But if I try to see the stuff, it's as though there is a brief flash, and I see an outline for a second or so, and then it isn't there. But I know what's there.
I don't think I was ever strong on this front, but I think my ability has been declining gradually. I'm 33 now. I remember arriving in a new country at age 23, and I could recall everything that happened when I arrived: my drive in, arrival at my new house, standing in the rain.
I can still recall much of this, but I have a memory of seeing it and having great visual recall of this. But, how accurate is a memory of a memory? I didn't take any notes, so it's hard to say for sure what I could in fact recall.
One odd point: I used to get the most vivid images while lying in bed with my eyes closed, falling off to sleep. The most fantastic scenes would flow from one image to the next. I think it actually helped me sleep. These were also notable in that I couldn't visualize that way during the day.
One day I had to take antibiotics for an MRSA infection. I recall the images that night were dark and foreboding. I haven't had colourful images since then.
Sometimes at night I get glimpses of them. It's as though the images are happening in the background, and I can catch them but without colour. And I can't always see them, so I can't follow, and the images stop.
Haven't found anything in the literature about antibiotics causing this though, so I'm not too sure, it may have been coincidence and instead just gradual decline that crossed a threshold around then.
Has anyone had gradual decline of mental images, loss of pre-sleep visions, or had either of these precipitated by antibiotics?
I think these images were called Hypnagogia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia