[BobbyTables2]

I’ve always wondered about this too.

I can’t imagine/see mental images the same as having a real screen in front of me.

I can imagine a triangle. I can’t “see” it, it has no color and no brightness/darkness. Can’t really even describe the size. More like feeling around in a dark room. But the triangle is gone the instant I stop thinking about it. I wouldn’t be able to imagine a game of Tic Tac Toe.

Some people call this normal, some don’t. I have no idea.

I can imagine music too — and find it takes far less effort. (But can’t remember exactly what I imagined — more like just enjoying as it happens)

[upwardbound]

I have higher than average ability to visualize mental images. It's not like a screen but more like wearing augmented reality glasses with very low brightness/opacity to the point where the images have only 1% solidity. Also, the detail level of the images is low, similar to an impressionist painting. However, properties of color, size, and 3D spatial location and orientation are all well-defined, so for example I can imagine a (very low opacity, very rough, impressionist style) picture of Mario or Luigi standing upon this line of text on my screen and being 1 inch tall. It's my understanding that this level of capability is higher than average, but less than talented artists like painters or sculptors. Despite not being good enough for a career in art, this mildly better than average ability level, combined with being able to code, allowed me to be quite successful as an augmented reality prototyper in the first half of my career.

It looks roughly like the detail level of picture "C" in this picture: https://history.siggraph.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2014... But with much less brightness/opacity/solidity than that, maybe 20x less (i.e., only 5% of the brightness/opacity/solidity of the tie fighter image - but same level of lack of detail)

You can improve this ability through practice. If you spend 10 minutes every day concentrating on visualizing that triangle with more detail & specificity, like an art student would, you'll gradually improve.

[vidarh]

There's little to indicate ability to visualize correlates all that strongly to art skills. E.g. Ed Catmull of Pixar fame has aphantasia, and on learning about it surveyed Pixar's artists and whole I think he found some correlation, some of their most talented artists also had aphantasia.

I have it, but could draw pretty well when younger (not practiced in decades). What I found, though, was that my style was very different depending on if I drew from a model or from memory.

[kolinko]

There was research into this and you’re right that it doesn’t correlate necessarily.

People with aphantasia are absolutely crap though with drawing anything from memory, but they can draw if something is in front of them.

[vidarh]

As I pointed out, I could draw just fine from memory, despite aphantasia. So could many of Pixars animators.

[CTDOCodebases]

How clear are images in your dreams? Clearer than picture "C"?

Mine are clearer than picture "C" though when I try to focus on something they tend to fade to black. Sometimes though I have dreams in HD where when I focus on something the details reveal themselves and everything is clear and sharp.