[cnity]

My gut feel has always been that it is just a language thing where some people think that when others imagine things that they literally see it right in front of them _the same way_ they see real things.

Like, when I imagine a scene or object in my head, I am not literally seeing it. It's like some vague in-between thing. And that people who claim to have aphantasia just have a higher bar for what it means to "see" something.

Though I'm open to being corrected if there's some concrete experiment that can be performed that shows definitively that some people can not imagine things _at all_.

[eitland]

Maybe you have aphantasia as well. I had without knowing it.

Some observations:

Someone told me to close my eyes and think about "an apple at a table".

Then I was told to open my eyes and tell what color the apple was.

The question didn't make sense to me:

I only thought about about the concept of "an apple on a table". When my eyes are closed it is black. Absolutely black. Blacker than a Norwegian winter night with cloud cover and no moon. There is nothing.

Until then I thought all this talk about seing things was just a metaphor for what I had also done.

But when I talk to others they will often immediately say it was green or red. Because they saw it.

Two extra observations:

Sometimes just before I fall asleep I can sometimes think images of stuff that doesn't exist: think 3d modeling with simple shapes.

And just after waking up I can sometimes manage to see relatively detailed images of actual physical things.

Both these only last for a few seconds to a few minutes.

Does this help?

[bonoboTP]

I also have this mostly when I'm half asleep and have had some very 4K sharp lucid dreams as well, including seeing leaves on a tree up close and feeling the texture.

Under normal circumstances, my imagination is also colorless and is more about spatial layout and shapes. Like an untextured 3D model.

[cnity]

It's hard to describe. I think there's more nuance here. When you ask "What colour was the apple?" then I can "fill in" the colour and imagine a "red" one. But it's more like the details are filled in "on demand" or "lazilly" rather than "ahead of time". And like I said, it's not the same thing as actual visual hallucination.

It is helpful to have someone engage, for sure. I have a question for you: if you look at a 3d object that you can only see one side of, can you make inferences about the other side of the object? Can you rotate it in your head? Could you quickly be able to tell whether an object will fit in a particular hole, without actually trying it?

[eitland]

> if you look at a 3d object that you can only see one side of, can you make inferences about the other side of the object? Can you rotate it in your head? Could you quickly be able to tell whether an object will fit in a particular hole, without actually trying it?

Obviously I cannot know for sure what the other side looks like without seeing it, but I can make a reasonable guess and yes, I can mentally turn around objects in my head to see if they fit.

I also enjoy woodworking and repairs and other activities that force me to think 3D, but I believe it would be much easier if I could think in images.

[card_zero]

Are you trying to help them believe?

[eitland]

Yes. Or maybe rather understand. For me it was a lightbulb moment just like my realisation of exactly how bad my colourblindness was: what is next to impossible for me to see (red drawings on woods in maps) was chosen by someone who thought it stood out.

I'm at least pointing out that I now know personally that there are multiple levels of visualisation, from me just "feeling" what it would mean to rotate a 3d object (it works, I can absolutely determine if it will fit but it is absolutely not visual) up to some close friends of mine that see vivid pictures of faces and can combine them with eyes closed.

For me who cannot see images except what I physically see it certainly is interesting to hear people describe remembering peoples phone numbers as text that they can see (I remember the feeling of myself saying it, not the sound) or memorising my name by mentally putting the image of ne next to their image of their brother who has the same name as me (!)

It really is funny, because I can draw. For example the famous "draw a bike" thing seems weird to me because I can't see myself making any of the mistakes from any of the drawings. Not because I can see a bike, but because I know it.

[cnity]

I really wish I could occupy your brain for a few minutes to see just how much of this is language. There's an amazing effect in this conversation where I remain convinced that basically everything I've heard could come down to definitional differences, and yet it really could come down to a radically different subjective experience between us, and I have no real way of knowing.

[eitland]

With me I know:

I know if I close my eyes now there is nothing visible.

I also know if I have a good night's sleep and wake up late on Saturday I might be able to see images of things I am working on in the garden or elsewhere.

So I know seing nothing is my default and I know that seing something vividly can be possible.

[card_zero]

Being able to draw better than people who can "visualize" better throws doubt on what type of thing "visualizing" really is.

[khazhoux]

I can draw better than most people, but have nearly zero internal visualization. I learned to draw by direct observation, committing the patterns to memory, and repetition.

As a result, I have excellent (if I do say so myself) drawings from life, some shockingly good portraits in oil, and also I can reproduce a few cartoon characters (which I’ve practiced extensively) almost perfectly. BUT, ask me to draw my mom from memory, and I can’t do it, like at all. I have, really, no idea what my own mom looks like.

[eitland]

I'm referring to this experiment / art thing:

https://www.booooooom.com/2016/05/09/bicycles-built-based-on...

[vidarh]

I don't think that makes sense. Most people struggle to draw even with something to copy right in front of them. Seeing something is insufficient to draw well. It's also not necessary in order to draw well.

[eitland]

I don't say I draw nice drawings. I am referring to this art/experiment:

https://www.booooooom.com/2016/05/09/bicycles-built-based-on...

I don't draw impossible bikes. Because I know what bikes are. That is what I mean. Not that I can make nice or even photographically correct images of them.

[card_zero]

Patient MX there is quite persuasive. Lots of neuroscience discoveries start with somebody having some brain damage and losing a facility of some kind. However, most of the people claiming aphantasia, or the extreme opposite, are not brain damaged. At least not literally.

It would also be more valuable information if some area was damaged that was known to cause the effect.

[bonoboTP]

My gut feel is that people's experiences can be quite different. V.S. Ramachandran's books have nudged me to take these things more seriously.

I think visual imagination is also related to spatial rotation abilities. For example can you imagine yourself in your hometown, then imagine an "animation" as you (from a first-person perspective) fly up vertically, then turn in various directions and sort of feel where the landmarks are in the mind's eye? Or does that sound nonsense to you? Would you agree that being faster at certain tasks (that require a visual scratchpad - e.g. imagining a tabletop and being told what happens e.g. add a triangle on the left, add a square halfway overlapping the triangle etc) indicates that someone has more vivid imagination?

[roxolotl]

The parent article has brain scans showing different activations in control brains vs aphantasia vs hyperphantasia. Also when people self report that their experience has qualitatively changed that seems like a pretty strong indicator that’s at least a range.

[suddenlybananas]

The fact that some people report aphantasia and some people don't implies that their brains are different but it does not imply that the reason the brains are different is aphantasia. For example, aphantasia has some comorbidity with autism, probably because autism leads people to interpret expressions in different ways.

[roxolotl]

So you’re saying you think people who report aphantasia see mental imagery but don’t think of it as imagery? And that the brain scans indicate difference but not around mental imagery?

[suddenlybananas]

Yeah essentially, or alternatively neither group has visual imagery. I think it fundamentally comes down to phenomenology being very hard to express in language.

[roxolotl]

That’s why the self reports seem valuable to me. If someone says “I’ve never seen something in my minds eye” and then they do dmt and say “oh shit I can see things in my minds eye now I totally get what people mean now” it seems to imply there’s a spectrum of visualization capabilities. There’s also people who’ve gone in the opposite direction due to injury.

[card_zero]

But people who do dmt are also liable to say "oh shit I can see the machine elves, I totally get what people mean now". Which is not to say that their reports are unreliable, just inscrutable.

[vidarh]

I have aphantasia, but I have had one experience of seeing clear imagery while awake (and it was not on drugs)

They are not remotely similar.

[cnity]

Honestly, your meditation experience sounds more like an altered state induced by the meditation, rather than confirmation of what non-aphantasiacs experience on a daily basis. And I'm jealous you had that experience.

[vidarh]

I have aphantasia. I do not normally see things in my inner eye at all, but I still "imagine" things. I can draw things I imagine, even though I can't see them.

But I do see images while dreaming. It's very distinct from imagining things while awake and unable to see them.

And I have had one waking experience where I saw images as clearly as if I was looking at a photograph while awake, in a dark room, with my eyes closed during meditation. It was very different from when I'm dreaming.

This is not a "language thing". Until the experience mentioned above, I had gone ~40 years with no idea seeing things in your minds eye while awake was a thing at all.

[cnity]

> I can draw things I imagine, even though I can't see them.

This is what I mean though. What do you mean by "see" exactly, if not imagine? You can imagine something so clearly that you are able to replicate it on paper, yet that is not the minds eye? I also see while dreaming, in a way that is more like my day to day experience, and not at all how I would describe imagining things.

> I saw images as clearly as if I was looking at a photograph while awake

If anything this is more mind's eye clarity than I have ever experienced. My mind's eye is nothing like looking at an actual photograph.

[tekla]

It's super interesting to read these accounts. I have my doubts that Aphatasia is real for 99% of people who claim to have it and its a language issue.

What is imagination if not seeing the thing in your head. Do people think others LITERALLY see an object like photons are hitting their neurons directly?

[vidarh]

Some people do report seeing things as clear as if photos are hitting their eyes. Most people report more diffuse views.

I see nothing, but I have seen once, and when I did, I did "literally" see an object as clear as if I was looking straight at it, or to be more precisely a I saw a whole scene.

[khazhoux]

I don’t think anyone thinks it should be like photons. I think we all understand that internal visualization is something different.

[vidarh]

This is hard to talk about because all of our terms for it involve assumptions of seeing.

But when I "imagine" something, there is unambiguously no visual whatsoever. I can't see lines, colors, points. Nothing, any more than if there was a wall between me and an object I have never seen.

But that doesn't mean I don't have knowledge of it.

> I also see while dreaming, in a way that is more like my day to day experience, and not at all how I would describe imagining things.

Then how would you describe imagining things? Because if you don't see something when imagining it while awake, then that sounds like aphantasia.

> If anything this is more mind's eye clarity than I have ever experienced. My mind's eye is nothing like looking at an actual photograph.

And yet what I experienced isn't even near the high end of reported experiences of people.

[cnity]

Maybe let's loop in other senses for a second. Since, presumably aphantasia doesn't apply to all senses? I can imagine the sensation of my tongue on a cold ice cream, and even the taste. But I don't _taste and feel_ it. I can imagine burning my hand on a hot stove, but I don't recoil. See how they are separate but related? The same is true for how I imagine things visually. I don't actually see them, but I imagine them. I don't know how else to articulate that seeing and visualising are not the same thing.

[vidarh]

What you describe makes it sound like you have aphantasia.

People who don't have aphantasia do report "actually seeing" things with various degrees of fidelity, in some (less common) cases clearly enough to "overlay" on objects with their eyes open.

When I had my experience I did "actually see things". Yes, I know they weren't there, but it looked as if they were, in high resolution, full colour, with motion.

EDIT: Also, people "imagine" things with other senses or without too, and people have or don't have inner monologues, or dialogues, in their own voice, or separate voices - the breadth of inner life is very significant.

For my part, I don't recall sounds either, but I "reproduce them" in inner monologue in my own voice roughly in proportion to my ability to reproduce them out loud, but others do recall sounds as they heard them, reporting various degrees of fidelity. The same for smells. Most assumptions about how people's internal life "must" be tends to fall apart once you ask enough people.

E.g. There are writers I know with no internal monologue or dialogue. I know others for whom writing is like listening in to characters acting out scenes and just transcribing it. In some cases watching them act out scenes and just describing them.

[HK-NC]

Personally I can imagine something with such detail and depth that my eyes are effectively blacked out despite being open. I can also imagine a grayscale 2D apple fine too, so Im not completely fucked if I have an abstract thought driving a car.