Does anyone else think this is complete bullshit?
Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
271–280 of 416 posts
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it sounds like the way you remember things must be missing a lot of details. > Do you think that's accurate? I don't think someone with aphantasia (of which I am one!) is really capable of assessing this - which details our memories have routinely omitted is an unknown unknown until we're explicitly made conscious of the gap. With regard to your example of a movie, I think you may be overweighting the importance of…
Thanks, those are great points. After more thought, I somewhat agree I was overweighing the value of visualizing things in my mind. I don't know if there are people out there that can actually conjure tastes of food as part of remembering something. I only remember food tastes through language descriptions like sweet, salty etc. So maybe that's analogous to aphantasia. It's just that we're talking about the sense of…
> I don't know if there are people out there that can actually conjure tastes of food as part of remembering something. I only remember food tastes through language descriptions like sweet, salty etc.
For what it's worth, I can't conjure anything other than a few fleeting details for something visual. When I manage to surface a distinct image, it vanishes pretty fast. But (if I can remember it) I can "imagine" the taste of a specific chocolate bar, a sound (particularly voices) or how something feels to touch very distinctly. I'd say "accurately" as well, but that's hard to gauge.
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#273Until we can probe into people's minds (some advanced MRI or something in the future) and display them on a computer screen, there's no way to call bullshit on people who claim they can "see" the apple, you only have your subjective experience for that. And I don't believe for a second they "see" in the real sense, again, because I don't see anything. Only time I really see is in my dreams. So rather, ask people "do…
You clearly have aphantasia.
> do you see the apple just like you see it in your dreams?
Yes, pretty much.
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
When you read a word relating to something you've seen or regularly experienced, how is that processed by your mind? For example if you were asked to draw and color a basketball, how would you approach the task without 'seeing' something in your mind?
Same way I remember somebody's name. Do you picture name tags on people? It just comes out of nothing in my head.
I always see a face together with the name, yes. The name is mostly audible but I also visualize the text in a white font.
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#275I got aphantasia from Covid, apparently it's an extremely rare side effect - so rare I've only found a handful of people on the entire internet who've experienced it. So I happen to know how it is to live both with and without the ability to visualize, I used to be extremely good at visualizing. Most major impact (apart from the loss of ability to daydream) is that my memory is worse, as my memory was very much based…
As someone outside the spectrum completely, I can sympathise with your lack. I find you experiencing both sides fascinating. But the reason I replied is that my wife is a Chinese medicine practitioner, and also treats using a not so common method of scalp/brain acupuncture. After contracting COVID myself and losing all sense of smell and taste, she cured me in one session of that technique. Minutes after the needles went in my scalp I got back about 5% of my senses and by the evening it was all back. I don't know where you are geographically but it might be something worth exploring.
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sounds incredibly sad and frustrating. I can't imagine what it's like to suddenly lose that ability, being so dependent on it. Indeed many of my childhood memories are mostly sequences of pictures, the emotional content kind of "floats" on the imagery. It must be very frustrating, being forced to reinvent how you experience your inner life and memories. Edit, after reading some more comments: are you musically i…
It sucks, but that's life - there are worse things and life is still plenty enjoyable. In addition, I lost my sense of smell/taste completely and that was much worse to be honest (but still, you learn to live without and focus on what's good). If I had to choose between the two, I'd choose being able to smell/taste any day. Funnily enough not because of food, but actually because of the added experience you get when…
Neurology is still such a black box medically. Did you by any chance have a brain MRI at any point? If yes, and your willing to share, what portion of the brain was impacted? If more than one, has there been diagnostically visible change between them? Did you get any treatment? I can be reached at first at full tod moc if you prefer.
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#277What frustrates me about things like that, there seem to be no proper tests for that. Shouldn't there be an easy test for Aphantasia, for example, that doesn't ask me things like "do you have a mind's eye" (what does that even mean?). Such a test should not ask the test subjects to self-diagnose themselves, but it should objectively test abilities and put them on a scale. Anything else really is not that helpful.
The second paragraph of this Guardian article mentions, and links to, but doesn't expound on the biophysical pupillary response to mental visual imagery.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjbq8w/how-pupil-size-can-re...
If someone with normal mental visualization ability pictures a "bright" scene, the pupils contract just as they would in response to a bright visual stimulation. Aphants' pupils show no physical response to this test.
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#278I've sometimes wondered if I could have aphantasia or perhaps be low enough on the visual imagery spectrum to have some of the practical effects of aphantasia. When I try to visualize an object, I can in some sense visualize it but it feels very indistinct. It's like I can't see the object as a whole only the specific details I focus on. For example, I have a friend who wears circular glasses and has a handlebar must…
It's a spectrum and I think your experience is probably typical. A minority of people see nothing and another minority of people see vivid images. Most people get varying degrees of fuzziness.
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#279There seems to be a higher-than-average incidence of Aphantasia in tech folks, at least as self-reported. Our visual cortex is a huge part of our brain and in the absence of visual input can be "rewired" to other purposes. Theory: I have no evidence for this but its plausible that our obsession with solving hard, abstract logic puzzles all day (and night) somehow hijacks part of our visual cortex. Effectively reprogr…
I think there is also a phenomenon where bits of the human condition are given a label and then suddenly sprouting a subculture on the internet where people get excited to be part of something special. Some kind of disease fetish.
Re: Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind
#280If somebody told me "image you are walking a winding path. To your right there is a wood, to your left there is a mountain". The image I see in my mind is basically an empty paper, with an arrow pointing to the left labeled "mountain", an arrow to the right labeled "wood", and an arrow to the middle labeled "path". Maybe, maybe the mountain is represented with two lines /\ and the path is a winding line ~~~ but that…
I have to picture somewhere else I've been before that is like that. I can't make up new realistic landscape images in my head. That said, I'm not an artist