5 ms·

I am very skeptical about the concept of aphantasia. For one, I think that visual phantasy can be trained, or at least developed. Also, it is near impossible

by smokel 3y ago

I am very skeptical about the concept of aphantasia. For one, I think that visual phantasy can be trained, or at least developed. Also, it is near impossible to report objectively about your inner processes in a useful way. As an example, many people believed for some time that dreams were in black and white, which is obviously not true for everyone. However, this does not imply that dreams are in color. It seems more likely that dreams and their visual response are separate processes. It may well be that some people actually have some form of aphantasia, but all the self reporting of amazing visual powers or the lack thereof seems more indicative of peoples' egos than the actual differences in what they are capable of. Happy to learn that I am wrong here!

racingmars 3y ago
> I am very skeptical about the concept of aphantasia. > Also, it is near impossible to report objectively about your inner processes in a useful way. I agree that discussing our mental/inner processes is difficult due to a lack of a common frame of reference on which to base descriptions. (I'm reminded of McCoy and Spock's conversation in Star Trek IV... "Are you telling me I'd have to die to discuss your experience of death with you?") I (approx. 40 years old) became aware of the concept of aphantasia about three years ago. I immediately identified with it... or rather, I immediately found it mind-boggling that other people claim to experience anything close to "seeing" something by closing their eyes and thinking about it. That's such a foreign concept to me I had always assumed people's descriptions of visualizing things in their mind, daydreaming, etc were extremely metaphorical, not describing a process that is anything like "seeing" something. I have talked to many friends at length about how they describe their "mind's eye" after realizing I was probably different. And even how it extends, in the case of some of my friends with particularly visual mind's eyes, to the "mind's ears" and "mind's nose" in music and scent recall. Based on my friends' descriptions to me of how they try to describe how they experience mental visualization, it's clear the capability is a spectrum... some describe it as blurry gray image of what they're thinking about, some describe it as being a picture as real as a photograph that they can literally see and smell. I agree with you that it's hard to tell how reliable the descriptions are relative to each other, but I can tell you this: hearing all of themselves describe it, even down at the "it's just a blurry gray 'image' in my mind" end of the spectrum, none of them sounded familiar to me or like any kind of "visualization" I've ever experienced while awake (specifically: none at all). If it were simply a matter of being able to accurately report objectively on our inner processes in a useful way, I feel like there wouldn't be such a clear divide between the way a minority of people (allegedly with aphantasia) describe it and the way the majority of people describe it. Whether it's aphantasia or not, it's clear to me at this point that there is definitely a "group A" and "group B" in terms of how people describe their "mind's eye" when asked. Related, I also have a friend who says she has no internal monologue, another phenomenon I've read about. She thinks entirely visually. Not having an inner monologue is such an incomprehensible concept to me; literally the only way I can think is with my inner monologue. Brains are weird.
- thegabriele 3y ago
  What if i ask you to visualize the road from your residence to the first stop you usually make? Kinda like using google street, but in your mind...Do you visualize nothing of the streets, the buildings, the crossroads, trees and the like? Do you orient yourself just by "instructions"? Thanks
  - racingmars 3y ago
    Just by instructions is probably how I'd describe it, yes. No visualization of the streets, other houses, etc. Since you asked specifically about my residence to the first stop, which is obviously the portion of driving I perform more than anything else, I would say there's something almost... "Pavlovian" about it, in that the route and actions to get from my house to the first intersection are "burned in" to my brain, but not at all in a way I'd describe as being able to "visualize" it versus "describe it verbally," which is what I have to do in my mind if asked about it. Whether it's significant or not (related to aphantasia), I have a horrible sense of direction, get lost while driving incredibly easily, and am entirely reliant on step-by-step directions to get somewhere (now that GPS in the car is a thing it's not too terrifying to try to drive somewhere I've never driven before, but I've been driving since before GPS was a thing available in cars and getting to new places was not fun back then!)
  - spiralx 3y ago
    I can recall visual "snapshots" of my road and places I know, but I can't hold them in mind or do anything with them, and as far as I can tell those flickers of visual memory are in part reconstructed from facts about those places, general knowledge and other snippets of visual memory. I very rarely don't know where I am or how to get somewhere, but that's based on knowing the connections between places as a network, not visualising a journey.
  - ItsMonkk 3y ago
    It might help as someone who believes they have aphantasia that the steps that I do in my head to list out the steps to go somewhere is identical to the steps I would list out to tell someone how to code something up. If you were to ask me for landmarks like stores that I would pass I would be able to do so, but I wouldn't be thinking of what they look like while listing them out just as I wouldn't be thinking of text while coding. It's less instructions and more a full understanding of the structure at play.
lll-o-lll 3y ago
> It may well be that some people actually have some form of aphantasia, but all the self reporting of amazing visual powers or the lack thereof seems more indicative of peoples' egos than the actual differences in what they are capable of. I have it, and I struggle to understand your skepticism. What’s the ego here? I’m proud of not being able to do something? My assumption is that the visual processing layer is still used, I just don’t get to experience that part, so I’m interacting at the lower layer. Kind of the like the “code” in the matrix. You see the woman in the red dress, I see the code. We can still work with the substrate effectively, just in different ways. One thing that does suck is that it seems to be associated with lack of episodic memory. I lack all episodic memory, other than facts about things that have happened. I also don’t have the ability to imagine myself in the future (this is different to not having an imagination, I imagine plenty, just not visually). It makes me a little sad sometimes to think that when I’m old, I won’t have memories like others do, and I do think the lack of episodic style imagination has made it harder to make intentional changes to my life for the better. On the other hand, I think it’s been a great benefit for abstract reasoning. As all my reasoning is necessarily non-visual, problems that don’t naturally have a visual representation are no harder for me. I think it’s useful as a programmer, although I have learned how to draw representations as it’s of benefit for communication. Swings and roundabouts!
- theobromananda 3y ago
  I do not get the ego angle, but I am also skeptic of aphantasia. My own experience could be described by either 1 ("no image") or 5 ("perfectly vivid") in any questionaire concerning it - when I imagine anything, there is no image at all, yet I know I "see" something. E.g. I can think of a barn, and there is the mental impression of the shape, the color and so on, yet nothing at all is seen. I believe most of the difference is, as always, semantics: What does "seeing" an image mean internally? Some people who believe that they have aphantasia believe that there should be an image in front of their eyes when they close it - that is nonsense. It does not help that others who can imagine describe imagination in the same terms. When I think of an abstract idea, the sense of imagination is exactly the same as if I was imagining a picture: there is an impression, but it is not one of the sense but one of mind. The difference can be clearly seen with the use of psychedelics that do create real inner seeing: tryptamines like LSD only strengthen the internal knowing of mental imaginery (plus of course visual artifacts, warping etc. in the actual visual field), yet the combination of LSD and ketamine creates the famous "free-wheeling hallucinations" in which you enter a perfectly lucid photorealistic 3D dream which you can shape in any way you desire. Tropane alkaloids create real hallucinations which you experience instead of reality, but I have no experience with this. Classical psychedelics do not create hallucinations but only mental imaginery and visual morphing.
bstnbstn 3y ago
> Also, it is near impossible to report objectively about your inner processes in a useful way. There are some objective ways to measure visual imagination, for example binocular rivalry, skin conductance response (influence of imagery on emotions) and pupil responses during visualisation. Differences can be seen in fMRI. Also, the VVIQ (Vividness Of Visual Imagery Questionnaire) is considered statistically reliable. > It may well be that some people actually have some form of aphantasia, but all the self reporting of amazing visual powers or the lack thereof seems more indicative of peoples' egos than the actual differences in what they are capable of. Over 10% of people are hyperphantasic (“Phantasia – The psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes”), and the average visual vividness is quite high. I guess especially in the Internet you find more people from the extreme ranges of the spectrum who search actively about the topic. But whether someone rates himself with 4 or 5 (simplified) does not have much significance individually anyway.

by smokel 3y ago

racingmars 3y ago

> I am very skeptical about the concept of aphantasia. > Also, it is near impossible to report objectively about your inner processes in a useful way. I agree that discussing our mental/inner processes is difficult due to a lack of a common frame of reference on which to base descriptions. (I'm reminded of McCoy and Spock's conversation in Star Trek IV... "Are you telling me I'd have to die to discuss your experience of death with you?") I (approx. 40 years old) became aware of the concept of aphantasia about three years ago. I immediately identified with it... or rather, I immediately found it mind-boggling that other people claim to experience anything close to "seeing" something by closing their eyes and thinking about it. That's such a foreign concept to me I had always assumed people's descriptions of visualizing things in their mind, daydreaming, etc were extremely metaphorical, not describing a process that is anything like "seeing" something. I have talked to many friends at length about how they describe their "mind's eye" after realizing I was probably different. And even how it extends, in the case of some of my friends with particularly visual mind's eyes, to the "mind's ears" and "mind's nose" in music and scent recall. Based on my friends' descriptions to me of how they try to describe how they experience mental visualization, it's clear the capability is a spectrum... some describe it as blurry gray image of what they're thinking about, some describe it as being a picture as real as a photograph that they can literally see and smell. I agree with you that it's hard to tell how reliable the descriptions are relative to each other, but I can tell you this: hearing all of themselves describe it, even down at the "it's just a blurry gray 'image' in my mind" end of the spectrum, none of them sounded familiar to me or like any kind of "visualization" I've ever experienced while awake (specifically: none at all). If it were simply a matter of being able to accurately report objectively on our inner processes in a useful way, I feel like there wouldn't be such a clear divide between the way a minority of people (allegedly with aphantasia) describe it and the way the majority of people describe it. Whether it's aphantasia or not, it's clear to me at this point that there is definitely a "group A" and "group B" in terms of how people describe their "mind's eye" when asked. Related, I also have a friend who says she has no internal monologue, another phenomenon I've read about. She thinks entirely visually. Not having an inner monologue is such an incomprehensible concept to me; literally the only way I can think is with my inner monologue. Brains are weird.

thegabriele 3y ago
What if i ask you to visualize the road from your residence to the first stop you usually make? Kinda like using google street, but in your mind...Do you visualize nothing of the streets, the buildings, the crossroads, trees and the like? Do you orient yourself just by "instructions"? Thanks
- racingmars 3y ago
  Just by instructions is probably how I'd describe it, yes. No visualization of the streets, other houses, etc. Since you asked specifically about my residence to the first stop, which is obviously the portion of driving I perform more than anything else, I would say there's something almost... "Pavlovian" about it, in that the route and actions to get from my house to the first intersection are "burned in" to my brain, but not at all in a way I'd describe as being able to "visualize" it versus "describe it verbally," which is what I have to do in my mind if asked about it. Whether it's significant or not (related to aphantasia), I have a horrible sense of direction, get lost while driving incredibly easily, and am entirely reliant on step-by-step directions to get somewhere (now that GPS in the car is a thing it's not too terrifying to try to drive somewhere I've never driven before, but I've been driving since before GPS was a thing available in cars and getting to new places was not fun back then!)
- spiralx 3y ago
  I can recall visual "snapshots" of my road and places I know, but I can't hold them in mind or do anything with them, and as far as I can tell those flickers of visual memory are in part reconstructed from facts about those places, general knowledge and other snippets of visual memory. I very rarely don't know where I am or how to get somewhere, but that's based on knowing the connections between places as a network, not visualising a journey.
- ItsMonkk 3y ago
  It might help as someone who believes they have aphantasia that the steps that I do in my head to list out the steps to go somewhere is identical to the steps I would list out to tell someone how to code something up. If you were to ask me for landmarks like stores that I would pass I would be able to do so, but I wouldn't be thinking of what they look like while listing them out just as I wouldn't be thinking of text while coding. It's less instructions and more a full understanding of the structure at play.

lll-o-lll 3y ago

> It may well be that some people actually have some form of aphantasia, but all the self reporting of amazing visual powers or the lack thereof seems more indicative of peoples' egos than the actual differences in what they are capable of. I have it, and I struggle to understand your skepticism. What’s the ego here? I’m proud of not being able to do something? My assumption is that the visual processing layer is still used, I just don’t get to experience that part, so I’m interacting at the lower layer. Kind of the like the “code” in the matrix. You see the woman in the red dress, I see the code. We can still work with the substrate effectively, just in different ways. One thing that does suck is that it seems to be associated with lack of episodic memory. I lack all episodic memory, other than facts about things that have happened. I also don’t have the ability to imagine myself in the future (this is different to not having an imagination, I imagine plenty, just not visually). It makes me a little sad sometimes to think that when I’m old, I won’t have memories like others do, and I do think the lack of episodic style imagination has made it harder to make intentional changes to my life for the better. On the other hand, I think it’s been a great benefit for abstract reasoning. As all my reasoning is necessarily non-visual, problems that don’t naturally have a visual representation are no harder for me. I think it’s useful as a programmer, although I have learned how to draw representations as it’s of benefit for communication. Swings and roundabouts!

theobromananda 3y ago
I do not get the ego angle, but I am also skeptic of aphantasia. My own experience could be described by either 1 ("no image") or 5 ("perfectly vivid") in any questionaire concerning it - when I imagine anything, there is no image at all, yet I know I "see" something. E.g. I can think of a barn, and there is the mental impression of the shape, the color and so on, yet nothing at all is seen. I believe most of the difference is, as always, semantics: What does "seeing" an image mean internally? Some people who believe that they have aphantasia believe that there should be an image in front of their eyes when they close it - that is nonsense. It does not help that others who can imagine describe imagination in the same terms. When I think of an abstract idea, the sense of imagination is exactly the same as if I was imagining a picture: there is an impression, but it is not one of the sense but one of mind. The difference can be clearly seen with the use of psychedelics that do create real inner seeing: tryptamines like LSD only strengthen the internal knowing of mental imaginery (plus of course visual artifacts, warping etc. in the actual visual field), yet the combination of LSD and ketamine creates the famous "free-wheeling hallucinations" in which you enter a perfectly lucid photorealistic 3D dream which you can shape in any way you desire. Tropane alkaloids create real hallucinations which you experience instead of reality, but I have no experience with this. Classical psychedelics do not create hallucinations but only mental imaginery and visual morphing.

bstnbstn 3y ago

> Also, it is near impossible to report objectively about your inner processes in a useful way. There are some objective ways to measure visual imagination, for example binocular rivalry, skin conductance response (influence of imagery on emotions) and pupil responses during visualisation. Differences can be seen in fMRI. Also, the VVIQ (Vividness Of Visual Imagery Questionnaire) is considered statistically reliable. > It may well be that some people actually have some form of aphantasia, but all the self reporting of amazing visual powers or the lack thereof seems more indicative of peoples' egos than the actual differences in what they are capable of. Over 10% of people are hyperphantasic (“Phantasia – The psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes”), and the average visual vividness is quite high. I guess especially in the Internet you find more people from the extreme ranges of the spectrum who search actively about the topic. But whether someone rates himself with 4 or 5 (simplified) does not have much significance individually anyway.