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I'm honestly not even sure if someone could describe their own experience of thinking about visual things with enough detail that I could tell whether my own ex

I'm honestly not even sure if someone could describe their own experience of thinking about visual things with enough detail that I could tell whether my own experience of thinking about visual things is significantly different. When you started talking about having no concept of seeing something in your head I thought "whoa, that's very different from my experience." But then what you went on to describe sounds precisely like my experience. I can make poor but recognizable drawings of commonly-known objects like animals. I can also imagine large human spaces I've spent a lot of time in, like my apartment building or old Counter-Strike levels, with a fair amount of detail (certainly enough to describe how to navigate). But now I'm wondering what distinction you're making between being able to use your imagination to accomplish these tasks and "seeing" or "picturing" these objects in your mind. Are you expecting to be able to literally summon a visual hallucination of these objects? Surely that ability is extremely rare, and isn't what people mean when they say they're picturing something in their head, right?

caymanjim 5y ago
> Are you expecting to be able to literally summon a visual hallucination of these objects? It seems to me that many people describe it that way. That's why I think it may have more to do with the language people are using to describe the experience than the experience itself. Like you, I can describe (and probably draw pretty accurately) the layout of my house or a Counter-Strike level.
- cj 5y ago
  If it helps, when I close my eyes I see black/darkness. If I close my eyes and try to picture what my bedroom looks like, I still only see black/darkness… but I can still describe the features of the room in very much detail. I definitely can’t conjure up a vivid image in my head, I would describe it more as a feeling rather than a strictly visual experience. Same with recalling what someone’s voice sounds like… I can imagine what someone’s voice sounds like, but definitely can’t hear their voice in any meaningful level of detail, yet I’m still able to describe the voice - it’s more of a feeling than a literal audio/visual experience. I definitely wouldn’t describe my own experience as anything close to a visual hallucination because I only see black/darkness… (I think) it’s uncommon to literally see things with extreme clarity as someone hallucinating would. Or maybe seeing black/darkness when visualizing things is abnormal?
  - bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago
    Aphantasia probably has a single digit percentage incidence rate in the population but it is hard to know.
  - lisper 5y ago
    Just by way of providing another data point: I was going down this exact same rabbit hole and my experience matches your description exactly.
  - philsnow 5y ago
    I have no idea if I'm in the minority of humans in this, but when I picture something in my head, it has colors, shapes, and I guess I'm using the same brain hardware as when I use my eyes to process the "phantasm" of it. My mental model is that this facility is another "source", in addition to my eyes, that can be used to pipe sense data into the visual processing "sink". When I was young I was into ray-tracing with POV-Ray. The exercise of positioning a camera in a scene using a text file got me thinking about what it would look like if my eyes were up in _that corner_ of my bedroom. I would sit at my desk and imagine what it would look like and I would be "seeing" a picture in my head of what it would look like (given what information I had about things like whether the top of the half-open door was painted or not, whether the top of the ceiling fan was dusty, that kind of thing). Right now I can mentally picture the inside of my refrigerator and pantry, and that's pretty much how I keep track of whether I'm running out of various things (which might explain why I'm so terrible at doing so, it's only as good as my mental image). It's not like I have one of those eidetic memories; these mental images are flawed and only somewhat accurately represent reality, with more familiar things being represented more accurately. It kind of doesn't matter whether my eyes are open or not, but it's a bit easier if they're closed. If they're open, my eyes naturally just go unfocused while I'm doing it (my parents called it "staring off into space").
    - Nzen 5y ago
      I'll second the first paragraph here. The demonstration I've come up with involves holding a hand closely in front of only my left eye. My brain lets me see both things, but my hand also has a 'transparent' characteristic when I'm focusing on my right vision. Back to visualizing, the 'other source' isn't anywhere near as crisp as the demonstration, and often is a mix of memory / imagination / caricature / labeling it with the concept.
MobiusHorizons 5y ago
It's certainly hard to describe the inner workings of one's mind with adequate detail to compare them to others. However I believe this anecdote may provide some insight. One test I have performed on myself in the past is to decide I will visually remember a specific moment. (I have done this several times). I could bring up that image in my head, and remember certain specific things (eg the color and shape of someone's hat). Like other visual memories it only has partial detail. I can still remember these instances, but most of the detail has now faded (~10 years ago). This seems to work similarly to how I bring up a visual such as the elephant or apple in the article. I'm pretty sure not everyone would describe their own experience of visual memory the same way, but maybe that's descriptive enough to understand if there is a difference.
myself248 5y ago
> Are you expecting to be able to literally summon a visual hallucination of these objects? That's exactly what I get. I can picture an elephant, rotate it around in 3-space, imagine how it looks and how I might draw it from angles that I've never seen an elephant pictured from, etc. I'm no good at drawing living things, but anything geometric I can render on paper pretty much exactly as it appears in my head. It's like CAD but without the CA. When I was on a field crew installing telephone switching equipment, we'd often get incompletely-engineered jobs, where for various reasons, the rack was supplied with sort of a first-guess of mounting hardware. Sometimes the engineers admitted it, there'd be a note in the plans like "add'l overhead structure tbd by installer". Or sometimes conditions had changed in the time since the job was engineered, due to other activity in the office. Either way, I'd get to sketching and ordering. (environments like this: https://www.cabletrays.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/image-10.jpg https://www.cabletrays.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/image-... ) Typically this meant taking a few measurements, jotting those onto paper, and then drawing out the existing structure and what I planned to add. Then breaking that down into a list of piece-parts, faxing the drawing and the list to the engineer, who would turn it into part numbers for the warehouse, who would arrange for a delivery the next day. I did it all freehand, or maybe with the aid of a straightedge. This was easy for me, it was exactly like having a bunch of LEGO bricks and picturing how I might put them together. After running it through the fax machine to get engineering signoff, I could hand the drawing to any other installer and they'd know exactly what I had in mind, even if they hadn't initially envisioned it, and I could go do something else while they assembled it. (My upper-body strength was never ideal for the superstructure stuff anyway; if the job involved any wire-wrap terminations that was probably the best place for me.) The majority of installers in the field could do this, though some were certainly better at it than others. Most would start with a sketch from the perspective of an observer on the ground, even if that wasn't actually the clearest way to depict it, and then add other angles as needed. I knew one who would actually climb into the rack with a clipboard and pencil if he needed to show it from another angle, whereas most of us could freely imagine and project the scene from any desired angle in our heads and just sketch it straight out. I always thought this was quite normal, and the guy climbing into the rack because he couldn't rotate the view in his head was the anomaly.
- silisili 5y ago
cryptonector 5y ago
I can close my eyes and see a picture or even video of any scene, from any angle, that I have seen before or that I could arrange the details of in my head, as if it were real. I don't even have to close my eyes, but it's more vivid if I do. However, I have trouble visualizing faces in great detail, or even much. When I try to recall a face, the harder I try to recall it, the more blurry it becomes. Aphantasia seems... hard to imagine. But evidently it's real. I imagine closing my eyes and being unable to summon a mental image of objects or persons. It's almost like being blind, but only when one's eyes are closed, and that's very weird. The most interesting question about aphantasia, for me, would be just how much it affects one's ability to deal with concepts, especially visual concepts. It's a question one might have about visual impairment as well. But it's clear that it doesn't seem to matter much. I know brilliant blind people -- it doesn't seem to slow them much if at all, and even seems to help them to some degree. The effect on conceptualization must be very subtle indeed -- a testament to the neuroplasticity of our brains.
Barrin92 5y ago
If I understand OP correctly I think a test of sorts might be mathematical objects. If I think of a cube, I can visually imagine a cube in my head, turn it, and so on. It's not 100% percent detailed, it's harder to 'see' it than to actually see it, but is is 'there' in a way. However some sort of abstract higher dimensional thing that doesn't have a physical analog I can't imagine at all. If there's really a difference in how people perceive these things than I imagine for OP there is no difference between visualizing any object but for others there is.
DarylZero 5y ago
> Are you expecting to be able to literally summon a visual hallucination of these objects? It's not a hallucination because that would imply it interferes with your eye vision. It's like a third eye, independent of the other two, so it doesn't interfere.
noduerme 5y ago
I consider myself good at visualizing form and space, but when people say they "see" something in their mind's eye, I assume they're not like literally having a full-blown DMT hallucination where objects appear solid and indistinguishable from physical reality. The "images" are part information. You can think about the shadows or the highlights and they'll pop out or recede as you think about them. I actually have a thing where I can't process math without seeing geometry in my head. But I was never naturally good at perfectly visualizing real world objects. Instead of math and code, which came naturally, I pursued art college because I considered it a weak spot for me. And indeed, I wasn't very good at it... but years of classes and practice made me better, and strengthened my visualization skill. I think it can be learned and exercised, like any other part of the brain. Just like musical recognition can be learned, if not perfect pitch.
- lazysheepherd 5y ago
  > The "images" are part information. This. It is a mashup of both. I can clearly visualize many 3D objects in my mind, as well as zoom, pan, scale, rotate, recolor, animate, distort them, etc. But it is not purely visual, because I often "see" opposite side of a cube momentarily, which I should not be able to from this perspective. So, it is not a rendering engine. It is not physically, spatially and temporally stable. Stability is lost especially as your focus shifts (e.g. "seeing" behind objects as your attention slips there) The best way I know to describe this is by old and new Tesla FSD predictions which are sampled here: https://youtu.be/j0z4FweCy4M?t=3768 https://youtu.be/j0z4FweCy4M?t=3768 Improved version is how people talk about visualization, but the old unstable version is how (at least for me) it mostly is.

caymanjim 5y ago

> Are you expecting to be able to literally summon a visual hallucination of these objects? It seems to me that many people describe it that way. That's why I think it may have more to do with the language people are using to describe the experience than the experience itself. Like you, I can describe (and probably draw pretty accurately) the layout of my house or a Counter-Strike level.

cj 5y ago
If it helps, when I close my eyes I see black/darkness. If I close my eyes and try to picture what my bedroom looks like, I still only see black/darkness… but I can still describe the features of the room in very much detail. I definitely can’t conjure up a vivid image in my head, I would describe it more as a feeling rather than a strictly visual experience. Same with recalling what someone’s voice sounds like… I can imagine what someone’s voice sounds like, but definitely can’t hear their voice in any meaningful level of detail, yet I’m still able to describe the voice - it’s more of a feeling than a literal audio/visual experience. I definitely wouldn’t describe my own experience as anything close to a visual hallucination because I only see black/darkness… (I think) it’s uncommon to literally see things with extreme clarity as someone hallucinating would. Or maybe seeing black/darkness when visualizing things is abnormal?
- bitxbitxbitcoin 5y ago
  Aphantasia probably has a single digit percentage incidence rate in the population but it is hard to know.
- lisper 5y ago
  Just by way of providing another data point: I was going down this exact same rabbit hole and my experience matches your description exactly.
- philsnow 5y ago
  I have no idea if I'm in the minority of humans in this, but when I picture something in my head, it has colors, shapes, and I guess I'm using the same brain hardware as when I use my eyes to process the "phantasm" of it. My mental model is that this facility is another "source", in addition to my eyes, that can be used to pipe sense data into the visual processing "sink". When I was young I was into ray-tracing with POV-Ray. The exercise of positioning a camera in a scene using a text file got me thinking about what it would look like if my eyes were up in _that corner_ of my bedroom. I would sit at my desk and imagine what it would look like and I would be "seeing" a picture in my head of what it would look like (given what information I had about things like whether the top of the half-open door was painted or not, whether the top of the ceiling fan was dusty, that kind of thing). Right now I can mentally picture the inside of my refrigerator and pantry, and that's pretty much how I keep track of whether I'm running out of various things (which might explain why I'm so terrible at doing so, it's only as good as my mental image). It's not like I have one of those eidetic memories; these mental images are flawed and only somewhat accurately represent reality, with more familiar things being represented more accurately. It kind of doesn't matter whether my eyes are open or not, but it's a bit easier if they're closed. If they're open, my eyes naturally just go unfocused while I'm doing it (my parents called it "staring off into space").
  - Nzen 5y ago
    I'll second the first paragraph here. The demonstration I've come up with involves holding a hand closely in front of only my left eye. My brain lets me see both things, but my hand also has a 'transparent' characteristic when I'm focusing on my right vision. Back to visualizing, the 'other source' isn't anywhere near as crisp as the demonstration, and often is a mix of memory / imagination / caricature / labeling it with the concept.

MobiusHorizons 5y ago

It's certainly hard to describe the inner workings of one's mind with adequate detail to compare them to others. However I believe this anecdote may provide some insight. One test I have performed on myself in the past is to decide I will visually remember a specific moment. (I have done this several times). I could bring up that image in my head, and remember certain specific things (eg the color and shape of someone's hat). Like other visual memories it only has partial detail. I can still remember these instances, but most of the detail has now faded (~10 years ago). This seems to work similarly to how I bring up a visual such as the elephant or apple in the article. I'm pretty sure not everyone would describe their own experience of visual memory the same way, but maybe that's descriptive enough to understand if there is a difference.

myself248 5y ago

> Are you expecting to be able to literally summon a visual hallucination of these objects? That's exactly what I get. I can picture an elephant, rotate it around in 3-space, imagine how it looks and how I might draw it from angles that I've never seen an elephant pictured from, etc. I'm no good at drawing living things, but anything geometric I can render on paper pretty much exactly as it appears in my head. It's like CAD but without the CA. When I was on a field crew installing telephone switching equipment, we'd often get incompletely-engineered jobs, where for various reasons, the rack was supplied with sort of a first-guess of mounting hardware. Sometimes the engineers admitted it, there'd be a note in the plans like "add'l overhead structure tbd by installer". Or sometimes conditions had changed in the time since the job was engineered, due to other activity in the office. Either way, I'd get to sketching and ordering. (environments like this: https://www.cabletrays.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/image-10.jpg https://www.cabletrays.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/image-... ) Typically this meant taking a few measurements, jotting those onto paper, and then drawing out the existing structure and what I planned to add. Then breaking that down into a list of piece-parts, faxing the drawing and the list to the engineer, who would turn it into part numbers for the warehouse, who would arrange for a delivery the next day. I did it all freehand, or maybe with the aid of a straightedge. This was easy for me, it was exactly like having a bunch of LEGO bricks and picturing how I might put them together. After running it through the fax machine to get engineering signoff, I could hand the drawing to any other installer and they'd know exactly what I had in mind, even if they hadn't initially envisioned it, and I could go do something else while they assembled it. (My upper-body strength was never ideal for the superstructure stuff anyway; if the job involved any wire-wrap terminations that was probably the best place for me.) The majority of installers in the field could do this, though some were certainly better at it than others. Most would start with a sketch from the perspective of an observer on the ground, even if that wasn't actually the clearest way to depict it, and then add other angles as needed. I knew one who would actually climb into the rack with a clipboard and pencil if he needed to show it from another angle, whereas most of us could freely imagine and project the scene from any desired angle in our heads and just sketch it straight out. I always thought this was quite normal, and the guy climbing into the rack because he couldn't rotate the view in his head was the anomaly.

silisili 5y ago

cryptonector 5y ago

I can close my eyes and see a picture or even video of any scene, from any angle, that I have seen before or that I could arrange the details of in my head, as if it were real. I don't even have to close my eyes, but it's more vivid if I do. However, I have trouble visualizing faces in great detail, or even much. When I try to recall a face, the harder I try to recall it, the more blurry it becomes. Aphantasia seems... hard to imagine. But evidently it's real. I imagine closing my eyes and being unable to summon a mental image of objects or persons. It's almost like being blind, but only when one's eyes are closed, and that's very weird. The most interesting question about aphantasia, for me, would be just how much it affects one's ability to deal with concepts, especially visual concepts. It's a question one might have about visual impairment as well. But it's clear that it doesn't seem to matter much. I know brilliant blind people -- it doesn't seem to slow them much if at all, and even seems to help them to some degree. The effect on conceptualization must be very subtle indeed -- a testament to the neuroplasticity of our brains.

Barrin92 5y ago

If I understand OP correctly I think a test of sorts might be mathematical objects. If I think of a cube, I can visually imagine a cube in my head, turn it, and so on. It's not 100% percent detailed, it's harder to 'see' it than to actually see it, but is is 'there' in a way. However some sort of abstract higher dimensional thing that doesn't have a physical analog I can't imagine at all. If there's really a difference in how people perceive these things than I imagine for OP there is no difference between visualizing any object but for others there is.

DarylZero 5y ago

> Are you expecting to be able to literally summon a visual hallucination of these objects? It's not a hallucination because that would imply it interferes with your eye vision. It's like a third eye, independent of the other two, so it doesn't interfere.

noduerme 5y ago

I consider myself good at visualizing form and space, but when people say they "see" something in their mind's eye, I assume they're not like literally having a full-blown DMT hallucination where objects appear solid and indistinguishable from physical reality. The "images" are part information. You can think about the shadows or the highlights and they'll pop out or recede as you think about them. I actually have a thing where I can't process math without seeing geometry in my head. But I was never naturally good at perfectly visualizing real world objects. Instead of math and code, which came naturally, I pursued art college because I considered it a weak spot for me. And indeed, I wasn't very good at it... but years of classes and practice made me better, and strengthened my visualization skill. I think it can be learned and exercised, like any other part of the brain. Just like musical recognition can be learned, if not perfect pitch.

lazysheepherd 5y ago
> The "images" are part information. This. It is a mashup of both. I can clearly visualize many 3D objects in my mind, as well as zoom, pan, scale, rotate, recolor, animate, distort them, etc. But it is not purely visual, because I often "see" opposite side of a cube momentarily, which I should not be able to from this perspective. So, it is not a rendering engine. It is not physically, spatially and temporally stable. Stability is lost especially as your focus shifts (e.g. "seeing" behind objects as your attention slips there) The best way I know to describe this is by old and new Tesla FSD predictions which are sampled here: https://youtu.be/j0z4FweCy4M?t=3768 https://youtu.be/j0z4FweCy4M?t=3768 Improved version is how people talk about visualization, but the old unstable version is how (at least for me) it mostly is.