Perhaps I can put it best this way: Suppose that we torture the heroine. The most blood-curdling description of her agonies would probably excite my curiosity and might perhaps tickle a sadistic vein, but would certainly not cause me physical distress nor even mental disturbance. But the question whether she shall be tortured or not—the right and the wrong of it—the low-down arguments used on the one side, the high standards raised on the other, would arouse me almost to frenzy, and the blood would go coursing through my veins twice as fast as usual.
I don't have to shut my eyes to "see things." I see them more easily with eyes wide open. Possibly because I am short-sighted, the imaginary things that I see in that way are often more "real" than the real world. The pictures are invariably colored. Never black and white.
My response is not limited by any means to the degree in which the author describes and makes vivid. As often as not, too much description has the reverse effect.
I never studied solid geometry.
I think that in most instances vision is individual and new; but I rather suspect that things I have seen at different times and in different places form the store from which I draw apparently fresh illustrations as required. This, however, is another very hard question to answer correctly and really could not be answered without keeping tabs on one's self for a month or two.
Reading is better fun than writing. Therefore, when reading, the imagination is less rebellious and does its work more swiftly and easily. Otherwise I think there is little if any difference.
Kathleen Norris: I can't say that I ever get an actual sense emotion from what I write, that is, in taste or smell, but I have felt my mood very definitely affected by the experiences my characters are experiencing, and I frequently confuse them with real persons for an hour or two, and will find myself saying at lunch, (say) "Oh, a woman told me this morning ..." forgetting that the woman is of my own creating.
One would see things in this way pretty much as one would remember a meeting with somebody close and vital, or anticipating such a meeting. It would be natural to imagine the room, the sunshine, the gowns, etc., etc.
I never even finished grammar school.
No, it seems to me the only books worth while (that is, in the sense of popular fiction, etc.,) are the books that stimulate fresh imaginings of one's own.