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Hello everybody!
Have you ever read a book before? [hee hee] What goes through your mind when you read a book? Do you visualise something in your head or do you just accept the text as it is?
(eg. "Fold of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day." ........ uhh... whatever, okay.
Or do you imagine this ![[image loading]](http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2011/204/8/7/scarlet_drapery_by_vicarious_trances-d41eviy.jpg)
or this?
![[image loading]](http://budajest.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/117.jpg)
)
Whenever I read, there is a little movie, or clip that plays in my mind. I try to turn the text that I read into image, so it makes me read slower as I'am trying to visualise the text. Then there are times when I just cannot visualise the text because I don't understand the vocabulary or haven't seen what a "dreary day" is.
 
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Well, for me, there's definitely visualization, but I read incredibly quickly anyway. My parents never thought TV was worth having when I was a kid, so I read a lot. As long as things are written coherently, I rip right through them.
Mind you, I only visualize where appropriate. If something is meant to be taken as pure data, that's what I'm doing.
And please don't tell me what I missed growing up without a TV. I didn't. Playing outside, riding bikes, and fishing when I was younger, plus old school computer games, then learning to build PCs, and doing paint and drywall for my uncle. TV wouldn't have beat any of that.
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You missed out on Pokeman and Dragonball Z man, your childhood, a waste!
;P
I also read rather slow and visualize everything that I read, not in the details, I am just getting the scenery and if the author explains details about the clothing, I don't exactly care, there is a person for me in a room, hallway or whatever place the author gives.
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Katowice25012 Posts
I never do spacial visualizations and occasionally it bites me when the author refers to the layout of the room later to describe the action.
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On August 14 2011 11:20 heyoka wrote:
I never do spacial visualizations and occasionally it bites me when the author refers to the layout of the room later to describe the action.
I know! I HATE life when that happens to me!
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On August 14 2011 10:58 JingleHell wrote:
Well, for me, there's definitely visualization, but I read incredibly quickly anyway. My parents never thought TV was worth having when I was a kid, so I read a lot. As long as things are written coherently, I rip right through them.
Mind you, I only visualize where appropriate. If something is meant to be taken as pure data, that's what I'm doing.
And please don't tell me what I missed growing up without a TV. I didn't. Playing outside, riding bikes, and fishing when I was younger, plus old school computer games, then learning to build PCs, and doing paint and drywall for my uncle. TV wouldn't have beat any of that.
you missed out on nothing, tv was bad and now it's 10x worse.
i love books but tv destroyed my attention span for them, so i've only read like 10-20 when my internet dies for a really long time. i visualize almost everything, but it's rather quick, i don't sit back and meditate on my imagination or anything. my imagination is pretty active anyways, so it's not a problem for me to do that. i can imagine a situation out of almost nothing lol
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I often visualize but its more like i get a scene in my head then dont worry about it again untill the author goes in depth about setting again. and as i get nearer to the end of the book and i cant put it down i start reading faster and the visualization comes less often.
your pictures are too big 
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it's pretty much like a movie in my mind. sometimes i forget that i'm actually reading and think that it is a movie lol
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I generaly make a visual of what is said and a mix of places ive seen in dreams or places ive been into before. But to this day i still remember one so well, it was some goosebumps book about a comicbook. I can still see the warehouse that it was mainly based in today, even though i havnt read it in like 8 years.
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due to being dead inside i dont visualise anything when reading a book ; /
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I do the same thing. I think it makes the experience more fun for me. I just like having that visual aspect. Granted there are certain scenes that don't work and my reading pace is slowed, but personally I think its worth it.
On August 14 2011 11:25 Malgrif wrote:
it's pretty much like a movie in my mind.
After a while it gets like this, where it just keeps running from scene to scene. I agree.
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I visualize but because of how many words I don't actually read it's not uncommon for what I visualize to be plain wrong (I associate the wrong hair color or style with a lot of characters).
It's also somewhat hazy and undefined in almost all cases. I only create a detailed picture of a scene if I stop reading and decide to just figure out what that one scene looks like to me. I'll have faces but nothing else really pictured for most characters in most cases, for example ... if it's not what's being described in the current sentence generally there's just some sort of "placeholder" in the image in my mind.
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Basically a movie, but much more involved, and much less specific. I don't think about visualizing strict details, but I almost always lose track of the world around me completely and just think of myself as existing as whatever the narration in the story is. I don't try to visualize what I'm reading, I just sit with a book on my lap and what the words on the page say is what's happening around me. When I close the book, it's a very weird sensation as the real world floods back in. I imagine that time stops in that other world, and it will start again when I start reading again. It's really awesome.
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I do the same thing crate. I visualize books as I read, but I don't try too hard for accuracy. If I read a detail that doesn't fit with my mental picture, I'll just update the image and keep reading, no big deal. I greatly prefer authors that can vividly depict a scene with as few words as possible because if I see two pages of text describing a room, fuck that shit I'm just imagining a generic room and skimming the description.
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have you tried audiobooks? there might be a an audiobook version of what youre reading. perhaps that could alleviate some of the confusion on how a certain passage should be understood. it's also very convenient.
edit
oh youre reading jane eyre id suggest getting an audiobook with a voice actor that has a female english accent.
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I always vizualize when I read a book and i can even remember the story of a book like a movie without reading it at the moment. The easier it is to forget that you are actually reading the better the book I think.
On the other hand a character from my favourite book (guess what^^) is described with three arms but when i read it the first time i fear i skipped that part and whenever i reread it i get totally confused for a minute because i refuse to alter my imagination.
Additionally when im tired or something similar my vizualization becomes less accurate and suddenly there are holes in the picture or something like that. I know I should stop reading when this happens =)
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I used to like to read, than I had to go through 12 years of English through public schools, now I am completely ruined.
Perhaps one day I will enjoy reading again...
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I really don't try to do anything, I just take it in, it typically does turn into an image, unless it is very clever or intricate language, then I think of it in a different context.
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Yeah I always visualize a ton, sometimes I even stop after a page and just think for a couple of minutes or read the page twice just to get a mental image.
Then I go see the movie and it shatters my world view.
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I'm same as you. I visualize each sentence... which makes me a suuuuuper slow reader.
But I don't really read a lot lol
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yeah i do the same "movie in my mind" thing, taking it slower to get the full picture. I find it really hard to read otherwise, it feels like im not taking in the info if i dont visualize it.
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I tend to skip over a lot of the descriptive dialogue. Sometimes I end up missing entire pages. Of course, I end up missing a lot accidently, but it makes re-reads quite enjoyable.
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I don't read that much, however when I do i try to visualize as much as I can, because this way I actually understand what I'm reading. I also hate most movies based off of books because they are executed so poorly, it's like an insult to the book.
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I don't visualize much. Shorter descriptiions, I skim through.
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i don't visualize at all really, and if i do i take a break from reading more words to do so. i kinda just make implications based on what happens, like if someone is shot in a room i kinda just pick a side of the room, add in the details and know he got shot
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I'm in the same boat as the people who visualize every sentence. Although lately I have been visualizing less often to increase my reading speed and to get a "fuller picture" of what I'm visualizing.
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I tend to see lines between words, spaces and colour. I follow their tones, their rhytmes and see really clear image when its well written, I have the feelings of looking at paintings and finding a sense for each details.
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I just read the text as is, and end the book without much understanding of the book at all LOL. I skip some pages because its boring (because i dont visualize). 
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I only put things in my minds eye if there's a spatial description of something. Otherwise its pointless to try to visualize things, since your visualizations are almost always contradicted by something later on in the text, and it sucks to amend a mental image you've held for a while.
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This was one of the things I thought I only did! I definitely visualize, and end up barely noticing the text anymore for some reason and almost only have images (somewhere in my mind the text is still there, but I just visualize everything) :o
Used to read super quickly doing that, but recently I have been reading extremely slowly for some reason whether or not I visualize the text T.T
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I know this is an old thread, but I bump for justice. I think "how" you read is pretty important in terms of getting the most from reading itself.
At first I just read the text and had sort of short clips of the story moving along every now and then. I tended to read novels like I did in coursework (extract info).
Then after reading novels a bit more, I slowed down and started to do the full motion picture thing where I would not only imagine full visuals but also sound.
But today, I try to immerse myself fully. It's gone to the point where I don't really see the text I read (if that makes any sense at all?), and I just visualize what's going on, I hear the sound (of talking, walking, opening of doors, etc..), I also put in feel and smell whenever I can (e.g., the breeze or temperature, or the smell of the bakery or whatever that's relevant). The great thing is the older you are it's easier to incorporate these sensory inputs into the story simply fromt he fact that you can draw from a greater reservoir of real life experiences. Pretty much everything going on in a novel can be fairly accurately put in terms of visuals, sounds, smells, touch, and taste.
Now I don't read like this for classes (where it's just info intake asap), but I've got to say that today I enjoy reading much more than watching films. It takes a bit more brainpower and concentration to do the full immersive style, but it's pretty fulfilling and worth the effort imo.
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On January 31 2012 14:14 coffecup wrote:
I know this is an old thread, but I bump for justice. I think "how" you read is pretty important in terms of getting the most from reading itself.
At first I just read the text and had sort of short clips of the story moving along every now and then. I tended to read novels like I did in coursework (extract info).
Then after reading novels a bit more, I slowed down and started to do the full motion picture thing where I would not only imagine full visuals but also sound.
But today, I try to immerse myself fully. It's gone to the point where I don't really see the text I read (if that makes any sense at all?), and I just visualize what's going on, I hear the sound (of talking, walking, opening of doors, etc..), I also put in feel and smell whenever I can (e.g., the breeze or temperature, or the smell of the bakery or whatever that's relevant). The great thing is the older you are it's easier to incorporate these sensory inputs into the story simply fromt he fact that you can draw from a greater reservoir of real life experiences. Pretty much everything going on in a novel can be fairly accurately put in terms of visuals, sounds, smells, touch, and taste.
Now I don't read like this for classes (where it's just info intake asap), but I've got to say that today I enjoy reading much more than watching films. It takes a bit more brainpower and concentration to do the full immersive style, but it's pretty fulfilling and worth the effort imo.
That's pretty amazing. I haven't really been able to completely immerse myself in books for a long time...
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EPT
