Kate McCaffrey

I have never had the ability to visualize except for some bright geometrics on LSD and while dreaming. It's just plain black in there. However, I had an experience that I think proves that it is possible to store visual memories, at least in some circumstances, even if you can't pull them up. Many many years ago I had an extremely traumatic experience. It took several months to recover from it. After that, I hardly ever thought about it. If asked, I would not have remembered the details and I certainly could not have pulled up a visual memory. But something happened a long time later that brought back the memory. I relived the entire thing, every single detail, for several months. And the past came back with a flood of pictures. I could see what everyone was wearing, people's faces, how they moved, buildings, every detail, even things like street signs. I could recall every word spoken, every smell, every physical sensation, every emotion. Especially when I was trying to fall sleep or when I was alone, the images would take over, I couldn't make them go away. They were shocking vivid. I had no experience with visualization, and I experienced panic attacks, even screaming once or twice without being aware that I was screaming. I am not an emotional person, so this was very unusual behavior for me. When I finally recovered, the details faded away and so did my ability to visualize. Life went back to normal. My takeaway from that experience is first that the ability to visualize has a downside. Also, that I seem to have a lot of visual memory stored somewhere that I can't consciously access and that is okay with me.