If It said "Suicidal Psychos" on it-then mad respect but. . . .

[Anonymous No.10159549]

>>10156570
New to /lit/ and apparently nothing is safe from being attached to a superiority complex or maybe there's a better term

[Anonymous No.10159552]

A misconception many have is that these images are perfect. Like a dream, there are many holes your mind simply glosses over. And your mind does link abstract concepts to tangible memories and images in those memories. Your brain is like a webpage with a bunch of links leading to more links.

[Anonymous No.10159802]

>>10157120
I agree with you. I find that peter sellers takes the place of most protagonists of books I read in my head. Odd.

[Anonymous No.10161005]

>>10158137
great speaker, books are boring and useless, except to escape into meaningless tone-awareness

[Anonymous No.10161500]

When I was reading Sphere in highschool I got bored halfway through and imagined one is the woman characters as inexplicably naked the whole time.

[Anonymous No.10161521]

>actually thinking about your setting or characters at all
>not just sitting down with a legal pad and busting out a draft in an afternoon, sending it off to the publisher and getting published by the end of the week

[Anonymous No.10161522]

>>10161500
I don't understand.

[Anonymous No.10161540]

>>10161522
What don't you understand?