Interesting self-experiment, but results are self-reported (and failure of the experiment to elicit imagery does not necessarily imply anything about vividness). I'm not sure it really reveals any objective metric regarding vividness of mental imagery.
Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's
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Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's
#12This is extremely cool. Within about 10 seconds in a lit room without white noise playing I began getting fairly vivid visuals. I'll be sure to come back to this to get the full experience later, and complete the questionnaire. For reference I tend to get interesting/vivid visuals whenever I close my eyes for a few seconds, often when I look at a finely patterned/textured surface, and sometimes when I look at basical…
What sort of visuals did you see? I had some amazing visuals, but I'm not really sure what I'm to expect if I'm one of those people with vivid mental imagery. I didn't see anything particularly concrete, except what kind of looked like a spiral galaxy at one point. The rest was basically lots of cool fractals and textures. What was most strange was a few shooting stars I saw pass through my vision; they weren't those sorts of "shooting stars" you might get if you get up too fast or if you get all the wind knocked out of you. These were quite vivid shooting stars moving steadily for several seconds until each would vanish.
Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's
#13This is extremely cool. Within about 10 seconds in a lit room without white noise playing I began getting fairly vivid visuals. I'll be sure to come back to this to get the full experience later, and complete the questionnaire. For reference I tend to get interesting/vivid visuals whenever I close my eyes for a few seconds, often when I look at a finely patterned/textured surface, and sometimes when I look at basical…
What sort of visuals did you see? I had some amazing visuals, but I'm not really sure what I'm to expect if I'm one of those people with vivid mental imagery. I didn't see anything particularly concrete, except what kind of looked like a spiral galaxy at one point. The rest was basically lots of cool fractals and textures. What was most strange was a few shooting stars I saw pass through my vision; they weren't those…
It's hard to explain because it isn't like seeing the actual objects I'm about to list - these visuals all morph into each other, and sometimes it feels like I'm seeing an idea rather than an object, if that makes any sense. Using Ganzflicker for about a minute I recall I saw:
- some strange smooth shapes, like two glass hourglasses on either side with oil refracting light, with a blob sliding through the middle of them
- A cat's face
- A forest with non-existent animals running through the tall large-trunked trees
- A palace full of marble columns
- Some sort of grand tower that went out into space, and seemed to branch out like a rope being made
There were all many more abstract things, typically in between (or as a transition between) the more identifiable parts.
Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's
#14Not sure if science or joke I don’t get :(
I don’t follow the research here but I was pretty sure it was a joke at first because after the initial quote (preceded by the statement “ Consider the statements below. What do they describe? A trip on psychedelics? A dream?”):
> I felt I could reach through the screen to get to another place. Lasers became entire fans of light sweeping around, and then it felt as if the screen began to expand. I saw old stone buildings … like a castle … I was flying above it.
I was presented with 3 options, a Dodge Ram, a Jeep Grand Cherokee, and some other truck. I was trying really hard to figure out what the statement had to do with vehicles until I scrolled down (on mobile) more to realize it was a poorly placed advertisement. Not sure why the internet thinks I want to buy a truck, but I imagine there could have been even more hilarious things that could have fit the context better.
Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's
#15determining whether a face is friendly or annoyed is a high-level cognitive process.
I wouldn't be too sure about that. The human brain has an enormous amount of dedicated circuitry for recognizing and interpreting human faces. When something goes wrong in that circuitry we can't just "do it in software" and we call it face-blindness.
Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's
#16This is extremely cool. Within about 10 seconds in a lit room without white noise playing I began getting fairly vivid visuals. I'll be sure to come back to this to get the full experience later, and complete the questionnaire. For reference I tend to get interesting/vivid visuals whenever I close my eyes for a few seconds, often when I look at a finely patterned/textured surface, and sometimes when I look at basical…
Have you done lsd/shrooms before? This almost sounds like you can trigger the after effects yourself.
These visuals I regularly experience are similar to those experienced on shroom, but far less intense/intrusive/encompassing.
They're fairly distinct in sensation from visuals experienced through imagining, which are fairly distinct from daydreaming, which are fairly distinct from dreaming.
I wish we had a language expressive enough to share these qualitative experiences - my writing does little to express them.
Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's
#17Nice try, basilisk-generating AGI, almost had me.
Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's
#18There is an entire industry around this effect.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganzfeld_effect
https://mindplace.com/products/kasina-ganzframes
Basically Sound and Light "Mind Machines" have been utilizing this effevt for decades.
Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's
#19Interesting. I do not have aphantasia. Actually it is easy for me to visually imagine. However, trying out this Ganzfield flicker for more than 5 minutes did nothing for me. Maybe I will try again later in a darker room and for a longer duration.
Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's
#20I am almost completely aphantasic and saw zero visuals