Visualization and visualized meditation I've come here many times for meditation on the breath. I've come to understand this meditation better, but I encounter problems unrelated to meditation. 

I've noticed that my memory is rather bad, and that my thought process relies mostly on verbal means. However, I remember being extremely visual at an early age, scoring quite well on visual aptitude tests, and these days I can sometimes visualize complex things. Yet, I fail to use visualization in every day life because I understand Buddhism discourages mental fabrication. I am thus very focused on exterior reality, either sensing reality or thinking abstractly. 

I'm wondering if visualization meditation would help me with memory and conceptualizing. I must also mention that I have a mood disorder, and though I doubt visualizing could affect this, I am still worried of the possibility. Thus, my questions are: 


Is intentionally visualizing something very different from fantasies discouraged in Buddhism?
Is visualizing generally different from engaging in visualization in meditation?
Are there any risks involved in visualization practices, in visualization as a general trait of mind?
Would visualizing improve memory, retention, or modelling?
Could visualizing in a free and unrestricted way liberate or affect emotions, undo repression?


I am thankful for any replies.
I'm familiar with visualization meditation, in the context of Tibetan Buddhist meditation. 

Those specific meditations were good for my mood as well as a training in concentration. For me it was a very useful start into meditation, though I have stopped doing it for now. 

I think it's a mistake to avoid something you're good at, just because you heard that the Buddha is against mental fabrication. I have studied Buddhism quite extensively (though not exhaustively) and I have not heard that one before. 

It is a Buddhist truth that thoughts can be misleading, but that should not stop you from thinking. It is merely a useful hint that not all your thoughts are true. 

One difference between fantasy and visualization is that in visualization you take control of your mental processes and visualize what YOU want to visualize (or what the instruction is). 
Fantasies are basically day-dreams: you let your mind go where it will. Observing those thoughts can also be meditation - but then it becomes mindfulness.

What makes it meditation is that it is deliberate. 

So if you are doing visualization meditation - you focus on (in two steps)


making the image clear 
concentrating on that image.


If you're doing mindfulness meditation, you will simply note you are fantasizing when you are in fact fantasizing. The noting itself will take you out of the fantasy for a bit, by the way. 

There is also Buddhist analytical meditation: it means analyzing a Buddhist truth from all sides. It does go back all the way to the Buddha. And if that is a good thing, then surely ordinary analysis ought to be OK too. It falls under the heading of seeking wisdom. 

More about Buddhist meditation: http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/thought.htm