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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)

#151

Post by jonplackett »

aatd86 wrote: post #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.

I have aphantasia and it’s definitely a real thing. I realised I have it after seeing it on a daytime TV show when it was first discovered. Before then, like what happened with the writer of this, everyone just dismissed it as nonsense, “of course you can see images in your head!”

Finding out it was a condition was a very exciting day. today now also feels like an exciting day!

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

#152

Post by permo-w »

stevenhuang wrote: post #143
laserbeam wrote: post #95

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.

even if nothing is being sold, the fact that the author went to so much trouble to write umpteen paragraphs of dross, but didn't bother to transcribe the actual useful information. I may not be suspicious, but I am annoyed

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

#153

Post by Dunati »

norrius wrote: post #22
davidhunter wrote: post #8

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.

> I can rotate a die in my minds eye without actually seeing it. It's hard to explain. I think I'm the same. It's as if I can imagine a geometry, but it doesn't have any texture or colour. It's not black, not grey, not brown... It's a shape in its pure form, maybe like a wireframe, without a physical manifestation. However, I can imagine music and actually hear it. I had this a couple of times where I "replay" a song…

This is very similar to my experience. For example, I can visualise 3 stacked poker chips, and I can move than around and restack them. But if I try to make them different colours, I can't, similar to how I might keep track of real ones with me eyes closed. I can remember the blue one is on top, but if I start rotating them, taking the bottom one out and putting it on top, I quickly lose track of which one is which.

I also feel like songs I replay in my head (which I do constantly, and without a choice in the song) have very high fidelity.

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

#154

Post by bqmjjx0kac »

layer8 wrote: post #45
davidhunter wrote: post #8

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.

I wouldn’t be so sure that what they’re describing isn’t really the same as your “visualization”. I can’t truly see anything in my mind’s eye, same as you and others in this thread, but I can abstractly visualize it, again same as you describe for rotating a die, and I can place that abstract visualization in the 3D space I see before my (open) eyes. I think it’s more likely that others describe this abstract visuali…

Maybe I'm weird, but I have a very real auditory experience of music playing in my head. I'm never confused whether I'm imagining it, but it has nearly the same fidelity as hearing with my ears.

I can't conjure up smell/taste experiences the same way, but I do have a sort of hollow visualization ability.

Edit: I read a few more comments, and it seems I'm not alone! Now I wonder whether this is common in the general population or just HN.

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

#155

Post by bergerjac »

fileeditview wrote: post #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 clearl…

I used to have have aphantasia.

Now, I can visualize and pre-plan projects and events in my mind's eye.

To get started I never did any techniques. Instead, I just listened to fantasy & fiction audiobooks (eg by GRRM and Joe Abercrombie).

Once I started seeing scenes in my imagination, I made the connection that "This is just like daydreaming or thinking of memories!"

Then I took some training on personal growth which practiced changing the size, color, dimensions, etc and now it's become a powerful tool.

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

#156

Post by layer8 »

bqmjjx0kac wrote: post #154
layer8 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t be so sure that what they’re describing isn’t really the same as your “visualization”. I can’t truly see anything in my mind’s eye, same as you and others in this thread, but I can abstractly visualize it, again same as you describe for rotating a die, and I can place that abstract visualization in the 3D space I see before my (open) eyes. I think it’s more likely that others describe this abstract visuali…

Maybe I'm weird, but I have a very real auditory experience of music playing in my head. I'm never confused whether I'm imagining it, but it has nearly the same fidelity as hearing with my ears. I can't conjure up smell/taste experiences the same way, but I do have a sort of hollow visualization ability. Edit: I read a few more comments, and it seems I'm not alone! Now I wonder whether this is common in the general p…

I agree with your description, but having the same fidelity is still very different from actually hearing it (having an auditory hallucination). Visualization being more hollow than auditory imagination makes sense because of the much higher bandwidth of visual information.

My impression is that individual differences lie much less in the actual mental abilities than in how people interpret and describe those abilities.

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

#157

Post by layer8 »

Springtime wrote: post #113
layer8 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t be so sure that what they’re describing isn’t really the same as your “visualization”. I can’t truly see anything in my mind’s eye, same as you and others in this thread, but I can abstractly visualize it, again same as you describe for rotating a die, and I can place that abstract visualization in the 3D space I see before my (open) eyes. I think it’s more likely that others describe this abstract visuali…

Seems to me a way of testing the visualization vs hallucination (if I can distinguish it like that) gradient would be the ability to trace visualized/'projected' objects on paper, particularly for subjects without prior background in illustration/draftsmanship (less skill to lean on) and for images which require replication of details they're not familiar with (things like dice are relatively geometrically primitive…

Yeah, I don’t know how well I'd be able to draw/trace what I can mentally see, but on the other hand I'm pretty sure that this is a separate ability that can be trained independently from the mental-seeing ability, much like you can train drawing 3D shapes or human anatomy.

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

#158

Post by djur »

Balgair wrote: post #132
tzs wrote: post #88

A bit OT: I'm curious what, if anything, people here see when their eyes are closed while falling asleep. I usually see one of the following: 1. Just the brown/black of my eyelids, with some slight variations in darkness. 2. A blob of white light. It looks a lot like what you'd see if you were in a dark room with a sink full of water that is draining, and there was a drop of some glowing dye in the water which is cir…

> 1. Just the brown/black of my eyelids, with some slight variations in darkness. Anyone else here see a lot of colors (mostly purple/maroon on navy/black) that phase in and out when they close their eyes? Or do I just have yet another expensive problem to fix now?

Yes, it's fairly common. "Prisoner's cinema" and "phosphenes" are terms used. I used to entertain myself during boring classes by closing my eyes and watching the light show.

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

#159

Post by sergioisidoro »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #119
chatmasta wrote: post #14

The thing I've never understood about aphantasia is the emphasis on closing your eyes. Does it really matter? I can visualize an apple (to borrow the example from the frequently shared meme) whether my eyes are open or closed. It's not like my eyelids are some necessary visual backdrop for visualization.

At this point I'm fairly certain aphantasia doesn't really exist (or is extremely rare), but what exists is a disconnect between what people understand the word "visualising" to mean I cannot project an image of an apple into my brain, but I can be aware of what an apple looks like and have that awareness move and rotate the apple. I would never call it visualising though

I think most people with some degeree of aphantasia used to think like you - that no one can really visualise things.

But then I started asking around and people REALLY described visualisation as a vivid clear picture of things in their heads, almost like they are there. Like literally projecting the image on their brain as you're saying.

I now think I do have some degree of aphantasia. I can describe as having low RAM, so I cannot paint the entire scene. I am able to briefly visualise some details and aspects of a scene (usually as flashes, and I cannot sustain them), but never the entire scene. If you ask me to visualise a beach, I can have visual "flashy" perceptions of the sand or the waves, but it's extremely hard for me to put everything together in a visual manner. It's much easer for me to imagine the feelings, sounds, and smells of a scene.

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

#160

Post by ricardobeat »

treme wrote: post #15

https://old.reddit.com/r/CureAphantasia/ Recommended for aphantasics

Sorry about the rant, but this kind of sub rubs me the wrong way. People quickly develop an entire subculture around something, start using their own insider language (autogogia, prophantasia, hyperphantasia) which quickly loops back onto itself in Google since it was unearthed from a random 1973 paper. Then they go on developing methods and theories without any scientific rigour, and sharing experiences with origin-story undertones.

Not to dismiss the whole idea, which I think has very solid ground, but this makes the perfect breeding ground for 'sociogenic ilnesses' like that fake-Tourette's epidemic a couple years ago.

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