[Jiocus]

If I remember correctly, aphantasia is inability to visualise images, objects or memories in the mind, and this seems to be what the author actually refers to. The alternative, to actually perceive imagery with the eye that isn't there is usually called hallucination. The article doesn't get at this difference and seems to be based on Youtube videos about aphantasia.

If you've ever had a dream with vivid first person eyesight (like most people during dreams) then it's easy to see that we should be very capable of producing high quality visuals without external stimuli.

I've been practicing on this kind of thing as it's a technique for dropping into a lucid dream. In my case, I manage to find some kind of repeat pattern in the visual random noise of my closed eyes. Slowly and consciously I manage to see clouds or waves on an open sea, maybe add color. Then I can try something more advanced. If going to sleep, these images get more vivid and might classify for something called hypnagogic hallucinations[0], but then it's not quite the same level of conscious involvement steering what to see. In any case, it's nowhere near what I'd imagine as useful for an on-site photo session, more like a high effort meditation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

[godelski]

Speaking of dreams, similar to the author's comment about needing to try a month before getting good results, I used to not remember my dreams at all. I decided to keep a dream journal. First week I only had like 3 entries with one sentence notes like "saw the color blue." But a few months in I was remembering most of my rem cycles, 6 months in and the dreams could continue through cycles (like one long epoch). I did this for 2 years -- stopped because I had a few times where I had just long dreams where I just did normal things (stressed at those times over the monotony of my life) and they just seemed like extra work days -- and a decade later and I still remember most of my dreams. I only ended up lucid dreaming (the goal) a few times though. But mostly because I was enjoying my dreams so much that I had little desire to take control when in them.

[Jiocus]

I've tried journaling my dreams but I found it to be tedious due to the amount of dreams and their various contents. Some dreams consist of strong emotions and what I sense as I wake up is not the dream, but the feeling of have been separated from the dream. That's hard to put into words in the middle of the night. In the end, I tend to recall my dreams quite well, many of which have a permanent place among other episodic real life events.

I have a few dreams that are like a long running TV show, suddenly I'm in this certain universe and the plot continues, even though it's been a few years. In a single sleeping session it's often the rule that dreams continue even if I wake up in the middle. It's so consistent that waking up from a nice dream doesn't mean it's lost but gives me something to look forward to.

Lucid dreaming in my experience is very much an Inception-like (the film) experience. Once you have "woken", there's a fine line between controlling the dream, and the dream noticing what you're up to, eventually booting you from the matrix.

For something more on topic and for anyone that will be experiencing a lucid dream in the future: Take a moment to really appreciate the extreme level of graphics, and other senses the mind can render.

[godelski]

> That's hard to put into words in the middle of the night. In the end, I tend to recall my dreams quite well, many of which have a permanent place among other episodic real life events.

Yeah I found that when I start losing the ability to recall that if I just try to remember. That's the point of the journal anyways. But yeah, it is crazy the dreams I had and how real they were. Entire lives. And even the lessons you learn from choices you make. The emotions and how things even feel real to the though.

> and the dream noticing what you're up to, eventually booting you from the matrix.

This kept happening to me! The first time I did it started to fly but then just kept going up and up and it got brighter and I woke up haha.

> Take a moment to really appreciate the extreme level of graphics, and other senses the mind can render.

It really is insane and makes me think of the computation that the brain can do so efficiently. Like it doesn't get everything right -- which is why you're really able to get lucid (e.g. you can read something 2 times and it'll be different) -- but it is very real regardless. I'm sure there is a lot of compression going on and some tricks being played but it is often convincing. But what is also insane is that we know even pretty small animals dream in at least some realistic way. My cat tries to run in her sleep, meows, chirps like she does at birds, and wakes up with different emotions. I've had a pet rat do some similar things, at least the feet. It begs the question why this evolved, how important it is (essentially simulating your environment. Like learning from synthetic data, but shower thoughts on steroids), and how this relates to consciousness. And I wonder if we'll push harder to make machines do these incredible feats in much smaller packages and without nearly the same training or energy requirements. And I wonder how convincing these simulations are to the smaller creatures.

[the_other]

It seems like an extension of memory and map-making to me. And so many animals behave according to some map: squirrels and dogs digging up stored food; birds migrating; any animal that hunts or fights; any animal that brings food back to kids in a nest. All these actions require comparison of current sensory data against an ideal or memory of some benefit. The comparison requires some kind of model-forming/holding.

Now I write it out like this, it almost seems that the more interesting questions lie not in “can they do it” and more in “why do people have variations of ability; why does it stay active during sleep?

[navigate8310]

I think, having an easy to reach voice recorder is better than stressing and writing about what you saw.

[qingcharles]

I've suffered Hypnagogia several times in my life where I have woken up and can see giant spiders running around my bedroom. I hurt myself once leaping from standing on my bed, over the spiders, to my door so I could switch the light on and attack them. Of course, when the light came on and I turned around the spiders were not there. My brain, not understanding where the "spiders" had gone convinced me that they had merely scurried under the furniture to hide, so I spent another couple of minutes trying to find them before I realized I had been punked by my own brain.

[vorpalhex]

> If going to sleep, these images get more vivid and might classify for something called hypnagogic hallucinations

Try your meditation routine while sitting in a warm shower with a visual focus. That for me gives me the same intensity as the true hypnagogic level visualizations while still having close to full mental faculties.

Some people report being able to use audio patterns as an alternative to visual patterns. I've had mixed success personally but ymmv.

[smokel]

From personal experience, I have some proof that dreams are not similar to plain eyesight, and are probably produced somewhere else in my brain.

In a dream, I saw a friend. The images in the dream were very vivid, and I could have easily mistaken the dream for reality. However, when I woke up, I could not tell whether I had seen my friend from the front, or from the back.

This suggests that the property "feels very realistic" can be produced separately from a dream actually being realistic. I highly doubt that dreams are indeed producing high quality visuals.

I have also tried to draw faces from people that I have seen in my dreams. I am fairly proficient at hyperrealistic portraits, but with the dream recall -- no luck so far.

[synecdoche]

Just like image-generating AI can’t write anything coherent, it appears equally hard for me to read any text in my dreams.