There are groups of people who don’t really dream, ever. They can’t really visualize things in their mind. People say they lack a minds eye. Researchers think this is a spectrum, going from no capacity to visualize images and scenarios to having vivid imagination and recollection, to the point where it may be like reality.
I tried extended this idea. I noticed I have a rather vivid imagination, and have often relied on it to solve problems for me. This includes math, reasonably long derivation, somewhat complex problem solving and such.
Free body mechanics in physics for instance would come naturally to me, since the scenario in question can be visualized with mass, direction of gravity etc, and I can just watch what happens when the scenario imagined is subjected to external variables.
Solving of most math, including most differentiation and integration problems could simply be completed in my mind.
I also used to be able to solve hundreds of math and science problems on a single piece of paper, since the pen I used had no ink in it. The pen was merely there to simulate writing, and helped me keep items in my mind.
So this vivid imagination really helped me. And I’d come to rely on it regularly. Since I didn’t know about this, I assumed I was just smart.
But when I tried to learn quantum mechanics or relativity… things started falling apart.
1 dimension – You imagine a line.
2 dimensions – 2 lines, a plane maybe.
3 dimensions – We’re going 3D now, this covers everything in daily life.
4 dimensions – Hmm.. how would I imagine that?..
5 dimensions – Um..
A 100 dimensions – I am so lost..
n dimensions – I’m screwed.
Loads of subjects deal with higher dimensions than we are used to. But if you rely on visualization to understand things and store information, you’re pretty much screwed when dealing with these higher dimensions. Unless you put in deliberate effort to deal with this specific issue – though I haven’t done this, so I can’t vouch for it.
People with Aphantasia, had a much easier time dealing with higher dimensions. Since it’s just a few extra variables on a piece of paper. While it made my head ache and made little logical sense.
A friend of mine, who was a phenomenal cartoonist, regularly scored a 100% on history tests. When asked how he learns, he just said that, the entire textbook was just a huge story to him, and the story just replays in his head during tests.
So they should start educating students on this while they’re in school. So they don’t pick up subjects they don’t know how to deal with, or so that they can pick up the skills required for such tasks early.