mental images
Pictures in thought
Mental images are pictures or sensory impressions formed in the mind without external stimuli—what you "see" when you close your eyes and imagine a beach, or "hear" when you recall a melody.
The term covers any sensory modality: visual, auditory, tactile.
She had vivid mental images of her childhood home.
Mental imagery is central to memory, creativity, and planning.
- visualizationForming mental or graphical images
- visual thinkingCognition through images
- thoughtMental concept or reflection
- eidetic memoryFlawless detailed instant recall
- creative visualizationImagining outcomes to achieve them
mind's eye · recollection · cognition · photographic memory · daydreaming · synesthesia · afterimage · symbolism · pictures · reverie · memory palace · perception · reflection · hazy · representation · vivid · seeing things · lucid
- inner lifeidentity, feelings, memory, thoughts, self-discovery
- thoughtsthought, idea, thoughts, ideas, thinking
- memoryremember, forget, recall, memorize, recollect
- meaningmeaning, sense, significance, denotation, definition
- imaginary thingsfantasies, imaginary friends, imaginary worlds, make-believe, make believe
- navigationcompass, compass rose, signs, charts, navbar
mental imagesphotographs
Light-captured images
illustrations · drawings · film · paintings · artwork
mental imagessensory input
Information received through senses
direct observation · lived experience · visual perception · empirical observation
imagination, mental, images, mentality, imagery, mentally, mentalist, mental image, mentalism