How are we able to visualize our thoughts?
In: Biology
Well, first off, some people can’t. uh, I forget the name for that. But everyone is somewhere on the scale of how good our imagination is.
Imagination is essentially a virtual machine inside our head. We can simulate whatever we want. For some people, that virtual machine is completely disconnected from the visual or auditory parts of the brain. They simply can’t see what they imagine. Picturing it in their head, they get no visual feedback. For others, they can imagine things a little too well and/or can’t control it and they suffer hallucinations.
For me, I get a sort of overlay. I don’t stop seeing what eyeballs tell me is there, but I can trick the brain into expecting what should be there.
At a lower level, there are electro-chemical signals in your head that match the pattern of what you see. Like a literal 2D display of the visual signal in your head… but not really occupying a flat surface. More like a scattered bunch of neurons. But those neurons, or neurons before or after them in the workflow, are connected to the neurons that are in charge of imagination. Or they’re not connected or are adjusted so that signal is very weak.
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