>>94629961>>94634254>>94632291It's entirely people being autistic/ignorant about their own mental capabilities.
Visualization is a skill like any other and improves with attention and practice. It can range anywhere from having barely the impression of perhaps seeing something, to having a distinct mental image, to actually unironically SEEING with the same level of clarity as your eyes in the same field of view to the point of being physically unable to distinguish that it's not really there.
And this can vary not only person to person but moment to moment and object to object. Like SOMETIMES for SOME THINGS I've thought about a lot I can get the true "mental vision" if I try really hard, but MOST times for MOST things what I'm imagining is objectively just a vaguely colorful smudge.
This applies to all senses btw, and skill level varies between them. Like I have absolute perfect auditory recall to the point of even feeling the sound in my ears and perceiving pain responses to imagined loud noises, and for some reason I've heard basically everyone has anomalously good textural imagination on their tongues. Like literally think of any substance or any object around you and imagine licking it and you'll be surprised at how realistic it feels and tastes.
And actually it makes perfect sense to me that artists would have poor imaginations, they're so focused on the craft that they can't relax their minds and daydream. Like I can't imagine a sound while singing or playing an instrument because I'm so focused on listening to what I'm doing, and even when doodling I occasionally find it harder to imagine things than normal unless I specifically stop and put down the pencil for a few seconds.
