Paul, how would you describe yourself and your way of interacting with the world generally, i.e. would you call yourself a visual person, or auditory?
I'm definitely much more visually inclined, so my visualisations are very visual - I can easily "see" everything. Granted, it's not exactly like looking with my physical eyes, but it's kind of like switching off my physical eyes and "seeing" other images on top of what else is there (I can "see" both at the same time, the physical just kind of "dims" out if I'm visualising with my eyes open). I can do the same thing if my eyes are closed. It's difficult to describe
I just checked with my husband to see what he said, because I'd consider him more auditory in general. Turns out that if he is picturing somewhere he's been, e.g. the house we used to live in, he can see it clearly, kind of overlaid over the physical. But, we are wanting to buy a new house, and here's where he and I differ... I can see the house in my head as if I am "remembering" a place that I've been (although I've never been there in physical reality, the house took shape in my head over a period of time). It is 3D, and I can walk around it in my head. However, he can't see where he hasn't been in physical reality, so he said that he can think about what he wants in a new house, e.g number of bedrooms, bathrooms, garden etc, but he can't see it as an entity. Interesting