24 &#x2F; 40, although I might&#x27;ve rated a few too optimistically.<p>&gt; It&#x27;s actually hard for me to imagine what people mean by pictures in the mind. Surely nobody imagines things the way they see things?<p>We do!<p>When I&#x27;m focused on imagining something, it&#x27;s similar to if there were a 5% opacity layer - of what I&#x27;ve imagined - overlaying my normal vision.  Only the opacity is really 0%, but I&#x27;m still able to <i>perceive</i> it... somehow.  I can look at a table, and imagine a mug on it, and I&#x27;ll &quot;see&quot; the invisible 0% opacity mug there.  A 1% opacity wireframe&#x2F;outline of the mug would be very very similar to what I &quot;see&quot;.<p>I can then close my eyes and &quot;picture&quot; the room still.  I can get up and try to navigate the room - it&#x27;s not working off a collection of factoids about where objects roughly are compared to each other or where I was, it&#x27;s much more like vision.  There are hazards - my actual position and my imagined position won&#x27;t stay perfectly in sync and will drift apart over time.  And if someone moved around the furniture, that won&#x27;t be reflected in my imagined world, leading me to try and sit on nonexistant chairs or trip over tables that are invisible... within my invisible, imagined, room.<p>I don&#x27;t have to base what I&#x27;m picturing off of reality, although my imagination struggles to fill out entire scenes on it&#x27;s own consciously if it doesn&#x27;t have a template to work off of.  Details get left out or abstracted.<p>I can keep my eyes open and do this as well.  I notice that I automatically and subconsciously take steps to reduce the impact of my real senses when I do this - this typically means I look up towards some boring part of the ceiling or sky, defocus my vision, and reduce the amount of attention I&#x27;m paying to my senses.  I may or may not close my eyes when trying to &quot;picture&quot; something.  This all reduces the impact of what&#x27;s &quot;behind&quot; the invisible &quot;semitransparent&quot; layer of my imagined pictures.<p>I can do similar with other senses.  I can imagine what pizza tastes like - if you took away the flavor of pizza until you&#x27;re no longer sure or not if you&#x27;re actually tasting anything, the physical experience is similar to that.  Same with smells - just take the real experience, and then dilute it to the point where you&#x27;re no longer sure if you&#x27;re actually smelling the thing or not.  Interestingly, imagined touch and feel might be a bit more vivid for me - imagining myself on a warm and sunny beach, I do actually <i>feel</i> (still very slightly) warmer.