I cured my aphantasia another way. I stopped believing in it. I was asked to visualize something and I could only do it vaguely when I described it. He told me I had weak visualization which showed me it didn't exist. Everyone who claims to have it just has WEAK visualization and trying harder to visualize will give you the same results. It'll take a while, think of it as a muscle. Use it or lose it.
How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)
71–80 of 241 posts
Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)
#72Is everyone here this credulous? The website even claims it increases your IQ, which is extremely dubious, to say the least.
Rubbing your eyes doesnt make you not aphantasic, any more than looking at a bright lightbulb for a few seconds or unblinkingly staring at a single image on a bright tv for a few minutes (which is actually more effective if you want to clearly see colorful and bright shapes with closed eyes -- doesnt change your minds eye, which is different), and whats worse is that it will damage your eye!
Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)
#73I think I have very good visualization skills. To the point where I can solve three dimensional geometry problems in my head with nothing external. However, I never "see" anything with my two eyes in the way I can see an afterglow of a candle or a window, as described in the video.
I see with a "third-eye" or a "minds-eye." Never with me real two eyes. This means I can visualize at any point, eyes closed or open. I can transpose an additional image on the scenery around me, and in fact I did that very often in school, playing games on walls in my head. Anything to avoid the lesson.
But, is that seeing images in your head, or isn't it? Must you see the image as you would see the afterglow of a window? I've never been able to tease out what people really mean when they say they can visualize.
Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)
#74Don’t rub your eyes for any reason (source: my optometrist)
Yeep, stopped reading after that proposal. I'm not sure OP should be advocating stuff like this without at least a warning. It's not the rubbing, the pressure is creating the "stars". Some people already have increased eyeball pressure, as well as increased blood pressure.
I'm not a doctor and don't know what I'm talking about, but would definitely advice against eye rubbing.
Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)
#75The article kind of comes off as spammy/scammy and I fully expected to reach a point where the author wanted to sell me a course for $99 on how to achieve whatever it was he was hawking. I have a propensity for staring at points in space and daydreaming/visualizing to the point where it thoroughly annoys my wife. Right now I am rotating a small grey elephant wearing blue boots and a red blanket with gold edging on th…
> It's also free which no doubt irks a number of CEOs and founders who have yet to figure out how to monetize it.
Just wait for Neuralink brain ads, it'l come
Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)
#76So, 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…
If I remember correctly, aphantasia is inability to visualise images, objects or memories in the mind, and this seems to be what the author actually refers to. The alternative, to actually perceive imagery with the eye that isn't there is usually called hallucination. The article doesn't get at this difference and seems to be based on Youtube videos about aphantasia. If you've ever had a dream with vivid first person…
> If going to sleep, these images get more vivid and might classify for something called hypnagogic hallucinations
Try your meditation routine while sitting in a warm shower with a visual focus. That for me gives me the same intensity as the true hypnagogic level visualizations while still having close to full mental faculties.
Some people report being able to use audio patterns as an alternative to visual patterns. I've had mixed success personally but ymmv.
Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)
#77So, 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 have seen lines of code projected vividly like this.
Several years ago a Facebook recruiter invited me to interview with them. It mostly went well, except I bombed the leetcode algorithm quiz.
The next day, as I expected, they sent me a polite note thanking me for interviewing but they would be moving on with other candidates.
The morning after that, I woke up and before I opened my eyes I saw the complete solution on the back of my eyelids, about 20 lines of code.
I stepped through the code mentally and thought, "Yes! This will work!"
So I ran to my computer and typed the code in to test it. Other than one bug - this was old-school JavaScript and I'd forgotten one var statement, so there was an inadvertent global - it worked perfectly.
Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)
#78https://old.reddit.com/r/CureAphantasia/ Recommended for aphantasics
Did it work for you? How would you sum it up?
It's the most detailed open source community of people that are working together to come up with a solution.
I haven't dedicated any consistent time/effort towards it, but I developed a much deeper understanding of stages you progress through as you develop your mind's eye.
I'm at 3% from 0%, with 100% being able to visualize things with ease like a HUD of sort. 3% is going from complete darkness to just beginning to be able to manipulate small stimulus (while eyes closed) into something bigger / more vivid.
Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)
#79So, 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 am like you. I’m guessing that the author needed to use the stuff seen by his eyes while closed as a springboard to seeing something with his mind’s eye. My dad told me about monk’s who meditate on imagining that their thoughts exist behind their belly button. As you noted, your mind’s eye is not located in the same physical space as your actual eyes. Similarly, there is no reason the thoughts you hear couldn’t be…
Do blind people have this same issue?
Re: How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016)
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
>How do you manage to drive, without your thoughts blocking your view? They don't block the view, in the same way that the image from your left eye doesn't block the image from your right eye, even though they're overlaid on the same "mental space". Hold up your finger in front of your eyes, and focus on a distant object. You can see two images of the finger, but also see straight through them simultaneously. It's ki…
I don't profess complete incredulity at the concept of mental imagery. My experiences don't match those of people who claim to have aphantasia at all, I'm capable of imagining objects, events, actions, etc. in my mind. I just don't actually see them as if they were there. That's the part that seems unusual to me.
I'm fairly sure I'm aphantasic. When I try to imagine something I don't get any visuals, even the visual processing equivalent of subvocalization. Sometimes I can get a flicker of an outline or something but I can't hold the concept and it'll dissolve inside a second. I used to be a pretty good artist working from photos, but I can't compose in my head. At all.
But I do also know what familiar things look like more or less, and I can easily imagine layouts of buildings I know really well. I can explain those things verbally fine.
But it registers more in the way you might expect if you were encountering the object in darkness, or became blind after thoroughly learning the object as a sighted person. I imagine aspects of the object or scene in relationship to each other, sort of feeling over it with my mind, and cross-referencing with facts I remember about it. I'm wondering if that's what you're talking about--being able to conceptualize it rather than visualize it.
I did manage to imagine "blue" once during meditation, though, and that was pretty cool. I really saw it when I did--my whole visual field behind my closed eyes seemed sky blue. Normally I just see clouds of purplish dots on a black field, if there's no light shining through my eyelids, and it's been that way all my life. That experience, more than anything, convinced me people who say they "see" stuff in their mind's eye really do see stuff.
I'm definitely going to check out the linked technique. Maybe it's snake oil but doesn't seem likely to hurt to try. That blue experience was pretty compelling.