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Ooh, let me ask a question of HNers who identify with this. What I get is occasional flashes of specific images. E.g., if you tell me to think of a beach what

Ooh, let me ask a question of HNers who identify with this. What I get is occasional flashes of specific images. E.g., if you tell me to think of a beach what I'll get is a flashbulb photo of a specific beach I have been to. That image then quickly fades and I'm left with something more like a tactile representation, as if you 3D-modeled the beach and printed it in monochrome grey resin and I were running my hands over it to get the shape. Is it like that for anybody else?

sambull 5y ago
Very similar, a more green hue then grey but very much like that.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Thanks! Glad to know there's at least two of us!
salamanderman 5y ago
There's a thing called Flashbulb Memory, but I think you're talking about something else.
wpietri 5y ago
Oh, and I do get more visuals on the edge of sleep. Vivid hypnagogic imagery, I'm pretty sure. But whenever I become aware of it and get interested, it quickly recedes from me. So I suspect that I have some hardware ability to visualize, but that it's suppressed by other things when I'm alert.
bodge5000 5y ago
Out of interest, how real are these "tactile representations"? I've had tactile hallucinations for many years now, sometimes when I'm in bed with my eyes closed (but nowhere near asleep) it feels like something is grabbing or poking at my face, or at times that sometimes is under the bed and breathing but at a different rate to my own breathing. Especially the tactile hallucinations on the face, these feel incredibly real, to the point that I usually open my eyes at least once just to confirm. However, thats clearly nothing I can control. The ability to be able to control that seems amazing to me
- wpietri 5y ago
  For me, not very real. It's just my way of describing the kind of spatial representation that is left behind for me after the visual fades. For example if I think of a relative's home that I haven't been too for a while, I'll see one or more quick images like post card snapshots. When those fade, I'm left with a spatial map that I can mentally walk around in and touch. Or if it's of a beach, I can run an imaginary hand down the curve of the land. I don't see it. Or really, feel if it I "touch" it. It's just a sort of knowledge of filled and empty 3D space. Those hallucinations sound freaky! I'm glad you've adjusted to them.
JshWright 5y ago
This may sound like a silly question, but "where" does that image appear for you? That's what doesn't make any sense to me (and why I assume all the talk of "visualizing" things was figurative for most of my life).
- wpietri 5y ago
  In front of my eyes. It's sort of like returning with my eyes closed to a spot where I once stood, opening my eyes for a quarter-second, and closing them again. Or like somebody briefly holding up a post-card in front of my face. The image quickly fades.
  - AQuantized 5y ago
    That seems so different to my own experiences. I think I can visualize fairly easily and it's very much a 'mental' thing, distinct from 'seeing'. If I had to describe the location it would probably be a few inches behind the eyes with a sensation not dissimilar to mulling over a problem.
somebodynew 5y ago
This is exactly what I experience. The only time I perceive anything like "seeing in the mind's eye" is on the edge of sleep and it vanishes if I pay any attention to it. (I do see in dreams, which is distinctly different from the hypnagogic imagery.) I usually describe what you refer to as a sense of space on a monochrome model as being as if I've loaded a JSON file listing out all of the points on a 3D model, but there's no renderer to view it with.
- wpietri 5y ago
  Yes that's a great way to describe it. All shape, no render.
joshspankit 5y ago
Have you tried spending any serious amount of time in VR? After about 30 hours in I was getting really wild enhancements to my dreams and some changes to my “mind’s eye”. Almost like mono vs stereo or black and white vs colour, but it was more like what I thought was 3d was actually 2d and I only found out after it smacked me in the face.
exikyut 5y ago
Well, here's a reference that's technically semantically relevant to the specifics of your description, but objectively 100% off the deep end in terms of subject matter. I occasionally think about this for a little while then re-bury it because it's simultaneously intriguing and challenging. > A blind [astral] projector gave me the following explanation regarding his perceptions during dreams and OBEs. Being blind since birth and being a successful projector is a fairly unusual combination, to say the least. Over the years, my investigations in this area have unearthed many important clues concerning the nature of perception. These provided me with further clues as to the nature and dynamics of other aspects of OBE. In the out-of-body environment, perception is absolutely everything. Therefore, understanding the nature of perception is paramount to understanding the dynamics of OBE and the entire range of related phenomena. > My question to CB was "Could you please expound on your nonsighted condition and how you perceive things during your OBEs?" > C.B.: I've been blind since birth. My optic nerves didn't develop while I was in the womb, but I still have vivid OBEs and dreams. It's hard to explain just how I sense things and get around while I'm out of my body, but I'll give it a try. I experience no real difference between my OBE and dream perceptions. When I have a dream or OBE, I am very aware of what is around me, but everything is always three-dimensional. I can't perceive anything as two-dimensional, such as what's on the surface of a picture, but can perceive the canvas and frame as a whole very clearly. The area around me is extremely vivid in my mind, in all directions, and is very detailed. This awareness is much stronger than my normal awake perceptions are in my own home. When I project it's like I can feel everything around me, as if I am continually touching everything with my fingers, with my mind, with my senses reaching out and touching everything around me all at once. My senses extend a long way, much further than usual, and I can feel into the distance around me in probably much the same way as sighted people do with their eyes. I get around fine when I'm out of my body, with no hesitation or doubt about my surroundings at all. I never worry about bumping into things and can sense exactly what is ahead of me and around me at all times. If I meet people during an OBE or dream, I can instantly tell what they look like and what they are wearing, just as if I were running my hands all over them. This isn't really sight, as I have no idea of what color or light is, but my dream and OBE perceptions are about as close to sight as it gets for me. From page 42 of https://ia902904.us.archive.org/28/items/AstralDynamicsANEWApproachToOutOfBodyExperiences/Astral%20Dynamics%20-%20A%20NEW%20Approach%20to%20Out-of-Body%20Experiences.pdf https://ia902904.us.archive.org/28/items/AstralDynamicsANEWA... My question about that has always been where the dividing line is between the people that can supposedly accurately describe places they haven't physically been and whatnot, and the mental blueprint of the brain going brrt :P It's arguably half-tangentially related to what you describe, mostly because of the reference to hands.
spf30 5y ago
This is the exact same for me. The exception for this is when I dream, in which case I perceive mental imagery the way I assume most people do. Sometimes, a dream will turn lucid, and in that case, the mental imagery quickly devolves into the tactile/proprioceptive representation you describe. An interesting note: taking bupropion (or, I assume, any similar stimulant) at bedtime drastically improves both the frequency and visual imagery of my dreams. Moreover, while taking it, should a dream turn lucid, my subjective experience in the dream is one of suddenly being unable to fixate on specific details of objects or direct my gaze (as if my visual field is entirely peripheral), rather than the 3D-modeled resin. My brain is definitely capable of generating mental imagery, and I'll get flashbulb imagery as an automatic response to cues, but something interferes with the ability to visualize things while I'm awake.
perrygeo 5y ago
Very similar. I can conjure a brief glimpse of an image but never hold onto it for longer than a few hundred ms. I'm left with a notion just as much tactile and 3D/spatial but without any visual imagery attached. At best, it's like abstract chalk drawings with rough shapes on a black canvas. Very little recall. But the strange part is I experience above-average visual recognition memory. It's like I can take those "chalk drawings" and pattern match them ridiculously fast against real stimulus. I can recognize faces and street corners from decades ago - but only if I see them again in real life. I can't conjure the image up in my head without the corresponding stimulus no matter how hard I try. Personally, I find it strange that non-aphantasic people can effectively hallucinate on demand. It's the equivalent of hearing voices in your head - a disconnect between sensation and perception that, honestly, reduces my trust in their judgement. I know people who are strong visualizers (can play movies on demand behind their eyelids) and find they tend to have a terrible ability to accurately convey a story - presumably they've visualized their fantasy scenario so much they're unable to differentiate it from reality? My narrative + chalk drawing memories are consistently more reliable, if not more sparse.

sambull 5y ago

Very similar, a more green hue then grey but very much like that.

wpietri 5y ago
Thanks! Glad to know there's at least two of us!

salamanderman 5y ago

There's a thing called Flashbulb Memory, but I think you're talking about something else.

wpietri 5y ago

Oh, and I do get more visuals on the edge of sleep. Vivid hypnagogic imagery, I'm pretty sure. But whenever I become aware of it and get interested, it quickly recedes from me. So I suspect that I have some hardware ability to visualize, but that it's suppressed by other things when I'm alert.

bodge5000 5y ago

Out of interest, how real are these "tactile representations"? I've had tactile hallucinations for many years now, sometimes when I'm in bed with my eyes closed (but nowhere near asleep) it feels like something is grabbing or poking at my face, or at times that sometimes is under the bed and breathing but at a different rate to my own breathing. Especially the tactile hallucinations on the face, these feel incredibly real, to the point that I usually open my eyes at least once just to confirm. However, thats clearly nothing I can control. The ability to be able to control that seems amazing to me

wpietri 5y ago
For me, not very real. It's just my way of describing the kind of spatial representation that is left behind for me after the visual fades. For example if I think of a relative's home that I haven't been too for a while, I'll see one or more quick images like post card snapshots. When those fade, I'm left with a spatial map that I can mentally walk around in and touch. Or if it's of a beach, I can run an imaginary hand down the curve of the land. I don't see it. Or really, feel if it I "touch" it. It's just a sort of knowledge of filled and empty 3D space. Those hallucinations sound freaky! I'm glad you've adjusted to them.

JshWright 5y ago

This may sound like a silly question, but "where" does that image appear for you? That's what doesn't make any sense to me (and why I assume all the talk of "visualizing" things was figurative for most of my life).

wpietri 5y ago
In front of my eyes. It's sort of like returning with my eyes closed to a spot where I once stood, opening my eyes for a quarter-second, and closing them again. Or like somebody briefly holding up a post-card in front of my face. The image quickly fades.
- AQuantized 5y ago
  That seems so different to my own experiences. I think I can visualize fairly easily and it's very much a 'mental' thing, distinct from 'seeing'. If I had to describe the location it would probably be a few inches behind the eyes with a sensation not dissimilar to mulling over a problem.

somebodynew 5y ago

This is exactly what I experience. The only time I perceive anything like "seeing in the mind's eye" is on the edge of sleep and it vanishes if I pay any attention to it. (I do see in dreams, which is distinctly different from the hypnagogic imagery.) I usually describe what you refer to as a sense of space on a monochrome model as being as if I've loaded a JSON file listing out all of the points on a 3D model, but there's no renderer to view it with.

wpietri 5y ago
Yes that's a great way to describe it. All shape, no render.

joshspankit 5y ago

Have you tried spending any serious amount of time in VR? After about 30 hours in I was getting really wild enhancements to my dreams and some changes to my “mind’s eye”. Almost like mono vs stereo or black and white vs colour, but it was more like what I thought was 3d was actually 2d and I only found out after it smacked me in the face.

exikyut 5y ago

Well, here's a reference that's technically semantically relevant to the specifics of your description, but objectively 100% off the deep end in terms of subject matter. I occasionally think about this for a little while then re-bury it because it's simultaneously intriguing and challenging. > A blind [astral] projector gave me the following explanation regarding his perceptions during dreams and OBEs. Being blind since birth and being a successful projector is a fairly unusual combination, to say the least. Over the years, my investigations in this area have unearthed many important clues concerning the nature of perception. These provided me with further clues as to the nature and dynamics of other aspects of OBE. In the out-of-body environment, perception is absolutely everything. Therefore, understanding the nature of perception is paramount to understanding the dynamics of OBE and the entire range of related phenomena. > My question to CB was "Could you please expound on your nonsighted condition and how you perceive things during your OBEs?" > C.B.: I've been blind since birth. My optic nerves didn't develop while I was in the womb, but I still have vivid OBEs and dreams. It's hard to explain just how I sense things and get around while I'm out of my body, but I'll give it a try. I experience no real difference between my OBE and dream perceptions. When I have a dream or OBE, I am very aware of what is around me, but everything is always three-dimensional. I can't perceive anything as two-dimensional, such as what's on the surface of a picture, but can perceive the canvas and frame as a whole very clearly. The area around me is extremely vivid in my mind, in all directions, and is very detailed. This awareness is much stronger than my normal awake perceptions are in my own home. When I project it's like I can feel everything around me, as if I am continually touching everything with my fingers, with my mind, with my senses reaching out and touching everything around me all at once. My senses extend a long way, much further than usual, and I can feel into the distance around me in probably much the same way as sighted people do with their eyes. I get around fine when I'm out of my body, with no hesitation or doubt about my surroundings at all. I never worry about bumping into things and can sense exactly what is ahead of me and around me at all times. If I meet people during an OBE or dream, I can instantly tell what they look like and what they are wearing, just as if I were running my hands all over them. This isn't really sight, as I have no idea of what color or light is, but my dream and OBE perceptions are about as close to sight as it gets for me. From page 42 of https://ia902904.us.archive.org/28/items/AstralDynamicsANEWApproachToOutOfBodyExperiences/Astral%20Dynamics%20-%20A%20NEW%20Approach%20to%20Out-of-Body%20Experiences.pdf https://ia902904.us.archive.org/28/items/AstralDynamicsANEWA... My question about that has always been where the dividing line is between the people that can supposedly accurately describe places they haven't physically been and whatnot, and the mental blueprint of the brain going brrt :P It's arguably half-tangentially related to what you describe, mostly because of the reference to hands.

spf30 5y ago

This is the exact same for me. The exception for this is when I dream, in which case I perceive mental imagery the way I assume most people do. Sometimes, a dream will turn lucid, and in that case, the mental imagery quickly devolves into the tactile/proprioceptive representation you describe. An interesting note: taking bupropion (or, I assume, any similar stimulant) at bedtime drastically improves both the frequency and visual imagery of my dreams. Moreover, while taking it, should a dream turn lucid, my subjective experience in the dream is one of suddenly being unable to fixate on specific details of objects or direct my gaze (as if my visual field is entirely peripheral), rather than the 3D-modeled resin. My brain is definitely capable of generating mental imagery, and I'll get flashbulb imagery as an automatic response to cues, but something interferes with the ability to visualize things while I'm awake.

perrygeo 5y ago

Very similar. I can conjure a brief glimpse of an image but never hold onto it for longer than a few hundred ms. I'm left with a notion just as much tactile and 3D/spatial but without any visual imagery attached. At best, it's like abstract chalk drawings with rough shapes on a black canvas. Very little recall. But the strange part is I experience above-average visual recognition memory. It's like I can take those "chalk drawings" and pattern match them ridiculously fast against real stimulus. I can recognize faces and street corners from decades ago - but only if I see them again in real life. I can't conjure the image up in my head without the corresponding stimulus no matter how hard I try. Personally, I find it strange that non-aphantasic people can effectively hallucinate on demand. It's the equivalent of hearing voices in your head - a disconnect between sensation and perception that, honestly, reduces my trust in their judgement. I know people who are strong visualizers (can play movies on demand behind their eyelids) and find they tend to have a terrible ability to accurately convey a story - presumably they've visualized their fantasy scenario so much they're unable to differentiate it from reality? My narrative + chalk drawing memories are consistently more reliable, if not more sparse.