I am baffled by the concept you're describing and struggle to believe it is common. Visualizing the contents of your own brain? Huh? What?
So I guess put me down as a data point for "no mindscape".
"Memories feel like portals because there are surface level entry point memories, and then there are tons of memories that I have to go through like portals to go deep enough for the one I want (or usually didnt want).
Ideas float around kind of like algae in water- when I'm having thoughts or ideas they're in the big void, floating around (it's like having someone rant to you with your eyes closed)."
"My mind is kind of like a big ocean with certain things floating to the surface when I need them."
"Yeah pretty much a filing room or archive for most things. Large sections of broad categories like memories that are then sorted down into good, bad, who, when, where, how I felt. My memory loss is like redacted pages, there's bits n pieces.
The only thing that's different is how my real time emotions look I think? Like my anger is explosive and overwhelming, there is no filing or organizing sometimes."
"My mind is a tornado full of letters and words at the edge of a cliff. My thoughts are formed by leaning over the side of the cliff and picking words from the tornado.
(...)
For me, I can't get to the eye of the storm (subconscious) because the cliff is holding me back."
"I think the library visual works the best for me. (...) Memories are ofc different books, different shelves have different labels. If a memory can be labeled under several labels, that means there are several copies in different shelves meaning its easier to appear at random, which tracks for recalling memories. Books that I don't bring out often grow dusty making it harder to read the title to find it, and also makes them harder to read cuz pages fall out or whatever so I gave to piece things together to understand them."
"I like to think of mine as sorta a dart board mixed with a clock. I try to associate things with phases of the day (...), I find myself throwing a dart at the board and just going with whatever it lands on.
(...)
So in my brain ill initially take a thought, task, etc, and assign it to a spot on the board (we’ll use the example of eating lunch at noon just for the sake of conversation). And then once noon comes around, I'll look at noon, have decision paralysis on what to do, either first or just point blank period, panic, and throw a dart at the board with my eyes closed. Which may result in doing something that is elected for a different time completely out of sequence - like cleaning your room at 4am when you're supposed to be sleeping. Or taking a nap when i should have been studying for tests for school."
This specific anecdote sounds much more like a visualization of executive function than a Mindscape in how I defined it, but it's still interesting and tangentially related.
"I kinda think of it as like a wheel of random information that spins and what it lands on is what I'm thinking of.
And sometimes when I can’t sleep, I just imagine every thought or memory I had of the day and putting it into storage and watching it disappear for the night."
Mindscapes are a concept that I have found really interesting lately. My own definition of a Mindscape is "The visualization of the way in which ideas/concepts, memories, and emotions are stored within the mind, and the visualization of their retrieval and interactions". It's similar to the idea of a Mind Palace, but those are more associated with memories than they are emotions, and when prompted to describe their Mind Palace, people seem to be more likely to talk about a library or some actual palace than what they actually experience.
To summarize the information I've found so far:
I would like to learn more about Mindscapes, so if anyone has some good resources, or even better if you could share your own experience, I would appreciate it a lot. In the comments I will share some more examples that my friends have given, so if you're interested they should be there.
Here I'm specifically referring to my friend who said to me "memories feel like portals [because] there are surface level entry point memories, and then there are tons of memories that i have to go through like [a bunch of] portals to go deep enough for the one i want"
It's possible that imagining a Mindscape as physical in the sense that it's held within three physical dimensions might be decreasing the dimensionality of associative structures, or otherwise increasing compartmentalization.