hey /lit/, i'm recovering from a mild dissociative disorder

>>7705755
>Do you imagine scenes like from a movie in your head, do you pretend to be the character who's speaking first person, do you switch between perspectives or 'shots'? And does it all just come automatically to you?

Yes , but as far as i know ,not everyone can. A lot of people read without the need of "visualizing" what is reading ,so you shouldn't worry too much about that, just read.

>>7705755
It's a combination of imagery and emotion/feeling. I tend to feel what the author is writing as much as seeing it.

For me it's also not like a movie or anything but snippets of images in between sentences.

When you are reading do you give the characters a "face" of you just imagine them as a "concept"?

>>7705755
I can, but I don't. Instead of doing that, I focus on appreciating the sentence structures and the words' sounds.

>>7705818
For me not a super fleshed out defined face often times but a general notion of a face. Like cheek bones, how sunk in their eyes are, if they have facial hair or glasses, what their cloths might look like or their posture might be even if not explicitly stated.

More like an impressionist painting and a chuck close.

>>7705755
I've not read Confederacy of Dunces but maybe try something with pictures to build off of like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. I can't say I've read one recently but Roald Dahl's stories like The Twits etc. all had good illustrations and even if the stories are rather simple I think they could still be enjoyable as an adult. The deepwoods books had a lot of imaginative stories and good illustrations also. I'm trying to think of more mature stuff with regular/interesting illustrations but I don't think I know of any.

In terms of imagining things I guess it varies. Sometimes an image slowly builds as it's described and sometimes I have to try. I switch 'shots' as and when it seems fitting. I wouldn't say that there is a constant flow of images though, things sort of build up and sink in at different rates and rereading a passage always helps.

>>7705755
I don't think the imagination is like a movie in your head. It's more like what this >>7705810 anon describes. Imagery, either as stills, or snippets of action, and emotion. I don't force the imagery, it just sort of comes to me. The emotion delivered by the text should be apparent.

Anna Karenina was one of the best books I've read for imagery. The scenes were so well described, and the dialogue was incredible. I know there is always that sense of 'reading between the lines', but I felt as though I could actually imagine and read the body language of the characters in the book. No book has done this quite so well in my experience, though I'm not particularly well-read.

A confederacy of Dunces contains a lot of dialogue so I'm not surprised you're having a hard time visualizing a movie in your head. Maybe try listening to the audiobook so you can focus on visualization instead of reading. It's actually quite good, the voice actor is amazing.

>>7705818
I often imagine characters conceptually, visualizing only the general attributes...Height, build, shape... But I don't try to force detail. Most authors tend leave appearances fairly ambiguous anyway.