How to improve my visual "imaginary" memory?

This might be a little difficult to explain so bear with me.

When I'm looking at the board and trying to imagine a sequence, for example Nxh6+, gxh6, Qg4+, Kf7, qh5+ etc I'm trying to imagine this sequence on the board and imagine my pieces on those squares but also trying to remember my piece is no longer on the actual square it is now so I need to remember that when calculating a line.

I really struggle with this, even 4 or 5 moves is very tough for me let alone to try and do this with 2 or 3 different lines.

Often times I end up gambling on the line because I cannot calculate it enough to see if it actually works or not. I usually find myself just playing on a move by move basis and waiting to see if my opponent will make a terrible move that I can capitalise on, I rarely ever win because I calculated a line and I win a piece at the end of it.

Calculating lines which involve exchanging off pieces is much easier because most of the time you're just recapturing or maybe you can put in an in between move but that's ok.

Calculating becomes even harder as the game progresses because there are so many vacant squares at this point my opponent could move to almost any square. How do professionals keep track of lines in their head? I've seen Kasparov calculate 4 different lines to a depth of 8 before, I can barely keep track of 1 line to a depth of 5... Not to mention grandmasters playing blindfold chess, that is unfathomable to me!

Thanks for any suggestions.

I think this is a general issue many "bad" chessplayers (like myself too) have to deal with.
Things like this:
http://chesseye.alexander-fleischer.de/
help alot!
Also learning the coordinates very well.

But its hard practice =)

@rooooks Thanks for the reply, I'll consider trying that website.

if that's your problem it's simple! Open up board editor, and make your 'opponent' (really yourself) move one of the standard openings, and do your opening, and make them react as if they are seeing it for the first time :) Then make the 'opponent' try other openings to see if the move really works. Then if it's successful try to do it ingame. If this is not what you're talking about, you can also just envision tricky moves or strategies for that move instead of thinking of a more complicated sequence.

It comes with time but there are big differences between various humans. Some are somewhat „disabled“ in that respect or call it lack of talent.

The better the vision the better at chess, sure. Normal gifted people can play blindfolded after some years exposure to chess, others can’t.

Educated guess: you should start early when your synapses are not that rigid. As an adult it becomes difficult.

My tip would be to play much more Correspondence chess.
Give yourself a couple days and when you think you see a line just go to the correspondence analysis board and move your pieces.
I've been doing this for a while now and I think my ability to see and calculate long sequences in classical and blitz time control has become much better.

Tactics, tactics, tactics, and then some more tactics. And slow games of course.

Visualization is just another part of your body that needs to be trained to improve. And tactics are the best way to carry out that training. And the cool thing is as you do more and more of them, more and more of the work will start to be done subconsciously enabling you to assess positions with less and less conscious effort. And that latter part is critical to being able to visualize and even analyze in games. When the moves just 'flow' seeing and analyzing is much easier.

So, your tactic is "hopechess" as Chess-Networks calls it? :)

@MountainLlama Play blindfolded games. Long time controls. Play many, many blindfolded games. Then your visualization will improve.

@OhNoMyPants The problem with trying to improve visualisation solely via tactics is that many tactical exercises require to see only to a shallow depth (like 2-4 moves ahead).