Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind

I got aphantasia from Covid, apparently it's an extremely rare side effect - so rare I've only found a handful of people on the entire internet who've experienced it. So I happen to know how it is to live both with and without the ability to visualize, I used to be extremely good at visualizing. Most major impact (apart from the loss of ability to daydream) is that my memory is worse, as my memory was very much based on playing back memories as movies in my head. Especially childhood memories suffered. Also reading books is a very different experience, as when I previously would make up movies and picture the characters visually when reading, now it's all black. That said, reading books is still an enjoyable experience, it's just very different.

I also stopped dreaming in images for a long time, which was weird. It's still very dim (not so vivid), but at least that part came back.

Alert: if you were happy to learn about aphantasia, you might also be happy to learn about SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory), which I think is correlated with aphantasia.

SDAM is when you know facts about your life, but can’t walk through any or almost any episodes.

Apparently normal people can actually re-live episodes from their past, step by step or.. idk. Somehow. And I don’t know what I had for breakfast today ಠ_ಠ

I've sometimes wondered if I could have aphantasia or perhaps be low enough on the visual imagery spectrum to have some of the practical effects of aphantasia.

When I try to visualize an object, I can in some sense visualize it but it feels very indistinct. It's like I can't see the object as a whole only the specific details I focus on. For example, I have a friend who wears circular glasses and has a handlebar mustache. I can bring up a general image of "circular glasses" or "handlebar mustache" in my mind. However, I cannot imaging his face with glasses and a mustache. It almost feels like the way that you "see" things when you are only half watching a TV show or are partially zoned out while driving. In some sense you are seeing them but it's difficult to pull up details.

When I visualize a scene, I'm not sure I "see" it so much as I form a spatial map of the scene.

I also find that the "images" that do get stored in my memory are more like impressions. Maybe in some sense I can "visualize" them, but they are really more like impressions of how they make me feel or the "vibe" that I get from them.

If somebody told me "image you are walking a winding path. To your right there is a wood, to your left there is a mountain".

The image I see in my mind is basically an empty paper, with an arrow pointing to the left labeled "mountain", an arrow to the right labeled "wood", and an arrow to the middle labeled "path". Maybe, maybe the mountain is represented with two lines /\ and the path is a winding line ~~~ but that is already pushing it.

These kind of "mind-travels" are sometimes done at end of yoga classes. For me, they are complete pointless, and I usually fall asleep.

I have also great problems identifying faces, don't know if there is a connection.

On the other hand, I can vividly imagine sounds, including voices and music.

I really hate these aphantasia questions. It feels too subjective.

I can visualize in a sense, but I would never talk of an image. In fact closing my eyes makes it harder for me to imagine anything.

I can recall my dream from last night for example, I can describe it quite well. If you now would ask me to in my mind modify for example the color of the floor, I couldn’t. Because in “dream reality” I very much remember it wasn’t.

I can daydream, I can imagine vividly. But the moment anyone tells me, “modify what you’re imagining like this”, it all falls apart.

Also what is interesting is the quality of detail between me describing the imaginary situation and reconstructing it in real life. A lot of aspects are lost under a haze when describing it, but when reconstructing it I can tell you if an aspect is right or wrong, not what it should be.

That’s of course my personal experience. Just I feel like Aphantasia is this buzzfeed like diagnosis illness, where you really have a lot of interpretation.

There seems to be a higher-than-average incidence of Aphantasia in tech folks, at least as self-reported.

Our visual cortex is a huge part of our brain and in the absence of visual input can be "rewired" to other purposes. Theory: I have no evidence for this but its plausible that our obsession with solving hard, abstract logic puzzles all day (and night) somehow hijacks part of our visual cortex. Effectively reprogramming our visual hardware to form abstract concepts in the minds eye rather than visualizing concrete objects.

What frustrates me about things like that, there seem to be no proper tests for that. Shouldn't there be an easy test for Aphantasia, for example, that doesn't ask me things like "do you have a mind's eye" (what does that even mean?). Such a test should not ask the test subjects to self-diagnose themselves, but it should objectively test abilities and put them on a scale. Anything else really is not that helpful.

Every time I’m reading about Aphantasia, I’m confused again that people really see stuff in their head. I have basically the same as the person in the article. So, if you want to know anything, AMA.

I’m also trying to respond to a few questions which are already asked.

This makes so many moments of my life make so much more sense.

I don't have full blown aphantasia I think but mental images are always very hazy and dark to me and calling them up takes immense effort. Seems like I'm a 4 on the VVIQ scale.

On the other hand, imaginations in psychotherapy, be it for exposure it for revisiting childhood places and moments, still work for me. They are just not very visual. They contain emotions and haptic aspects, sometimes sounds and smells, but the visual is kind of like really old polaroid pictures. They frizzle out at the edges really quickly, they never move, the colors are muted and sometimes off.

At least now I know that people who claim that books evoke vibrant mental images in them are not bullshitting me. And I can stop sitting there with Lord of the Rings in hand, staring at a wall for 10 minutes and wondering why I still don't manage to "see" what Moria looks like.

I'm (apparently) aphantasic, having learned about the concept on a couple of months ago. However unscientific the [VVIQ](https://aphantasia.com/study/vviq/) is, I couldn't answer a single question with anything other than "No image at all."

What I find interesting is that for the past few years I've also been getting regular IV ketamine infusions to treat major depression. The imagery I visualize during these infusions is hyperreal and unlike anything I've ever experienced. I see these full-motion, hyper-detailed, 3D environments that absolutely blow my mind. I also seem to have fairly vivid dreams but when I'm conscious, I can't visualize anything to save my life.

I don't see anything. I feel like we're talking past each other. I am skeptical that "visualize an apple" to some people gets them the mental equivalent of a Blender model where they get a 360 degree view of the image and from there they are able to apply arbitrary transformations. I can "replay" songs in my head with pretty good fidelity to the original if I remember enough of it, but I think that's fairly common.

A popular topic here:

Deep Aphantasia: a visual brain with minimal influence from priors? [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39951990] 105 points|negativelambda|3 months ago|114 comments

Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39887661] 86 points|bookofjoe|3 months ago|89 comments

More: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

For those of you who do not suffer from dead-on aphantasia but simply have bad visualization/memory recall: you may find great industry in learning to draw, paint, sculpt and immersing yourself in perceptory recall to essentially, in an analogous manner of speaking, strengthen weak muscles. You may go so far as to find the book “ The training of the memory in art and the education of the artist” by B., L. Horace to be of interest. Do not skip on music and try to find ways to engage physically as best as possible. Perception works best in totality, and people who have strong visual recall often have other strong recall functions as well, disabilities notwithstanding.

For me, visualisation is related to memory recall. If someone asks me to imagine a scene, I'll run through memories of actual experiences and combine them where necessary to produce an approximation. For aural imagination, such as music composition, I imagine snippets of music I've heard, then combine them. There is a visual component to that, but it's symbolic, not vivid. If I need to imagine something I haven't experienced, it's like a combination of line drawings, animation and written and spoken language. It would look like a mess if I could project it. Colours are there, but they're not vivid. They're more like bad watercolours. If I take my time, I can clear up the image, and over time it becomes more vivid. This is actually how I write. It's a slow process, but it's the only way I can think clearly. I find social conversation difficult because it tends to move faster than my ability to visualise so I find it dull and uninspiring. I prefer to spend my time slow-reading literature.

Contextual conversations are ok, such as business or academic conversations, because the language is generally a closed set and visualisations are well practiced. But social situations can be without context, and difficult to navigate.

I‘m also a self diagnosed aphant. I was so relived when I found out, school was very frustrating since there are so many learning methods that are built for people with a mind that’s able to picture stuff also hard to remember faces, I usually only know some facts about people, like they have red hair, brown eyes… even family members

but I can at least hear sounds in my mind :) I read that this is a similar spectrum thing where some people hear nothing and others can replay everything

What about sexual fantasies? Can people with aphantasia imagine the other person in any manner? In the article, the writer claims she can’t even imagine her ex-boyfriend.

I can imagine anyone, anywhere, without even closing my eyes. In many situations, I know I shouldn’t do it, but I’ve had this ability since early childhood. It has not made me a sex-craving maniac, though; I’m quite stable.

Of course they can picture things in their mind, that's how they see.

To explain the not-joke: the things you see are not "out there" they are in your mind. Now of course the things you see through your eyes are there, but the images are imaginary, the eye and brain do all kinds of things between the retina and the mind to make the imagery you see. Your visual perception is constructive.

Metaphorically speaking, the camera works, these folks just don't know how to hit "play" on the tape. They have the neural "circuitry" to visualize in their minds (or they would be blind!) they just aren't using it.

> Think you of the fact that a deaf person cannot hear. Then, what deafness may we not all possess? What senses do we lack that we cannot see and cannot hear another world all around us?

Learn to use your brain folks. It's the most sophisticated computer in the known Universe and you can learn to operate it.

I'm very interested in this topic, so I'll go ahead and describe my experience.

I can imagine anything with my eyes open. Any object on my desk, or a place, a drawing, abstract geometry or pretty much anything I have a reference to. If I were to visualize an apple in real life, with my eyes open, this is how the process would go: Imagine you're taking photos of the world 5 times a second. You then take those pictures into your mind and superimpose an apple onto them, like adding a layer in Photoshop, perhaps with 90% opacity or a bit of inconsistent flickering. That's probably the best way I could describe the experience. Those edits I create are on another visual layer, inside my mind, which requires an active effort to have a consistent visual experience, but of course sometimes it can passively activate and you're just daydreaming without any effort. Personally, I have a hard time imagining faces. They change, they melt, sometimes they become inhuman. I only have consistent faces in my dreams.

The places I know well, I can fully navigate inside my mind, just flying around a town, going down streets and such. I, of course, don't believe neither the scaling or the distance is accurate, but it's convincing and consistent enough for me at the level of abstract thought.

I fully get immersed in the books I'm reading or listening to. It's the best part of reading a book.

I can imagine smell, taste, sound, touch, sight and even other senses like balance and whatever else. Sound would be the most vivid part of my imagination. High consistency and fidelity. I also have an inner monologue which I use in second person communication, addressing myself from the perspective of another entity.

I have anxiety, intrusive thoughts, flashbacks and problems with rumination. I experience memories with a lot of emotion. Whenever I look at art or listen to music, I also tend to have a deep and powerful emotional reaction.

In second year university I took a difficult 3d calculus class. I struggled for weeks until I suddenly developed the capability to visualize and manipulate 3D objects with axes, rulers and protractors in my mind. It like instantly leveled me up. Before that I had only done 2D math.

I still have a hard time believing this is actually real. I also don't see how you actually could do many jobs with this condition. At least I couldn't imagine doing any job I ever head without the ability to manipulate visual information in my head.

I find it easier to believe that this is a failure of communication.

Much like autism, every time one of these articles comes up, half the population of HackerNews says they have it.

Where do we get this idea that there's a "normal", and everything outside of that requires some special diagnosis?

I feel like I have two visual fields. One that feels like it is through my eyes and of the outside world, and then another that has images or ideas that I can conjure up (almost like eigenfaces or other low resolution concepts). The second visual field isn't within the first, but feels like it is also roughly centered where my brain is.

Can people with Aphantasia still have visual dreams -- where imagery is more real and vivid and more involuntary than willed .... than what they can 'see' when awake and conscious and are trying to muster up an image on purpose with closed eyes ?

I tried visualizing some images now -- and it seems harder than I expected, seems harder with eyes closed (makes eveyrthing feel too dark and low contrast). But I think my dreams are more vivid than that.

Also I relized that when actively trying to imagine things, the "resolution" or sharpness/focus of the mental picture is very narrow -- I can only imagine the "details" of texture/surface of things when focussing attention on a very small and narrow field of "vision".

Hm. But if people really see things in their mind like that, how come so many apparently struggle to draw a bicycle, even though they've both seen and used one? If I ask one of those people to picture a bicycle in their mind, what exactly do they see? Do they see their own distorted version of a bike?

When I "picture" something in my mind, I can't really see anything, it's more feelings and words and abstract ideas. But I have no problems drawing an imaginary bike.

https://road.cc/content/blog/90885-science-cycology-can-you-...

A really interesting question here, to me, is if aphantasia is more common now than it was before. There's a whole collection of non-"neurotypical" conditions that seem more common now (though its always possible they are just diagnosed more and more likely to be expressed in lifestyles that require more complex thought). It also seems likely that our focus on literal "visualization" (picturing a picture) is amplified by the media that surrounds us - thousands of high fidelity photos of the world. Perhaps previous generations simply had less cause to try to visualize things in a "photo-realistic" way?

Until we can probe into people's minds (some advanced MRI or something in the future) and display them on a computer screen, there's no way to call bullshit on people who claim they can "see" the apple, you only have your subjective experience for that.

And I don't believe for a second they "see" in the real sense, again, because I don't see anything. Only time I really see is in my dreams. So rather, ask people "do you see the apple just like you see it in your dreams?" I bet they don't.

Or funk knows, again I repeat, I only have my sensory experience to relate to and there's no visual element in it when I close my eyes.

It's so wild to me that people can't see pictures or hear music in their mind. I've always assumed everyone could do it but it just goes to show how little we know about the human brain.

I was reading the other day on HN that some people don't have an internal monologue and think very differently than I do (like thoughts just "appear" somehow?)

Now I'm wondering if there are any mind capabilities people possess that I don't? Humans are truly fascinating.

The biggest problem with these questions is that they in my opinion don’t actually measure anything.

“Imagine a ball falling of the table.”

Asking questions of what was under the table or the color of the ball is useless (imo). Let me explain: Recall a dream of yours. What is out there in the dream world? Can you tell me what the retail tax is in that dream world? What house number the door of your dream world neighbor has? No? For me the answer is no. Because I only create answers to these questions if they are relevant to the dream or asked.

I forgot the study, but it claimed that people often retrospectively imagine detail based on the question asked. (Citation needed)

I like to believe that dreams and imagination share aspects. And one aspect I see in both of them is that, similarly to video games, any detail is kept to the necessary minimum.

It doesn’t matter what is under the table, it is about a ball falling off the table. Its color doesn’t matter, the color has no effect on the story.

If you retrospectively ask me those questions, you’re just testing if I’m going to make one up in the spot, make one up on the spot and tell myself I didn’t or not make one up on the spot.

I think of my imagination as an abstract realm I can control, that is limited by my ability to comprehend. It’s less vivid than a dream, but a dream gives me no control. Anything I imagine is a feeling, there is no incoming physical aspect.

And the reason why it’s so hard to measure or quantify is because it is best described as a feeling.

One of the times aphantasia has been brought up here somebody posted a guide to training your brain to see more vivid imagery from someone who alleges they started out aphantasic and trained themselves to not be.

Does anybody have the link, I've been searching for it for like a year since I forgot to backup my bookmarks before a resinstall.

Like the blind who can avoid bumping into things perhaps https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/out-of-mind-out-o...

My daughter has aphantasia. I can't imagine what it must be like for her - my visual imagination is ridiculously rich.

I can traumatize myself with what I can see in my mind's eye it's so strong, but for her, she has absolutely no ability to visualize whatsoever.

While laying in bed with fever I realised it's much more easier to imagine moving things than static ones. Imagine red apple? To hell that, my apple gonna spin and rotate, and be chopped by sawblade flying by, while slowly oxidizing cut parts

I wonder if this could be induced in people who suffer from hallucinations to reduce or eliminate their symptoms? Maybe their system is rigged into overdrive the other way. It says on wikipedia that there are 'cases reported of acquired aphantasia'.

I realized that the ability to visualize is probably on a spectrum many years ago while discussing science fiction fantasy books with others. And I am probably someone whose ability to visualize is a lot worse than others.

is there a version of not being able to visualize faces of people you know? asking for a friend.

from all i read about things like this, the more it become apparent that we all experience things in a unique way.

How do people with aphantasia draw/paint/design? I always thought you had to kind of visualize those artistic things in your mind before manifesting them on paper/screen?

I am curious: do people with aphantasia dream?

How do you know if you have it?

I emailed Adam Zeman (the neurologist who coined the term being discussed here) a while back seeking clarification about exactly what the experience of visualizing something should be like -- pasting the thread below.

His replies were short, but he managed to pack into them not only a comprehensible answer to my question, but also hinted at something I really hadn't expected in his two-word final reply: "Pseudo- mostly..."

To clarify, a pseudohallucination is a "hallucination" that you know isn't real. A hallucination, strictly speaking, is imaginary sensory input that you don't realize is imaginary. So, his reply seems to suggest that he's encountered people whose hyperphantasic pseudohallucinations (being able to overlay vivid visualizations onto the field of stuff they're actually seeing with their actual eyes) sometimes cross the line into bona fide hallucinations; i.e., they lose track, even if only temporarily, of what's real and what's imagined. Which is just endlessly fascinating.

Readers/commenters on this topic may find it interesting -- sorry, most of it is me going on about what my visualization is like, but I guess it forms the necessary backdrop for some of his answer to be useful anyway.

This topic, or the comments diverging from it, also seems to overlap with the topic of "unsymbolized thinking"; I've dumped some more stuff of possible interest on that: https://www.pastery.net/vvapdr/ with a bit of context in another comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40774163

======== Me: ========

Hi,

I'm looking for some clarification on the exact nature of visualization as I'm not sure what it's meant to be like.

The Wikipedia article on aphantasia mentions activation of the visual cortex. So am I supposed to be generating an actual visual input that I feel like I can see with my eyes?

When I visualize something, it's not really there on that literal visual level. I physically see the inside of my eyelids and the visualized image is not projected such that I feel like my eyes are actually seeing it. Instead it's somewhere else; sometimes it feels as if it's somewhere behind my eyes. Nonetheless, the image can be vivid in its own way, precise and consistent. I can rotate and manipulate it. I can move a light source around the object and "see" the shadow change, or place my point of quasi-view within a scene. This comes along with mental impressions of other sensory inputs that, similarly, are "vivid" but clearly not actually being sensed from the outside world.

Is this what it's supposed to be? What point on the scale would reflect this in the visualization quiz?

Thanks

======== Adam: ========

…it sounds to me as if you are in the 3-4/5 territory…seeing imagery as if you were ‘really’ seeing is the exception, but for most of us visual imagery has a visual ‘feel’, which sounds to be the case for you…

======== Me: ========

Thanks for the reply. To clarify, the "really seeing" exception is akin to a visual hallucination, or rather pseudohallucination?

======== Adam: ========

Pseudo- mostly…

Does anyone else think this is complete bullshit?