Do the characters/scenes from books play out in your mind's eye?

[shadforth]

Whenever I'm reading I visualize it all in my mind's eye,like it's a movie,but often don't realise I'm doing it 'til I'm distracted or stop! Does anyone else do this?

 

[silverseason]

I often visualize - and I hear the dialog too.

 

[Tempest]

Always. I think that's why I'm always a little disappointed in film adaptations, because I've already got an image of the character in my head, and it never matches.

 

[Landslide]

Always. I think that's why I'm always a little disappointed in film adaptations, because I've already got an image of the character in my head, and it never matches.

The same thing happens to me... Also I tend to do the opposite, when I read a book whose film adaptation I have already seen, I picture the characters as the actors that played them. I just can't help it...

When the book is finished, and if it was really good, I keep playing the main events in my mind for days!!! Usually I can't start another book until the previous one stops playing in my mind. I just realized how weird I am!!!

 

[ewomack]

This is one of the things that makes reading great - you're allowed to visualize for yourself what the characters and the world they're in look like. Movies can't do this (unless they're all talking, which some have tried).

 

[Mike123]

Yeah. It's one of the things that makes books to film so difficult. Everybody imagines the chracters different. So in a way most people are disappointed.

 

[dreamaccount200]

Whenever I'm reading I visualize it all in my mind's eye,like it's a movie,but often don't realise I'm doing it 'til I'm distracted or stop! Does anyone else do this?

All the time.. At times you get that book that can make you feel like you are almost there... I am almost always disappointed by a Movie if I have read the book first..

With a movie you just get to see what the Character is doing.. In the book the author tells you what he is thinking and feeling.. There is just soo much more detail in a book..

 

[Aaron S.]

This is what makes reading so great when you get so lost in a book its like wathcing a movie

 

[SFG75]

Excellent topic! I do this all the time. I have a different perspective about seeing the movie version. When I see the movie adaptation, I can't help but jump up and down and anxiously yell: "That wasn't in the book!, that wasn't in the book!"

 

[Tempest]

Excellent topic! I do this all the time. I have a different perspective about seeing the movie version. When I see the movie adaptation, I can't help but jump up and down and anxiously yell: "That wasn't in the book!, that wasn't in the book!"

Oh, I do that all the time too. I remember reading Eragon before the film came out, and threatened to walk out of the cinema halfway through because it was so different...

 

[Frozeninside]

The same thing happens to me... Also I tend to do the opposite, when I read a book whose film adaptation I have already seen, I picture the characters as the actors that played them. I just can't help it...

When the book is finished, and if it was really good, I keep playing the main events in my mind for days!!! Usually I can't start another book until the previous one stops playing in my mind. I just realized how weird I am!!!

I'm the same way.

 

[Fantasy Moon]

I can no longer read a Musketeers saga book without hearing the voice of Jeremy Irons when Aramis speaks. Sometimes he narrates the rest of the book too.

 

[thebookcrosser]

Absolutely. I see everything. I get pulled completely in. Even when the book is set in a setting unfamiliar to me, I still see it (maybe incorrectly, but...). Some books evoke scents and sensations. I love a writer who can make me feel the humidity, smell the swamp, choke on the desert dust, ...
And, yes, I dream in vivid color too !

 

[dominicgaj]

Whenever I'm reading I visualize it all in my mind's eye,like it's a movie,but often don't realise I'm doing it 'til I'm distracted or stop! Does anyone else do this?

Always!

I often visualize - and I hear the dialog too.

That too!

The same thing happens to me... Also I tend to do the opposite, when I read a book whose film adaptation I have already seen, I picture the characters as the actors that played them. I just can't help it...

When the book is finished, and if it was really good, I keep playing the main events in my mind for days!!!!!

Is this my entry? LOL. It may as well be.

I am almost always disappointed by a Movie if I have read the book first..

Agree, with one exception..."Lord of the Rings."

I can no longer read a Musketeers saga book without hearing the voice of Jeremy Irons when Aramis speaks. Sometimes he narrates the rest of the book too.

When I read LOTR, I particularly enjoy hearing the voices of Billy Boyd (Pippin), Ian McKellen (Gandalf), John Rhys-Davies (Gimli) and Andy Serkis (Gollum) in my head.

And, yes, I dream in vivid color too !

I thought everybody did? ;-)

BTW, great thread this is. (Hmmm, I'm sounding like Yoda)

 

[silverseason]

Absolutely. I see everything. I get pulled completely in. Even when the book is set in a setting unfamiliar to me, I still see it (maybe incorrectly, but...). Some books evoke scents and sensations. I love a writer who can make me feel the humidity, smell the swamp, choke on the desert dust, ...

This is so true that, recently, I said in a post that the setting in the movie The Kite Runner looked like Afghanistan, even though I had heard that it was filmed in China. Whereupon, another poster asked if I was an Afghan or had been there. No. What I meant was that the Afghanistan in the movie The Kite Runner looked like the Afghanistan I saw in my mind when reading the book The Kite Runner. That's good enough for mee.

 

[tyche]

I love it when you get so into your book its like an all encompassing movie, you get to see it in your minds eye but you are also a mindreader and empath because you know the thoughts and feelings going on behind the scenes.

When I watch a movie adaption of a book I try to view it on its own merits. I know they can't show all the parts I may want to see but if the movie still fits together and does a good job of the telling the story with not too many discrepancies I'm happy. I like movies for the really big visual effects like battles, landscapes and costumes.

As for the casting of characters I don't often have a clear picture in my mind of their looks, it's more their personality and any particularly notable features that I have an image of in my mind. I collect fan art on a few series that I've read and will sort through to find the ones that fit my image of them. I often find character art that I think fits a different char better so will change it to suit myself. This also applies to pictures I see in newspapers and magazines or actors/models/singers etc that I think fit my image of them.

I'm a weirdo yes but to each their own, my partner just nods and smiles when I point out a pic and yell "they'd make a perfect (whoever)"