Aphantasia

[Kharakov]

Is this a bullshit made up disorder?

Can you visualize images at will, or picture things in your mind?

What is your level of visualization?


I can picture a boulder and rock I left on a path today, the layout and various stuff around the area. It's just not visual at all, it's not an image, it's like an afterthought or memory of the spatial layout of the boulders. I can remember the one tool, the shovel, the pick, a root, but once again, none of these things are images, they are memories of shapes, and I remember the color yellow on the one tool for whatever reason, but it isn't visual.

I can think of people that I know, and remember how they look, but it is not visual. I don't actually visualize anything (although I do have vivid dreams every once in a great while).


I'm thinking this is a bullshit story about a fake ability that people allegedly have, just to fuck with people who fall for the idea of being able to visualize stuff in their mind.

These douchebags who made up being able to "visualize" stuff (hallucinate at will) are just trying to get some attention, and they'll get money from a bunch of rubes who think they have a disorder because they can't visualize stuff (which is completely normal- people can't visualize stuff in their mind).

Anyway.. Being able to visualize would be a cool ability (maybe eventually they'll have tech for it). It would be cool to be able to picture stuff at will, and probably quite useful.

 

[bilby]

I read about this today; But I am finding it very hard to imagine it.

 

[gmbteach]

For some, visualising is a learned skill, just like reading. Others are much better at it, just like some are excellent at drawing, singing or are musical or athletic.

We introduced visualising as a skill a few years back and found success with it. Unfortunately, I don't think it's been continued - I know I no longer do it as a topic.

 

[dystopian]

The way I visualize (and I imagine most people), is much more akin to a kind of mental braille. It's not that I'm actually 'seeing' anything, it's that my brain is rapidly tracing imaginary lines and assigning them colors (which again I don't really see). It's like being blind and feeling a shape in your hand and knowing what it is; except instead of tickling the touch sensation part of your brain it tickles the visual cortex; creating the illusion of seeing something even though there's nothing actually appearing in your field of vision.

The part I find weirdest is that it feels as if the "visualization" is taking place somewhere else entirely. Like the mental image I'm drawing is in it's own pocket universe or something; this separates it from my actual field of vision and allows me to think of it as an 'image'; despite my field of vision being empty (if my eyes are closed) or just filled with mundane reality (if open).

 

[Juma]

Is this a bullshit made up disorder?

Can you visualize images at will, or picture things in your mind?

What is your level of visualization?


I can picture a boulder and rock I left on a path today, the layout and various stuff around the area. It's just not visual at all, it's not an image, it's like an afterthought or memory of the spatial layout of the boulders. I can remember the one tool, the shovel, the pick, a root, but once again, none of these things are images, they are memories of shapes, and I remember the color yellow on the one tool for whatever reason, but it isn't visual.

I can think of people that I know, and remember how they look, but it is not visual. I don't actually visualize anything (although I do have vivid dreams every once in a great while).


I'm thinking this is a bullshit story about a fake ability that people allegedly have, just to fuck with people who fall for the idea of being able to visualize stuff in their mind.

These douchebags who made up being able to "visualize" stuff (hallucinate at will) are just trying to get some attention, and they'll get money from a bunch of rubes who think they have a disorder because they can't visualize stuff (which is completely normal- people can't visualize stuff in their mind).

Anyway.. Being able to visualize would be a cool ability (maybe eventually they'll have tech for it). It would be cool to be able to picture stuff at will, and probably quite useful.

How do you define "visualize"? I can "see" stuff i imagine i can also "hear" sounds i imagine. Level of detail depends on effort and concentration. Why is in any way spectacular?

 

[Togo]

My mental landscape doesn't tend to be visual. It tends to be conceptual, rather than sensory.

 

[barbos]

I think this "theory" is a bit vague.
But I remember reading on other neurological condition - Prosopagnosia (face blindness).
Funny thing is, it was discovered by a guy who actually had it and he was freaking neuroscientist late in his career (!!!)
What it tells you is that people have no idea what they are missing. I myself have Anomalous trichromacy (most common and least serious type) and I had not known until I was tested. I am also a super taster but I diagnosed it myself because I have always known I have a different taste.

 

[Malintent]

Is this a bullshit made up disorder?

Can you visualize images at will, or picture things in your mind?

What is your level of visualization?


I can picture a boulder and rock I left on a path today, the layout and various stuff around the area. It's just not visual at all, it's not an image, it's like an afterthought or memory of the spatial layout of the boulders. I can remember the one tool, the shovel, the pick, a root, but once again, none of these things are images, they are memories of shapes, and I remember the color yellow on the one tool for whatever reason, but it isn't visual.

I can think of people that I know, and remember how they look, but it is not visual. I don't actually visualize anything (although I do have vivid dreams every once in a great while).


I'm thinking this is a bullshit story about a fake ability that people allegedly have, just to fuck with people who fall for the idea of being able to visualize stuff in their mind.

These douchebags who made up being able to "visualize" stuff (hallucinate at will) are just trying to get some attention, and they'll get money from a bunch of rubes who think they have a disorder because they can't visualize stuff (which is completely normal- people can't visualize stuff in their mind).

Anyway.. Being able to visualize would be a cool ability (maybe eventually they'll have tech for it). It would be cool to be able to picture stuff at will, and probably quite useful.

How do you define "visualize"? I can "see" stuff i imagine i can also "hear" sounds i imagine. Level of detail depends on effort and concentration. Why is in any way spectacular?

Me too.. Same question.

My first response to the OP was similar to how one may respond to a blind person asking what "red" was, if blindness didn't exist.
So, I guess my response to the OP is, "really? there are people that cannot visualize?"

 

[Kharakov]

The way I visualize (and I imagine most people), is much more akin to a kind of mental braille. It's not that I'm actually 'seeing' anything, it's that my brain is rapidly tracing imaginary lines and assigning them colors (which again I don't really see). It's like being blind and feeling a shape in your hand and knowing what it is; except instead of tickling the touch sensation part of your brain it tickles the visual cortex; creating the illusion of seeing something even though there's nothing actually appearing in your field of vision.

People with aphantasia (the inability to visualize images) can still have vivid dreams (in which they actually "see" stuff)- they just lack the "common" ability to create visual images in their waking mind. I've noticed that I have vivid dreams, but my visualizations are more akin to what you describe than dream level visualizations.

However, I just recalled that for a small period of time (a week or 2) I was exploring "books" in my mind, capturing snippets of written words, etc. when I was laying in bed in a very relaxed state. It was an interesting experience, my eyes were closed, and I would intentionally farm the phosphenes for written words:  Closed-eye_hallucination.

My ability to visualize was because I was in a semi-conscious state, with a bit of control, sort of like a  waking dream.

 

[Kharakov]

How do you define "visualize"? I can "see" stuff i imagine i can also "hear" sounds i imagine. Level of detail depends on effort and concentration. Why is in any way spectacular?

Me too.. Same question.

My first response to the OP was similar to how one may respond to a blind person asking what "red" was, if blindness didn't exist.
So, I guess my response to the OP is, "really? there are people that cannot visualize?"

The idea is that those of us who can't do this at will have a "disorder", because most people can visualize at will. They claim only about 1 in 50 people cannot visualize, which seems to be very low given the responses other people have given to my questions about being able to visualize.

I hear my own "voice" in my mind, and various responses to my thoughts from other imaginary beings, but I don't see any of them or have the ability to visualize them (with dream level vividness).

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34039054

He knew he was different even in childhood. "My stepfather, when I couldn't sleep, told me to count sheep, and he explained what he meant, I tried to do it and I couldn't," he says.
"I couldn't see any sheep jumping over fences, there was nothing to count."

Same here, for me. I could count numbers, but I didn't see sheep to count, so my mental landscape was more like Togo's- abstract concepts (inner voiced words) instead of visualizations.

I'm interested that gmbteach taught a course in visualization- being able to visualize seems like an awesome skill to have. I wouldn't have to draw something on paper in order to figure it out...

 

[Malintent]

ah.. I misunderstood. Thanks.

There are all kinds of very interesting brain disorders, rare abilities, and learning differences between people. I chalk this up as a learning difference more than a cognitive disorder... or maybe a disorder that results in learning differences.

To those that responded that they do not visualize with a 'mind's eye', I am curious if this led to a learning disorder or difference... It actually explains a lot to me about differences in how people process instructions and learn new information.

 

[dystopian]

People with aphantasia (the inability to visualize images) can still have vivid dreams (in which they actually "see" stuff)- they just lack the "common" ability to create visual images in their waking mind. I've noticed that I have vivid dreams, but my visualizations are more akin to what you describe than dream level visualizations.

What I describe is what most people refer to as 'visualization', though. I think you might be understanding the term too literally. When people say they're visualizing something, they're not actually literally seeing something that isn't there. They're not creating controlled hallucination. It's the exact same thing you or I do. There's just differences in the detail of the mental model/"image"; with some people's mental models having greater detail than that of others.

The easiest way to visualize is probably doing simple abstract shapes rotation. Like taking the letter F and imagining what it looks like when rotated horizontally. Very simple. I have visualized it, yet there's nothing in my field of vision.

 

[Malintent]

I've read more. Aphantasia is a hypothetical condition. Which is to say that the mechanism for vivid, internal visualization is not sufficiently understood to call this a 'thing'.

Like anything else cognitive related, there is a spectrum of human ability (and human ability to communicate abilities). It's not like there is a 'visualization' gene that is either on or off. It's complicated.

 

[Kharakov]

People with aphantasia (the inability to visualize images) can still have vivid dreams (in which they actually "see" stuff)- they just lack the "common" ability to create visual images in their waking mind. I've noticed that I have vivid dreams, but my visualizations are more akin to what you describe than dream level visualizations.

What I describe is what most people refer to as 'visualization', though. I think you might be understanding the term too literally. When people say they're visualizing something, they're not actually literally seeing something that isn't there. They're not creating controlled hallucination. It's the exact same thing you or I do. There's just differences in the detail of the mental model/"image"; with some people's mental models having greater detail than that of others.

The easiest way to visualize is probably doing simple abstract shapes rotation. Like taking the letter F and imagining what it looks like when rotated horizontally. Very simple. I have visualized it, yet there's nothing in my field of vision.

Well, we actually might be a bit different, at least if Adam Zeman (or the internet) isn't bullshitting:

https://www.rt.com/news/313610-mind-eye-aphantasia-scientists/
"This intriguing variation in human experience has received little attention,” Zeman said in a statement. “Our participants mostly have some first-hand knowledge of imagery through their dreams: our study revealed an interesting dissociation between voluntary imagery, which is absent or much reduced in these individuals, and involuntary imagery, for example in dreams, which is usually preserved."

I have visual dreams (involuntary imagination), and a non-visual voluntary imagination.

I have a very conceptual imagination (words, concepts, systems of ideas), but lack the visual imagination, which probably makes me a bit more analytic than someone who can imagine things visually.

 

[barbos]

If normal people can actually have full blown vision of imagined object then I clearly have Aphantasia.
All I can do is to create a mental "image" of objects where I can interact with them, place them near each other, move, turn around, open doors, stuff like that.

 

[gmbteach]

Me too.. Same question.

My first response to the OP was similar to how one may respond to a blind person asking what "red" was, if blindness didn't exist.
So, I guess my response to the OP is, "really? there are people that cannot visualize?"

The idea is that those of us who can't do this at will have a "disorder", because most people can visualize at will. They claim only about 1 in 50 people cannot visualize, which seems to be very low given the responses other people have given to my questions about being able to visualize.

I hear my own "voice" in my mind, and various responses to my thoughts from other imaginary beings, but I don't see any of them or have the ability to visualize them (with dream level vividness).

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34039054

He knew he was different even in childhood. "My stepfather, when I couldn't sleep, told me to count sheep, and he explained what he meant, I tried to do it and I couldn't," he says.
"I couldn't see any sheep jumping over fences, there was nothing to count."

Same here, for me. I could count numbers, but I didn't see sheep to count, so my mental landscape was more like Togo's- abstract concepts (inner voiced words) instead of visualizations.

I'm interested that gmbteach taught a course in visualization- being able to visualize seems like an awesome skill to have. I wouldn't have to draw something on paper in order to figure it out...

It was taught as a reading strategy in order to improve comprehension.

 

[Kharakov]

If normal people can actually have full blown vision of imagined object then I clearly have Aphantasia.
All I can do is to create a mental "image" of objects where I can interact with them, place them near each other, move, turn around, open doors, stuff like that.

I might be able to train myself to do what your talking about, but it sounds more intense than what I visualize, except when I am dreaming. I think people can actually see the stuff in their mind, with their eyes closed, and some of them may be able to do so with their eyes open. I call thinking while disconnected from reality "spacing out", but I don't visualize anything, usually if I detach from my senses it's because I am thinking about something verbally and going over various permutations of concepts to look for holes or possibly multiple meanings in a single sentence.

Which are usually there.....

 

[Kharakov]

It was taught as a reading strategy in order to improve comprehension.

Hmm... I'll look it up.

Interesting: http://www.edutopia.org/blog/brain-movies-visualize-reading-comprehension-donna-wilson

I am definitely missing out if this stuff isn't bullshit. The 3 people I've asked in real life (in person) have all said they could visualize at will, although the one said they couldn't use visualization as a layout/schematic, and would have to draw something to make it more precise because their "mental resolution" wasn't high enough (not willpower resolution... DPI/ detail level resolution).

They could all picture peoples faces at will. When I close my eyes, I just see a bunch of phosphenes.

 

[Juma]

When I close my eyes, I just see a bunch of phosphenes.

Of course. Visualization doesnt replace input from the eyes. It is a separate thing.

 

[barbos]

Closing eyes does nothing for me, except when there is something really distracting.
Never had troubles with sheep counting. I think mental image is what you get when somebody says a word like "elephant" or "aircraft". I mean it's not just a word or sound, You instantly get the mental "image" that word describes, and the keyword here is "mental" not a real image in your eyes.