[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.