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People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

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Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#41

"Not everyone can see pictures in their minds when they close their eyes and summon thoughts - an ability many of us take for granted." I used to be into visualization as focus training. I can't "see" and change (move, change color) shapes in my mind at all. Artists I know claim to be able to do this. Obviously, Tesla (, Nikola) supposedly did this. For those who can do it - to what degree can you do it? Can you imag…

Like a 3D CAD or in Blender. Add or remove details. A circle could be a bouncy wire that has a shiny surface, or made of wood or plastic. They could rotate in the air, or running on a floor making a circle after being dropped. It could bend and get twisted it into a figure 8. I am writing this while imagining it, and I have no real ring-shaped object at hand.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#44

How would you test such a condition? When I paint (bloody amateur) I certainly can imagine a generic tree or house or something specific like my house or my garden tree. The latter takes more form of an image, but it is still quite abstract. It is not really a picture, it is a memory and quite fleeting. But if I would see a real picture, I would go to the doc. What do you mean they cannot conjure an image. If you ask…

As someone with the opposite of aphantasia (I can daydream very vividly) who's also worked as a pro illustrator I don't really imagine things as I draw. Drawing is more mechanical than people think, and while coming up with a concept requires imagination, and composition requires a level of spatial intelligence you don't really need to visualise things as you draw them. You just do.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and there are no real limits to this. I can picture a Rubik's cube dominating the Manhattan skyline. I can also picture abstract images with no connection to the real world, that have emotions associated with them. I believe my wife cannot make images, and the differences between us that result are pretty wild. I'm dramatically better with directions and maps because she can't make a mental model of the map and…

Can you draw what you visualize? Can you recall a face exactly and draw it? As an amateur artist, I don't think there is as much "mechanical skill" in art, as there is clearly imagining what you are trying to draw. Any time anyone claims to be able to visualize, I ask them this question. To be clear, I am not "challenging" you in any sense, but it's a good reality check. Anyway - I am the same with maps, I can easily…

Actually my mechanical skill is way too inferior to capture things that I can imagine. Like I could spend a long time trying to bring to life a specific image, but why? I wouldn't bother unless it was somehow very important to communicate to someone else. Simple things I'm easily able to picture and draw.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#46
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one on earth can 'visualise' an image in their head as if they were seeing it in real life. This entire fiasco is just people on different spectrums of mental picturing that are freaking out because they are misinterpreting what aphantasia is. I assure you you are most likely normal, and it's common to not recite a sentence word for word or picture an object perfectly. Others can do it very well. Just like you can…

Plenty of people can visualize an image in their head as if they are seeing it in real life. As one of those people, trust me that if your brain is set up to work that way, it's pretty difficult to imagine any other way of picturing the world. Likewise there are plenty of people who honestly can't picture things in their mind at all. The fact that you are towards the middle of the spectrum does not mean the extremes…

So you can draw photo realistic impressions of those memories? Come on now. I can visualise pretty vividly, but I know that my memory is conning me, the textures and details are the feelings of textures and details. If I actually interrogate the visualisation the detail is not there. It's like trying to read writing in a dream, you imagine that it's perfect because the feeling is the same, but try to actually read - the detail is not there.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#47

Makes sense. I’d like to see an experiment done with reading comprehension as well as real memories. When I read something, I hear and see it. I’m reading it out loud in my mind and I either have instant visual associations with certain words (e.g. when I read the word aphantasia I think of the hippo from Fantasia, when I see the word tea I instantly ‘see’ a teacup) or I visualise the scene (like where they have the…

I have aphantasia. When reading I also don't "hear" the words (although I am capable, if I choose, of mentally simulating auditory input in a way for which I have no corresponding capability for visual input). I think I read much faster than average and have extremely high reading comprehension and recall for written material.

Funny story: one benefit of not being able to visualize things is that I'm never disappointed by casting choices (at least as far as appearance is concerned) when a novel is made into a movie or TV series. My wife was "upset" that Jaime Lannister in the Game of Thrones show had blue eyes instead of green, because she had such a strong visual image of what he should look like.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#48
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Characters, structures, vehicles, robots, pretty much anything I would like to draw or design. With color (or at least enough awareness to know a certain shape or area is in a specific color). I can also "listen" to music, unfortunately I'm really bad at creating new music so this skill is utterly useless for anything but remembering songs with just one listen or so. At night before falling asleep it's pretty much li…

In general my dreams have duller images than reality, but I had a dream many decades ago, after a half-dramatic winter day in the mountains - when sleeping in the tent that night I was dreaming about a summer day where I walked over the top of a hill, and in front of me was a valley with an old road, and fields of yellow flowers as far as I could see. What was special was that it was extremely sharp and vivid, much m…

That's interesting. Dreams always were a very interesting topic to me, so I like to hear stuff like this.

For me that's usually kinda how it goes. My dreams are usually rather mundane, borderline formulaic, although at times I can recognize places from my past that are altered (a little or a lot), or it's cleaner/with different materials or stuff like that. A thing that amuses me and seems to be uncommon, at least from what I hear from other people, is the amount of life. If I dream of a street, it's always going to have a lot of persons moving about. Entirely normal people, not people without faces or anything weird like that. They even remain consistent, like if I look somewhere in the dream, if I look back again, people retains their path and clothing. If I'm a bar or something there will be random patrons who I don't really interact with, but can be seen and heard like if it was a totally normal place.

Another amusing thing is that people claims they cannot read in dreams, but while there are times I have difficulty reading a thing, stuff like billboards or random "decorative" text are clear to me. Exceptions happen, for example a few days ago I dreamed I was doing a school test online on a tiny old-school flipphone and I was struggling to read the questions (didn't help the text was in garish colors, probably remembering something a teacher used to do in real life).

I can also get the feelings of taste, smell and touch, but for some reason the temperature is always "neutral". Like, if I'm dreaming in a hot or cold day, it'll be "neutral" in the dream, even if I later wake up because I'm too hot or cold. At times I dream I'm walking but my legs hurt (like when standing up for a long time) but then I wake up and my legs are in a totally neutral state, not in a bad position or anything.

The biggest drawback is that at times I dream I'm just doing my job (maybe with some minor differences in the room or so) and it feels like doing 3-4 hours of just real life, absolutely realistic work stuff. That is terrible. Once in a while I get a cool nightmare monster or setting (which I parasitize for my creative endeavors. Is it plagiarism when your subconscious came up with it?), but overall it's really mundane stuff.

Also, my dreams tend to be pleasant and chillaxing (like 99%), for some reason when sharing dreams people speaks of dreadful or depressing things or psychedelic nightmares and such. I'm glad it's not the case here. I have had weird psychedelic dreams during times of being extremely sick with fever but otherwise it's like some sort of virtual reality.

Makes me wonder if people who claimed to do stuff like astral walking just had the same "ability" and just had really vivid and realistic dreams instead. I also wonder how much of this is related to narcolepsy (I might be dreaming in a higher state of awareness than most people, but I'm not very wise on these topics).

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#49
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I neither hear nor see things I read. Such that I can remember things, but I couldn't tell you how I remember them. Is akin to knowing your way home. I don't see the turns ahead of time, but I recognize them when I do. And I can remember the decisions ahead of time. I think remembering decisions is ultimately my best way to describe it. Remembering making a choice. Something that is not sensory.

I am curious, what would you do when you lost your map in a forest/mountain while hiking, but assuming you "remember" the map that you checked the day before?

Satellite photos with superimposed map data is a true revelation for me. I study them to remember certain landmarks and how the terrain should look when I need to take a turn, etc. And I memorize street names too, to keep tally on where I am.

Re: People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study

#50

I'm worried I have this but I'm not completely sure I do. My dreams are not very vivid at all and usually I just "know" that things are happening in them instead of vividly seeing what's going on. However I can hear music very clearly in my head. If asked to visualize, say, an apple in my head I really don't see it very vividly at all. It's depressing if I'm being honest.

Try to imagine something you know, rather than imagining something from scratch, as it uses different mental muscles.

Try taking something you know and putting it someplace else you know but which is unexpected.

Like your sofa in your supermarket's car park. Or your pet under your desk at work.

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