3 ms·

> I can even draw an above-average impression of one on a piece of paper for you. But I can’t visualize it mentally This is interesting, I would have thought t

> I can even draw an above-average impression of one on a piece of paper for you. But I can’t visualize it mentally This is interesting, I would have thought that if one can describe and draw something, they'd be able to mentally visualise it. My sense of visualisation is often not so strong, in the sense that I don't get to imagine vivid situations during the day, unless I'm recalling something I've seen. What I've noticed is that when I'm sleepy, it becomes exponentially easier to visualise things I've never seen. I'm curious if anyone else has that happen. I've been able to control some of my dreams, though that's off-topic and something that was recently discussed here.

aragonite 3y ago
I think I have something like that. When I'm sleepy, I like to close my eyes and "take a ride" picturing myself looking out the window of a bus driving on a country road, I'd see in mind's eye high definition images of the scenery I pass by, individual flowers, a resting deer, a snowy mountain in the distance, a pretty girl riding on a bicycle, sometimes the scenery will suddenly change from one season to a different one, or one type of landscape (e.g. wheat fields) to a different one (e.g. river bank), like those AI generated "predict next frame" videos ... it's a super relaxing experience. What I find interesting is that I do not feel like I'm in any way "directing" this movie, I continue to be curious to see what will arrive next in my "field of vision" and I have no expectations one way or the other (to be clear, if I do form a volition to see, say, a panda running by the bus, I will succeed; the point is that volition is not needed for new unanticipated images to arrive on their own)
- taneq 3y ago
  I get something similar, like a visual free-association thing while falling asleep. It seems related to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_cinema https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_cinema
checkyoursudo 3y ago
> My sense of visualisation is often not so strong, in the sense that I don't get to imagine vivid situations during the day, unless I'm recalling something I've seen. What I've noticed is that when I'm sleepy, it becomes exponentially easier to visualise things I've never seen. I can somewhat relate. If I close my eyes, I have only a blank, black space and canon conjure up any mental imagery. But I dream and daydream in varying degrees of vividness. So it is kind of like, if I am actively trying to do it, there is no mental workspace available to drawn the image, but under those conditions of lower consciousness/attention, suddenly some imagery appears. So this is also interesting, because I can tell the difference. Some people disbelieve that I have this partial form of aphantasia, and of course I cannot conceive of how to convince them, but I know at least for myself that it is possible to have vivid mental pictures, because of these different times when the canvas is blank and when it is filled. I wish I could recall vivid mental images on demand! So regarding your first point. There are two (at least) ideas about how mental representations exist, depictive and propositional. Depictive is like thinking about a cat and having the actual image of the cat depicted in your mind to some degree of vividness. Propositional is like having a representation of features in your neural networks, and seeing or thinking about a cat activates the diverse set of catness neurons in your brain and you get a sense of a cat but maybe don't see an actual cat anywhere in your mind's eye (because maybe like me you don't have a conscious mind's eye). It seems reasonably likely that these are complementary rather than competing models of brain construction, and some people tend more or all the way one way and others the other way. See, e.g., https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1504933112 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1504933112
- mhandley 3y ago
  I'm very similar to you - I can't consciously visualize - I just get a blank when I try. But I can lucid dream, and then I can visualize perfectly, even designing complex 3d mechanisms. When I'm fully awake, I'm sort of aware those visualisations are still happening in my subconscious, but I can't access them consciously.
d_tr 3y ago
> I 'm curious if anyone else has that happen. When I am still fully conscious but drifting off, with my eyes closed, I can make some image actually replace the "black" we normally see when we close our eyes. The image just quickly fades in and replaces the "black". This started happening involuntarily a couple of years ago and, shortly after, I could also do it voluntarily. It is not completely effortless and it lasts for a few seconds though. I did a bit of searching and it seems that this is a normal experience while being in a so-called "hypnagogic state". So, what you are describing might also be a result of being in that state. When I am fully awake, a visualization is more like an imaginary overlay on top of whatever my retina is actually sending to my brain (thankfully :P).
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

aragonite 3y ago

I think I have something like that. When I'm sleepy, I like to close my eyes and "take a ride" picturing myself looking out the window of a bus driving on a country road, I'd see in mind's eye high definition images of the scenery I pass by, individual flowers, a resting deer, a snowy mountain in the distance, a pretty girl riding on a bicycle, sometimes the scenery will suddenly change from one season to a different one, or one type of landscape (e.g. wheat fields) to a different one (e.g. river bank), like those AI generated "predict next frame" videos ... it's a super relaxing experience. What I find interesting is that I do not feel like I'm in any way "directing" this movie, I continue to be curious to see what will arrive next in my "field of vision" and I have no expectations one way or the other (to be clear, if I do form a volition to see, say, a panda running by the bus, I will succeed; the point is that volition is not needed for new unanticipated images to arrive on their own)

taneq 3y ago
I get something similar, like a visual free-association thing while falling asleep. It seems related to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_cinema https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_cinema

checkyoursudo 3y ago

> My sense of visualisation is often not so strong, in the sense that I don't get to imagine vivid situations during the day, unless I'm recalling something I've seen. What I've noticed is that when I'm sleepy, it becomes exponentially easier to visualise things I've never seen. I can somewhat relate. If I close my eyes, I have only a blank, black space and canon conjure up any mental imagery. But I dream and daydream in varying degrees of vividness. So it is kind of like, if I am actively trying to do it, there is no mental workspace available to drawn the image, but under those conditions of lower consciousness/attention, suddenly some imagery appears. So this is also interesting, because I can tell the difference. Some people disbelieve that I have this partial form of aphantasia, and of course I cannot conceive of how to convince them, but I know at least for myself that it is possible to have vivid mental pictures, because of these different times when the canvas is blank and when it is filled. I wish I could recall vivid mental images on demand! So regarding your first point. There are two (at least) ideas about how mental representations exist, depictive and propositional. Depictive is like thinking about a cat and having the actual image of the cat depicted in your mind to some degree of vividness. Propositional is like having a representation of features in your neural networks, and seeing or thinking about a cat activates the diverse set of catness neurons in your brain and you get a sense of a cat but maybe don't see an actual cat anywhere in your mind's eye (because maybe like me you don't have a conscious mind's eye). It seems reasonably likely that these are complementary rather than competing models of brain construction, and some people tend more or all the way one way and others the other way. See, e.g., https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1504933112 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1504933112

mhandley 3y ago
I'm very similar to you - I can't consciously visualize - I just get a blank when I try. But I can lucid dream, and then I can visualize perfectly, even designing complex 3d mechanisms. When I'm fully awake, I'm sort of aware those visualisations are still happening in my subconscious, but I can't access them consciously.

d_tr 3y ago

> I 'm curious if anyone else has that happen. When I am still fully conscious but drifting off, with my eyes closed, I can make some image actually replace the "black" we normally see when we close our eyes. The image just quickly fades in and replaces the "black". This started happening involuntarily a couple of years ago and, shortly after, I could also do it voluntarily. It is not completely effortless and it lasts for a few seconds though. I did a bit of searching and it seems that this is a normal experience while being in a so-called "hypnagogic state". So, what you are describing might also be a result of being in that state. When I am fully awake, a visualization is more like an imaginary overlay on top of whatever my retina is actually sending to my brain (thankfully :P).

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]