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I guess I'm like a 3 or 4? When asked to visualize an apple or a cow or a campfire or something, I can kinda manage it but only for a split second. I can't just hold an image there.
You can probably strengthen that with practice if you want. That's how it worked for me
I'm a 3 normally but if concentrating I can synthesise a whole world in there. When reading for example, I can concentrate on the language or I can port the book into my internal unreal engine 5 if the writer is visually descriptive enough.
You can't hold it, even if you try?
Nope. I can see an apple in my mind's eye for like a half second and then it instantaneously vanishes. It's like grasping smoke. A second after that I can then visualize it again, so I suppose in a sense I can imagine something for a while, but it's built from discontinuous frames where I gain and lose focus. I can imagine, like, a person walking, but only the first couple steps before it vanishes. Been like that all my life, though unlike John Green I've been aware that some people can visualize and others just can't.
I don't even feel where I could hypothetically put the "effort" to "try". It's like if I asked somebody to move an object across the room via telekenesis, or to swish a nonexistent tail, or imagine trying to move a third arm. It's not that I can't do it because it's too weak, it's that I don't even have the "muscle" there.
I do have a pretty distinct inner monologue in my head though. Not active all or even most of the time because I don't need it (and I tend to talk to myself when alone anyway), but when I need to "summon" it I can "say" sentences or paragraphs with it. So I guess it's just two different mental skills or something.
I'm just the same. Can visualize things with a reasonable amount of detail, but only for a flash. Nothing stopping me from re-visualizing it.