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People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

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Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#61

Post by vidarh »

jareklupinski wrote: post #14
misthop wrote: post #3

Aphantasiac here, happy to discuss or answer any questions

how is your proprioception? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception e.g. if you put your hand behind your back and move it up and down randomly, then stop suddenly, can you tell if it's stopped closer to your legs than your neck? i cant think of a better test for it :( (clinicians?)

For my part (as someone with aphantasia) my proprioception is good, and to go further, my sense of space and my spatial reasoning is well above average.

I can also draw what I can't see pretty well from memory.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#62

Post by jareklupinski »

misthop wrote: post #26
jareklupinski wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is your proprioception? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception e.g. if you put your hand behind your back and move it up and down randomly, then stop suddenly, can you tell if it's stopped closer to your legs than your neck? i cant think of a better test for it :( (clinicians?)

Proprioception is good. I was a fairly accomplished high school and college club athlete in sports that require body parts to move out of visual range

interesting! i always have to 'see myself' in my head to answer those kinds of questions

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#63

Post by wongarsu »

chiefgeek wrote: post #17

I’ve worked as a professional photographer for twenty years and I visualize absolutely zero with my eyes closed. It’s only recently that I learned of aphantasia. Even on most psychedelic journeys I don’t have closed eye visuals, NN-DMT being the consistent exception. Everything is more of just a “knowingness”.

As somebody who only has closed eye visuals in deep meditation or in dreams, I would maybe describe what you call "knowingness" as "abstract representation"?

As a kid I've always been really good at these "imagine how this shape folds in 3d" kind of tasks, and I would generally say I am above average at imagining how things relate to each other in 3d. I just can't turn it into an image in my mind's eye

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#64

Post by misthop »

chaps wrote: post #47
misthop wrote: post #3

Aphantasiac here, happy to discuss or answer any questions

When you close your eyes, can you make any visualization whatsoever? Not the press-fingers-into-eyes stuff nor from-memory visualization, but just anything. When I close mine, I can let my brain wander with little intention/feedback and my mind will create giant megastructures that I kinda sorta fly through. It's fully continuous almost like I'm zooming into a fractal.

Nothing, no

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#65

Post by Akronymus »

passive wrote: post #55

I've got a moderate form of Aphantasia, where there are images in my head, but I'm unable to fix them in place and extract information from them. So I might think you have green eyes, but if you tell me they are brown, I wouldn't be able to refute you from my own memory. Practically, it means I'm rubbish at remembering people. I've developed some techniques that help, but if someone changes their look significantly,…

> Practically, it means I'm rubbish at remembering people. I've developed some techniques that help, but if someone changes their look significantly, it's very hard for me to identify that it's the same person.

Do you perhaps have a mild form of face blindness?

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#66

Post by dd8601fn »

izzydata wrote: post #15
ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is cope to avoid the realization that some people are walking around with drastically different life experiences.

I think a lot of people that can "see" in their mind are over-estimating their ability and a lot of people who can't are under-estimated their ability. It's probably a spectrum like a lot of things are, except in this case it is exceptionally hard to to know where you fall on it. The gap may not be as wide as it sounds. Almost everyone is still a functioning thinking human afterall. If the gap were so wide it seems l…

I certainly have to try. And the results often ain’t great.

I have wondered if painters and interior decorators and such were typically blessed with much better tooling for that.

I don‘t know how closely visual recall and creative visualization are related, though.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#67

Post by thrw9876543 »

I thought that I'll never be able to tell what non-aphantasia people see and how they perceive things. I see full blackness with some noise, but I can't visualize a thing.

This was until I tried some magic mushrooms (psilocybin as main ingredient) and I was shocked that with my eyes closed I was able to actually see things, mental imagery, objects, etc. After the effects wore off, the blackness has returned I couldn't see anything anymore. To me this is proof that aphantasia is real as I was able to compare it to a different state of mind where visualization is possible.

It's quite unfortunate that research on psychedelics is limited due to the insane war on drugs.

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#68

Post by jareklupinski »

vidarh wrote: post #61
jareklupinski wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how is your proprioception? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proprioception e.g. if you put your hand behind your back and move it up and down randomly, then stop suddenly, can you tell if it's stopped closer to your legs than your neck? i cant think of a better test for it :( (clinicians?)

For my part (as someone with aphantasia) my proprioception is good, and to go further, my sense of space and my spatial reasoning is well above average. I can also draw what I can't see pretty well from memory.

that's interesting too! i can visualize clearly, but have _terrible_ artistic skills; nothing in my head can make it out unless through CAD :)

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#69

Post by vidarh »

nelox wrote: post #16
misthop wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's 5 ft tall, sharp features, curly white hair. i can remember imagery facts, but have not visual memory

What does that mean? You can recite a description you’ve read or heard, but what about looking at a photo and describing it?

I can describe someone from memory, and I can draw them, but I can't see them unless they're in front of me (or I'm looking at a photo).

Re: People who can't picture anything are rewriting the science of imagination

#70

Post by misthop »

codetiger wrote: post #43
misthop wrote: post #3

Aphantasiac here, happy to discuss or answer any questions

1. Can't remember which way you came from just after a few mins of passing the same street. 2. Can't recollect your mother's face by closing your eye, but can recognize when you see. 3. Don't remember faces unless seen them for many times. 4. Can remember a favorite color. 5. Don't have a consistent handwriting. Do these symptoms count?

Those don't sound to me like aphantasiac properties. possibly related, but sound like other memory topics. Especially the first one
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