SOME people think this of anyone with a vivid imagination and a rich inner life. Isn't that sad - for them?

I never thought about it that way until I realized that my daughter, when she was young, didn't get "moving pictures in her head" when she read fiction. Nothing. Nada. Words on paper. Dear God, why would anyone enjoy fiction if it were just words marching on paper, one after the other? Fortunately, around age 19, she started to "see" what she was reading. I'm not sure I'd have chosen the literature she did, for her first such experience - Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis." But whatever it takes, I'm happy to say that it happened. Because the incredible sadness I felt that she might never experience those cinematic visions while reading lifted.

I'd heard something similar to this from an optometrist, many years ago - I sometimes get "hallucinations" while driving long, boring stretches of road in gray, dreary weather. Little undulating flowers on the horizon. He laughed, said they could actually induce them, and explained that it was the brain's way of entertaining itself when there wasn't enough visual stimulation. I don't know if it's related to CBS (which I'd never heard of, till now) but it would make sense.