For me these pictures present quite the opposite. Dreaming I am full of joy while juggling the stones like a wizard (Though the positions don’t make much sense, but I can see them at least), only to wake up and struggle to hold 3 stones in my mind. This world is full of surprises.
But even in my dreams there is only this focus area view available, never the ogs Birds Eye’s vision.
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Interesting, it sounds like hardly anyone is visualising in the literal sense of seeing pictures. Thanks for so many fascinating replies!
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hardly anyone able to do Columnar Addition by visual imagination only
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From answers it seems that the chain and logic from a move to the next is a big component in the vizualisation. The ability to re-create the game or position not simply by static positions but by how you walked in the game.
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“What do you see in your head when you visualise (anything)?” is actually a fascinating question.
I’ve been reading recently about neurology and related science (reading in a hobby way, not scientific papers!) … and it seems that while “how the brain works” is still mysterious, there are many things that we do think that we know. One of them is “steps in the visual pathway” … and the existence of these kind of maps into what I personally experience when I “visualise”.
In particular I don’t “see” anything at all. If I close my eyes and visualise a cross-cut sequence, I can be conscious of the black sensation that I see (with the strange after-glow lights from closing my eyes) and I can “process visually” the cross cut sequence. It’s as if it has to get generated somewhere in my brain conceptually, then be fed into the visual pathway for “taking note and simulating what next”, but there is no mistaking it for actually seeing.
This seems to contrast with the interesting picture posted earlier, which seem to imply the poster actually has a visual illusion of sorts while they are visualising.
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I’m assuming you mean this image that I posted:
I agree that there is no mistaking it for actual seeing. It’s not like a head-up display overlay on the image coming from my retina. I think the “image” is indeed generated further down my visual cortex.
[Visual system - Wikipedia]
I just tried to capture what I think I see in my “mind’s eye”. Don’t take it too literal. It’s just that I think an image is the most suitable way to portray my imagination of a part of a game position, and I didn’t spend much effort making that image.
I might add that it takes conscious effort to “refresh” such an image in my mind to maintain some sort of permanence (albeit a bit stroboscopic perhaps). Without such an effort, images in my mind are more like brief singular flashes that quickly fade (for example, when I imagine the color red, which somehow ends up having a rectangular shape like a monitor).
The required effort of “refreshing” the image in my mind is much reduced when I’m reading variations while looking at the actual position on a go board.
But I suppose different people use different mental strategies for reasoning or recollecting, because it suits the wiring of their brains better.
I think my brain just happens to favour using my visual cortex for many things. I’d say that is because I’m quite visually inclined. As a kid, I even had eidetic memory. After studying something from a book (e.g. for a school test), I could often not only recall some statement from the book, but I could even remember the location of it on the page. Also I could draw portraits of familiar faces or the shapes of my favourite cars fairly well from memory.
This is the fascinating thing to me … I find that this is the case too, and it feels like I can experience the “reading” as going into the visual system, but I can tell it’s not going in “right at the beginning”.
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I’m new to Go but studied chess for 20 years now. I would read the equivalent of a go problem 2-5 moves in depth. First by doing it by looking at the problem and then manually solving it on a board. This helped me develop a better photographic memory. I can’t play correspondence though. Games and variations get stuck in my head.
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I’ve heard that professional players can easily create a Goban in their heads.
Cho U 9P who is famous for creating Tsumegos can easily create new problems with no Gobans or stones at all.
Another recent example I heard is that Toramaru 9P who is currently the Meijin can solve an endgame problem with more than 40 or 50 moves sequence completely in his head without any Goban or stones after seeing the problem just once.
As for me, it’s getting more and more blurry as I grow older so I need to depend more on my intuitions 
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I can visualise well enough to see rough shapes, but not well enough to count liberties a few moves deep 
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I heard pros say that it’s better to have 3 gobans in your minds to work with. One for the straight-up reading, one for the reading of tenuki and consequences like ko, and the last one for the overall evaluations and the whole board calculations (like in yose for comparisons/detail counting).
Although I don’t think I ever got to that point of constantly having multiple gobans in my head, but it sure feels like I am comparing different gobans when I am evaluating tenuki consequences and the current follow-ups.
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What do you see in your head when you read?
Bold of you to assume I read 
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re: aphantasia, challenging, 'what seen when ‘‘reading’’
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I recommend youtube etc. search on subject; like color blindness, etc., should be checked in kindergarten, but topic is only 10 years old, though suggested in 1880.
We can read and see l&d, joseki … books etc. In live game, we see board, lines, ‘the situation’, look for strengths, weaknesses. Joseki, as example, is not to be memorised but understood. Probably more a benefit for pro level.
Also, aphan. can have poor episodic memory, ie., quckly forget personal history, places, faces, life in general. Positive attributes are forgetting trauma, from war, etc.
Before books, film, recording media, memory skills more of a benefit.
Like today, phone apps: we used to remember phone numbers, now no one bothers, except for our own, usually.
There are Go boards for the blind, particularly in Japan. Inverse; lines high, squares low. B/W stones textured or smooth.
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what seen when reading.
just see board, if eyes closed just black. There is depth and geometry in space; ex: walking around house, up/down stairs at night. One knows the geometry, know there are cabinets, hallways, ‘turn right for laundry room’ or such. Good to practice for when power outage. Be aware of cat.
Aphans can dream, but source from anterior, back of brain, no volition. Visualizers utilize frontal cortex; aphans have weak connection front to back.
Australian neuro-doc can cure with inter cranial electrical stimulation, maybe more docs later. aphan would need training period to accommodate.
Not as much as congenital blind from birth would need, tho’.
Not considered a disability, but it can be for certain fields. Good to be able to do complex math on internal whiteboard. Heritable. Recessive probably, due 1%. Aristotle considered phantasia a ‘6th sense’.
20% of scientists are aphans. IQ increase of 3% avg: so an average aphan is as smart as average female, which are on average 3% smarter than average male.
phans remember more, but often add spurious or wrong elements to remembered image, for ex. Aphans remember less but little to know mistakes.
I know someone who spent time in J who could review kifu? in magazine
and then replay in the internal visualization. But as with all things, some are better than others with this skill.
I know a pianist who will ‘see’ musicians playing, for ex a piano piece, but only the hands.
Artists in visuals, photo, paint, sculpture, require more set-up practice, can’t just edit everything mentally, but are successful nevertheless.
Could try for cure - in aussy, probably Sydny, but far. Treatment not reversible. Some aphans don’t like the idea of the cure, too much ‘visual noise’ anticipated, but, with training, that might not be a major prob.
Some activities more about ‘muscle mem’ more than visual.
I spend 10 years in b/w and color positives development, shooting in many countries, aphan no issue for me. Nor for skiing, han moo gwan twd, tennis, scuba, surfing, etc. Traveled for 30+ years, from 6^ n to 63^ n… around world 3x in mileage before 18 … DoD.
anyway … things could always have been worse. Make u’r move! … it could be the right one, once in a while at least … 
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I have tried several things to visualize not just stones (visible on the board) but the “liberties” as well. This is one attempt (a game on OGS copied into this format every move). One benefit it seemed to have is that you can remember a shape. The logic is that a stone has a square around it (see upper left white stone), which gets cut away if liberties are lost. Overall it didn’t seem to help.
Something else I tried was to emphasize the difference between black and white, by imagining white being an icy pool of water with snow in it, while black was a warm mountain of black dirt. Then I tried to imagine landscapes, and make it that large in the imagination also. Overall it didn’t seem to help. It was just as hard as ever to imagine complicated shapes.
This above is my latest attempt. The liberties are a fundamental aspect of the stones, but unlike the stones you don’t see them represented on the board. You have to imagine them one way or the other. This one seems to show some promise, because it creates an extra hook in the mind for remembering shapes. For example if you in the imagination put a stone next to an enemy stone on the first line so that it has two liberties, and then later in the variation the other color plays next to it, then you can remember “this one had two sticks coming out, so now there is just one left”, and remember shapes like two stones with two other colored stones next to it, this now also creates a specific shape of sticks coming out. If you remember just the shape with the sticks later, then you can compute what is probably laying next to it, if you are starting to doubt if that was one or two stones (etc).
In reality I tend to see vague blotches and get confused almost immediately..
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Your first graphic visual above is truly fascinating to me. It’s an intriguing way of visualizing territory. I imagine if one devoted serious time to evaluating the various shapes changing as opposing stones interacted that there might be some useful patterns of play revealed. 
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I recently watched a video by In-Seong Hwang showing that he can read in his head 15-move variations in a contact fight + that a variation continues with a ladder that works. Impressive. I don’t know if I’d be able to do that with a lot of practice, maybe not.
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I sometimes move my tongue inside closed mouth while reading.
When next imaginary stone is more below than previous imaginary stone, I move tongue down,
when next imaginary stone is more left than previous imaginary stone, I move tongue left,
…
its alternative to cheating with finger toching the board, no one can see the tongue
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