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
It’s something like having a Matrix-style space in your head you can put things into and modify. You don’t literally “see” something, but you understand what it would be like to see it.
The thing is that using imaginary space requires concentration and effort. The best analogy I can think of is that imagining a ball bouncing down a flight of stairs is like adding two single digit numbers in your head, and trying to rotate an octahedron with a map printed on it is like multiplying two double digit numbers.
There is actually a scale & quiz for this:
[https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq/#:~:text=The%20rating%20scale%20is%20as,Moderately%20realistic%20and%20vivid](https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq/#:~:text=The%20rating%20scale%20is%20as,Moderately%20realistic%20and%20vivid)
*For each scenario try to form a mental picture of the people, objects, or setting. Rate how vivid the image is using the 5-point scale. If you do not have a visual image, rate vividness as ‘1’. Only use ‘5’ for images that are as lively and vivid as real seeing. The rating scale is as follows:*
*1 No image at all, I only “know” I am thinking of the object*
*2 Dim and vague image*
*3 Moderately realistic and vivid*
*4 Realistic and reasonably vivid*
*5 Perfectly realistic, as vivid as real seeing*
The example I was given when first explained was – Imagine a sunset.
2 might be the equivalent of a child’s drawing. 3 might be an impressionist painting – it is “real and identifiable” but not photo realistic. 4 is a good painting but it is a painting – you know it isn’t real but 5 is true photorealism.
I am 3-4 but also it FEELS real
If you want a description of how it feels – it is like having a tv screen sort of inside your head sort of.
Equally there is the other oddity of the inner monologue – some people think by talking to themselves inside their heads but other people don’t. Do you? https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/internal-monologue
I’m not an expert on this or anything, but the way I view it is if I put you in a blank room without any reference picture or anything and asked you to draw a picture of a tree, would you be able to draw a tree? Let’s just assume you are a decent enough artist to draw it however you wanted it to look.
I could be way off base with my explanation, but it’s my best go.
I have an inner monologue and also an “inner eye.” When I see words, I read them (internally) in a voice. It might be my voice, it might be a made up voice, and it might be a specific other voice if the source is well-known (“good news, everyone!”). The best way I can describe it is like a song getting stuck in one’s head – you don’t hear it literally, but your brain is still “listening” to it.
With my mind’s eye, I’ve been told I experience more than others. I can easily picture items, scenes, images in my head as I’m reading or listening to a book, which is why I love reading. I don’t have an eidetic memory, but there have been times when I’ve remembered something only because I could close my eyes and “see” the answer to a question because I had a mental image of looking at something before. Best description there is like… more advanced/detailed muscle memory? It’s completely subconscious and just “there,” like a subsection of my existing senses, so describing exactly what it’s like feels like trying to describe how any of the other senses work or feel. If you try describing what it’s like to smell something to someone with no concept of scent, it’s very difficult (though my favorite book calls it “tasting at range,” which is one way to put it lol).
To give a specific example of how my mind pictures things: I used to work in a bookstore. A customer came up and asked about a particular book that I’d shelved numerous times, but had never read, and I wasn’t familiar with the story. Offhand, I didn’t know who the author was, therefore I didn’t remember where it was shelved, and I was across the store from our computers. I did, however, have a good recollection of the cover. I closed my eyes for a moment, pictured the last time I had looked at the book when placing it on the shelf, and looked down to literally read the author’s name on the cover in my mental image. I was then able to take the customer straight to the book. This has happened to me numerous times, and it’s very helpful. But I don’t always have to have my eyes closed – it’s just easier to see mental images when I don’t have real ones competing for processing in my brain.
Do you have any mental imagery while dreaming?
How I ‘see’ things is almost exactly like this. I see both what is before me and what I imagine in an overlay kind of way. I can focus on either what is before me, or at what I imagine. Like you can in the video of the dog, you can concentrate to see the dog primarly, or see the vietnam flashbacks more.
With closed eyes it is easier to focus on only the imagined picture, though it isn’t in 1080p, it is still a hazy overlay, but with enough details to see everything. And it is at will, like I hear ‘a lone island with sand, a single palmtree with 2 coconuts on it, and a monkey is climbing said tree’, I very am seeing the above description before me, either in cartoonish/drawing style, or with realistic details, depends on my mood, will, and other factors, but regardless, I still ‘see’ it on overlay.
When I described the island, there was literally nothing in your head thag visualizes the words to ‘see’ the island? How did you understand what I said without visualizing it?
It does not get laid over my main vision or something. I can watch my PC and think (see the visual image) of a banana separately. But it’s not a clear image and it’s hard to ‘hold’ it
Indeed like the other commenter was saying; you can imagine a car horn for example, but you don’t actually hear it. Its like a sound without sound.
It’s sort of like simultaneously above my field of vision directionally, superimposed onto it, and a third element where it’s clearly not real but I’m still experiencing it.
But I can’t look up at it, nor can I mistake it for real sensory input.
Hope this helps.
Imagine you have a computer with two screens, the main one is your eyesight and that is connected to a camera, the other one has whatever you want to put up, you can’t turn off the main screen but you can block the camera, the secondary screen usually has the easiest to use 3d modeling software pulled up and you can make things by thinking about them, this could be items, could be an entire world, it could even be a flow chart, but in here things are only limited to what you can think of.
For me, it varies. If I’m active, or just focusing on something in real life, the closest comparison would be having something visible out of the corner of your eye. I’m vaguely aware of it, I can see the shape of it, but it’s indistinct.
When I’m not engaged in something or if I close my eyes, it’s like moving the image from the side to in front of me. I can get a lot more details. Eyes open, it’s like having the picture on a glass pane in front of me, so the image is still mostly see-through, in front of what’s really there. I can move my focus from one to the other, but sometimes it takes a second to switch.
But I’ve been told I space out a lot, so I don’t know if my experience is common or unique.
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