For me, visualisation is related to memory recall. If someone asks me to imagine a scene, I'll run through memories of actual experiences and combine them where necessary to produce an approximation. For aural imagination, such as music composition, I imagine snippets of music I've heard, then combine them. There is a visual component to that, but it's symbolic, not vivid. If I need to imagine something I haven't experienced, it's like a combination of line drawings, animation and written and spoken language. It would look like a mess if I could project it. Colours are there, but they're not vivid. They're more like bad watercolours. If I take my time, I can clear up the image, and over time it becomes more vivid. This is actually how I write. It's a slow process, but it's the only way I can think clearly. I find social conversation difficult because it tends to move faster than my ability to visualise so I find it dull and uninspiring. I prefer to spend my time slow-reading literature.
Contextual conversations are ok, such as business or academic conversations, because the language is generally a closed set and visualisations are well practiced. But social situations can be without context, and difficult to navigate.
> If someone asks me to imagine a scene, I'll run through memories of actual experiences and combine them where necessary to produce an approximation.
When someone asks me to imagine a scene, I don't really do that. That scene with mountains, trees and a lake? It's like three labels just kinda being there... waiting to be updated based on what comes next.
But if I make a focused effort, I can sorta do it. I can recall seeing something which might look like that, and recall some visual aspects. Not super vividly, but something I could at least use as a basis to draw a sketch for example.
But just by default, those images from my memory seldom come up just reading something. I have to focus and spend time recollecting. But they never ever become vivid as in real life, not remotely close.
Contextual conversations are ok, such as business or academic conversations, because the language is generally a closed set and visualisations are well practiced. But social situations can be without context, and difficult to navigate.