Aphantasia, what do you see when you think about something?

[RichForrest]

I heard about this a while ago when listening to Hannah Fry on Lauren's show on 6 music.

Basically, what do you see when you close your eyes and think of something?
For instance. Close you eyes and think of a cow, now spin the cow. Can you see it spinning?
I just see black and thought that's just what everyone sees. Apparently not, a lot of people can actually see a cow spinning!

https://aphantasia.com/article/strategies/think-of-a-horse/

After asking a few people the question, Dawn and my daughter can see what they think of. The daughter said she can taste and small things like food when she thinks of them also.
My mother and brother only see black, the same as me.

Also always wondered what people meant when they said picture a waterfall (or similar) when meditating.
I could think of a waterfall and surrounding area etc but not see it. More like reading a description of it.

[IanDG]

My wife has aphantasia. Can be very frustrating when I try to describe something or give her road directions.


I see pictures. One way I relax and fall asleep is to picture a ride in my head and the different things I pass on the route.

[Peter]

You see bus shelters?

[IanDG]

You see bus shelters?

 

[Kim]

I could think of a waterfall and surrounding area etc but not see it. More like reading a description of it.

This.  I'm perfectly capable of holding an abstract idea in my head without it being visual.  It's not a verbal description or a wireframe diagram, but it's as much those as a picture.

Tell me to picture an apple, and I'll think of an apple.  Ask me what colour it is, and it won't have a colour yet because I haven't set that parameter.  Apparently some people will immediately jump to a vibrant visual representation of a specific apple, with colour, bruises, stem, and probably some background details like a tree or a fruit bowl or whatever.  This seems deeply weird to me.

Alternatively, if you ask me to *remember* a specific apple, it'll have those features, but the detail will be limited by me remembering it conceptually, rather than as a picture.  I'm more likely to be able to draw you a decent plan of the room it was in than sketch the blemishes on its skin.


This seems separate to spacial awareness, except that people with poor spacial awareness tend to navigate by landmarks (rather than plotting a map in their head), and visualisation skills probably help with that.


Barakta will be along to rant on this subject in due course...

[RichForrest]

I asked my daughter the cow question earlier.
She said she could see the cow and it was turning on a rotating disc/table 
On the food question she said thinking about broccoli she could small and taste it also.

I'm really good with directions and once I've been somewhere once I can go straight back to it again and again, even years later.
I don't visualise it, I just remember it. Even to the point of doing it in once and then being able to direct someone else in over the phone, sort of like "you should be near the Red Lion pub now and need to turn left" etc as we are talking.


Dawn just thinks I'm weird anyway 

[Kim]

Rotating cow immediately makes me think of the 3D model of a cow popularised by Imagine, a 3D rendering package I wasted too much time waiting for in my mis-spent yoof.  This became something of a meme in the Amiga community, and it would occasionally crop up in demos, wearing garish texture maps (it was the early 90s), sunglasses and similar.  It even had a short-lived racing career (complete with wheels and fluffy dice) in the minimally realistic but bonkers-fun isometric driving game Skidmarks.

True to form, I can't remember what the garish colours were, or any specifics of the cow (horns?  udders?  no idea...).

[Clare]

I too have aphantasia. Ask me to think of an apple and I will; ask me to picture an apple and, once I have parsed the request, I will think of an apple.

[Kim]

That's the other thing.  If you're not the sort of person who sees literal pictures, you grow up assuming that people who talk about doing so are being metaphorical.

[IanDG]

When my wife first read about this and talked to me about it, it was a big break through in how we communicated, me realising she doesn't see what i see in my mind. One of my fascinations with maps is translating what's on a map to an image in my mind an then visiting and seeing how reality compares to my mental image.

[barakta]

I realised people are "supposed" to be able to visualise when seeing a Very Strange behavioural optometrist in 2017 in an attempt to deal with my vision issues. I just couldn't do what he was asking me to do and he couldn't understand why I wasn't doing as he told me to do... While the guy was quackishly wrong about several things, the "normally people can visualise" and some stuff about sensory integration in the brain was helpful data points (most of my sensory inputs are incomplete which explains some of the sensory issues I experience).

After that I started asking people "Can you imagine images in your head?" and discovered most people said yes. I don't know when I discovered the term aphantasia, probably a few years after 2017. There's a whole load of stuff on YouTube about aphantasia, various bits of research into association between visualisation of images with other senses (imaging sounds, smells, tastes etc). I think if you have aphantasia you are more likely not to be able to do the other sensory imaginings but not in all cases. 

While official aphantasia incidence is officially low, I think it's under-recognised as this thread is showing with Rich and some members of his blood-family. I suspect it's likely to have some genetic/familial component. I would love to ask my parents/sisters what they perceive. If I had to guess, I'd guess my dad is like me and my sisters are not (one used to be artistic before she got too fucked up, the other is fairly arty) but I could be wrong. There are artists with aphantasia for example.

There's also a correlation between aphantasia and various kinds of neurodivergent conditions like autism and ADHD. I don't think I am autistic, but I come from a family with diagnosed and undiagnosed autistic/dyslexic people in it.

I wonder how many aphantasics or low-visualisers there are here in YACF and are there spaces where we aphantasics are more likely to congregate.

[mrcharly-YHT]

Interesting.

If someone is pointing at something, can you tell what they are pointing towards with any degree of precision?

MrsC can't. She gets very irritated and frustrated if I do something like "Look at that" and point.
I've also noted that her own pointing is  . . . odd. I know what other people are pointing towards, but her alignment seems off.

[Lightning Phil]

For those who can’t visualise something, do you dream without images?

[T42]

I can visualise how I want a piece of furniture to look, break it down mentally into components and produce tech drawings from that.  I don't actually see any of this, it exists in my mind in a form similar to the memory of an iso projection.  Haven't actually built any furniture for years, though that's due to change - I need a side table in the kitchen.

[barakta]

Interesting.

If someone is pointing at something, can you tell what they are pointing towards with any degree of precision?

MrsC can't. She gets very irritated and frustrated if I do something like "Look at that" and point.
I've also noted that her own pointing is  . . . odd. I know what other people are pointing towards, but her alignment seems off.

Possibly something I struggle with, but I have an eye movement condition so most of my visual field is double and what I see isn't stable (think looking through a viewfinder) cos my balance is shonky (vestibulo-ocular reflex failure). I also suspect trying to lipread speaker and look at another thing is another layer of difficulty.

Is MrsC aphantasic? Could she have balance issues affecting her vision?

[barakta]

I can visualise how I want a piece of furniture to look, break it down mentally into components and produce tech drawings from that.  I don't actually see any of this, it exists in my mind in a form similar to the memory of an iso projection.  Haven't actually built any furniture for years, though that's due to change - I need a side table in the kitchen.

You'd probably need to try one of the online aphantasia tests to identify if you are visualising that or doing something else.

[barakta]

Online Aphantasia Test by the Aphantasia Network who seem to be a group publishing info and research on this (you can opt into sharing with their ongoing research if you want)

[Clare]

For those who can’t visualise something, do you dream without images?

I do see my dreams. They are not as exciting as they used to be.

[Kim]

For those who can’t visualise something, do you dream without images?

I find dreams are more narrative than sensation.  They'll include images and occasionally sound or proprioception.  One thing that struck me the first time I had a dream with BSL dialogue in it was that normally dream dialogue is the knowledge of someone having said something, rather than actually hearing them speak.  Similarly, even when there are visual details, they don't usually have colour, except when required for plot reasons.  If things get visually vivid, it's likely because I'm sleeping with my eyes open and dreaming about what I can see.

[barakta]

My understanding is that aphantasics often dream in some kind of imagery which is why they're interested in it. There's some work on attempting to train aphantasics to visualise, but being very clear that if they do that, there's a chance it'll be impossible to reverse because visualisation is often unconscious and some non-visualisers may then find that intrusive and difficult to live with as a change in adulthood.

I don't remember much of my dreams and the ones I do remember tend to be a few fragments and snapshot images.

[ravenbait]

I have proprioceptive synaesthesia, I can visualise things very clearly, but only once I've created the mental space for them to inhabit. If someone asks me to imagine an apple, I first of all have to create a void in the stuff of my imagination, then I can fill it with an apple. I tend to default to Braeburn or Cox, because I eat those the most. To get a different apple, I would need specific instructions.

Brains, in short, are very weird.

Sam

[rogerzilla]

I get mental pictures of everything, including numbers (which may be dots on a domino or just marks on a long ruler, depending on how big they are).  I worked with a guy who had aphantasia and it was all baffling to him.  He went to see a specialist and after some time he was able to conjure up a mental image of his daughter's face.  He said he let out a scream of surprise.

[T42]

I can visualise how I want a piece of furniture to look, break it down mentally into components and produce tech drawings from that.  I don't actually see any of this, it exists in my mind in a form similar to the memory of an iso projection.  Haven't actually built any furniture for years, though that's due to change - I need a side table in the kitchen.

You'd probably need to try one of the online aphantasia tests to identify if you are visualising that or doing something else.

A book on the brain that I read in the 60's already had a test like this. It went something like

- think of a cube
- bisect it vertically
- bisect it vertically again
- and again, horizontally.

Now, how many pieces have you?
How did you reach that answer, by visualisation or abstract reasoning?
What was it made of?
What did you cut it with?
What colour was it?
Was there any débris when you cut it - sawdust etc?


I could answer that correctly by visualisation or by maths, but faster by visualisation. However, what I "saw" was like the memory of a diagram, devoid of colour or descriptive data.

At school I was good at solid geometry, but when I moved on to matrices at university I couldn't handle them well beyond 3 dimensions, and tensors floored me.  Once I started programming in C I had trouble handling more than 3 levels of indirect addressing.

From all that I'd say that I am good at visualisation but only in as far as needed to solve a problem; however, if I need to can fill my mental diagrams with colour, e.g. imagine a black inlay round the edge of a cherry desk-top, although I never see images of them unless I'm asleep and dreaming.

[Kim]

What was it made of?
What did you cut it with?
What colour was it?
Was there any débris when you cut it - sawdust etc?

This is the point where I go "WTF?" and wonder if they're taking the piss, or I'm actually an alien or something.

[ravenbait]

Now, how many pieces have you?
How did you reach that answer, by visualisation or abstract reasoning?
What was it made of?
What did you cut it with?
What colour was it?
Was there any débris when you cut it - sawdust etc?

I cut and counted.
Not sure what the material was but it had the same texture as pacer mints.
An invisible blade that was kind of like a 2D cheese wire.
It was a pale blue-grey.
No, but it resisted cutting, like a knife through fudge.

Brains. Are. Weird.

Sam