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How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

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Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#141
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of dreams, similar to the author's comment about needing to try a month before getting good results, I used to not remember my dreams at all. I decided to keep a dream journal. First week I only had like 3 entries with one sentence notes like "saw the color blue." But a few months in I was remembering most of my rem cycles, 6 months in and the dreams could continue through cycles (like one long epoch). I did…

I've tried journaling my dreams but I found it to be tedious due to the amount of dreams and their various contents. Some dreams consist of strong emotions and what I sense as I wake up is not the dream, but the feeling of have been separated from the dream. That's hard to put into words in the middle of the night. In the end, I tend to recall my dreams quite well, many of which have a permanent place among other epi…

> That's hard to put into words in the middle of the night. In the end, I tend to recall my dreams quite well, many of which have a permanent place among other episodic real life events.

Yeah I found that when I start losing the ability to recall that if I just try to remember. That's the point of the journal anyways. But yeah, it is crazy the dreams I had and how real they were. Entire lives. And even the lessons you learn from choices you make. The emotions and how things even feel real to the though.

> and the dream noticing what you're up to, eventually booting you from the matrix.

This kept happening to me! The first time I did it started to fly but then just kept going up and up and it got brighter and I woke up haha.

> Take a moment to really appreciate the extreme level of graphics, and other senses the mind can render.

It really is insane and makes me think of the computation that the brain can do so efficiently. Like it doesn't get everything right -- which is why you're really able to get lucid (e.g. you can read something 2 times and it'll be different) -- but it is very real regardless. I'm sure there is a lot of compression going on and some tricks being played but it is often convincing. But what is also insane is that we know even pretty small animals dream in at least some realistic way. My cat tries to run in her sleep, meows, chirps like she does at birds, and wakes up with different emotions. I've had a pet rat do some similar things, at least the feet. It begs the question why this evolved, how important it is (essentially simulating your environment. Like learning from synthetic data, but shower thoughts on steroids), and how this relates to consciousness. And I wonder if we'll push harder to make machines do these incredible feats in much smaller packages and without nearly the same training or energy requirements. And I wonder how convincing these simulations are to the smaller creatures.

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#143

I hate the writing style. This is the kind of text you normally see from scam artists: "this cool techinque that I'm going to tell you about", "here's a personal story/testimonial", "soon I'll tell you how I did it", "watch this video if you want to learn more", and there's usually also a "buy my course if you really want to learn about it". This is not how one shares knowledge, this is how one sells snake oil. Thus,…

Nothing is being sold and all other articles on the site are about photography.

Your heuristic for identifying scam articles is overtuned and you're deferring to shallow dismissal instead of engaging with the article to your detriment.

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From talking to people, I would say it exists on a spectrum. I can imagine an apple, the color and texture of its skin, how it feels to touch it, its weightiness, its smell, the sound it'll make when I bite into it, as well as its taste and texture. I can imagine it at different levels of ripeness too, although I don't have the same amount of information for all of them. For me it's so clear that it's almost as good…

I watched a video from a woman talking about her aphantasia. I was struck by the fact that she is an avid reader and enjoys fiction. She said she processes descriptive text as facts. Like, if she read, "Raindrops glistened in the afternoon light as they rolled off the red maple leafs, falling peacefully to the lush green grass, below," she would just have a list of facts in her head and no visualization. It makes me…

I'm a voracious reader (sci-fi) and I would also put it best as processing what I read as facts.

I've never been able to daydream or create worlds in my minds eye such that I get lost in them (which is something I hear people who daydream are able to do).

I think part of this is why I've always found creative writing to be difficult. For example in grade school I was certain I was among the few that read the most, yet for in class creative writing assignments I am often among the last to finish. I've always had the suspicion I'm not as creative as others for this reason.

That said I do believe that I'm very analytical, and so I found no untoward difficulty in persuasive essays, technical write-ups, etc.

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#145
Great to see this topic on HN(aphantasia). I learned about that about 3-4 years ago from my colleagues. Before that I wasn't aware that people can see images. I certainly couldn't (still cannot).

I read a lot about this topic and it's fascinating. This does not only apply to images but also sounds and smells. I cannot "imagine" them too. So I presume that a great musician is able to imagine certain instruments clearly in his head. At least a friend told me that he could do this. And a master chef will probably be able to imagine the taste of different ingredients.

I however cannot. At times this realization feels quite sad. I try to however see the benefits to this.. there are some. E.g. I have a great sleep. I always told my wife that I close my eyes and the world is gone. I then can just fall a sleep given that I am tired enough. She never understood that.

Were this held me back in my life is drawing and chess playing. I am good chess player on club level but I never managed to play blindfolded more than a few moves. I now know why. I also always needed references before me when drawing. I imagine a good mind's eye could be of great help here.

I will certainly try the techniques mentioned in the article/video. But I think if you can learn it depends on whether you have the ability at all. I might have dreamed with pictures very rarely but I am not sure about it. We will see if the technique does something for me.

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#146
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I am like you in that I cannot actually see anything visual in my minds eye but I can still 'visualise' it. For example, I can rotate a die in my minds eye without actually seeing it. It's hard to explain. It was a revelation when I found out that most people can actually see things visually in their minds eye. A friend of mine can actually place imagined objects into their field of view, like AR.

Hmm I can imagine what something will look like in a position in a scene but I wouldn’t call it AR like. This is a really interesting thread. I always thought people were much the same. But recently I also learned that my wife just sees words when reading a book whereas I see a “movie”. Also I will project words in my mind to inspect them visually to see how to spell them, and if they look ok. And when studying I rec…

I have a feeling that, unless you are blind due to illness of the brain, that everyone has the capability to visualize internally. This would include your wife when she is reading. I think they difference is that some people have access to this visualization consciously, with their frontal cortex, and for others it's subconscious. If you didn't have this visualization, I believe it would be really hard to commit what you read to memory and have any sense of a story.

When I meditate, one of the practices is to label thoughts as they arise. When you do this, you realize that a huge amount of thoughts pass by subconsciously. You notice them more and more as you label them, but it feels like a deep rabbit hole of thought that I haven't gotten to the bottom of yet.

edit: just looked at the article and realized that the technique is essentially thought labeling. This is one of the most common practices in Buddhist meditation.

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#147

Great to see this topic on HN(aphantasia). I learned about that about 3-4 years ago from my colleagues. Before that I wasn't aware that people can see images. I certainly couldn't (still cannot). I read a lot about this topic and it's fascinating. This does not only apply to images but also sounds and smells. I cannot "imagine" them too. So I presume that a great musician is able to imagine certain instruments clearl…

I can see images in my head, but never color. I have never, ever been able to imagine any color, at all, in my head. My dreams are even in black and white.

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#148

So, wait, are people normally actually seeing images, with their eyes, when they imagine what something looks like? Like, the brown-blackness of the back of your eyelids gets replaced with something you actually see, like it's projected there? I can imagine what something looks like, and I guess I sort of 'see' it, but closing my eyes doesn't make it any more real. It doesn't seem to involve the eyes or any part of t…

Exactly the same for me, I always assumed people were speaking metaphorically when they talked about "seeing" with their mind's eye until a few years ago I first heard about Aphantasia and was like WTF

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#149
I wonder if this is really real (aphantasia I mean) . I know that it can be blocked so it's probably brain area related.

As long as you can remember the shape of objects and recall them to draw on paper as a kid, I think that you probably are capable of conjuring images up your mind (or sound, or perhaps even touch).

Then, I have had time I felt my internal visualization was unusually impeded.

Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)

#150

So, wait, are people normally actually seeing images, with their eyes, when they imagine what something looks like? Like, the brown-blackness of the back of your eyelids gets replaced with something you actually see, like it's projected there? I can imagine what something looks like, and I guess I sort of 'see' it, but closing my eyes doesn't make it any more real. It doesn't seem to involve the eyes or any part of t…

Yeah they really can. My wife is an artist and she can literally just close her eyes and imagine layouts and colour schemes. The whole thing!

The downside is it’s hard for her to shut it off.

I have the opposite problem and see nothing. Only learned about aphantasia a few years ago - made so much sense when I realised.

I am super excited to try image streaming!

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