When someone is imagining an event, how can they see the event even though they’re not experiencing it? How can they see what they imagine even if it’s not real?
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To start with, not everybody can! Not being able to form mental images is called Aphantasia, and we think perhaps 1-3% of people have it.
To answer your question, I can’t answer your question. Neuroscience is a pretty hot field right now, because there is so much we don’t really understand. We can tell you which parts of your brain are active, and we can tell you how they send signals around to each other. But we can’t tell you exactly how all of those signals become an image, or a thought, or a memory.
Edit: to clarify, the signals are kind of like a computer. It’s like hearing “yes” or “no” and passing that on to a bunch of other spots, each of which either also passes it on or stops passing it on. This depends on how “loudly” it’s hearing yes or no.
Edit 2: clarified that Aphantasia is *not* being able to form mental images.
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