22 ms·

Some people can't see mental images

• ectospheno 11mo ago
  I tried telling people I couldn’t. I don’t mention it anymore because inevitably there is a person who doesn’t believe me and won’t stop trying to argue I’m wrong.
  • jessyco 11mo ago
    I believe you, It think I'm also the same; however for me at least, I feel like I can "think" of what something looks like. This is hard to explain since its very "personal" way its easier to say "i can see a square" nope I can't see anything but I can "think" of a square. The whole imagine a ball in your mind. Now tell me what colour it is. No idea you tell me :D I can pretend and make up a color or go with what my gut tells me which is the most common color my brain was probably trained on.(red). but in reality I don't see any ball.
• mykolivy 11mo ago
  [dead]
• ourguile 11mo ago
  https://archive.ph/iMdvd https://archive.ph/iMdvd I have aphantasia and it always astounds me when I see an article like this, or hear a friend talking about it (about not having it) and realize that their experience of the world is so fundamentally different than my own.
  • tekacs 11mo ago
    Have you seen the Aphantasia Apples? https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_bkgca3ti2w5xcfk2c2k1wq.jpeg?w=880&h=312&crop=1 https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_b... As in: if you look at this image, can you place yourself on a scale of 1 - 5 of with what kind of fidelity you can picture an apple if you try to imagine it? I'm a 5 for example, and in asking many people this question I've gotten a solid spectrum of answers from 1 - 5. Generally in a single group of a handful of people I'll get several different numbers.
    • ourguile 11mo ago
      I have seen it and unfortunately, I'm a 5. I quite literally cannot picture an apple in any form. I understand what I'm supposed to be picturing but when I try there's nothing that appears. It's fascinating to me too, since I typically have quite vivid dreams and I've been able to lucid dream on a number of occasions. Now, I've chatted with friends, and my one friend is close to a 2, or maybe a 1 from how he described it (being able to visualize the apple and rotate it 3-dimensionally).
    • deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
    • seneca 11mo ago
      I fully believe this to be real, but I struggle to internalize that there are people who genuinely can't picture an apple. That is a very useful simple tool. Thank you for sharing it. Even this feels like only a partial scale. I can picture what an apple looks like, rotate it in my, and see how light would reflect off of it as it moves. How about smell? Can you call you mind what it would smell like to slice open an apple and experience that in some sense? Or what it would sound or feel like? I'm curious if it's literally "seeing" or if it's the entire experience of imagining an event.
      • Xiol 11mo ago
        I'm not the person you're replying to, but I'm also a 5. I can do none of the things you describe. I know how an apple looks, smells, tastes and sounds when you cut into it, but I can't visualise or hear those sounds at will. I cannot call to mind any visual image of an apple. I also can't visualise my wife or children's faces, although again, I know what they look like (so it's not face blindness). I do think I also have SDAM as well, which I think quite often goes hand in hand with total aphantasia. Hasn't really affected how I go about in the world. I don't feel deficient in any way. It was only a few years ago I found out my experience isn't what the majority experiences.
        • seneca 11mo ago
          This is incredible to me. I wonder if you have some other mechanism of "knowing" or recalling that I don't that substitutes in. It's entirely possible, given that so many people report not being aware their experience is atypical. I find this absolutely fascinating. I appreciate you sharing.
  • nogha 11mo ago
    I also have it I’m in my late forties and only found out last year. It blew my mind people saw, heard and smelled things in there mind. I barely ever dream. Guided meditation has never worked for me. I have a crazy good sense of direction. My girlfriend doesn’t understand how that works if I can’t see it in my mind. I do have vivid recall of what things look like but I don’t see them at all. It all made so much more sense when I figured this out.
• Simulacra 11mo ago
  Is this related to internal monologue? I don't see mentioned in my view.
  • drdec 11mo ago
    I don't think so. Anecdotally I know someone with aphantasia and they report having an internal monologue.
    • khazhoux 11mo ago
      I’m aphantasic and can hear internal monologue just fine.
    • racingmars 11mo ago
      From everything I've read about aphantasia, I'm certain it described me -- I have absolutely no ability to consciously "visualize" things in my head (I was also surprised to learn that some/most people sometimes experience a smell sensation if they recall smells, or "hear" music when they think about music or have a song stuck in their head, etc.) Really the only thing in my head is my internal monologue. If I'm thinking about something I've seen, it's my internal monologue "saying," with words, physical attributes I remember about it. If a song is stuck in my head, it's my internal monologue (in my own voice) signing the lyrics or my own voice humming the tune in my head. No sensation of it being the original artist or the actual instruments, it's 100% my own voice in my own head. I have a friend who says she does not have any inner monologue at all, and thinks entirely visually. I can't imagine! We're on the pretty extreme opposite ends of the spectrum of how we think, apparently.
      • kbrkbr 11mo ago
        Yes, that. Same here. I still remember (semantically) that my parents laughed at me, when they told me to count sheep to fall asleep and I told them all I can see is darkness and white dots when I close my eyes. They probably thought I was joking.
  • ourguile 11mo ago
• zeryx 11mo ago
  That's me! I can visualize processes really well, and complex systems. But ask me to picture or hear something in my head and I'll just stare at you.
  • YcYc10 11mo ago
    I was about to write something almost exactly this. However I can "hear something" if I try but definitely not picture something in the literal sense. Edit: I also have trouble recognising the faces of people I've only met once or twice, and I'm assuming the two things are related. Do you have the same?
    • zeryx 11mo ago
      Yes same even multiple times, but if I met them online (slack, teams) I'll always remember them. When I was younger I was much worse at recognizing people and names, as an adult it's gotten much better
  • Matticus_Rex 11mo ago
    For what definition of "visualize?" I have partial aphantasia but am great at understanding the inner workings of complex systems/processes. I used to think of it as visualization until aphantasia discourse, and then I realized it's not really visual at all, though there seem to be dimensional/spatial elements.
    • zeryx 11mo ago
      If I'm in a quiet place I can walk through the project, and understand where different things fit into place - even for very very complex systems, I can almost simulate algorithms and see where things go wrong without looking at my code. I realized this ability is not normal, and many people even software engineers struggle immensely with fully understanding large complex systems
  • pitdicker 11mo ago
    To add something similar: I am now at the point where maybe a few times a day I can visualize a glimpse of a memory, but otherwise it is blank and I have no visual dreams. But it does not hinder the ability to think about complex systems in any way. My day job involves making 2D technical drawings from multiple angles, 3D modelling, and of course to come up with the solutions before putting in the work of drawing/modelling stuff.
• andy99 11mo ago
  I’ve read tons of these and still have no idea if I have aphantasia or not. I can’t understand whether people just have different ways of describing what’s in their minds eye or if there’s really a fundamental difference.
  • hvs 11mo ago
    If you have something to describe "in your mind's eye" then you don't have aphantasia. We can't "see" anything in our mind.
  • thecaio 11mo ago
    I was thinking the same! At first, I thought I was firmly in the “can clearly visualize” camp, but the more I read and hear people describe how they form (or don't) mental images, the less sure I am.
  • bigyikes 11mo ago
    I’ve interrogated people about this but can never get a straight answer. —— “So you can really see things in your head when your eyes are closed?” Yeah! “And it’s as though you’re seeing the object in front of you?” Yeah, you don’t have that? “So it’s like you’re really seeing it? It’s the sensation of sight?“ Well… it’s kind of different. I’m not really seeing it. —— …and around we go. Personally, I can see images when I dream, but I don’t see anything at all if I’m conscious and closing my eyes. I can recite the qualities of an object, and this generates impressions of the object in my head, but it’s not really seeing. It’s vibe seeing.
    • mnmalst 11mo ago
      I am the same and I am not convinced people can really - see - things. Like, when I close my eyes, I see the inside of my eye lids, the blackness. When I then try to imagine a candle for example there is no candle appearing in the darkness, I just remember how a candle is shaped its parts and similar characteristics. I see nothing.
      • the_af 11mo ago
• deadbabe 11mo ago
  I wouldn’t doubt that maybe there’s also some condition where people can’t see physical images at all. Like they know where stuff is because signals go to their brain but if you ask them to describe what they are seeing they can’t, they see nothing. It’s really not much more bizarre than aphantasia.
  • colechristensen 11mo ago
    There are several levels of this. There are people who can do things as though they see but have no conscious access to the interpreted visual information. Or they can do something that requires vision with one hand but not the other. You can think of it like a bunch of different subsystems responsible for different kinds of tasks and some of them can be broken so the connections between them don't work. Read Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks for a lot of case studies.
• sharkjacobs 11mo ago
  > He knew, of course, that people talked about “picturing” or “visualizing,” but he had always taken this to be just a metaphorical way of saying “thinking.” Now it appeared that, in some incomprehensible sense, people meant these words literally. This is the quintessential aphantasic experience. I still struggle to believe that other people "see" things in their heads.
  • ivape 11mo ago
    So, if you watch a poor person begging for food on the street, how do you process that in the future? Do you rely on the remembered feeling and literal observation in words? How do you not remember what you saw?
    • hvs 11mo ago
      I "know" that I saw someone begging on the street. I might remember other "facts" as they seemed appropriate. But that's it. If you asked me what color their hair was or what they were wearing I would have no idea unless I had chosen to make a note of that fact.
    • lakhim 11mo ago
      I rely on the feeling, the sounds, the words on the sign, or by analogy to another thing. I don't remember what it looked like in the way that in a dream I believe I physically see things
    • maximus-decimus 11mo ago
      How will you remember this comment in 2 hours? Will you visually see the words? You don't need to visually see something that happened to remember it happened or the idea of it. I don't need to visualize Harry Potter in my head to remember the fact he has a lightning bolt shaped scar on his forehead. I just remember the fact.
    • lll-o-lll 11mo ago
      Adding a data point. I don’t think this is aphantasia, but rather SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory). For the future, the memory has to be recorded as facts as the original experience is gone. This means the emotions and other aspects cannot be experienced again. Recording things like, I saw this, I felt like this, I intend to do this. Not all people who can’t visualise have this SDAM thing (though it is a common overlap), but SDAM means I would remember an event like this less than a problem at work (as an example), without intentional effort to transcribe it. This sounds a bit cold, but it’s not as cold as it looks. If I read your description of the poor person begging for food, I am emotionally moved. In a similar way, if I examine my memory of the poor person begging for food, I am emotionally moved. I might not be reliving the experience, but the narrative I’ve preserved is enough. This is why I like listening to my wife describe things we’ve done together. I often don’t remember it, but the narrative is still emotionally impacting. She’s my external memory for things that have happened in our lives.
• levocardia 11mo ago
  The most astounding thing to me (able to form mental images just fine thanks) is that aphantasia does not cause more problems. Naively I would have assumed such a condition would cause problems navigating abstract problems, nearly as badly as actual blindness impairs physical navigation.
  • Sharlin 11mo ago
    One of the "big" things I've come to understand is that there really are very different ways to think, but yet it seems that they all have more or less the same "expressive power", up to some natural variance in how good people are at specific tasks like navigation.
  • fellowniusmonk 11mo ago
    It's possible that in some configurations of aphantasia the brain is still doing some sort of processing that is made available via a subconscious process. So you can't visualize an occluded surface in an active way but your brain still prevents you from running your rear bumper into another car. Many people with aphantasia still dream at night. Congenital aphantasia and emergent aphantasia may effect brain structures differently, perhaps some forms just disconnect the pipeline that feeds the brains computed data back into our visual centers for further visual analysis. It's very interesting, in running down these differences we would probably learn a lot about the brain.
• fellowniusmonk 11mo ago
  I developed aphantasia around 13 after a series of heart procedures where I had to be under. Evaluating qualia in others is extremely difficult/philosophically impossible, I have pre/post expierence with both states of being. I can still somewhat conjure up imagery from prior to the procedure series, it almost feels like I can see them, my mother's face, my father face, kinda of, it did not effect my dreams or ability to have imagery in my edge of dreaming state, not immediately at least. I went from being very imaginative to trying to surf that half awake state in the mornings because it was such a loss. At this point it's all mostly gone. My memory is entirely text strings now.
  • bena 11mo ago
    Thank you for sharing your experience. So, for you at least, there is/was a significant difference between "seeing things in your mind" and not being able to. Have you ever gone under any studies or tests to compare your brain activity to others?
    • fellowniusmonk 11mo ago
      No, if there was a study I would join it. I wish I had done an MRI in my "pre" state, the change was very rapid. You'll see a bunch of people always pile into these aphantasia threads and basically show a bias towards their own qualia being the only type of existing experience and the whole thing being mere semantic differences to describe the same mental function. It really boggles my mind, it's like in HS when I told people I was mildly color blind and they literally took it as being "like, blind?". I get that from a bunch of high schoolers, it's very odd to see in what are presumably adults on this site. Those people are simply incorrect, I and many like me didn't have congenital aphantasia, it's well established in the literature.
      • bena 11mo ago
        I mean, the issue is that we cannot know what is actually going on in someone else's mind. All we can do is describe it to the best of our ability. So there is some likelihood that things like inner monologues and aphantasia are simply different ways of describing similar things. However, you present an interesting point of view. As someone who remembers being able to visualize but is no longer able to. And while I feel you on the MRI thing, I don't think you could have known you'd lose the ability to visualize. But I think there would be some value in comparing you against people who both claim to be able to visualize and those who claim to not be able to. You would serve as a sort of marker. Someone who we could be relatively comfortable categorizing as you have distinct memories of being able to visualize and now have a different experience.
• WithinReason 11mo ago
  I wonder what happens when you e.g. flash a 5 digit number to a person with aphantasia for say 0.1 seconds. Can they read it from memory? Or are they worse at this task than people with mental imagery? How about mentally rotating 3D objects?
  • fellowniusmonk 11mo ago
    I can no longer rotate or even imagine 3d objects. My lexical memory is very high, and I have long running echoic memory so I can post process audio but a 0.1 second visual flash? Unless my brain picked it up and had time to parse out the numbers into lexical storage I would not be able to go back and recall it at all. I don't have congenital aphantasia and it's clear to me that there are certain kinds of background processing still occurring in my subconscious, it's like a unidirectional connection between parts of my brain that was once bidirectional.
  • anthonypasq 11mo ago
    that was what i was wondering. if i showed someone a strange sort of asymmetrical 3d object and told them to tell me what it would look like if there were looking at it from the back, it seems like it would be almost impossible to do.
    • Matterless 11mo ago
      If it's something I'm capable of figuring out, then I'll just know the answer (and I guess I'm pretty good at this sort of thing). I recognize that that's a terrible non-explanation but I can't explain what's happening outside of my awareness. I'm just good with spatial problems. I can't /visualize/ a damn thing but that doesn't appear to be necessary.
• tekacs 11mo ago
  For those who find themselves wondering whether they 'have' aphantasia or not, I would really recommend looking at the aphantasia apples: https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_bkgca3ti2w5xcfk2c2k1wq.jpeg?w=880&h=312&crop=1 https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_b... As in: if you look at this image, can you place yourself on a scale of 1 - 5 of as to the fidelity with which you can picture an apple if you try to imagine it? I'm a 5 for example, and in asking many people this question I've gotten a solid spectrum of answers from 1 - 5. Generally in a single group of a handful of people I'll get several different numbers.
  • happytoexplain 11mo ago
    I think this test is bad at accounting for subjectivity. A literal image you see with your eyes doesn't map exactly to an image you "see" with your mind.
    • tekacs 11mo ago
      It... doesn't, but I've found that a large number of people (I've asked at least many dozens) find it relatively easy to rank themselves on it, and differentiate amongst one another's subjective perceptions. Also see my sibling comment about contrasting and tasks!
  • AstroBen 11mo ago
    I have no frame of reference for what a 1 is even like so I don't know how to judge myself on it Do 1's see it as clearly as if it was through regular eyesight?
    • Matticus_Rex 11mo ago
      According to my wife (a 1), yes. Seems wild to me as a ~4. If I concentrate really, really hard on trying to imagine visual detail I can get something to a ~3 at low detail or hold individual small details at a 2 until I stop concentrating on them.
  • phainopepla2 11mo ago
• happytoexplain 11mo ago
  I have no real basis for this, but I always suspected that the majority of differences in ability to picture things is actually just a difference in semantics about terms like "visualizing", "picturing", etc. I don't think anybody is "literally" envisioning things, as in hallucination. On the other end, I don't think anybody is actually unable to "think of" what a thing looks like. But it's really difficult to objectively describe what it's like to picture something in your head - so difficult, in fact, that I can see some people calling it "literally summoning an image" and others calling it "not seeing anything at all", while both talking about the exact same thing. Not that there isn't a difference in ability, just that it might not be as dramatic/binary as we seem to think.
  • podgietaru 11mo ago
    Yeah, when I first heard this I tried to picture an elephant. And I thought, huh. I can't. But I realised there's a vague, hazy representation of it in my mind. That idea of needing to see things with picture clarity really threw me at first.
    • Sharlin 11mo ago
      Yep. I can picture things all right, even details such as surface texture, and if I'm eg. planning a route I'm certainly doing it in a visual way (imagining a map), but the sensation is much more "ghostly" and transient than real imagery. The same goes for other modalities like sound or smell or touch.
  • aosaigh 11mo ago
    I agree with this. I thought I had aphantasia the last time I read about it here. Then I started interrogating all of the people who claimed to “visualise” things and it turned out we were all doing the same thing - conceptualising in our “mind’s eye”. For example, anyone I’ve asked to visualise something with their eyes closed can also “visualise” the same thing with their eyes open. It’s happening “somewhere else” and not in your vision. So I think the term “visualise” leads to a lot of the confusion.
• deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
• Amorymeltzer 11mo ago
  >Aphantasics might skip over descriptive passages in books—since description aroused no images in their minds, they found it dull—or, because of such passages, avoid fiction altogether. Some aphantasics found the movie versions of novels more compelling, since these supplied the pictures that they were unable to imagine. Of course, for people who did have imagery, seeing a book character in a movie was often unsettling—because they already had a sharp mental image of the character which didn’t look like the actor, or because their image was vague but just particular enough that the actor looked wrong, or because their image was barely there at all and the physical solidity of the actor conflicted with that amorphousness. I definitely have aphantasia, but this description really didn't connect with me. I don't have a mental image of something, I have the vague sense of knowing what that thing looks like. I read both fiction and non-fiction fervently. I frequently am annoyed at film adaptation, since they conflict with what (I have a vague sense of knowing) the character looked like. However: >Some aphantasics found the movie versions of novels more compelling, since these supplied the pictures that they were unable to imagine. I do find that, once I've seen a movie or show adaptation, that portrayal becomes much more compelling in the mind than the book. The quintessential example for me is the snake exhibit's glass in the first Harry Potter book/movie.
  • daemonologist 11mo ago
    These passages about reading were interesting to me as well, particularly the preceding one: > Naturally, aphantasics usually had a very different experience of reading. Like most people, as they became absorbed, they stopped noticing the visual qualities of the words on the page, and, because their eyes were fully employed in reading, they also stopped noticing the visual world around them. But, because the words prompted no mental images, it was almost as if reading bypassed the visual world altogether and tunnelled directly into their minds. I do not have aphantasia, but I'm not seeing mental images when I'm reading unless I'm not "in the zone" and consciously choose to do so. Good fiction especially is more direct-to-memory.
• FloorEgg 11mo ago
  For me I can "see" things in my minds eye and it almost doesn't matter if my eyes are closed or not. The detail isn't perfect and it's unlike anything else I would ever "see", such as a blurry image or simple drawing. I can manipulate the image in my mind, rotate it or fold it over, etc. The longer I think about a specific part the more detail I can see in that part. Unlike when I look around and see infinite detail all at once, my minds eye only sees the detail when I really focus on generating it.
• abetusk 11mo ago
  I've only skimmed the article but it seems to relate memory with aphantasia, which I haven't heard before. I'm a bit skeptical of this take. Note that people aphantasia tend to score better at scene recall, at least in some metrics, than people without ("Those without visual imagery show deficits in object but not spatial memory" [0]). I think the idea is that people with aphantasia tend to build language "scaffolding" to describe relations rather than relying on a visual representation. If true, this might be why people with aphantasia tend to gravitate towards some engineering and science disciplines. There's a lot of people lamenting the loss of minds eye visual imagery but a potential benefit is to have a lifetime's practice of using language to reason and quantify relationships between pieces of knowledge. [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7856239/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7856239/
• zephyrthenoble 11mo ago
  I think an interesting different way to talk about aphantasia is not, "Can you see an apple when you close your eyes" but more along the linked of, "Can you mentally edit the visual reality you see?" A common exercise while being in the back seat of a car while I was young was to imagine someone in a skateboard riding along the power lines on the side of the road, keeping pace with our car. It's not literally overriding my vision, it's almost like a thin layer, less than transparent, over reality. But specifically, it's entirely in my mind. I would never confuse that imagery with reality... Having said that, I think that is related to the way our brains process visual information. I've had an experience when I'm driving that, when I recognize where I am, coming from a new location in not familiar with, I feel like suddenly my vision expands in my peripheral vision. I think this is because my brain offloads processing to a faster mental model of the road because I'm familiar with it. I wonder if that extra "vision" is actually as ephemeral as my imagined skateboarder.
  • the_af 11mo ago
    > A common exercise while being in the back seat of a car while I was young was to imagine someone in a skateboard riding along the power lines on the side of the road, keeping pace with our car. Oh, I've done this! I think many kids have. I remember a moment in my childhood when it was ninja turtles riding on those hoverboards, while I was bored watching outside the window of the back seat. Riding along the power lines, and occasionally katana-cutting something in the way.
  • AaronAPU 11mo ago
    omg! That was every trip to my grandparents house my entire childhood. I couldn’t “actually see” the skateboarder, but it was enough to serve as entertainment. Mine was usually some sort of superhero who did flips over things and picked them up and whatnot. I can’t imagine if you could “actually see” the skateboarder how much less boring those rides would be.
  • tayloramurphy 11mo ago
    Mine was a guy running next to us jumping over any shadows on the road. He'd stumble a bit and then be able to sprint to catch up.
• hondadriver 11mo ago
  Same here. I can't see, hear nor smell anything apart from what is really there. I can 'imagine' in great detail, have a good visual/ auditory memory, but there is no real picture or sound. It is black / silent. I never forget a face just can't picture them. I found out about this via an article posted here when I was 45 years old, now 4 years ago. It never felt and does feel like a disability in any way. Dreams in contrast are a full sensory experience for me, so the route back from memory to senses is there, only it is blocked when I am awake.
• pessimizer 11mo ago
  I simply do not buy any aspect of this. It is absolutely untestable. It's not just that I don't think people who can't see mental images exist, I don't think that you can prove that anyone does see mental images. It's pure introspection and self-reporting, and half of the scientists named had very odd, old-timey standards of evidence that led them to many very wrong conclusions in their fields. I couldn't say whether I, myself, have any mental images. I wouldn't even know what it meant to see without eyes. Does that mean that I don't have mental images, or does that mean that I have them so easily that they pass without notice? Or does it mean that this is horseshit, and the consequences of it very much not profound or even detectable? People's self-reported subjective experiences, about any subject, are almost worthless. You are even an unreliable narrator to yourself. The burden of proof lies on the people who would claim these mind ghosts, not the people that deny them. These descriptions are all so much poetry, so literary. Eric Schwitzgebel has done a lot of work on introspection, and reminds us of things like how we thought we all dreamed in black and white before the invention of the color television, and we thought that dreaming in color was a sign of mental illness; and how blind people who experienced "blindsight" had no idea that they were reflexively echolocating until you covered their ears and tested them again. People can have entire, sound chains of reasoning that they are only aware of the conclusions of (and unaware of the process even existing.) We are not aware of all of what we're thinking or how. Our self-perception relies as much or more on our self-images than actual recall of our experiences. Also, going through severe trauma and saying you see the world differently afterwards is not evidence of anything. If it was brain trauma, it'd be surprising if you didn't have a different understanding of the world during and after your recovery. I understand this will be downvoted by people who have their self-image tied up in this, or synesthesia, or any number of untestable hypothetical mental states that are painted as mysterious superpowers. I do think it helps to remind ourselves in these times how far just babbling the most likely thing can get us, now that we're in the age of LLMs. There doesn't have to be anything inside. edit: I've been paid as an artist at times in my life, and very much like to draw, and I still have no idea if I have any mental imagery. It's just not a concept I can attach any meaning to. ----- edit2: I entirely forgot that there's a specific essay on this subject by Schwitzgebel. How Well Do We Know Our Own Conscious Experience? The Case of Visual Imagery > Philosophers tend to assume that we have excellent knowledge of our own current conscious experience or "phenomenology". I argue that our knowledge of one aspect of our experience, the experience of visual imagery, is actually rather poor. Precedent for this position is found among the introspective psychologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Two main arguments are advanced toward the conclusion that our knowledge of our own imagery is poor. First, the reader is asked to form a visual image, and it is expected that answering questions about certain basic features of that experience will be difficult. If so, it seems reasonable to suppose that people could be mistaken about those basic features of their own imagery. Second, it is observed that although people give widely variable reports about their own experiences of visual imagery, differences in report do not systematically correlate with differences on tests of skills that psychologists have often supposed to require visual imagery, such as mental rotation, visual creativity, and visual memory. https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/Imagery.htm https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/Imagery.htm other links: Why Did We Think We Dreamed in Black and White? https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/DreamB&W.htm https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/DreamB&W.htm How Well Do We Know Our Own Conscious Experience? The Case of Human Echolocation https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/Echo.htm https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/Echo.htm The Unreliability of Naive Introspection https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/Naive.htm https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/Naive.htm
• paulsutter 11mo ago
  What about visualizing physical systems. Billiards, air flowing over a wing, what's causing the flaws in an anodizing process. This is really more important because you can't invent machines (or even diagnose them) if you cant visualize how a physical system operates. This is an clear shortcoming of LLMs/RLHF. They can talk a good line about any subject, but become hopelessly confused when discussing a physical system. Because they just knows the words, they dont really have any idea about the physical world.
• kaffekaka 11mo ago
  Given how diffently people describe various phenomena which are easier to actually compare, I have lost most hope of quantitatively understanding aphantasia. Of course people differ in ability to visualize thing and using "the minds eye", but exactly what they mean when describing their experience is only confusing. Many, many people are so very imprecise with words. And we humans are generally bad at analyzing ourselves vs others.
• dang 11mo ago
  Ok, here's the 'related' list that I could come up with. Anything I missed? (Note: lists of previous threads aren't meant as criticism for a topic being repetitive! On the contrary, the classic topics always reappear and that's fine when the new article is interesting. Lists like this are just for curious readers who might want more.) Aphantasia and Psychedelics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45438296 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45438296 - Oct 2025 (117 comments) I do not remember my life and it's fine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44196576 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44196576 - June 2025 (223 comments) Most self-reported aphantasics also reported weak or absent auditory imagery - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42534859 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42534859 - Dec 2024 (6 comments) What do you visualize while programming? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41869237 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41869237 - Oct 2024 (167 comments) What happens in a mind that can't 'see' mental images - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41138338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41138338 - Aug 2024 (432 comments) Aphantasia Is No Creativity-Killer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40810777 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40810777 - June 2024 (1 comment) Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40757775 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40757775 - June 2024 (401 comments) Deep Aphantasia: a visual brain with minimal influence from priors? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39951990 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39951990 - April 2024 (114 comments) Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39887661 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39887661 - March 2024 (89 comments) Aphantasics less likely to be engaged with a short story, but still enjoy it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39113343 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39113343 - Jan 2024 (2 comments) Aphantasia: The inability to create mental imagery - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38877146 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38877146 - Jan 2024 (1 comment) Poll: Can you visualize details with your eyes closed? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38660632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38660632 - Dec 2023 (60 comments) What happens in the brain while daydreaming? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38654388 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38654388 - Dec 2023 (146 comments) My Brain Doesn’t Picture Things - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37789989 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37789989 - Oct 2023 (50 comments) My Brain Doesn’t Picture Things - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37784984 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37784984 - Oct 2023 (60 comments) How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37718999 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37718999 - Sept 2023 (232 comments) Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36807533 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36807533 - July 2023 (88 comments) Aphantasia: Picture This? Some Just Can’t (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36723060 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36723060 - July 2023 (2 comments) How blind photographers visualize the world - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36719490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36719490 - July 2023 (48 comments) Ask HN: It seems I lost imagination, what to do? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34862427 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34862427 - Feb 2023 (41 comments) Aphantasia: Ex-Pixar chief Ed Catmull says 'my mind's eye is blind' (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31862468 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31862468 - June 2022 (1 comment) Ask HN: Do you think in words or pictures? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31684070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31684070 - June 2022 (29 comments) Aphantasia: Not Everyone Can Picture Things - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31377295 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31377295 - May 2022 (5 comments) Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind (2016) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31153061 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31153061 - April 2022 (1 comment) Pupils Reveal ‘Aphantasia’ – The Absence of Visual Imagination - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31121556 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31121556 - April 2022 (111 comments) Aphantasia, or how not to do math in your head (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30573004 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30573004 - March 2022 (2 comments) How do you visualize code? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29979958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29979958 - Jan 2022 (86 comments) I Can’t See You but I’m Not Blind - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29551579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29551579 - Dec 2021 (306 comments) Aphantasia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29365277 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29365277 - Nov 2021 (276 comments) Not spooked by Halloween ghost stories? You may have aphantasia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29049356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29049356 - Oct 2021 (10 comments) Picture This? Some Just Can’t (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28997320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28997320 - Oct 2021 (1 comment) Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27669211 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27669211 - June 2021 (146 comments) Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27588905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27588905 - June 2021 (1 comment) Many People Have a Vivid ‘Mind’s Eye,’ While Others Have None at All - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27437001 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27437001 - June 2021 (31 comments) Seeing things a different way; simple test for aphantasia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532946 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532946 - Sept 2020 (1 comment) People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23689667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23689667 - June 2020 (147 comments) Picture This? Some Just Can’t (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22800815 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22800815 - April 2020 (103 comments) Aphantasia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20267445 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20267445 - June 2019 (72 comments) Aphantasia: 'My mind's eye is blind' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19618927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19618927 - April 2019 (424 comments) The blind mind: No sensory visual imagery in aphantasia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18799550 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18799550 - Jan 2019 (100 comments) What it’s like to be unable to visualize anything - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11730505 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11730505 - May 2016 (11 comments) Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11554894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11554894 - April 2016 (202 comments) Aphantasia: A life without mental images - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10148792 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10148792 - Aug 2015 (73 comments) Aphantasia: A Life Without Mental Images - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10121678 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10121678 - Aug 2015 (2 comments)
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• timonoko 11mo ago
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• kaffekaka 11mo ago
  Looking at it from another direction, sometimes daydreaming can get so intense that what is in front of your eyes disappear. Internal imagery completely takes over. Does this happen to people who identify as aphantasiacs? Is everyone able to daydream?
• pfgallagher 11mo ago
  I have aphantasia. Like many others, I am able to see images when I dream and very rarely in a hypnagogic state. My partner is on the opposite side of the spectrum; she can conjure mental images with ease. Our differences in that respect have led to a lot of interesting conversations. I think aphantasia is quite misunderstood by people able to visualize. I can remember how things look, have no issues identifying faces, have a strong spatial understanding of places I've been, etc. It's hard to describe precisely; we just remember things differently.
  • anthk 11mo ago
    Instead of the whole image, you just visualize the main aspects as vectors?
    • pfgallagher 11mo ago
      Your metaphor isn't bad, actually. I just don't visualize anything. It's more like a feeling of abstract relationships. It often feels like most of my brain is in RAM; I can usually recall things almost instantly. And if I can’t, I can do the trick where you think of something else and let your mind crunch in the background until it pops up. I should clarify that I can still imagine what a room looks like and what’s in it. I just don’t see it. It’s more like I feel the layout or know where things are, almost like navigating a mental map without any visuals. Specific details like colors, patterns, etc. are much harder to recall unless I am intimately familiar with the object or whatever.
      • cperciva 11mo ago
        a feeling of abstract relationships This. If you ask me to imagine a triangle I'll start thinking about having three sides and three angles and the area is half of the base times the height and it's a rigid body and the angles add up to 180 degrees... but there's no visual aspect to it. Sometimes I wonder if aphantasia gave me an advantage in mathematics, because I had no trouble whatsoever with the concept of "abstract symbols".
• dvsgaevsvsgavsv 11mo ago
  Mental images are a distraction from what is here right now. Be here now. Not be here yesterday or be here tomorrow..
• jedberg 11mo ago
  I have no mind's eye, and neither does my wife. Neither of us even realized people can actually see images in their head until recently. Our children appear to have a mind's eye though.
• adt2bt 11mo ago
  This has always been interesting for me, as I think I have aphantasia but also can vividly experience taste in the same manner as if I'm eating foods. In other words, if I think about, say, spaghetti & meatballs, I can feel the exact sensation of the taste of the spaghetti & meatballs. I can even vary aspects of the dish without much effort (e.g. adding dusted parmesan, basil, the pasta is more/less al dente, etc). I use this all the time when cooking, as I 'think with my tongue' and pre-taste what I think a dish will taste like as I'm considering what ingredients to add or different techniques to follow. I think my experience with visualizing taste is what some people can do in their minds eye with images & sounds, yet I can barely visualize any images in my head when I close my eyes. Frustrating, but gives me a bit of hope. In my younger years I did not have this virtual food tasting ability, but I think I slowly gained it by paying close attention to the experience of eating food I made in order to improve my cooking ability. I wonder if I can pay similar attention to the world around me and develop image visualization abilities over time.
  • cookingmyserver 11mo ago
    I am fascinated by the extent to which people can mentalize their different senses. I can visualize most of my primary senses. Sight would probably be my weakest one. I am definitely not aphantasic, but the images seem much more ephemeral than what other people experience. I can conjure up an image at will but if I focus too much it will become fuzzier. Fuzzy isn't even the best word to use though. It's not fuzzy but lacking detail while at the same time my brain isn't comprehending that it is lacking detail. It is almost as if my brain can only focus on a few aspects of the picture at once with the most striking characteristics being rendered while the other parts are inferred or filled in with the most perfect placeholder - something that perfectly represents the idea of what is missing, but which it is not. None of my other senses suffer from this. I can smell pumpkin pie or treated lumber on command. I can conjure music in my head all day (and often do without trying). I can metalize the feeling of cold or warmth. I too can taste spaghetti and meatballs. When I read that my mind immediately went to those cheap pre-made meatballs in the frozen section, my teeth cutting through those dense almost hard meatballs that are somehow so bland yet over spiced. I also wonder how much of our differences are often our inability to communicate our experiences in a sufficient manner.
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• mannanj 11mo ago
  Flouride calcifying the pineal gland, the center of visualization internally, doesn't help.
  • Matterless 11mo ago
    That take is firmly rooted in fantasy.
• runekaagaard 11mo ago
  Thats me to a tee. I also don't have a inner dialogue when thinking through a problem:)
  • TheRealNGenius 11mo ago
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  • kgwxd 11mo ago
    > I also don't have a inner dialogue... I wonder if some people grow to develop an inner monologue, but also immediately start developing an ability to silence it, to the point they don't have to try. Mine is basically always on, and it can be problematic.
• neRok 11mo ago
  Regarding "a propensity to hold grudges" and "easily move on, forget, not hold grudges": I find this to be the case. I can easily hold a grudge, because it's like the grudge is a post-it-note stuck to the front of my book-of-knowledge. This means I can readily recall the grudge, and that I can also easily forget/move-on from the grudge (just remove the note). Continuing with the post-it-note analogy, the note can only hold a small amount of information, and so the grudge will be recorded as something simple like "fuck ___, they're an arrogant twat". So then the situation arises where you're talking to someone else and they ask "what do you think about ___?"; and so you answer "I can't stand them, they're so arrogant"; to which they respond "oh really, how so?"; and you can't give an answer, because it wasn't written on the note. I think this ties in with memories not making you feel the relevant emotions, because the emotion you felt was also just saved as a "fact". I have found though that if I step through all the facts of an "event" and consider each "moment" along the way, that I can often generate the relevant emotion. So say I was remembering an argument, I can remember various facts about the argument and that I was angry about it, but I can't feel that anger. But if I walk through the moments, like `they said this, which made me think that, to which I rightly responded with...`, then eventually I'll start to feel angry just like I would have. For an analogy on how I think memories are stored differently: then for non-aphantasiacs, I reckon their brain must save `memory.zip`, which contains `video, audio, smells, emotions, etc`. For a person like myself with aphantasia however, it's like I asked ChatGPT for a summary of `memory.zip`, and then I only saved the summary. Saying that though, I do wonder about the connection between "fact based memories" and aphantasia's lack of mental imagery. Because if >50% of the usefulness of `memory.zip` is from the video, but you can't "see" the video because you aphantasia — then has your brain decided/learned to not bother saving `memory.zip` and instead just save the summary, or are all components of `memory.zip` also corrupt/unplayable?
  • neRok 11mo ago
    Just to elaborate on the "fast-facts"/post-it-note point I made: it seems there's actually a lot of "facts" ("conclusions") stored in a readily available manor in my brain. All the references/data that lead to these conclusions are stored in some deeper "archive" section though, and aren't readily available. I guess you could compare them as if they are API's to different LLM's, and my "consciousness" is the web-browser. So it's like; - `fast_facts.llm` is a micro model with good breadth and fast response times, but it has little depth. So it's API can be fetch'd without worrying about it blocking the main-thread/browser. - `all_data.llm` is a full size model, but it's slow to respond, and "costs" more to run. So in the browser, it is only lazily-loaded (ie, not always used), and it has to be called async style because you have to wait for the results to slowly "stream in". And stream they do, because back to my example conversation where someone asks "how are they arrogant?" — whilst I likely wouldn't immediately remember any examples (unless they happened very recently), at that point the request to `all_data.llm` would have been sent, and so after some umm's and ahh's, I might have an answer. Or I might just say "I can't remember off the top of my head, but also ..." start talking about something else, and then after 30 seconds I will drop the classic "but actually, i just remembered, ...".
• yeellow 11mo ago
  From my recent experience I believe you can train your mental vision, at least to some extent. I play chess and the ability to imagine a position and moves in your head is quite common among chess players, but I was always struggling with it. I could not see the board clearly in my mind and when I was doing exercises on telling the color of a given square I was checking coordinates parity, as I could not see it in my mind. Only recently I tried to train chess vision starting with 3x3 board, than extending to 4x4 and finally glueing 8x8 with 4 4x4 boards. To my surprise after a while I started seeing the board more clearly and I could memorize some simple positions. I've noticed that my general mental vision improved significantly at the same time. If you don't play chess you can start with playing tic tac toe in your head, focusing on seeing the board and marks. I think such exercise is better than imaging an apple, because you can objectively check if what you see is correct. Any board game would do, but start with a small board, and extend only when you feel comfortable. Imagining horse moves on a 4x4 board, focusing on seeing square colors helped me a lot.
• khazhoux 11mo ago
  Something not usually discussed is the different kinds of internal sensing: - Seeing images (what we usually talk about). Can you see your loved ones’ faces in your mind’s eye? Can you picture an elephant? Can you hold an image still or is it an ever-shifting scramble? - Seeing color. In your mind’s eye, can you conjure up just the colors green, red, yellow…? No shape or imagery needed, but only the plain color. To my surprise and delight I discovered I can visualize colors without being able to see any actual image. - Seeing movement. Independent of actual imagery, can you visualize pure motion. Again to my surprise, I can visualize movement without any associated imagery. Like, I can imagine a runner on a treadmill and clearly see the motion of the arms and legs going back and forth — but I don’t actually see the arms and legs at all. I’m seeing only the first derivative of an image, like a Schlieren image. - Hearing music in your head. Can you pick out the different instruments? Can you anticipate the guitar stab in the 2nd verse. Can you hear the harmonica in Karma Chameleon even though you’ve only ever listened to that song a couple of times, and probably not in over 20 years? - (might be same as above) Can you hear people’s voices? Can you randomly conjure up your parents or Obama or Tina Fey counting to ten? Any others I’ve missed?
• socrateswasone 11mo ago
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• tolerance 11mo ago
  Some people have more vivid imaginations than others and a vivid imagination entails more than just noodling and doodling well. Evidently. People vary in their capacity to reason with things. People who “see” things with their eyes closed probably don’t believe that they are physically seeing them (i.e., with their actual eyeballs). People who can’t...probably can; they just expect to actually see what it is that they're thinking about. This is a sensitive subject. At its core it beckons forth for questions of spiritual import. Is society fit to address something as abstract as this problem in an age where “Chatbot psychosis” is becoming a thing?
  • skinkestek 11mo ago
    I'm a bit tired of people trying to explain it away. I'm affected by it, and I know it isn't like you describe because I have experienced and sometimes still experience seeing actual images with my eyes closed but most of the time it is absolutely impossible. There's also IIRC the fact that the reason someone started researching this topic was because a person who had very clear visual imagery with closed eyes lost it after surgery and his description got this thing started.
• mackeye 11mo ago
  i can visualize only faint wireframes and blobs, if that makes sense. the closest analog is, my internal monologue can speak, as if i were to physically speak, but i cannot "hear" it with my ears. i can visualize "where" each part of a composite scene should go (e.g., my laptop on a table, with a whiteboard in front of me, and a window to my left), and rotate a representation of the scene, but there is no visual component aside from a very plain outline, if i concentrate. speaking to people who claim to be able to visualize colorful scenes in 3d, with sound, etc., and truly see the scene before them --- there is probably _some_ variance. i wouldn't say it affects my cognition, but how could i really know? i've never asked my friends, but i imagine the percentage of people who use 3d visualization to reason, e.g., complex math, is small, given the number of people i've seen use the right-hand rule on exams :) (especially given aphantasia is supposedly quite rare). i attended a talk recently on experience with organic chemistry pedagogy at a university for deaf students. few requisite terms are defined in american sign language, so the professor formed a committee to create 400 or so signs. "tetrahedral" uses four fingers in a tetrahedral formation, "chiral" moves one hand about the other to simulate a mirror, etc. education of stereochemistry wasn't necessarily heavy on visualization, as you can draw the molecule and reason about it without conceptualization in 3d, but i caught that i'd often look at clocks for R/S rotation problems (where clockwise-counterclockwise in 3d was relevant).
• pitdicker 11mo ago
  There is an interesting reddit community 'CureAphantasia' with resources to develop your ability to visualize mental images. Together there are ca. 25 posts that offer a complete guide that might as well have been a book. This seems like a good start: https://www.reddit.com/r/CureAphantasia/comments/xgtyd3/traditional_phantasia_vs_prophantasia/ https://www.reddit.com/r/CureAphantasia/comments/xgtyd3/trad...
• aaroninsf 11mo ago
  Based on comments here I guess in addition to having no internal monolog, I also have no "mental images." I can imagine how a specific voice sounds, or singing, etc.; and I can summon a vague visual impression of something, But ITT people are describing a level of detail I can't comprehend. I have no images I can "study" and I can't solve visual puzzles in my head. I can't rotate arbitrary objects and tell you the shape of their outline. I guess some of you can do this? Jealous AF.
• Matterless 11mo ago
  I don't know why I'm surprised every time to see so many people astounded in the comments every time another of these articles come out. I guess I thought by now this phenomenon would be more common knowledge... I'm a non-seer and a non-self speaker. That is, I do not have any clear monologue whatsoever, nor can I visualize anything at all. However, I have a pretty great memory, just not for the experience of things, but instead only the circumstances, the trivia, the conclusions, and all of those can be very granular. Words exist for me in the space beyond my lips, or my fingertips; what that feels like, in the moment, is that it is the act of externalization of words which makes them come into being, but not for a moment are they ever out of my control. I can't remember the sound of my mother's voice. Not really. Of course if I heard it in a recording it would be as recognizable as any voice, and in fact when I watch animated shows, like classic King of the Hill for example, I'm extremely good at picking out all the celebrity voices and I'm often surprised that I can identify a voice I didn't know that I knew. I used to have an internal monologue. I used to be able to picture things. That all went away in my teens. Not only can I somewhat remember what that was like, I'm able to experience vivid internal pictures and internal sounds sometimes in the moments just before I'm fully asleep. It doesn't happen very frequently, but it's enjoyable when it does. And that's it. If you have any questions for thisaphantasic non-self-speaker, have at it.
  • vanadium1st 11mo ago
    When you're standing in front of a mirror, can you ask yourself a question and then answer it without saying anything out loud?
    • saltcured 11mo ago
      Not the GP, but I find it hard to even respond to your question. The whole framing seems unrelatable, but I can try to read between the lines to understand your intention. Normally, my mental experience does not include anything that feels like questions nor answers, nor other words really. Being verbal is almost like climbing into my verbal mecha-suit and piloting it for a while, which I am doing right now to type this post. In summary, there is no sense for me in posing a question and casting an answer. I either know or don't know. I can't communicate with myself to expose things. To do so feels like trying to act out (while rolling my eyes) some classroom exercise on the Socratic method, which feels as artificial as one of those team-building corporate retreat games. When I am actually trying to choose something, there is just the fleeting feeling of doing a little "path search" or simulation into my future. This is not likely to involve any awareness of words, unless I take an extra effort to meta-think and verbalize. If I wanted to explain to my wife what I am thinking about, I could deliberately force myself to articulate it. I could stop short of speaking that, and have a sense of the intended words without a sense of speaking, hearing, nor communicating. Me naturally trying to "ask myself" what to do is more like directly simulating a future and which way I will go at the fork. I don't think words "left or right". Instead, I can feel the branch and whether I am going to innately go one way or the other. I could even feel myself hesitate there with indecision or ambivalence. I mean this metaphorically. If I literally think about travel, it is less like a first-person simulation and more like flipping through a set of routes or destinations. It's not a visual map nor a first-person vista, but an innate understanding of place and/or manner of movement. For a walk or day hike, I don't see options, but I feel a sense of topology, topography, relative effort, and even accompanying qualia. Whether it is an out-and-back or loop, whether it feels like closed-in canyons or open hillside or steep cliffs... For driving, I would similarly feel the shape of the route and the important bits like congestion, bridges or tunnels, mountain passes, or a tricky freeway interchange. For airplane travel, I might have a fleeting sense of the geographic distance, but mostly I would think about logistical elements like ground transport, airport terminals, and duration of the air phase. Or I might think more on the people and social contexts. For something abstract, like how I should set my retirement investment allocation, I'm not going to think words like "SP500 vs REIT vs i-bonds". I feel the different buckets and also feel a sort of weighted distribution like a branching river. Or more likely, a hazy maelstrom of risks and uncertainties in this case. For something very concrete and near-term, like am I getting a snack from the cupboard or bypassing it and getting tea, it almost feels pre-motor. Which way am I moving through the kitchen as premonition. Similarly, if I'm pondering how to dress for an errand, I am almost feeling the particular pants, shoes, or jacket in the expected environment. Or I'm stuck in front of the closet, not knowing what to grab...
• jibbit 11mo ago
  If you could see a photographic-quality image in your mind, you could answer questions about it the way you’d answer questions about a photograph in front of you. 'what’s written on the sign?' 'how many windows?' That's photographic memory. Since that’s not real, the 'normal visualization' everyone's comparing themselves to doesn’t exist either. Yet we keep treating as credible people who assert what others experience based on not experiencing it themselves. This is epistemically bankrupt.
  • mandolingual 11mo ago
    'If you could see a photographic-quality image in your mind, you could answer questions about it the way you’d answer questions about a photograph in front of you' ...yes. I wouldn't describe it as photograph-quality, for me it's fuzzier and lower fidelity than that, but yes.
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• vanadium1st 11mo ago
  Speaking of the Apple test, as many other commenters here I truly believe that people who describe themselves as being at 1 are actually much closer to 4, they just aren’t aware of it or don’t understand the concept well. https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_bkgca3ti2w5xcfk2c2k1wq.jpeg?w=880&h=312&crop=1 https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_b... I’m an artist - I draw professionally and studied drawing in a group setting. It seems like a profession that would require the highest level of visual imagination. And I wish I could see clear pictures in my head, but I don’t. I need to have a reference in front of me, constantly compare it with my sketch, and refine it using knowledge and techniques that took years to learn. When discussing this concept with my artist peers, many say they’re at 1. But they clearly aren’t - I can see that in their work process. There’s an immediate difference in art quality depending on whether the artist is drawing from reference or not. If someone could truly see the picture in their head and draw from it, they could skip years of art training and become good almost immediately. Such a genius would be clearly obvious to their peers. But I haven’t met a single person like that - it seems like everyone works with roughly the same hardware as I do and has to develop the same workarounds to become good. I believe that Kim Jung Gi was a 1. I’m sure there were other historic geniuses with such a superhuman ability. But I’m also sure that 99% of people just aren’t there - whether they admit it or not.
  • raron 11mo ago
    Maybe that are two different thing? Some may experience what is in their head the same or very similar way to how they would experience it if they would actually see it, but I think that doesn't mean that what is in their head must be static or photo-realistic. I suspect these are important factors, too, in a reference image you use for drawing.
    • vanadium1st 11mo ago
      I mean - it's either similar or it's not. Things I see with my eyes are definetely photo-realistic. So mental visualisations similar to that would also be photo-realistic. If they're not - they can have interesting qualities, but they're not similar.
• jamiek88 11mo ago
  Must be a boring wank.
  • bondarchuk 11mo ago
    The question is: why is there so much porn out there at all, if most people can visualize it in their heads?
• mandolingual 11mo ago
  I think it's easier to square the circle about this by focusing on 'internal voice' - For those with an internal voice, where do the words come from? We don't pick them from a conscious word bank (mostly), they arise from the subconscious brain thinking about the topic at hand. So to sever the 'internal voice' step of thinking and go from the sub/semi-conscious to the page is if anything just more efficient. It's interesting to think about what we actually gain from conscious articulation of words and images - the benefits of visualization seem more clear cut(though more limited than non-aphantasia-havers might assume) than internal vocalization.
• tsoukase 11mo ago
  I am sure any statement "Some people can't X", for X a mental trait, capacity, capability or measure is valid. The thing is how often such happens and how the spectrum severity distributes between normal and total absence. Exactly the same holds for "Some people can X more than average"
  • sandspar 11mo ago
    The article suggests that 2-3% of people have aphantasia.
• deleted 11mo ago
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• abstractspoon 11mo ago
  Does that mean they also can't dream?
• rogual 11mo ago
  I do have the "second visual canvas" people here are talking about, but the thing about mine, and I haven't seen anyone say this yet, is that I don't have full control of it. For example, I have a memory from childhood of visualizing a yellow bucket, and it showed up in my mind's eye with big cartoon eyes. I tried to delete the eyes because I just wanted a normal yellow bucket, but they kept coming back. Also, when reading Harry Potter as a kid, Severus Snape always showed up in my mind's eye with the head of a crocodile. I remember telling my brain, no, he's just a guy, just give him a normal man's head, but it never worked. Even now when someone mentions Severus Snape I see him with the crocodile head. Anyone else, or am I just nuts?
• incomingpain 11mo ago
  I have aphantasia and autism. There are pros and cons. It seems to be the reason we're good at tech. I dont have a narrator neither. No voices in my head at all. If im talking to myself, im saying it outloud. But imagine as well, there's little to no distraction. We can focus on what we want. But it's also amazing to see other people in society who are clearly hearing voices in their head and completely and utterly distracted from day 2 day life. It's like they are possessed by demons in the bad cases. >a vulnerability to trauma But because of aphantasia, we dont ever qualify for PTSD. A key part of PTSD is flashbacks and rumination that we dont get. >emotions and memory Since memories dont have a visual aspect, the emotional impact of memories is greatly reduced. >meditation Since we dont get distracted, we are naturally significantly better at meditation.
• gxs 11mo ago
  I wonder if this explains at all why I've never had the need to diagram anything before I build it - whether it be software or something concrete like a cabinet - I just don't I work very much like my dad, as I build I just refer to the image in my head On the other hand, some people keep meticulous notes and diagrams about what they are going to do This isn't a knock - I have some very sharp co-workers that do better work in some areas even than myself who need to compulsively diagram/take notes Each has its pros and cons. For me the pros are I can get to building super quickly. It means on a microlevel I can explain things to people who will help with the build in great detail and make sure they "build the right thing" On the other hand, the con is communicating at a macro level. I don't have anything diagrammed out typically, or notes even, so sometimes it feels to people like they are working with a black box and I have to make a conscious effort to document and diagram Interesting stuff For the people here debating whether they have it or not: my take away from many years of therapy is that when it comes to mental stuff like this, it's pretty much just whatever you say it is and how much it impacts your life If you think you have OCD but it's not interfering with your day to day life, you're probably fine, even if you feel like it's overboard On the other hand, even mild OCD can be devastating to a different person if they feel like it's making their life hell So while not quite the same thing, if you think you have aphantasia and you think it's to the point where it's affecting your life in one way or another, than you probably do If you think you have it but you don't really notice/care and feel like you get by just fine, then you might or might not Moral of the story is that I hope it's just a thought exercise for you and nothing you're sweating about
• Jaynes 11mo ago
  Vestiges of the bicameral mind pre consciousness. The cartesian theatre replaced the external "voice" or volition that gave impetus. Think Old Testament "voices" which were external to the hearer and the need of external laws as in tablets, eventually replaced by internal thinking and Laws on the heart which are internal. Old to New, rough to smooth, external objective to internal subjective thinking and mind mapping