Aphantasia: A life without mental images
1–10 of 78 posts
Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images
#2Wow, I finally have a word to describe my mental experience. To others, I've described the vividness of my memory as like a wireframe. I can feel spatial relationships but I don't see them like a picture in my head. There are occasions that I can see color in my minds eye, but it's mostly greyscale.
Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images
#3Hm, I never really realized that the rest of the world was better at visualizing than I am, but I'm definitely below average. My ability to imagine vividly comes very rarely, and, when I'm trying, I can usually only conjure a small image and only for what seems like an instant.
Definitely not the severe case that the article describes, but I didn't realize that this was unusual.
Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images
#4Wow, I finally have a word to describe my mental experience. To others, I've described the vividness of my memory as like a wireframe. I can feel spatial relationships but I don't see them like a picture in my head. There are occasions that I can see color in my minds eye, but it's mostly greyscale.
How do you dream?
Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images
#5I've always known I'm terrible at visualizing. The first question from the quiz in the article is "Conjure up an image of a friend or relative who you frequently see". I chose my wife whom I see for hours each day. I tried to visualize what she looks like -- nothing. Is this really so rare?
Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images
#6But this year scientists have described a condition, aphantasia, in which some people are unable to visualise mental images.
This year? Galton (famously) published on this in 1883!
Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images
#7For those who are talking about how they are bad or below average at visualizing things, how do you know? Is there a test that measures this ability?
Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images
#8For those who are talking about how they are bad or below average at visualizing things, how do you know? Is there a test that measures this ability?
There's a quiz in the linked article that matches the one on http://www.aphant.asia/
Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images
#9I have this too. If I try to recall images of people close to me, I get an instinctive flash, which is like an outline. If I try to focus in on the detail, the image disappears.
Happens in dreams to some extent too - I generally dream normally (?) but if I become lucid then everything I try to look at disintegrates.
For the record, I'm a programmer who always wanted to do something artistic. Coming to the realization that I just wouldn't be very good took a long time to accept.
Re: Aphantasia: A life without mental images
#10I've always known I'm terrible at visualizing. The first question from the quiz in the article is "Conjure up an image of a friend or relative who you frequently see". I chose my wife whom I see for hours each day. I tried to visualize what she looks like -- nothing. Is this really so rare?
On the opposite end I remember every face I've ever seen (that has been put to a name). I remember most names and faces from each of my elementary classes including pre-school. Completely useless skill as I can't remember other things to save my life unless I read them 100 times over.