This is something that I've discussed with a few of my friends before, and ever since it came up in a few conversations, I've sort of wondered about other people! Anyway, this is the thing I'm wondering about.

Do you see pictures, or do you see text when you close your eyes?

By that I mean, if you're writing something out, are you just seeing text go by, or do you see vivid pictures? For me, it's always pictures. My creative muse is always alive, always working, which is no wonder I almost have no problem posting really quickly. I have just that insane amount of visual in my head going on. Vibrant, colourful pictures, going through actions, and it's rather easy to simply just put down what I'm seeing. I've got a friend who apparently just sees text, she's can get that dreaded writer's block, while I seem /almost/ immune to that. I wish I could say I never get writers block, but there arre those times when I don't see anything at all and I get stumped. But after a good night's sleep or just getting away from role playing and stocking up on some video games, the visuals return and I'm right back into it all. It's funny because I try to imagine people seeing in text, and that just leads me to visualizing a person, sitting there at the computer with a word processor open, staring at it as text just flies by over their head. It's a funny visual I think. Ahem. Kinda reminds me of the thought bubbles. Crazy little bubbles.

What about everyone else though? What do you see?

I definitely see visuals. I couldn't rp if there wasn't a picture in my head. It is from the scene in my head that I draw my descriptions, otherwise my posts would consist solely of speech and action. I love developing an entire depiction of my character, the other characters, as well as their background, in order to best interact with the rp environment. I rarely experience writers' block; mostly, if I'm not able to post, it's because I'm bored, or because I don't want to put in the time and effort, because I'm a bit of a perfectionist and edit every post rigorously.

I ALWAYS see visuals. I can post a 15 sentence post in like....6 minutes because of it. While it takes others that I RP with anywhere from 1/2 an hour to a few days to post anywhere from a 20 to a 60 sentence post. xD

I think in visual. Sometimes it makes it hard to post because I see what I want but don't always know how to word it.

Visuals, for the most part! I have a very active imagination, and it's the "scenes" I imagine in my head that usually prompt a post or story.

This might be a very predictable thread, considering this is an RPG forum... We're a creative bunch. XD

Definitely visuals for me when I'm reading and writing. *nod*

I see visuals, but I take ages to choose just the right words to describe what I hear, see, taste, feel, and everything! I'm very picky when I write. ^_^

There is one down side. When I dream the way I think up stories, I don't sleep very well because it's too real. I like my sleep.

I have to make the conscious effort to visualize the scene. It's something my creative writing professor told me about reading rather than writing: you can often extract far greater impact from a scene if you visualize it. You see hidden bits of humor, like for example the image of someone walking about in the background while your character broods in the foreground, oblivious and self-centered...

It's a trick he meant us to use in order to cope with minimalist writers like Raymond Carver, but I find it works in reverse for RP--I just spell out more what I'm seeing rather than leaving it to that imagination.

pictures, always, moving pictures like movies, and sort of.. impulses underneath that i guess you could call text, they tell my fingers what to type. :)

Mine's a mix. I see pictures with subtitles so I am a terrible skimreader and end up with the only thing I completely read is the dialogue. Terrible, right?

See this is what I thought most of the answers would be! For all those who see in visuals then, does it actually made her head spin thinking about people seeing just text instead of scenes and moving pictures so to speak? I mean, I try to really think about it, and just the thought of it makes me just...it confuses me really. I can visualize, but I can't just visualize there being text. I mean I can see a book with words and all that in it but...it's just...strange!

Wah! xD I'm the friend that sees mainly in text and I'm envious of you all!

Weeell...hmm...it's not quite text so to speak...I don't see actual text when I think, because I don't really see anything unless I make a conscious effort. I get visuals when I read a lot, but when I write...I really have to focus hard to visualize it, because I don't really see it on my own. Mostly, I think about the words, and I think more in feelings, emotions, scents, and sensations than actual visuals. It's really quite odd. '_' I can picture scenes, but again, it doesn't really come naturally.

Unless I'm reading. Then I can see things usually. x3

But otherwise I think in words. I focus more on the words I'm writing, and yet I don't actually see what I'm writing unless I stop and think about it. Which is why it takes me forever and a day to write my RP posts, because I have to keep stopping to visualize it! xD

I guess that's why I draw a lot. When I can't properly visualize what I want to write, I quickly draw it so I have a visual reference! Haha! So weird!

Though there are those rare days/moments when suddenly I visualize everything vividly. And I have no trouble doing it when I'm daydreaming; my daydreaming is veeery vivid, and so are my dreams. Odd!

I'm more like Rhi-Rhi on this front, and would kill to see everything in visuals and know what I'm trying to talk about. I don't see in text though, which is why I originally didn't respond to this topic. It's not like I close my eyes and see actual text streaming along. I can't say "Oh yes, this Verdana 14pt. font in my head says this", but I don't get pictures either. I have a really hard time imagining a scent and I can only really see the little movies y'all are talking about if I'm thinking of a scene in an actual movie I've seen.

Occasionally, if I'm remembering something, it'll come across as more of a visual, but even my dreams aren't always in movie-form. It's more like sounds to me I think. My thoughts run kind of like an inner monologue, which sounds crazy (and sometimes is). It also takes me forever and a half to chug out a roleplay post- I usually know how the story goes but putting it all together to form one picture is difficult.

I guess that when I write, the first thing I do before any typing happens is try and come up with what actions my character is going to take. So I imagine the scene in my mind, as if I were there myself and looking around, interacting.

YES! That is exactly it Ahhh! I have been groping for a long time for a way to explain it, and that captures it perfectly! I don't see text, but when I mean I think in words, that's exactly it! It's like an inner monologue. o.O

Wow. Thanks! xD I never knew how to explain it and struggled with that for a long time, but that sums it up!

Perhaps text was the wrong word for it, but I also had no real clue as to what I should put for it, so I decided to go with text. Perhaps that's a better way to put it, an inner monologue of sorts then! Well, got that all cleared up then don't we!

Ha! I am unique! I see words. When I think about how to spell things, I close my eyes and I actually write on the inside of my eyelids. I don't go 'hmm, how does it go a...r....f...oh yeah' I see the letters forming. Also happens when I write or people are reading out loud to me.

I find it really, really difficult to see pictures. Words are all I see, pretty much. Sometimes if there's a lot of description and I work hard I can see a picture in my head but usually there are vague shapes or I just don't concentrate on the pictures at all and just float along with what my brain tells me it's seeing. There's a difference! I can't actually see the pictures but I can work out that someone has black hair, because my mind goes 'yes, I can see he has black hair'. Make sense?

Probably not.

I can describe how things are and how I want them to be and things but I can never see them. I can only use words.

My friend's mother says I have a very verbal memory. It's obviously not normal, because my friend couldn't even grasp that some people don't see pictures and she thought I was lying until her Mum explained that it was true.

Hmm, I think I get what Rhi-Rhi is saying now. Maybe not, I don't know. When I am thinking of the actual mechanics of writing and which specific words to use I do see the text in my mind. But I am visualizing my character's actions at the same time, and I'm more focused on what I envision in my mind so I don't notice the words as much. I only start to notice them when I stop focusing on the story and get down to "is this word better to use than this one?" Etc.

Is that what you mean? *tries to understand* XD

I'm in the crowd that doesn't get a visual when reading unless I concentrate, which is why I'm an avid supporter of PBs. Basically, as I read, I comprehend it and recognize what's happening but don't visualize the interaction. I can know everything that's happening in a post and not see it. When I write, the words literally chain together in my head when I think about what I want to put down, but again I don't see them or pictures in my head. However, I do a lot of daydreaming and they are always vivid and detailed down to the specifics and I often forget where I am. Guess I'm a bit of both.

I get incredibly strong visuals. Which is why I find it so hard to find PBs, because I know down to a T what my character looks like. I also get the feeling of it -- sort of like, if my character is lifting a box down, I can feel the way the arms move, what muscles tense, how heavy the box is, where the pressure is on their palms... etc.

Which is why I'm such a description person.

See, PBs aren't that difficult for me. It's more of a "yeah, that sounds about right" than trying to match perfectly, because I really don't have a picture of my character.

I think I have the same as Rhi-Rhi, a sort of inner monologue *I was looking for a way to describe it too XD*.

This is what happens when I write, it's not like I visualise scenes or anything, mostly a story already forms in my head and I just write it down. I'm a fast RP'er if I have my muse, because the story just pops in my mind and I write it down lol.

Although I'm a fantasizer lol, (not about writing) if I fantasize or something or think about something happening I can actually 'see' it happening infront of me. My visuals aren't strong, like in a dream or something, it's more that my mind fills in the 'persons and surroundings' in vague shapes or something I don't know XD. Although when I close my eyes I can better visualise things, but still not like I'm dreaming.

It's hard to desribe XD.

Visuals… and sometimes music too, depending on the situation. My whole mind is like a cinema with a different movie or series playing everyday; sometimes original and sometimes my own rehashed version of another’s creation. It’s how I role-play too; visualizing the scenario I want to play-out before posting. After which there is much weeping as I realize I completely failed to reconstruct what I pictured into words. It totally bites…

I see visual too, but that doesn't seem to make me any faster of a roleplayer.
In fact, I am incredibly slow because it's hard to find words for the pictures in my head. xD

That and the fact that I go over my entire post as I start each new paragraph.

I'm latching on to the inner monologue party. Though I do occasionally visualise things, my head works better with words and ideas in terms of writing than it does with pictures. When I visualise a scene in relation to something I am writing I see mostly details. There is an entirety, but what my inner eye focuses on is the detail; a glass falling, an out-stretched hand or a tree's leaves, for instance.

My mind works mainly in monologues (that is a wonderful description, whoever came up with it), and in the occasional dialogue. I daydream quite a lot, on the bus on the way home or in the car, and it is the words I focus on. I imagine scenes and what people are saying to each other, but it is all very close-cut and minimalistic. Perhaps I should just start describing my head as a rather minimalistic stage?

This reminds me of another, similar discussion: when thinking of months, days, weeks, how do you organise them? Do you see lists, wheels? Are they coloured? I see everything as hand-written, colourless, lists. Boringly enough.

But, oh, PB's are difficult. Though I do not know what they look like, I have a spesific feeling of them, and that feeling does usually not translate to piuctures at all.

Pictures! Often it's a flash. Maybe my brain is thinking one step ahead while I type, maybe it's keeping pace with the rest of me, but whatever it's doing, it does it not only in pictures, but full blown colour and sound. I dream in these things, too--though my dreams are also sensation-heavy, which is particularly horrific when I have nightmares, but that's neither here nor there, is it? XD

When I visualise, I visualise it down to the last detail because I'm very much a, 'see it, write it' person. I struggle to visualise text at all to be honest.

That said, when I'm doing something that is a graphic, it's rare that I can visualise what it will look like until it's finished. In this instance I like to just play with colours and shapes. I'm a bloody child, I tell you!

I can definitely visulaize what is going on in my head when I am writing, which is probably one of the reasons I love to put a lot of detail into my writing. Visualizing it really helps to get a better image of what exactly it is that I want my characters to be doing, how they would react, and, as weird as it may sound, it can also help me get a better feel for my character because I can picture their facial expressions and everything. Occasionally I will have words going through my head but usually that is when I am instilled with a severe case of writer's block. But, no, usually, it's visuals for me, all the way!

I get both. The visual and most often the words to go with it. Or sometimes one or the other. Often it depends on what I'm thinking about, what setting I'm in, ect.

Also, for me, reading is often like watching a movie. I've even said 'I just finished my movie' before, when, really, I just finished a book.

But often, for me, people don't have faces, when I dream, when I visualize things. Its very irritating. Sometimes they have faces, but definitely not always.

On the calendar comment, I have a horrible sense of how the weeks and months are organized. I really do have to be looking at a physical calendar to understand how it all fits together, because my mind doesn't have any way of laying it out for me. I even have to say the months out loud sometimes to remember what order they're in because even though I know all of the months and can put them all together, I completely lack a mental calendar.

My boyfriend's like that. He finds it incredibly difficult and stressful to RP and he is uber slow because he can't find words to go with his pictures. He doesn't think in words, even. He thinks in pictures. So if he was thinking about wanting to go to the movies he'd get a picture of going to the movies rather than the thought 'I want to go to the movies' or an unspoken urge. Sucks for him, really, living in a predominantly language-oriented world.

Ha I am unique still! -dances-

Well, at any moment of any day of my life, I'll start to write a part of a story in my head about what I am doing. Such as,

'I walked down the never-ending walkways of the mall. Past this store and that, until..'

and so forth. I do it a lot, almost as much as I see pictures. When I'm reading or writing something I always see vivid pictures-soemtimes though what I write and what I picture are very different, though its incredibly fun.

Maybe it has to do with me being left-handed? The part of the brain that controls creativity is the right side. And because the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body-that could very well be why, and for righties, its the left side of the brain that controls the right side of the body. That side controls logic, which why i can't understand chess very good x.x

I see things visually. Definitely. But it's like I'm watching a play and am having to relate what my little actor is saying/doing to a second-hand audience. If that makes sense. I canNOT see things directly through my characters' eyes. That, to me, is just creepy. I prefer to think of them as their own little entities.

In fact, whenever we get a new member that's also new to RPing, I often suggest that they try thinking "outside the character" in visual terms, so that they learn to relate the details better, as opposed to leaving them to be implied. After all, no one is a mind-reader, so keeping the scene locked up in one's head does your readers no good.