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Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

aphantasia.com

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Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#31

Post by feverzsj »

drakonka wrote: post #15

When people talk about seeing something in your mind's eye, do they mean a virtual image actually appears _as if_ you are seeing it in place of the real world or the blackness of your eyelids? Like do they somehow replace the picture from the eyes to the brain with whatever they are trying to visualize in a sort of hallucination? Or do they still 'see' the blacks of their eyelids or the world around them while visual…

It's just some vague image. Only outstanding features like shape and color are recognizable. Probably how brain processes and stores these visual data.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#32

Post by audidude »

christophilus wrote: post #21
audidude wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't understand flashbacks in movies until about a decade ago when I realized I had it. What a corny and lazy story-telling-tool I'd tell myself.

Oh. Interesting. I’m the same. Are those flashbacks actually a real thing people experience? I had also assumed it was just movie gimmicks.

They are real for some. I have Aphantasia but my wife has Hyperphantasia so we compare notes often. Each of us are at the edge of the spectrum.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#33

Post by LoganDark »

Noaidi wrote: post #18
wmorgan wrote: post #10

An interesting test for kids that I stumbled upon. I’ll play them the audio of How the Grinch Stole Christmas, when we’re the car or whatever. So all the gags in that TV special are visual. Nevertheless my kids go nuts laughing from the back seat, at the right parts. What we’re all listening to is just instrumental, but they’re seeing all the gags. I wonder if you tried it with a kid with aphantasia. Would they laugh…

We still have memory, it is just not visual. I forget what they call it, I think it is structural memory. But yes, we certainly laugh. It is only visual memory loss, not memory loss. The only test they have somewhat developed is a pupil test. When you tell someone with Aphantasia to imagine an apple their pupils do not change. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220420092150.h...

Aphantasia is about the mind's eye, not visual memory. Many people with aphantasia can still remember visual/spatial details of memories, they just can't see them. Not sure if those had to be recorded at the time of the memory or if they can be derived later, though. Based on some cursory research, it's not particularly uncommon for aphantasics to build a habit of intentionally making spatial observations in the moment for potential recall later.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#34

Post by feverzsj »

graeme wrote: post #25
feverzsj wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, most people can do it, but the image is far from photo or video. They are mostly vague and lack lots of details. So, it's really not much difference.

From what people report some can see a full picture.

Photographic memory is very rare.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#35

Post by mostlylurks »

drakonka wrote: post #15

When people talk about seeing something in your mind's eye, do they mean a virtual image actually appears _as if_ you are seeing it in place of the real world or the blackness of your eyelids? Like do they somehow replace the picture from the eyes to the brain with whatever they are trying to visualize in a sort of hallucination? Or do they still 'see' the blacks of their eyelids or the world around them while visual…

For me, it's like a second sense of vision, which does not get hallucinated into the primary sense of vision and which cannot be confused with actual vision, yet nonetheless feels much like vision, with the exception of "not feeling real". By default it is "someplace else", but I can overlay it onto my primary vision if I want to (e.g. imagining an object on my real-life desk), but that doesn't affect my primary vision, merely gives me a sense that the imagined sight corresponds spatially with the actual reality in the intended manner.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#36

Post by boguscoder »

Not that this needs treatment (or is even curable), but I wonder how many people misdiagnose themselves as having aphantasia because of differences in how imagination works. Red apple test just doesn’t seem to be thorough enough. There were spikes of lactose intolerance, gluten intolerance and all sorts of other self-diagnosed deviations from the norm that has no connection to reality, its some quirk of human psyche to cling to any opportunity to feel “special”, mostly harmless but might but at times hinder search for help for those who really need it

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#37

Post by Jtsummers »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #19

I've often thought I had aphantasia because I just do not visualize a ball or anything when asked. I can totally make up a ball that is like the pixar ball as in the example they gave, but I will just put details in the literary description of the object and remember it. But, the site doesn't mention this, and from my research it seems that I'm an outlier on this, if I have aphantasia, because I have especially rich…

> There are some theories that aphantasia allows complicated dreams like this as it is a difference between involuntary and voluntary, but then are controlled dreams truly involuntary?

N of 1, but I do not have aphantasia and I regularly have vivid, complex dreams. So maybe aphantasia influences things here, but it's hardly a requirement (as you write with "allows") for them.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#38

Post by [deleted] »

drakonka wrote: post #15

When people talk about seeing something in your mind's eye, do they mean a virtual image actually appears _as if_ you are seeing it in place of the real world or the blackness of your eyelids? Like do they somehow replace the picture from the eyes to the brain with whatever they are trying to visualize in a sort of hallucination? Or do they still 'see' the blacks of their eyelids or the world around them while visual…

[deleted]

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#39

Post by quickthrowman »

christophilus wrote: post #16
drakonka wrote: post #15

When people talk about seeing something in your mind's eye, do they mean a virtual image actually appears _as if_ you are seeing it in place of the real world or the blackness of your eyelids? Like do they somehow replace the picture from the eyes to the brain with whatever they are trying to visualize in a sort of hallucination? Or do they still 'see' the blacks of their eyelids or the world around them while visual…

I don’t see anything, but I also wonder if this is semantics, and we are all describing the same phenomena with different language.

Yeah, I’m convinced this is the case. Accurately conveying something like that (the qualia of mental imagery) to another person using words is more or less impossible, in my opinion. People like to label themselves and feel special, this is an easy way to do it.

Re: Aphantasia Beginner's Guide

#40

Post by stephen_g »

christophilus wrote: post #21
audidude wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't understand flashbacks in movies until about a decade ago when I realized I had it. What a corny and lazy story-telling-tool I'd tell myself.

Oh. Interesting. I’m the same. Are those flashbacks actually a real thing people experience? I had also assumed it was just movie gimmicks.

I mean, yeah, I can sort of replay things that happen in my head (obviously it’s nowhere as vivid as real life but still imagining through things I saw), and then sometimes I do realise you saw something significant that I hadn’t realised when I do so. So if that’s what you mean by flashbacks, then yes?
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