Me too, I'm able to visualize it, if only very roughly/sketchy. But not until I deliberately concentrate on doing so. Otherwise it's just words that have a known meaning. I'm not sure how to describe it, it's rather abstract. There is no conscious visualisation of those words when reading them, merely a feeling of comprehension and my own voice reading those words.
This reminds me of the question if other people hear their own voice in their mind while reading. If I try to supress my mind's voice I can hardly comprehend the meaning of the words. Although if I concentrate on single words without reading them out in my mind the meaning is surfacing. Interestingly another involuntary voice is half starting to read them with the addition of some almost synasthetic experience of shape.
If landscapes are described, or actions as you mentioned before, I don't need to try hard, a movie of the described is playing along in my head. But now that I think about it, sound is rarely part of the experience, except some babble resembling speech.
AFAIK some people subvocalize while reading, some don't. Is this preventing you from reading quickly?
(I've heard claims that eliminating subvocalization it is the first step to faster reading, although Wikipedia doesn't agree. I, as far as I can tell, don't subvocalize while reading (especially when reading English text, in which I don't link strongly words to pronunciation), and although I have some problems with concentration, I still read at about 300 WPM. One of my friends claims ve's unable to read faster than speech due to subvocalization).
Related to: Generalizing From One Example
I am able to simulate sensory input, i.e. dream deliberately, enter my personal Matrix (Holodeck). I can see, hear, feel and smell without the presence of light, sound, tactile or olfactory sensory input. That is, I do not need to undergo certain conditions to consciously experience them. They do not have to happen live, I can imagine them, simulate them. I can replay previous and create new sensory experiences in my mind, i.e. perceive them with my minds eye. I can live, pursue and experience activities inside my head without any environmental circumstances, i.e. all I need is my body. I can walk through a park, see and hear children playing, feel and smell the air, while being weightlessness in a totally dark and quiet zero gravity environment.
After reading the article by Yvain some time ago the idea(?) that some people are unable to deliberately experience the world with their mind's eye hasn't ceased to fascinate me. So yesterday I came back to search the comments on that article if there are people who actually confirm this claim. The comments by Garth and Blueberry seem to suggest this. After that I started to ask other people and was amazed that after some misunderstanding the first two people I asked were both either completely or almost unable to experience anything if it wasn't happening live. This is shocking. The second person was actually my dad. I asked, "if you were to close your eyes and I told you that I changed the lighting in the kitchen from normal to red, could you imagine how it would look like"? "Well, yes" he said. Only after about 10 minutes I figured what he meant is that he would be able to describe it, paint it or pinpoint other characteristics of his kitchen equipped with all red lighting, but he couldn't actually dream it! He couldn't see it if he closed his eyes! He always thought that when people say they imagine a beautiful sunset they actually mean that they could describe it or picture it literally, not experience it! I was struck. This insight only came after we started talking about dreaming. He seems to be able to dream, but once I compared dreaming with imagination he said that's really completely different. Dreaming is closer to the real thing he said, you actually experience it. But if he's awake and closes his eyes there seems to be nothing but darkness and some unconscious processing or data queries that allow him to describe and picture something without actually experiencing it in front of his mind's eye. It's the same with all other sensor perceptions.
Now don't believe that I can actually simulate the real thing, it's not as vivid. Here is how close I perceive to be able to match live experiences by imagining it solely in my mind: Tactile (90%); Olfactory (60%); Auditory (30%); Visual (40-15%); Pain (2%). If you are one of those who do lack a world of thought, think about Tinnitus or phantom pain, it originates from within and is not caused by environmental influence. Such fake sensory perceptions can be perceived to be as real (100%) as experiencing actual sound, or in the case of pain, for example burning. I can cause this deliberately without having to expose myself to actual sensory input. But the degree of realness varies as stated above.
Interestingly there is one striking exception, faces. I'm either unable or have to concentrate really hard to perceive faces without looking at actual faces in real-time. When I read stories, faces always stay blank. More than that though, they are not blank, it's like they are simply not computed. It's not like they are black or blurry, but rather in another dimension that I cannot, do not access. I'm pretty sure that I see faces when dreaming though and sometimes, when I know faces very well, I can even make them appear in front of my mind's eye. But I've to concentrate solely on the face, it doesn't happen easily.
All this is really crazy I think. How is it possible that humans are this different in such profound ways? Is it a mutation that only appeared very recently in our evolutionary history and is only expressed within a subset of people? Or is it maybe in spite of all assertions a conceptual misunderstanding?
What about you, can you enter the Matrix?