What does 'saw myself going' mean here?
I saw on the door surgery began at 8:30 and I ought to have guessed there would be a lot of people as usual, but for some reason I just saw myself going in and seeing the doctor straight off.
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1For easier reading, read "imagined" instead of "saw." "I imagined/expected I would go in and see the doctor right away."– WBTAug 21, 2018 at 18:29
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1Picturing implies hope not expectation. Assuming you can imply either from the mental image. It's best to keep it to simply what was imagined.– Jason BassfordAug 21, 2018 at 19:23
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3 Answers
It means something like "I expected that I would go in ..." It's not particularly an idiom in this sense.
answered Aug 21, 2018 at 16:09
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1To clarify, the bold words in the OP are misleading. The entire remainder of the sentence is what the quoted person expected, not just "myself going". Aug 21, 2018 at 16:48
The definition of to see that's being used here is
3 a : to form a mental picture of : visualize
So you can parse this as
I visualized (what did I visualize?)
myself (doing what?)
going in
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+1 Yes, this. It is picturing yourself going in, not necessarily expecting yourself to go in. More likely, if something were to follow from what you had pictured, it would be hoped. Aug 21, 2018 at 19:18
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3@JasonBassford "Picture one's self" is a great substitution for "see one's self." "Picture yourself in a boat on a river..." for example.– barbecueAug 21, 2018 at 19:22
In this sort of context what you're reading is commentary on a prediction, not literal experiences.
They constructed an erroneous scenario in their mind where they would be able to go straight into the doctor's office rather than, for example, waiting an hour.
This usage of See is almost always in a predictive scenario-driven context, similar to Oracles "seeing" the future.
