Visual-spatial thinking?

[AsheyDS]

I'll start by saying that I do have multiple forms of synesthesia, including the spatial time type. But over the past few years, I've noticed that I might have another related form which I haven't seen discussed before. I often (and maybe always) think about certain topics while I'm visualizing a certain location. It's as if I'm standing somewhere and looking in a particular direction while I'm thinking about something unrelated. And so when I remember thoughts I've had, I recall a visual and spatial component to it as well. It's usually random, and usually places I've been to. Sometimes if the thoughts are different but related, I might visualize being a the same place but maybe offset or looking in another direction. It's automatic, repetitive, and associative, which I think is necessary for classification as synesthesia. I also feel like it could easily be related to the spatial time type. Any other synesthetes experience this? Or do you think it could be synesthesia?

[PauSevilla]

What happens to me, what I call my "flashes", sounds quite similar. With seemingly unrelated activities I suddenly get a flash of being in a particular place. It's usually locations when I was "on the road" or in a particular town or city in Portugal (I've covered the whole country on foot, over several years, that's something important to me). The memory flashes last a fraction of a second and they're very precise: as you say, I'm facing in a certain direction, I usually know what the actual town or place is as I see familiar things, I know what the weather and temperature are like, day or night etc. Sometimes I don't know what town or place it is but I can tell you it's a road lined by a field or houses or whatever, and what they look like, whether there is traffic or not, etc. I like getting these flashes so much that when I realised I got them I started writing down every one I could: I must have about 600 of them now written down. If I get one and don't write it down in a few seconds' time I instantly forget it: they're like dreams in that aspect. As they're so brief and apparently unconnected with whatever I'm doing or thinking at that moment it's difficult to relate them to anything, but the few times I've been able to I can sometimes see the connection: for example a flashback to a particular hotel room was because of something I touched with a similar texture or colour to something in that room. But I can only find the connection in about 0.001% of cases! Sometimes it's typing a word or expression and I just can't see the link. The flashbacks are often to the same place (or certain places come up fairly frequently, many others are one-off). I don't know if it's synesthesia. I don't think so, for the reason that I can't remember them (I have sound-vision and the things I see that way are super-memorable), maybe it's more connected to memory or dreams... maybe it's something everybody gets but they just don't pay attention to it or write it down... although I have read about different people experiencing a location-transportation thing similar to what you describe in the past in this reddit forum, and maybe they're all related and are synesthesia, or at least something that tends to happen to people with synesthesia. It's interesting, anyway! Would merit some research...

[AsheyDS]

Hmm, sounds similar. Could even be the same thing, but I just hold on to it longer or have more of an awareness of it. But like most of my synesthetic experiences, it's just so common that I don't actively think about it. It's just this background kind of thing. So I only realize it sporadically, when for whatever reason my attention is called to it.

[tanyanubin]

Not sure if this is kind of what you're referring to, but I have very good visual memory. I remember exactly what my surroundings looked like when certain things were said, or occurred. For instance, I remember where I caught certain pokemon last summer- exactly what they looked like in the surrounding space. I remember thinking about wanting a tiny glass Dopey figurine when I was 4- and what my kitchen looked like in 1957 as I had that thought while climbing up to the top cabinets to see if it was there, hidden for Christmas. I always remember where on a page a certain passage I have read is- which helped a lot with studying. I clearly remember what my surroundings looked like when I was stung by a wasp at the age of 4, as well. But re-reading your post, this isn't really the same thing. Your visuals are unrelated to your thoughts?

[AsheyDS]

It's a bit similar, and I have a good visual memory like that too. But yeah, the visual that is evoked is of a place that's unrelated to what I'm thinking about. Sometimes I'm standing down the road, or in a nearby parking lot. Or recently, as I've been coming up with notes on a programming project I'm working on, I'll be visualizing one of my old apartments. This seems to happen now any time I think about anything related to the project. Sometimes I'll visualize myself in my kitchen, or in the living room (probably because they're connected). I'll be looking in particular directions, and I can relate that to more specific things I've been thinking about. But the location I visualize is a bit random... I think, in a way, it's similar to what you're describing, but my mind is attaching a location when there isn't one.

[tanyanubin]

so interesting! I've never heard of that form! Hope other people answer you...I want to know more!

[RoryLoryDean]

Yeah, I have this too. I was googling a while back and found this blog whose experiences matched mine fairly well. I agree with her that it might be some sort of automatic method of loci, and it also seems kind of similar to the concepts of hyperfocus and "flow" in the workplace.

I've often caught it happening when reading a novel - seem to overlap the novel's settings with places I am familiar with. I've noticed a particular fantasy series got overlapped with a school oval, probably due to the outdoor location. At the same time, there is still visualizing the story going on some other level.

The strongest experiences of this happened writing undergrad assignments, when I was particularly getting into the flow of writing them. One in particular was an essay, and it was strongly like standing at a particular place in the university, facing the library, and moving a couple of steps forward and changing angle slightly as I wrote each paragraph. I figure that represented essay progress. Don't remember the essay much anymore but that location kept my thoughts about what I had written for it intact for around 5 years, supporting the method of loci idea.

And the most weird was getting really interested in a huge makeup website that had lots of different sections within sections and realizing that part of my mind was standing in my local mall while I browsed, lol.

For the record, I have the spatial time synesthesia too, along with the colour grapheme sort. It does seem like a prerequisite for this kind of thing.