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

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

#121
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always suspected that people who claimed they could visualize things with great clarity were lying I know this will do nothing to dispel your suspicion, but I can see people and places with great clarity, detail, in color and moving, and if I focus on them they are not fleeting (I get involuntary images that are fleeting though). You'll be right to dismiss my claim -- I'm some random stranger on the internet a…

There's a test I'd like to give someone with your abilities one day, and I'd love if you took the time to try this. I forget where I originally saw it, but it goes something like this: Imagine you're looking down on a grid of squares. It's a little bit like a chess board, but it's only four squares wide and four squares high. In each square is a single letter, and each horizontal row spells a four-letter word. The to…

> My suspicion is that people who claim they can visualize images perfectly won't be able to do this

Note: I do not "claim" to visualize, I can do it, like many others. Remember that aphantasia is the uncommon condition.

I cannot see vertical or diagonal words and in fact have trouble focusing on the words. I can see one at a time clearly, but if I focus on the others the rest become blurry. I can see the checkered board though. I suspect this is because your example is too artificial and analytical.

My visual mind doesn't work analytically like this. I can see the face of my friends and family with lots of details (I can see them with different hair cuts for example), even hear their voices. I can remember scenes from my last vacation clearly, in full color.

But I cannot do a crossword puzzle visually, sorry.

I can see equations floating in my mind, but only if I focus on a narrow section; and I obviously cannot do serious math with them.

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

#122
post #94

That was seriously uncool and no fun. I almost immediately saw crosshatching bars and shapes maybe like fractals, and then the center of the screen seemed to form a white sphere and a f'ing nightmare came crawling out of it filling me with dread, and then I closed the page. Took about a minute. Did it a second time maybe 30 minutes later and it quickly resolved into spinning wind turbines blades, dozens of them, circ…

I saw spinning shapes too: spirals, figure eights, spheres of rainbow pointillist light. Or just swirling patterns like schools of fish. They all moved slowly. When I tried to focus they just disappeared. For me it was relaxing. I watched for about 5 minutes.

Sounds like what I see when I press my fingers (gently) onto my closed eyelids. I think it's the different layers of the visual cortex trying to find edges/patterns in something that doesn't have any.

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

#124
The article is reposted from https://theconversation.com/pseudo-hallucinations-why-some-p...; requesting the link and title be adjusted. (I'm not sure if the link should be repointed to the original research study or not.)

I'm not able to look at the Ganzflicker at the moment but I did skim the research study in question (given that the focus on the article is on the conjectured mechanisms and not the results themselves) and the results found there are somewhat intriguing.

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

#125
The imagery this produces is very similar to the one I see when I close my eyes and focus on the initially brown/red patterns that later become complex shapes and sometimes creatures.

If you don't "see" anything with your eyes closed then this probably won't work for you.

Also I should add that what I described above feels distinct from focusing on the inner eye.

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

#126
This reminded me of something I used to do when I was a kid, sit in the sun at the edge of a shadow moving in the wind, like a tree, with my eyes closed specifically to get this flashing red and black pattern and enjoy the random images. I can't believe I forgot about it.

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

#127
post #2

Not sure if science or joke I don’t get :(

Hmm, no wikipedia page for "ganzflicker", and 90% of the google hits are dubious websites. However, I will be trying this tonight because I loves me a good hallucination and if it can be done by sitting in a dark room staring at a flickering screen for 10 minutes, it sure beats acid.

Follow up: no hallucinations but I was nauseous for an hour afterwards.

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

#128
post #83

I am not sure about this. If you stare at anything for long enough you get peculiar effects in your vision (try it). That said, in the last year or so I have begun to enjoy music from the extractor fan in our kitchen. Each time it is on I hear a random genre of music - plain chant, brass band, jazz, etc. I don't experience it in any other context (or any other hallucinations before you ask). Anyone else get something…

I discovered a fridge in a supermarket with a very pleasant humming tone. I went there often just to hear it and even tried to record the sound with a shitty mp3-player but it was unsuccessful. But it was just one genre, music by an artist like Stelladrone or similar.

A fridge (compressor) in a studio I lived in often made me hear Barber's "Adagio for Strings" (sad song in the game "Homeworld" or the movie "Platoon"). I think it hummed at the frequency of the long note then slowly shifted in pitch similar to the three-note patterns that follow, or something.

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

#129

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…

What you're asking is quite specific. Do you desire only to comprehend, or to comprehend in order to solve? For me it tends to be a loop of complex problem which I feel I comprehend, which upon solving turns out to not be solved, because it was incomprehensible, followed by comprehending, goto 10

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

#130

I watched this for ten minutes and didn't see anything (apart from a flashing red screen). I'm supposed to be the artistic one in the family, so I can't help but feel slightly disdapointed. I've always suspected that people who claimed they could visualize things with great clarity were lying (the "images" in my mind's eye are very fleeting, lacking in detail, and can't be focused on -- like they're on the extremes o…

My mental images are usually very similar to how you described yours. I'm also "creative". I've casually self-diagnosed myself as "not being able to see images in my head". However there have been times where I've had picture perfect clarity of something in 3d, including color, but it only lasts for moments and I've never been able to conjure it on purpose.

I've heard that there are people who think in words, and those who think in pictures, and combinations of the above. If you don't think in pictures, cannot visualize what you will paint, what's your point of reference enabling you to put paint to canvas?
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