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Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

theguardian.com

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Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#91
post #25

Every time I’m reading about Aphantasia, I’m confused again that people really see stuff in their head. I have basically the same as the person in the article. So, if you want to know anything, AMA. I’m also trying to respond to a few questions which are already asked.

Based on the article and the comments here, it sounds like the way you remember things must be missing a lot of details. I'm speculating here because I just saw a movie today at a theater and I can playback scenes in my mind. I can certainly describe a scene with words but that's clearly very limiting. At the very least, I don't have words to map to all the colors my eyes can detect. Do you think that's accurate?

That's said, I imagine if you rewatched a recent movie, you would recollect every scene during the act of rewatching, just like someone without aphantasia.

For anyone who has a hard time believing this condition is real (because I initially did) here's how I think about it. When I first learned there are people who are color blind, I was stunned and skeptical that I could be looking at a certain colored flower and someone next to me didn't see the same reality. I can also easily believe that someone can imagine something in their mind way more vividly than I can. I'm willing to bet you could do an experiment where you give various people step by step instructions to do origami in their mind, draw a top-down view of the final shape, and there'd be a wide range of accuracy even among people without aphantasia.

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#92

Alert: if you were happy to learn about aphantasia, you might also be happy to learn about SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory), which I think is correlated with aphantasia. SDAM is when you know facts about your life, but can’t walk through any or almost any episodes . Apparently normal people can actually re-live episodes from their past, step by step or.. idk. Somehow. And I don’t know what I had for…

correct - it’s like playing an extremely low resolution “replay” of that moment in time.sometimes the frames skip but it’s still visible to me.

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#93
post #31

If somebody told me "image you are walking a winding path. To your right there is a wood, to your left there is a mountain". The image I see in my mind is basically an empty paper, with an arrow pointing to the left labeled "mountain", an arrow to the right labeled "wood", and an arrow to the middle labeled "path". Maybe, maybe the mountain is represented with two lines /\ and the path is a winding line ~~~ but that…

  >>If somebody told me "image you are walking a winding path. To your right there is a wood, to your left there is a mountain".
  >>The image I see in my mind...
I see no image. No empty paper with an arrow, nothing. Same with sounds.

I don't have a problem identifying faces. I'm not great at putting names with faces, but that may be separate.

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#94
post #93
post #31

If somebody told me "image you are walking a winding path. To your right there is a wood, to your left there is a mountain". The image I see in my mind is basically an empty paper, with an arrow pointing to the left labeled "mountain", an arrow to the right labeled "wood", and an arrow to the middle labeled "path". Maybe, maybe the mountain is represented with two lines /\ and the path is a winding line ~~~ but that…

>>If somebody told me "image you are walking a winding path. To your right there is a wood, to your left there is a mountain". >>The image I see in my mind... I see no image. No empty paper with an arrow, nothing. Same with sounds. I don't have a problem identifying faces. I'm not great at putting names with faces, but that may be separate.

I think entirely in words, no images. No sounds. Just concepts that are mapped to words. It blows my mind some people actually see images when they think

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#95

Alert: if you were happy to learn about aphantasia, you might also be happy to learn about SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory), which I think is correlated with aphantasia. SDAM is when you know facts about your life, but can’t walk through any or almost any episodes . Apparently normal people can actually re-live episodes from their past, step by step or.. idk. Somehow. And I don’t know what I had for…

Memory is a weird thing.

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#96
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally find it hard to believe that people would really experience things so differently. Seems simpler to attribute it to differences in how people describe their internal representations in words. Even for myself it's a little bit unclear and changing how I'm really representing things. One day I might say oh I don't see anything, it's all just concepts (oh no it's aphantasia). On another it would be like ok…

I can't see things in my minds eye. It's not a thing for me

You have no idea what a very simple object or shape, like a Christian cross or a McDonald's logo, looks like without having one in your sight?

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#97
What frustrates me about things like that, there seem to be no proper tests for that. Shouldn't there be an easy test for Aphantasia, for example, that doesn't ask me things like "do you have a mind's eye" (what does that even mean?). Such a test should not ask the test subjects to self-diagnose themselves, but it should objectively test abilities and put them on a scale. Anything else really is not that helpful.

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#98
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>If somebody told me "image you are walking a winding path. To your right there is a wood, to your left there is a mountain". >>The image I see in my mind... I see no image. No empty paper with an arrow, nothing. Same with sounds. I don't have a problem identifying faces. I'm not great at putting names with faces, but that may be separate.

I think entirely in words, no images. No sounds. Just concepts that are mapped to words. It blows my mind some people actually see images when they think

You can't think of what a STOP sign looks like? Or your country's flag?

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#99
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>If somebody told me "image you are walking a winding path. To your right there is a wood, to your left there is a mountain". >>The image I see in my mind... I see no image. No empty paper with an arrow, nothing. Same with sounds. I don't have a problem identifying faces. I'm not great at putting names with faces, but that may be separate.

I think entirely in words, no images. No sounds. Just concepts that are mapped to words. It blows my mind some people actually see images when they think

When you say you think in words, does that mean like you see printed words like a page of text? Or just audible words?

Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

#100

One of the times aphantasia has been brought up here somebody posted a guide to training your brain to see more vivid imagery from someone who alleges they started out aphantasic and trained themselves to not be. Does anybody have the link, I've been searching for it for like a year since I forgot to backup my bookmarks before a resinstall.

I don't have a specific link, but the general method is called "image streaming". It's pretty googleable so you should be able to find something similar at least.
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