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I was friends (more aquaintances now since I haven't seen him for quite a few years) with an incredibly talented artist / illustrator. I worked with him for a p

I was friends (more aquaintances now since I haven't seen him for quite a few years) with an incredibly talented artist / illustrator. I worked with him for a period and would place him more than anyone else I have ever met in the genius spectrum based on a number of factors. One of them is that I know that he can vizualize fully formed images, to the extent that some of his work is just transcribed directly from what he sees in his mind. I have never been able to do anything close to this, and similarly have self-diagnosed as much weaker in this "power". I mean I can visualize things in my mind but it is fuzzy and fleeting, like focusing on any detail collapses the field of view. This episode of radiolab about a musician who can maintain a 3d mental image of four orchestras playing at once always stuck with me, and seems relevant to this topic: https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/segments/301427-head-full-symphonies https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radiolab/segments/30142...

egypturnash 5y ago
he can vizualize fully formed images, to the extent that some of his work is just transcribed directly from what he sees in his mind. FWIW this is sort of a thing that the process of becoming an artist trains you to do. I have been a professional artist for a couple decades and it is much easier for me to do this sort of thing than it was when I was a kid. There's a lot of steps involved in projecting a mental 3d model onto a 2d plane that I can just do in my head now because I've done them so damn many times. There's definitely an innate level of doing this as well, some people start with a big boost, various psychoactive chemicals can help (I have done so much work while slightly stoned for the performance boost it gives my visual cortex), and then there is that story about one 1940s animator at Warner Bros. who got in a car accident that involved a degree of head injury, and could suddenly just "trace" stuff directly off of his mental images onto paper once he recovered.

egypturnash 5y ago

he can vizualize fully formed images, to the extent that some of his work is just transcribed directly from what he sees in his mind. FWIW this is sort of a thing that the process of becoming an artist trains you to do. I have been a professional artist for a couple decades and it is much easier for me to do this sort of thing than it was when I was a kid. There's a lot of steps involved in projecting a mental 3d model onto a 2d plane that I can just do in my head now because I've done them so damn many times. There's definitely an innate level of doing this as well, some people start with a big boost, various psychoactive chemicals can help (I have done so much work while slightly stoned for the performance boost it gives my visual cortex), and then there is that story about one 1940s animator at Warner Bros. who got in a car accident that involved a degree of head injury, and could suddenly just "trace" stuff directly off of his mental images onto paper once he recovered.