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While I dislike the term "aphantasia" for being technically inaccurate, it is the closest label for the condition of my brain. My brain is completely free of an

While I dislike the term "aphantasia" for being technically inaccurate, it is the closest label for the condition of my brain. My brain is completely free of any visual or auditory (or other sense) creations of any kind, other than what I'm perceiving in a given moment based on inputs from my eyes or ears (or nose, fingers, tongue, etc.) This is true whether I have ingested a "mind altering" substance, or not. I do apparently see and hear things in dreams, however. I cannot recall them later, other than by remembering facts and feelings about them. The Aphantasia definition quoted on Wikipedia states it is "the inability to voluntarily create mental images in one's mind". But, there also exists an idea of a state in which an individual's brain NEVER creates mental representations of any kind, willful or not, other than what is being observed by the senses in that moment. Thankfully, I still have an imagination. Thinking mind will always think, if allowed by the awareness. What makes it weird is whether or not things are seen in mind, or heard in mind when that thinking occurs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

postalrat 4y ago
If someone asked you if a tennis ball could fit into a keyhole you couldn't answer?
- Jtsummers 4y ago
  That's unrelated to aphantasia, and is instead related to knowledge which doesn't require the ability to visualize to apply. Any common keyhole is going to be obviously smaller than a standard sized tennis ball to any person aware of both objects. An inability to answer your question would occur if someone lacked knowledge about one or both of the two objects, or had a fundamental inability to recall information about relative sizes and shapes of the two objects (perhaps generalized to more than just those two).
  - postalrat 4y ago
    What do you mean by "obviously smaller"? How do you make that judgement without ever being told one is smaller than the other and without being able to visualize both?
    - Jtsummers 4y ago
      By having experience or knowledge of both objects. If you've ever held a tennis ball and have ever seen a keyhole you know which one is bigger than the other, you have no need to visualize them in your mind in order to make a comparison. So long as you can recall these facts about them, you can make a comparison based on knowledge and not on visualization. Now if something prevents you from having this knowledge (somehow you have never seen a tennis ball or a keyhole, or something in your brain prevents you from having the ability to recall facts about the objects like their sizes) then that's something else, but it's not aphantasia. Besides, visualizations aren't perfectly accurate, they are subject to your own knowledge and memories. And they can be distorted by poor recall or just the imagination itself. I'm capable of visualizing a tennis ball that is small enough to fit inside a typical keyhole, or a keyhole big enough to permit a standard size tennis ball. That doesn't make either scenario realistic just because I can visualize them.
      - postalrat 4y ago
        So do they remember the size of things in terms of numbers then do some sort of mathematical algorithm to compare their sizes? I'm trying to understand how things can be compared without some sort of internal visualization.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        Jtsummers 4y ago
        Possibly with numbers. Can you properly visualize a tennis ball next to a baseball and tell which is larger? I was never much of an athlete (in the sports ball sense, at least) and have insufficient experience with either to tell you definitively which is larger (I looked it up, my guess was baseball and that turned out to be correct). The fact is that a small but still standard sized baseball is only 5mm larger than a large but still standard sized tennis ball. That is near enough that my memory (I played baseball last as a kid) could not distinguish between the size of the two objects. But now I know the fact, a standard baseball is larger than a standard tennis ball (now, don't ask me in a few weeks what the actual sizes are, I will probably forget, though I will probably remember that the baseball is larger). Another way is just having knowledge of relative sizes and the ability to perform rudimentary logic. A tennis ball feels about the same in my hand as a door knob (in terms of size and ability to wrap my hand around it, bigger than most but not by too much). A keyhole fits into a doorknob. I'd have to be really drunk to not realize the logical implication of that: A tennis ball won't fit into a keyhole (assuming both are standard sized and we're not talking about a comedian's prop key and keyhole).
- majormajor 4y ago
  If I asked you that question would you visualize a tennis ball next to a keyhole? I would not. I'd answer based on what (to the best of my understanding of my own thought process) is something more like a rough tagging and comparison of "tennis balls are roughly this big" "keyholes are roughly this big" -> "the one is too big to fit." Similarly with something like comparing an elephant to a train. I'm not picturing the two next to each other, I'm trying to remember roughly how big each is.
  - postalrat 4y ago
    Yes, I would visualize a tennis ball near a keyhole. Another question might be why does a key fit in keyhole and a penny doesn't? A key is bigger than a penny. Or how did this tree do that damage? https://miro.medium.com/max/738/0*V3lJsXAHSDxqXgxf.jpg https://miro.medium.com/max/738/0*V3lJsXAHSDxqXgxf.jpg
- mescaline 4y ago
  I couldn't be aware of seeing such an image, but factually I can say a normal tennis ball does not fit into a normal keyhole. Then again, there's Alice.
aidenn0 4y ago
There seems to be great variation in vividness and occurrence of involuntary mental images as well. I have to put effort in if I want to picture something, so most of the time I'm reading books I don't have any mental image of what is happening. My wife, on the other hand, involuntarily forms rather vivid mental images of stories she is reading, to the point where she has to avoid violent literature in the same manner that she avoids gory movies. Our subjective experience of reading any given book is so different that it sometimes feels like we read different books when discussing them afterwards.
renewiltord 4y ago
So, for instance if you were supplied two weird shapes rotated strangely and then asked you if they would fit together like a jigsaw puzzle you can't rotate them and place them together? Man, I can't imagine how this works with assembling furniture.
- majormajor 4y ago
  When I assemble furniture I do a lot of "pick up this piece and look at it from different angles to see if it matches the piece in the diagram for this step" because yeah, it's generally VERY difficult for me to visualize the result of "look at this from 45 degrees below it" in my head. It's similarly hard to hold onto a mental picture of a puzzle piece profile I'm missing or such.
- mescaline 4y ago
  I am, strangely enough, highly spatial and tested off the charts for it when I was younger. I can do exactly what you describe, with a high degree of precision. I do this mainly by elimination, which is likely due to the fact I can't consciously perceive the imagery, but only get a feeling if it is "right" or not. One way I put it to a visualizer recently was that I am not conscious of seeing the map, but I am definitely operating on the mesh. The way he described it was that he was actively seeing the map, overlayed on the model, as if it were a screen in mind. He waved vaguely to "up here" where it "was".
  - daniel-cussen 4y ago
    Yeah sounds like you are subconciously doing the work 100%, it's just you operate with different subconcious/concious roles and limits. The mental visualization is off bounds for your concious mind.
  - sph 4y ago
    Same, I have aphantasia but I definitely am a visual thinker. The visualization in my mind is quite abstract and far removed from the act of seeing.

postalrat 4y ago

If someone asked you if a tennis ball could fit into a keyhole you couldn't answer?

Jtsummers 4y ago
That's unrelated to aphantasia, and is instead related to knowledge which doesn't require the ability to visualize to apply. Any common keyhole is going to be obviously smaller than a standard sized tennis ball to any person aware of both objects. An inability to answer your question would occur if someone lacked knowledge about one or both of the two objects, or had a fundamental inability to recall information about relative sizes and shapes of the two objects (perhaps generalized to more than just those two).
- postalrat 4y ago
  What do you mean by "obviously smaller"? How do you make that judgement without ever being told one is smaller than the other and without being able to visualize both?
  - Jtsummers 4y ago
    By having experience or knowledge of both objects. If you've ever held a tennis ball and have ever seen a keyhole you know which one is bigger than the other, you have no need to visualize them in your mind in order to make a comparison. So long as you can recall these facts about them, you can make a comparison based on knowledge and not on visualization. Now if something prevents you from having this knowledge (somehow you have never seen a tennis ball or a keyhole, or something in your brain prevents you from having the ability to recall facts about the objects like their sizes) then that's something else, but it's not aphantasia. Besides, visualizations aren't perfectly accurate, they are subject to your own knowledge and memories. And they can be distorted by poor recall or just the imagination itself. I'm capable of visualizing a tennis ball that is small enough to fit inside a typical keyhole, or a keyhole big enough to permit a standard size tennis ball. That doesn't make either scenario realistic just because I can visualize them.
    - postalrat 4y ago
      So do they remember the size of things in terms of numbers then do some sort of mathematical algorithm to compare their sizes? I'm trying to understand how things can be compared without some sort of internal visualization.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - Jtsummers 4y ago
        Possibly with numbers. Can you properly visualize a tennis ball next to a baseball and tell which is larger? I was never much of an athlete (in the sports ball sense, at least) and have insufficient experience with either to tell you definitively which is larger (I looked it up, my guess was baseball and that turned out to be correct). The fact is that a small but still standard sized baseball is only 5mm larger than a large but still standard sized tennis ball. That is near enough that my memory (I played baseball last as a kid) could not distinguish between the size of the two objects. But now I know the fact, a standard baseball is larger than a standard tennis ball (now, don't ask me in a few weeks what the actual sizes are, I will probably forget, though I will probably remember that the baseball is larger). Another way is just having knowledge of relative sizes and the ability to perform rudimentary logic. A tennis ball feels about the same in my hand as a door knob (in terms of size and ability to wrap my hand around it, bigger than most but not by too much). A keyhole fits into a doorknob. I'd have to be really drunk to not realize the logical implication of that: A tennis ball won't fit into a keyhole (assuming both are standard sized and we're not talking about a comedian's prop key and keyhole).
majormajor 4y ago
If I asked you that question would you visualize a tennis ball next to a keyhole? I would not. I'd answer based on what (to the best of my understanding of my own thought process) is something more like a rough tagging and comparison of "tennis balls are roughly this big" "keyholes are roughly this big" -> "the one is too big to fit." Similarly with something like comparing an elephant to a train. I'm not picturing the two next to each other, I'm trying to remember roughly how big each is.
- postalrat 4y ago
  Yes, I would visualize a tennis ball near a keyhole. Another question might be why does a key fit in keyhole and a penny doesn't? A key is bigger than a penny. Or how did this tree do that damage? https://miro.medium.com/max/738/0*V3lJsXAHSDxqXgxf.jpg https://miro.medium.com/max/738/0*V3lJsXAHSDxqXgxf.jpg
mescaline 4y ago
I couldn't be aware of seeing such an image, but factually I can say a normal tennis ball does not fit into a normal keyhole. Then again, there's Alice.

aidenn0 4y ago

There seems to be great variation in vividness and occurrence of involuntary mental images as well. I have to put effort in if I want to picture something, so most of the time I'm reading books I don't have any mental image of what is happening. My wife, on the other hand, involuntarily forms rather vivid mental images of stories she is reading, to the point where she has to avoid violent literature in the same manner that she avoids gory movies. Our subjective experience of reading any given book is so different that it sometimes feels like we read different books when discussing them afterwards.

renewiltord 4y ago

So, for instance if you were supplied two weird shapes rotated strangely and then asked you if they would fit together like a jigsaw puzzle you can't rotate them and place them together? Man, I can't imagine how this works with assembling furniture.

majormajor 4y ago
When I assemble furniture I do a lot of "pick up this piece and look at it from different angles to see if it matches the piece in the diagram for this step" because yeah, it's generally VERY difficult for me to visualize the result of "look at this from 45 degrees below it" in my head. It's similarly hard to hold onto a mental picture of a puzzle piece profile I'm missing or such.
mescaline 4y ago
I am, strangely enough, highly spatial and tested off the charts for it when I was younger. I can do exactly what you describe, with a high degree of precision. I do this mainly by elimination, which is likely due to the fact I can't consciously perceive the imagery, but only get a feeling if it is "right" or not. One way I put it to a visualizer recently was that I am not conscious of seeing the map, but I am definitely operating on the mesh. The way he described it was that he was actively seeing the map, overlayed on the model, as if it were a screen in mind. He waved vaguely to "up here" where it "was".
- daniel-cussen 4y ago
  Yeah sounds like you are subconciously doing the work 100%, it's just you operate with different subconcious/concious roles and limits. The mental visualization is off bounds for your concious mind.
- sph 4y ago
  Same, I have aphantasia but I definitely am a visual thinker. The visualization in my mind is quite abstract and far removed from the act of seeing.