Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's

sciencealert.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 149 posts

Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's

#71

Post by nefitty »

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #68

I also cannot recollect visual things in mind eye. It is strange to explain but I am good with inventing things and imagining complex things but I cannot see anything in mind eye. It is not visual it is more as abstract "shape", shape is not good word as it is visual, in my case try to imagine shape more as intuition or feeling. I do not know how to explain. I was kind of annoyed by this finding that I started trying…

I recently learned a trick to fall asleep faster. The theory is that sometimes we have trouble falling asleep because we’re stuck in that “logical mind” mode, ie verbalizing thoughts in our head, thinking about concepts, etc.

The trick is to pick a word, something like “bed”, “sleepy”, etc. You then take each letter and try to think of as many things that start with that letter. The catch is that you should try visualizing the object as clearly as possible. You move on to the next letter once you run out of things for the current letter.

This is supposed to move your mind from the verbal, anxiety-ridden, future-minded mode to the pre-verbal, visual mode. That then slowly fades into hypnagogic imagery, which then leads to sleep and dreams.

Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's

#72

Post by Mayzie »

NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #68

I also cannot recollect visual things in mind eye. It is strange to explain but I am good with inventing things and imagining complex things but I cannot see anything in mind eye. It is not visual it is more as abstract "shape", shape is not good word as it is visual, in my case try to imagine shape more as intuition or feeling. I do not know how to explain. I was kind of annoyed by this finding that I started trying…

> and then stream of images appeared from single point, that point grew and like accessing some optic cable hole, and it was vivid very vivid like reality. It lasted just a few 10 - 30 sec before I was knocked of and started sleeping.

That would be hypnogogic hallucations[1]. Different from aphantasia[2]. People with aphantasia can typically experience hypnagogia just fine.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's

#74

Post by Mehdi2277 »

holografix wrote: post #45

Honest questions: Do people with Aphantasia dream vivid dreams with images? How about masturbation without visual input? Are you not capable of visually imagining something arousing, like a person you find very attractive etc? I don’t _think_ I suffer from it but would call the images in my head very clear or detailed or very accurate.

I'm completely aphantasiac across all senses. I can't mentally visualize, mentally have song stuck in my head, imagine taste/touch/etc. I still dream frequently. Dreaming and lack of awake mental visualization are separate. There are people who lack both but you can dream visually frequently while being completely unable to have any visual imagination awake.

Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's

#75

Post by NiceWayToDoIT »

postalrat wrote: post #27

Somewhat unrelated but has anyone here experience fever dreams where you are surrounded by something you can't quite comprehend and can't do anything but try to comprehend it? It's almost like a huge maze, grid, or some other pattern but painful to look at. The dream tends to be extremely unpleasant and usually returns after falling back asleep. I was trying to explain it to a friend the other day and didn't do a ver…

I had those dreams from time to time, it looks equally disturbing like those AI memory images: https://imgur.com/ocplHAy

Sometimes it is very fast morphing shape of objects and events, morphing into other shapes and events ...

But what is most disturbing is that during the dream everything looks logical and known, it is feeling like tapping to some higher source of knowledge, but as soon as I wake up, it seems my brain shrank to regular size and cannot read from the same book, so "symbols"/"letters"/"words"/"sentences" which were understandable there I cannot read anymore. Forgive my lack of words, it is like in those movies where protagonist gets turn to a cat or dog, so he at that point his cat/dog brain cannot understand humans and human talking/thinking anymore...

Annoying part is that, attempting to explain people how does it feel and look like sounds worse than when teen boy trying to talk to a girl he has crush into...

Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's

#76

Post by NiceWayToDoIT »

Mayzie wrote: post #72
NiceWayToDoIT wrote: post #68

I also cannot recollect visual things in mind eye. It is strange to explain but I am good with inventing things and imagining complex things but I cannot see anything in mind eye. It is not visual it is more as abstract "shape", shape is not good word as it is visual, in my case try to imagine shape more as intuition or feeling. I do not know how to explain. I was kind of annoyed by this finding that I started trying…

> and then stream of images appeared from single point, that point grew and like accessing some optic cable hole, and it was vivid very vivid like reality. It lasted just a few 10 - 30 sec before I was knocked of and started sleeping. That would be hypnogogic hallucations[1]. Different from aphantasia[2]. People with aphantasia can typically experience hypnagogia just fine. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogi…

Sorry, you have not understood, aphantasia is my daily state, explained event was one off. Thanks for Hypnagogia.

I was trying to say, that I would like to know how to induce that state somehow, so I could "fix" aphantasia.

Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's

#77

Post by garmaine »

postalrat wrote: post #27

Somewhat unrelated but has anyone here experience fever dreams where you are surrounded by something you can't quite comprehend and can't do anything but try to comprehend it? It's almost like a huge maze, grid, or some other pattern but painful to look at. The dream tends to be extremely unpleasant and usually returns after falling back asleep. I was trying to explain it to a friend the other day and didn't do a ver…

It seems like you've got a lot of people expressing a similar experience. You're not alone!

But I have to say no, never in my life have I ever experienced something like that. So it's not a human universal.

Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's

#78

Post by NamTaf »

holografix wrote: post #45

Honest questions: Do people with Aphantasia dream vivid dreams with images? How about masturbation without visual input? Are you not capable of visually imagining something arousing, like a person you find very attractive etc? I don’t _think_ I suffer from it but would call the images in my head very clear or detailed or very accurate.

I never remember my dreams, and I suspect I'm aphantasic. As far as I'm concerned, 99.something% of my sleep follows the pattern of fall asleep -> void outside of time -> wake up.

There are extremely rare fleeting moments where I might wake up and remember some details about a dream for a few seconds, but then I lose it. Those would be counted on one hand per year, easily.

Re: Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's

#80

Post by cixx »

recursive wrote: post #53
miloignis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I have experienced something similar, where I have to find the right configuration for some pattern, sometimes grounded in like how my sheets and blanket wrap around my body in order to create or fix some dream machine. It's not a fully formed concept, but I'm trying to fix it and arrange the pattern in my mostly-sleeping state - it's always impossible and I have to recognize what I'm doing, fully wake myself…

Yes. I get this. It's kind of a problem some time. My brain gets trapped in a loop of trying to solve some puzzle or system of constraints, but none of it is based on anything. I couldn't even describe it. It's more like patterns of faux-logical systems. When I recognize it happening, I can usually snap out of it.

I experience exactly the same thing, with me it happens when I am very tired. When I was younger (Now I know what is happening and I just take it as a sign that I'm very tired. It's comforting to see someone else describing the same thing that is happening to me.

My "logic puzzle" is moving endless amounts of large, heavy cubes in holes that keep on appearing when I fill them. The visual aspect is only a part of it, the emotional feeling of the endless task is another.

For what it's worth, I instantly see very complex patterns in the visual test.

Post reply on HN