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When you are recalling a past event, do you imagine the transpired events as a series of still images of as “clips” of videos? Or as something else?
When people who can’t imagine things vividly in their mind’s eye are recalling something from the past, what exactly are they recalling? Words?
Either stills of sensory experiences or as an entire sequence all at once, it's a bit hard to describe.
I can "look" at individual parts of that sequence if I wish but treating it like a video feels like I'm constructing a visual mental representation of my memory as opposed to it being my memory. I'm not really sure though.
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I remember it as video, though I can also see flashes of still imagery. It is largely devoid of audio, or smell, I have to explicitly try and imagine that, though I will note my imagination for smell and taste is quite good.
My mind's eye is fucking myopic, with poor clarity and resolution. I still can recall the above. If we go by the commonly use image chart for comparing aphantasia to vivid imagery, I think it would be like a 1 or 2/5, you know, the red apple thingy.
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My visual thoughts (whether remembered or imagined) are composed of still images.
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I mostly imagine little 3-5 second "clips" that are each associated with ideas, impressions, and facts that I just sort of know without visualizing. For example, my memories of my college graduation involve a handful of little vignettes (a snippet of conversation with the girl sitting next to me, a snippet of getting dressed, a snippet from the restaurant my family took me to celebrate, etc.), none of which have much particular significance but for some reason stuck with me more clearly than the surrounding moments. Those are the only things I remember immediately and vivdly, but I can sort of work outward from these snippets to recall more details if I try. Sometimes those additional details are unlocked as more snippets, but usually it's just information that I recall the same abstract way I recall Pear Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941.
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After a few seconds of trying the only time that 'still image' is the best description is remembering seeing Notre Dame or other nice looking places, but I'm not sure how much of that is true memory and how much me recreating the place in my imagination. Some memories are almost purely emotional because nothing interesting was happening around me except for the thoughts I was having, at most I have my eyes closed or I'm staring at a book. I'm sure some of this is corrupted by my reliving that thought each time I think about it but it does feel like the original moment is still there somewhere. Most memories are clips of a sort, though they're not consistently vivid all the way through and with effort I can usually unlock more details and lengthen the memory.
One thing I've noticed about my memory is that I'll remember very random things at times where no trigger seems apparent, it's a fun game to ask 'why am I remembering this now?'.
Another interesting thing I've noticed is that in certain emotionally salient moments I'll take on a sort of 'life history' perspective of all the other moments when I felt this way. My perspective is narrowed so that I'm not looking back on things linearly but thematically, all the parts not relevant to the current feeling feel extremely short compared to this series of important moments. The present is experienced linearly, but I wonder if 'looking back on life' is more a series of concurrent themes that fall in and out of prominence? The feeling of 'has it been three years already?' makes a lot more sense when most of the time in between these important points is being excluded (even though it may become relevant in some other narrative), especially when being reminded of where you were only a year ago makes it feel long again.
The moments that trigger this feeling don't have to be extreme: the change in seasons takes me back to the long evenings of previous summers, a good book takes me back to my first books, the taste of beer after a period of sobriety ensures I'll have plenty of stories to tell in an hour.
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I remember most of my memories in the same way that I remember that I remember the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. My memories are simply facts that I know, same as any other information.
This has the benefit that my memories have little emotional impact. The primary drawback seems to be that my memories have little emotional impact.
I will say that while my memory is quite good, my voluntary recall is very bad. If anything comes up that is even a few steps removed from being related to a memory, then that memory will come to mind, but if it doesn't, I have no way of actively thinking of memories in general easily.
I have a small handful of memories that play as videos, but they certainly aren't historically accurate videos.
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Depends on how clear the memory is.
Some are like clips, with some being closer to full color and others being more faded. Some memories are more like still images, once again sometimes the colors are retained sometimes not.
For any memories that are just words, it's either a case of it literally being a memory of something heard or read or it's something that I used to have a more vivid memory of, but can now only recognize as a factual statement about my past.
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