Not all us human beings use our eyes, ears, and noses in the same way, as a simple experiment will show.

Shut your eyes and think of the name of some familiar thing, like

What did you see in your mind’s eye? Some people see that breakfast table just as clearly as if they were in the dining room with the table itself before them. They see the cloth and the plates and the food, the people at their places, the walls of the room, the furniture, all just as sharp and bright and natural as if they were looking at the things themselves. Others, more commonly, see the room and table dimly. They do indeed have an inner picture, but it is more like the picture one gets of things far round at the side of the head, out of the corner of the eye. They have a general impression, right as far as it goes; but they can’t see the patterns on the plates, nor the position of each fork and spoon. Still other persons, though there are not many of these, and children are almost never this way, cannot see any mental picture at all. They have no mind’s eye. They cannot see anything unless it is actually there.

People who can make such inner pictures are said to be eye-minded. Children are especially this way. Sometimes, indeed, they have difficulty in telling the difference between what they actually see, and what they dream or imagine. Then sometimes, they get punished for telling fibs.

Some people have this gift for making mental pictures to an extraordinary degree. If they have a lesson to learn, they see the page of the book before their inner eyes, and simply read off what it says. I knew of a type-setter in a printing office, who was a crack speller. He could spell anything. Give him a hard word, and he simply saw in his mind’s eye his composing stick with the word set up in type in it, upside down and backwards, as type is set by hand. Then he simply read off the letters, and always got it right.

Some musicians, as I have explained, remember their pieces as if in their fingers; but some see the inner picture of the notes, and read them off as if from a real score. There is a story of a public speaker, who in the midst of his speech stopped, hesitated, went back and said something different. He explained afterwards, that while he never read his speeches from a real manuscript, he did always read them from an imaginary one which he saw before his mind’s eye. This time, the manuscript that wasn’t there had some words written in between the lines, so that he could not read them easily.

Possibly you have heard of the truly wonderful performances of some champion chess players. Chess is played on a board like checkers, only it is a vastly more complicated game, with six different sorts of “men” all moved in different ways. Nevertheless, many players can play about as well when they do not see the board at all, as when they do. They make a mental picture of the board, sit blindfolded, and as the game goes on, they keep track of every move, as they are told what it is, by altering their inner picture. Some of the best chess players have played ten, fifteen, and even twenty different games, all at the same time, blindfolded, and won them all against as many separate players, each playing one game and looking at the board. Such a champion player has to carry in his head the picture of ten, fifteen, or twenty different boards, each with sixteen men, scattered about over sixty-four squares, and all continually changing. Yet they do this without ever making a mistake; just by these inner pictures in the mind’s eye.

Some eye-minded people can see a picture on a blank sheet of paper so clearly that they can mark over it with a pencil, and in this way make most accurate and effective drawings. Some can picture to themselves all four sides of a room at once, and imagine what is behind them as easily as what is in front. Some do not even hear directly what is said to them; but as each word is uttered, see the same word printed before their mind’s eye, and then read it off. There are those who say that they cannot wake up in the night and think of the bright sun, without having their eyes dazzled!

Now it is a great advantage to be eye-minded. There is no easier way of learning one’s lessons than by seeing books and maps and charts and diagrams, whenever you want them, right in front of your eyes, so that all you have to do is to look and see. The difference between boys and girls who get their lessons almost without effort, and those who get them only with the greatest labor, and then promptly forget them again, is often in just this power of making mental pictures. Some people can remember a page so clearly that they can actually read off the first or last words of each line, or read the printing backwards. Naturally, lessons come pretty easy to such lucky people.

Then too, to be eye-minded is a great source of happiness. One sees in the course of his lifetime, all sorts of beautiful and interesting things. If he can, whenever he wishes, recall these as mental pictures, almost as vivid as the reality, it is like seeing the reality all over again. He always has with him a collection of pictures, which though he cannot show to another, he can at any time enjoy for himself.

The eye-minded person, moreover, has still another string to his bow. Not only can he recall what he has seen; he can also imagine things which he has not seen, and so tell in advance how they are going to look. The engineer about to build a bridge, the architect planning a house, the housekeeper deciding how she shall arrange a room or set a table, the girl considering a new dress, the boy laying out a ball field, all can work to vastly better advantage if they can see exactly how everything is going to look, before they do anything. It is a great deal easier to change things in one’s mind, than after they get into wood and iron and cloth. No one can possibly succeed as engineer, architect, designer, dress-maker, milliner, and the like, unless he can make these pictures in his mind’s eye, and see how things are going to be, before he wastes time and material on the reality, Fortunately, this eye-mindedness is easily cultivated. One has only to attend to his mental pictures, and try to see all there is in them, to have them grow sharper and more complete. In fact, children usually have so much of this faculty that if they only kept what they have, instead of letting it waste away from lack of use, they would be far better off when they grew up than most grown-ups are. As we get older, we get to thinking more in words, and we lose the knack of making pictures. All is, we simply mustn’t.