Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

photographyinsider.info

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 241 posts

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

#161

Post by moffkalast »

deadbeeves wrote: post #125
shawabawa3 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

> Were they actually imagining more but were unable to put it into words? Were they underestimating the vividness of what they were imagining? Or were they accurately describing what was in their minds?

I suppose some people may imagine a "default apple" when given the prompt which would already have some parameters while others might try recreating an arbitrary apple from scratch in their head which wouldn't be very detailed. The object is only as detailed as you make it in your mind, which might take some creativity if you're not thinking about a specific one you've seen before. If you don't give it colour or smell it won't have any, it'll just be like a generic shape.

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

#162

Post by [deleted] »

CommieBobDole wrote: post #4

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…

[deleted]

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

#163

Post by moffkalast »

buffington wrote: post #107
hosteur wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really. Not for any reason? Please elaborate.

Every eye doctor I've known has also said to never rub your eyes, for any reason. Here's just a short, non-exhaustive list, as to why rubbing your eyes is a bad idea: * it's very easy to scratch your cornea * touching your eyes or eyelids is an easy way to introduce infections * rubbing can increase the pressure on your eyes, which can cause damage * rubbing to try to get something out of your eye risks more damage,…

If your eyes itch then it's clearly an evolutionary advantage to scratch them. Checkmate doctors. /s

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

#164

Post by Semaphor »

davidhunter wrote: post #8
CommieBobDole wrote: post #4

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…

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't do that. I can somewhat remember what a die is supposed to look like, but I have no image of it whatsoever. It's a very abstract memory, like say I "imagine"it with a 6 on top. Then I know logically there are 2 times 3 dots, but I can't even get an image of that, even trying to think of it makes me lose all other parts of the die.

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

#165

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

CommieBobDole wrote: post #4

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…

I'm like you. It's called aphantasia. But to this day, I still wonder if we are really different from most people or it's just that most people are more lenient in using words like "seeing", "mind's eye", etc. in a highly metaphorical sense.

There seems to be no external measurable manifestation or consequence (contrary to what some people might think, I can answer questions about hypothetical spatial rotations, etc. just fine. I don't visualize and rotate the object, but I sort of imagine the "concept" of the object and can rotate such "concept". It's just that the process for me doesn't involve "seeing" anything). So it's hard to know to what extent the difference is real.

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

#166

Post by Al-Khwarizmi »

sebtron wrote: post #13
CommieBobDole wrote: post #4

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…

Yes, it apparently most people can. I cannot, and I also found out relatively recently. For example, you can ask "most people" to imagine a car, and then follow up by asking "what color did you imagine it?". For me and you this question would not make any sense, but you'll find out that "most people" find it completely normal and answer it without questioning you.

I consider myself to have aphantasia (cannot visualize anything in my mind, except when dreaming) and I think I could still pass the test you mention.

If I imagine a car, I can imagine its features, and of course color being a quite salient feature I would probably assign it a color (e.g. I could imagine a red Ferrari, or a black limo). It's just that I wouldn't see it, there wouldn't be anything in my mind similar to the actual experience of seeing a red object, I would just think about the "concept" of the car being red (hard to explain).

So far I've never found a way in which aphantasia really manifests externally or can be measured externally in a more or less reliable way. Which is why I'm still not 100% sure that people who claim not to be aphantasiacs aren't just exaggerating or taking metaphors too literally...

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

#168

Post by Winsaucerer »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #165
CommieBobDole wrote: post #4

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…

I'm like you. It's called aphantasia. But to this day, I still wonder if we are really different from most people or it's just that most people are more lenient in using words like "seeing", "mind's eye", etc. in a highly metaphorical sense. There seems to be no external measurable manifestation or consequence (contrary to what some people might think, I can answer questions about hypothetical spatial rotations, etc.…

It's not leniency in words. I see images in my mind, with colour and shape. I'd go so far as to say these are literal images. Dreams at night are like participating in a movie, with animations and sounds.

I think about other senses like smell, sound, touch, and taste. I can imagine sounds very clearly in my mind. I can also imagine very well how something would feel to touch, to the point where the imagination is almost as clear as the real thing.

However, what I can do for images, touch, and sounds, I cannot do for taste and smell. And this helps me to appreciate something of what 'aphantasia' might be like, though with different sensations.

I have a question I like to ask people, that I think helps show some external measurable consequence of this. I ask people to tell me how many doors there are going off the hall in their house (it may help you to take a moment to try answering before reading the next part).

For myself, and many others, we imagine a picture in our mind of us standing in the hall, and in the picture we just 'look' around and count off the doors. However, I made an error and missed a door when I did the counting, I forgot to count the door that was behind where I imagined myself standing in the hall, because I couldn't "see" it.

I asked someone with aphantasia this same question, because I couldn't understand how they could answer it (I'm a very visual thinker). He told me (if I understand right) that he does something like tell a story via words, and uses that to somehow enumerate the doors and answer the question. Perhaps his strategy is prone to analogous mistakes like mine, but presumably not the same mistake.

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

#169

Post by Omin »

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,…

The author himself doesn't seem like a scam artist but he looks like he falls for them. He said he heard about this technique from Michael Neill who he calls "a personal development coach, a really good guy". This "good guy" has a bunch of books and videos on youtube offering the answers to everything: Finding happiness, overcoming shyness, anxiety, being effortlessly successful with just these three easy tricks in 3 months yada yada.

And Win Wenger, who the author says this technique originally comes from, is the author of "The Einstein Factor" which is a book with similarly grandiose claims about improving your mental abilities.

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

#170

Post by chr1 »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #165
CommieBobDole wrote: post #4

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…

I'm like you. It's called aphantasia. But to this day, I still wonder if we are really different from most people or it's just that most people are more lenient in using words like "seeing", "mind's eye", etc. in a highly metaphorical sense. There seems to be no external measurable manifestation or consequence (contrary to what some people might think, I can answer questions about hypothetical spatial rotations, etc.…

In several occasions, after very intense and new visual stimulus, (e.g. being the first time in a forest, watching "where dreams may come", playing a beautiful video game for the first time, strangely, playing checkers for almost the whole day) i could close my eyes and literally see scenes similar to the scenes that had made impression on me.

After several days the images would fade and i would return to not seeing anything.

So i also wonder if those realistic images i could see in those few occasions are the norm for other people, or if they have not seen such images and describe something else as seeing.

Also somewhat related i have similar experience with sound, while normally i can imagine music as my inner voice singing, but on some occasions i could hear the whole orchestra. And here as well, people describe different experience from hearing to not having an inner voice at all.

Post reply on HN