I have aphantasia, a mental disorder where I lack all internal visualization. I cannot “picture” things in my mind, I think in words and numbers and such. With this, I am very curious how the mental imagery works for the rest of you. Do you see it separate from your main vision? Does it get interposed? Is it like picture in picture? I’m baffled!
TIA.
In: 55
I think there is more variance than most people think. I’ve realized in learning about this that I think in very low resolution images unless I really have to focus on something. And when I do, it’s sort of like zoning out: I don’t see with my eyes at the moment, only my mind.
It’s somewhat like having a separate mental screen where I can see and manipulate images. It’s not overlaid on my main vision but exists in my mind. It’s like having a little mental movie screen where I can conjure and interact with images in my thoughts. Not just images as in memories, but any images or items I can think of.
Are you able to imagine the sound of a train horn? If so, you’re not hearing it with your ears but you’re hearing it “in your head”, right? Mental images work the same way for me. I see it in my head, not with my eyes.
I see things very vividly. It’s like looking at a photo or watching a movie.
When you read words, how is that different from when you think words?
I would think it is kind of the same for us who can see images.
I am on the other end of that continuum, hyperphantasia. But that’s usually a conscious thing. My default state I think is more normal.
So normally, if, e.g. I am reading a book, I casually might imagine the characters and scene. It might be rather low on details, depending on my mood and the writing. But it is much like a 3d animation, or play, being created in my head. Separate of my real vision.
If I am not distracted, I might lose consciousness of seeing the words and the imagery becomes more detailed. Like I’ll add plausible objects not described in the scene.
But in to hyperphantasia, if I really want to, I can imagine something I am reading (or daydreaming about) in essentially full cinematic detail. I can do it hard enough that I no longer really see anything around me. At least not in more than a peripheral sense. So then it takes on something more like a projection.
Still, that is very active and I would always be aware it is my imagination, it will go away as soon as I stop actively projecting it. In contrast to, e.g. hallucinations Ive had on substances. Or in contrast to my sound > sight synesthesia which is very mundane but solidly projective..i.e. I see sounds not like they are in my mind’s eye, but like a translucent overlay in 3d around me.
I can’t imagine how YOU think. I have a brown truck. When I think of it, I see it. Seeing the words “brown” and ” truck” world just confuse me.
I have apahantasia and am on the spectrum. I cannot hold an image in my head while trying to think of it. If I try to imagine an apple I do not see an apple. What is get are flashes of what makes an apple. Flashes of red and green. The concept of what is round. A fleeting essence of what an apple tastes like. But never just an image in my head of an apple.
“Seeing” a picture in my head doesn’t do anything to obscure my eye vision. It’s more like I have a third, secret eye that is somewhere inside my forehead. Or like a tiny theater room inside my head that can display visuals.
Have you ever seen those trick images where if you cross your eyes just right, a new picture appears? It kinda feels like that’s happening. When trying hard to focus on an inner visual, my eyes often go out of focus (or close altogether). Again, my vision isn’t actually being obscured, but it’s kinda like when you are driving and looking for an address, so you turn down the radio so you can see better.
It’s not great vision though. Like I can imagine weird stuff like “a blue apple” or “a pink rhinoceros”, but resolution is really low. Like 6/10. Part of the reason I love making 3D animation is it let’s me see even cooler things then I can picture inside my head.
All I can put into words is, nope, it’s not interposed or picture-in-picture at all. It’s a completely different thing.
Like, imagine if you’re on the street and watching a shop window, and you hear music in your headphones. That’s the sort of separateness we’re talking about.
To be perfectly honest, I’m not fully convinced that aphantasia actually exists. I think that the people who self-diagnose have an overly ambitious idea of what mental visualization is like for other people and imagine it to be like a full hallucination rather than the abstract and incomplete ideas that people actually have when visualizing things.
If someone throws a ball at you, you only have to watch it for a second to have a pretty good idea of its trajectory and know where your hand should be if you want to catch it. Your inner eye is taking visual information and projecting it into the future to imagine where your body should be in order to catch the ball. You don’t watch a hallucination of where the ball will go, then act on that hallucination, you just understand how ballistics work and where the ball must go based on its vector and velocity.
There is a wide range of of skill in applying this tool to different situations, but those skills are learned, not innate. If you don’t watch a lot of movies, you can hardly be expected to be able to “see movies in your head”. If you haven’t taken apart machines and put them back together, you can hardly be expected to imagine how the pieces fit and move together.
Now, there are certainly people with brain damage that lose this ability (your prefrontal cortex is basically a second brain that the rest of your brain can send fake stimulae to for it to process imaginary scenarios; when damaged, you lose the ability to process these signals). But those people lose a lot of ability to function normally. Notoriously, lobotomies destroy this ability.
My hypothesis is that because people claiming to have aphantasia are not shambling around like lobotomy victims, they are probably just normally functioning people who haven’t developed specific skills and are intimidated by how people describe being able to do things that they are skilled at. It’s not because the people with “aphantasia” are lacking something fundamental; it’s because they haven’t developed the neural pathways through repetitive stimulus to imagine things in the same way as a skilled person. This is why self diagnosed aphantasia is often comorbid with learning disabilities.
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