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Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind

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Re: Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind

#131

Post by taralx »

blakeross wrote: post #29

I would be curious to see how the HN community scores on this aphantasia survey embedded in the BBC article: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34039054 . Perhaps there's a connection between programmers and this condition. Will you take it and report your score? The survey is oversimplified, obviously, but it was devised by the Exeter neurologists who are studying this. I got the lowest score (8/40) since none of the qu…

24/40 - people are hard, weather is easy. I also have trouble associating names and faces.

Re: Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind

#132

Post by wazoox »

blakeross wrote: post #29

I would be curious to see how the HN community scores on this aphantasia survey embedded in the BBC article: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34039054 . Perhaps there's a connection between programmers and this condition. Will you take it and report your score? The survey is oversimplified, obviously, but it was devised by the Exeter neurologists who are studying this. I got the lowest score (8/40) since none of the qu…

38/40 . I always had a vivid, graphic imagination. My limits in drawing are lack of work, not imagination. I even at times had strongly visual mathematics intuitions.

Re: Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind

#133

Post by auggierose »

0xfaded wrote: post #51
blakeross wrote: post #2

I'm the author of this post, happy to answer any questions. About me: I was formerly a director of product at FB and a founder of Firefox. My YC startup became FB's first acquisition. I'm focusing more on creative writing these days (wrote the Silicon Valley spec script and the Theranos parody that have come up on HN a few times.) Aphantasia was a pretty weird discovery for me given this new focus.

Wow, I just learned something new about myself. If I attempt the red triangle thought, I can place the concept of a triangle in space, but I can't see it. Similarly for the beach, my mental model is all the concepts accociated with a beach positioned in 3d space, but I don't "see" anything. However, on rare occasions I have "seen" things in my mind in absolutely perfect detail, but I have no control over what I see.…

Yeah, I cannot see the red triangle either, although i can imagine seeing it :)

Re: Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind

#134

Post by andersthue »

blakeross wrote: post #29

I would be curious to see how the HN community scores on this aphantasia survey embedded in the BBC article: http://www.bbc.com/news/health-34039054 . Perhaps there's a connection between programmers and this condition. Will you take it and report your score? The survey is oversimplified, obviously, but it was devised by the Exeter neurologists who are studying this. I got the lowest score (8/40) since none of the qu…

13/40 I'm an ENF(J/P) single founder, I used to mostly do programming but lean more to the sales/leadership side of things these days.

I never remember images but I do remember feelings/sensations pretty well, so I might not rememeber the sunset, but I do remember the hot feeling on my skin, the sounds and my state of mind.

I know my mom 'remembers' the same way I do.

I almost never dream in visuals.

Nice to finally 'meet' others who are like me.

Re: Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind

#135

Post by kough »

kazagistar wrote: post #128
Orthanc wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine an image in my head (sort of) but I can't not think in words. It's hard for me to even understand what people mean when they say they are thinking but they don't have an internal monologue going on in their head. Brains are weird.

Do you know more then one language? I grew up bilingual from a young age, and I suspect that has something to do with the disconnect between ideas and words. The simplest proof I have for the fact that I don't think in words is that I quite often forget a word, and can't complete a sentence. I know exactly what I want to express and have thought it through in my mind, but I can't tell it to someone else because I don…

Wow, that example is really perfect -- I definitely think in a similar way, but I've had a really hard time explaining that to people. Hopefully this helps.

Do you ever get frustrated trying to explain this? I've had people refuse to believe me, and I end up feeling like I'm not thinking "as well" or "as rigorously" as I might be.

Re: Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind

#136

Post by kough »

taralx wrote: post #129
kazagistar wrote: post #120

I'm... halfway. When I try, I can generate images, but I only do so occasionally. Most of the time, my thinking is exactly like the author describes. Facts, ideas, connections, hunches, intuitions, etc. The images are kinda like a serialization of this, no more: they have exactly the data I put into them, and not really any more "detail". But what really blew my mind was when I realized that people think with words.…

Same here. Makes writing actually quite difficult -- I tell people it's like trying to put a whirlwind down the end of a pen.

This is actually one situation in which being able to touch type accurately and quickly is extremely useful. I can sit down with an empty buffer and my hands more or less keep up with my thoughts. Still wish I could go faster of course, but it's orders of magnitude less frustrating than trying to write by hand.

Re: Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind

#137

Post by FreeFull »

kazagistar wrote: post #128
Orthanc wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can imagine an image in my head (sort of) but I can't not think in words. It's hard for me to even understand what people mean when they say they are thinking but they don't have an internal monologue going on in their head. Brains are weird.

Do you know more then one language? I grew up bilingual from a young age, and I suspect that has something to do with the disconnect between ideas and words. The simplest proof I have for the fact that I don't think in words is that I quite often forget a word, and can't complete a sentence. I know exactly what I want to express and have thought it through in my mind, but I can't tell it to someone else because I don…

I'm bilingual. My thought process is a mixture of words, ideas, and other things that are relevant. The words nowadays are in English, even though English is my second language (Polish is my first). And it definitely does happen sometimes I do forget a word.

Re: Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind

#138

Post by danielrhodes »

blakeross wrote: post #2

I'm the author of this post, happy to answer any questions. About me: I was formerly a director of product at FB and a founder of Firefox. My YC startup became FB's first acquisition. I'm focusing more on creative writing these days (wrote the Silicon Valley spec script and the Theranos parody that have come up on HN a few times.) Aphantasia was a pretty weird discovery for me given this new focus.

Curious if this only applies to visuals. What about voices or music? For example can you accurately reproduce your parents, siblings, or friend's voices in your head. Also, what happens if you take psychedelic drugs which produce visual hallucinations?

Also, I would assume the lack of visuals holds true for dreams as well? For dreams that you remember (if any), what were they composed of? Interestingly, some people dream in B&W and other people dream in color. [1]

[1] http://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.de/2008/11/new-studies-on-b...

Re: Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind

#139

Post by wooster »

blakeross wrote: post #2

I'm the author of this post, happy to answer any questions. About me: I was formerly a director of product at FB and a founder of Firefox. My YC startup became FB's first acquisition. I'm focusing more on creative writing these days (wrote the Silicon Valley spec script and the Theranos parody that have come up on HN a few times.) Aphantasia was a pretty weird discovery for me given this new focus.

What's your experience of art like (especially paintings and other visual art)? Does it ever evoke strong feelings? Is there some art you like more than others for reasons you can't articulate with words? Ditto for UI design.

Thanks for writing this, by the way. This is totally mind-blowing.

Re: Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind

#140

Post by fapjacks »

marchenko wrote: post #116
Grambo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually I think there's a reason for this. I took a cognitive science class once where our professor said that many believe that the portion of the brain responsible for recognizing faces is separate from the portion that does all other visual recognition. Perhaps that's why people have a hard time remembering what a face looks like. It's also why some people can lose their ability to recognize faces but can still r…

there's a strange phenomenon that occurs in some pregnancies where extra bloodflow/pressure on a particular region of the brain causes women to over-identify faces (in electrical sockets, in crumpled laundry, etc.). other visual skills are unaffected.

Interesting. Do you have a link to more information?
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