[snaeker58]

I really hate these aphantasia questions. It feels too subjective.

I can visualize in a sense, but I would never talk of an image. In fact closing my eyes makes it harder for me to imagine anything.

I can recall my dream from last night for example, I can describe it quite well. If you now would ask me to in my mind modify for example the color of the floor, I couldn’t. Because in “dream reality” I very much remember it wasn’t.

I can daydream, I can imagine vividly. But the moment anyone tells me, “modify what you’re imagining like this”, it all falls apart.

Also what is interesting is the quality of detail between me describing the imaginary situation and reconstructing it in real life. A lot of aspects are lost under a haze when describing it, but when reconstructing it I can tell you if an aspect is right or wrong, not what it should be.

That’s of course my personal experience. Just I feel like Aphantasia is this buzzfeed like diagnosis illness, where you really have a lot of interpretation.

[duncancarroll]

I agree, the interpretation factor is huge.

I can picture things in my mind's eye, can remember what people look like, walk through the recent past, etc., but I don't see them painted as images on my closed eyelids as though I was seeing them with my actual eyes. When I remember I "see" them but not in a literal visual sense.

Like if you asked me, "When you came to my house yesterday, did you see a green apple on the table?" I would scan back through my memory "visually" and if I encountered a memory of a green apple I would say yes, but I would only see that apple in my "mind's eye". Does that qualify as an image? Because I wouldn't really call it that, it's just a flash of mental objects and sure some imagery.

So am I aphantasic? I still have no idea.

[czbond]

What I've learned is that there are people heavily focused on their senses and then there are others who take in information in other ways (possibly intuition, etc) because they are always in their head.

I have an incredibly poor short term memory, my wife an amazing sensor. She notices everything.... object placement, where things were weeks ago. I didn't notice an elephant walking by me years ago in Thailand; nor last week in a western state town I didn't the open carry long gun that a guy had whom I spoke to for 5 seconds. [he was protesting through engagement]

These are running jokes. I also can't relate to a majority of the world (sensors) - however, I can solve complex multi-chain problems in my head that they drop out at step 1.

[jrm4]

Oh, thanks for this. This is the idea I had in my head about this as well. Especially in dreams, it just feels like the brain gives you "what you need" for the dream and -- because of how brains work -- "ignores" the rest, which is why you can't recall it, you never "needed" to.

This feels way more like "people not really grasping how brains work" than some condition.

[smokel]

Seconded. It is unfortunate that social media polarises the two camps. I'm happy that people start considering this subject as a "spectrum", which allows for some more interesting discussions.

What I find strange is that so many people actually believe that their brains have a built-in raytracer. Why did, say, Boris Vallejo need real-life models and photography if there are so many people out there who can simply visualize everything in an instant?

[zug_zug]

Agree 100%. I pretty much discount everything everyone says until we start running hard science experiments.

One way to measure scientifically is to ask somebody to picture a room. The the experimenter keeps describing adding items to the room until the experimentee can no longer recall. By defining positions for all these items one could verify it is indeed visual memory by asking location questions.

I don't know if other people have thought of this and started doing it yet, but they should.

[GoblinSlayer]

I have a pretty strong geometric imagination, but it's shape alone. When I try to convert it to a colored raster image, I get a transparent silhouette. How would you differentiate that? Also constructing an image by description isn't the same as making an image by myself from nothing.