How does your imagination and memory work?

[arsenicCatnip]

Maybe it's a strange title, but I was reading something elsewhere and got curious.

My imagination isn't very visual. When it comes to thinking of something, or picturing it in my head, it generally becomes a line or lines of text. A strawberry ice cream cone, for example, becomes "A scoop of sweet pink cream studded with strawberries, sitting atop a cone made of sweet waffled pastry."

My memory, however, is completely separate from my imagination, if that makes any sense. It is very sensual; I can vividly recall the scent, taste, and texture of a pear, or the warmth and smoothness of my boyfriend's skin and the timbre of his voice. I can also recall music or sounds without any difficulty most of the time. Trying to imagine things isn't the same as remembering them for me, because there's a strange disconnect between thought and memory.

tl;dr: my imagination uses words, but my memory uses the five senses instead.

So, Escapists, tell me how your imagination and memory work. And are they the same thing for you, or separate like me?

 

[Julianking93]

I'm almost exactly the opposite.

While my imagination runs wild with crazy thoughts and ideas, my memory can sometimes be a bit....off. Not that it isn't accurate or that I can't remember things but I often misplace events. Like I can't remember exactly when but I recall perfectly specific days at school or conversations I had. I just can't seem to remember when exactly they took place and sometimes, the people in which I had these conversations with get mixed up.

Odd though that I'm able to perfectly remember specific things I read and see.

But I'm great with imagination. It runs most of my brain actually.

 

[Dark Knifer]

My imagination is quite sensual and so is my memory, but sometimes it is acompanied with words. Almost like a narration.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Funny, my memory gives me images that I extrapolate from. I get snapshots of what happened, with links to other snapshots.

Like, I remember going to see Star Wars (33 years ago) by the image of the Crazy Climber table-top game, which links to the maze of arcade machines in the Curzon, which links to it as it currently is, as it does to the film, the taste of cornish pasties, the sock woman, the smell of the sweet shop near the chip shop, the underpass through between the library, the swimming pool, nearly drowning, Galaxians....

Yeah, I really should get some filing done there. My imagination is the extrapolater which jumps between senses/times/places.

 

[DefunctTheory]

To begin with, I suffer from confabulations... I make up false memories and believe them to be true. The only way I can separate false memories from true ones is through logical reasoning (For instance, no matter how vivid the memory is, I still know I never slept with Jessica Alba), or through interviews with people who are included in those false memories. Its a pain in the ass, especially since I suffer from short term memory lose as well.

In any case... my memories and imagination are both extremely visual, and do not include touch, taste, or smell (With the exception of some rather traumatic smells I wish I could forget). I also do both in the third person, though I'm told that's not too uncommon.

 

[Okuu_Fusion]

My imagination is extremely visual and sensual... Visual in a way that, at any given moment, I can picture anything as if it were there right in front of me... And Sensual as though I can feel what ever is happening...

Maybe kind of like my mind is in a constant state of augmented reality...?

My memory, is more sensual though... or text based...