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Aphantasia and Psychedelics

psychedelirium.substack.com

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Re: Aphantasia and Psychedelics

#21

Post by j_bum »

crooked-v wrote: post #13
bcraven wrote: post #8

I listened to a recent podcast that discussed why giving people with aphantasia the chance to see images is ethically complicated: https://www.hyperfixedpod.com/listen/hyperfixed/third-eye-bl... (Presented by Alex Goldman from Reply All)

I'm not taking the time to listen through that. Is there a transcript?

I haven’t listened to this podcast, but I listened to an excellent RadioLab podcast a while ago on the topic. They ended the podcast by discussing some of the ethics of “fixing” aphantasia, many of which I had never considered.

I recall them mentioning: 1. the ethical challenge of arguing that aphantasia is something that needs “fixed” in the first place 2. The unknowns of what might happen to someone emotionally if they go from nothing to something. This might sound odd, but we know that hyperphantasia can be associated with schizophrenia and other neuropsychiatric issues. 3. The implications of downstream cognitive “enhancements” that might result from this.

I have aphantasia, and I do not think I’d want it “fixed”.

My partner has hyperphantasia, and similarly she wouldn’t want it “fixed”.

Re: Aphantasia and Psychedelics

#22

Post by e-khadem »

thrance wrote: post #6

I feel like there's more to aphantasia than just "can you see the apple or not?". I can't for the life of me imagine an apple. At best, I get a very faint and dark picture of something resembling the fruit. Plus, there's one on the desk right next to me, so I shouldn't have too much trouble with the assignment, but here we are. On the other hand, I have a pretty good memory (compared to my peers) and I can recall viv…

There is a simple (unofficial?) test for aphantasia, and I have tried it on many of my peers, it seems to be accurate.

_Close your eyes and ask someone else to read the instructions for you. If you really want to take it stop reading here._

.

.

.

Imagine a room with a table in it. Someone comes in, puts a ball on the table and the ball falls down from the table.

- What age was the person that came in?

- What hairstyle did they have?

- What was that person wearing?

- How big was the table? Describe how it looked like.

- What color was the ball?

... and similar questions.

In my experience, people with aphantasia will say "I don't know" or "I didn't pay attention" to almost all of these questions. For me personally, everything is "blank." There was no ball to see there, and the person did not have a face. I just experience "feelings" or "sensations" of the scenario, like in the matrix movie. At most some wire frames. Most other people would say, for example, there was a big brown table with metallic legs in the middle of the room, and the person that came in had a blue T-shirt.

Re: Aphantasia and Psychedelics

#23

Post by Jenkins2000 »

thrance wrote: post #6

I feel like there's more to aphantasia than just "can you see the apple or not?". I can't for the life of me imagine an apple. At best, I get a very faint and dark picture of something resembling the fruit. Plus, there's one on the desk right next to me, so I shouldn't have too much trouble with the assignment, but here we are. On the other hand, I have a pretty good memory (compared to my peers) and I can recall viv…

I think I have a similar experience. I can remember scenes to some degree and my dreams are extremely vivid. I wish I could `see` in my mind like I do when I dream. But I don't think I can imagine an image very well. I certainly can't close my eyes and `see` it and I find it hard to believe that others can.

Re: Aphantasia and Psychedelics

#24

Post by cnity »

card_zero wrote: post #20
mdswanson wrote: post #10

An aphantasia "beginner's guide" for those who aren't familiar or just want to learn more: https://aphantasia.com/guide/

I feel in my gut that this is fad-driven internet bullshit, and I would like to learn less, if it were possible. > Dr. Adam Zeman, a neurologist from Exeter, receives a patient who can no longer imagine — known as patient MX. MX goes blind in his mind’s eye after undergoing surgery. > Media outlets like the New York Times report the findings. This leads to an outpouring of new discoverers. Hmm

My gut feel has always been that it is just a language thing where some people think that when others imagine things that they literally see it right in front of them _the same way_ they see real things.

Like, when I imagine a scene or object in my head, I am not literally seeing it. It's like some vague in-between thing. And that people who claim to have aphantasia just have a higher bar for what it means to "see" something.

Though I'm open to being corrected if there's some concrete experiment that can be performed that shows definitively that some people can not imagine things _at all_.

Re: Aphantasia and Psychedelics

#25

Post by drcongo »

loves_mangoes wrote: post #17
CjHuber wrote: post #4

I have aphantasia and psychedelics definitely give me visuals. However it‘s more like shifting and warping stuff I and not very pronounced. DMT however is one of the only things that gave me strong visuals, LSD in combination with DXM too so I wonder if it has something to do with the sigma receptor

The visuals you get from psychedelics and the visuals from imagination are different. Psychedelics seem to affect your real visual field. You're not imagining textures melting with colors and walls turning into liquid, it becomes what you see. I normally have aphantasia, at about 2/5 on one those pop scales that show various versions of an apple. I can sort of rotate geometric shapes without the notion of color or te…

I'm quite strongly aphantasic, I can, for a split second, hold the essence of a thing in my brain, but it's not even vaguely visual. I have though, several times, experienced almost exactly what you decribe - also while laying in bed trying to get to sleep. Every now and then I can kind of see a room, sometimes the room I'm in, sometimes not, even though my eyes are closed. I love it. I can't switch what I'm seeing though, but possibly because as soon as it happens I'm just laying there marvelling at being able to see something with my eyes shut, and staring intently at the details.

Re: Aphantasia and Psychedelics

#26

Post by card_zero »

cnity wrote: post #24
card_zero wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel in my gut that this is fad-driven internet bullshit, and I would like to learn less, if it were possible. > Dr. Adam Zeman, a neurologist from Exeter, receives a patient who can no longer imagine — known as patient MX. MX goes blind in his mind’s eye after undergoing surgery. > Media outlets like the New York Times report the findings. This leads to an outpouring of new discoverers. Hmm

My gut feel has always been that it is just a language thing where some people think that when others imagine things that they literally see it right in front of them _the same way_ they see real things. Like, when I imagine a scene or object in my head, I am not literally seeing it. It's like some vague in-between thing. And that people who claim to have aphantasia just have a higher bar for what it means to "see" s…

Patient MX there is quite persuasive. Lots of neuroscience discoveries start with somebody having some brain damage and losing a facility of some kind. However, most of the people claiming aphantasia, or the extreme opposite, are not brain damaged. At least not literally.

It would also be more valuable information if some area was damaged that was known to cause the effect.

Re: Aphantasia and Psychedelics

#27

Post by fellowniusmonk »

card_zero wrote: post #20
mdswanson wrote: post #10

An aphantasia "beginner's guide" for those who aren't familiar or just want to learn more: https://aphantasia.com/guide/

I feel in my gut that this is fad-driven internet bullshit, and I would like to learn less, if it were possible. > Dr. Adam Zeman, a neurologist from Exeter, receives a patient who can no longer imagine — known as patient MX. MX goes blind in his mind’s eye after undergoing surgery. > Media outlets like the New York Times report the findings. This leads to an outpouring of new discoverers. Hmm

I also lost the ability to think in images after a series of surgeries at 13. I went from being a very imaginative kid with dream like states while awake to purely lexical. I stopped enjoying playing pretend with my sister basically overnight, I just couldn't see it any more.

I still do have visual dreams though they are rare, I can no longer conjure any sense of an object while awake. I have a couple images from before this (my mother's face before she died) that I can kind of almost see, idk, or I have the feeling like I'm seeing them.

Call it whatever you like, maybe there is a natural distribution, I always thought of it as the cost I paid to stay alive, my own personal brain damage even though my surgeries were all cardiovascular.

Re: Aphantasia and Psychedelics

#28

Post by roxolotl »

cnity wrote: post #24
card_zero wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel in my gut that this is fad-driven internet bullshit, and I would like to learn less, if it were possible. > Dr. Adam Zeman, a neurologist from Exeter, receives a patient who can no longer imagine — known as patient MX. MX goes blind in his mind’s eye after undergoing surgery. > Media outlets like the New York Times report the findings. This leads to an outpouring of new discoverers. Hmm

My gut feel has always been that it is just a language thing where some people think that when others imagine things that they literally see it right in front of them _the same way_ they see real things. Like, when I imagine a scene or object in my head, I am not literally seeing it. It's like some vague in-between thing. And that people who claim to have aphantasia just have a higher bar for what it means to "see" s…

The parent article has brain scans showing different activations in control brains vs aphantasia vs hyperphantasia. Also when people self report that their experience has qualitatively changed that seems like a pretty strong indicator that’s at least a range.

Re: Aphantasia and Psychedelics

#29

Post by card_zero »

fellowniusmonk wrote: post #27
card_zero wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel in my gut that this is fad-driven internet bullshit, and I would like to learn less, if it were possible. > Dr. Adam Zeman, a neurologist from Exeter, receives a patient who can no longer imagine — known as patient MX. MX goes blind in his mind’s eye after undergoing surgery. > Media outlets like the New York Times report the findings. This leads to an outpouring of new discoverers. Hmm

I also lost the ability to think in images after a series of surgeries at 13. I went from being a very imaginative kid with dream like states while awake to purely lexical. I stopped enjoying playing pretend with my sister basically overnight, I just couldn't see it any more. I still do have visual dreams though they are rare, I can no longer conjure any sense of an object while awake. I have a couple images from bef…

I respect you, fellowniusmonk, but all we ever get about aphantasia is self-report, anecdote, self-assessment questionnaire, subjective impression. People want me to be nice about this and acknowledge that the thing exists because they all say it does. The best I can offer is acknowledgement that you all say it does.

On the other hand, you have a special claim to plausibility because of the surgery. Oh wait cardiovascular surgery? So, are we saying anaesthetic side effects? Or brain damage from reduced blood flow maybe.

I'll note that a lot of people's impressions and feelings about ... what it's like to be alive, generally ... undergo a radical transformation at about age 13, because hormones.

Re: Aphantasia and Psychedelics

#30

Post by quickthrowman »

CjHuber wrote: post #4

I have aphantasia and psychedelics definitely give me visuals. However it‘s more like shifting and warping stuff I and not very pronounced. DMT however is one of the only things that gave me strong visuals, LSD in combination with DXM too so I wonder if it has something to do with the sigma receptor

> psychedelics definitely give me visuals. However it‘s more like shifting and warping stuff I and not very pronounced.

At least with LSD and psilocybin, that’s what visuals are. You don’t hallucinate things out of thin air on either one of those drugs, things morph and shift and wobble and waver and shimmer and so on.

At least in the dosage ranges I have explored, 7g dried mushrooms and 10 ‘hits’ of LSD which was probably at least 500mcg?

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