4 ms·
I don't actually "see" mental images, but I "feel" them. For example, I can remember a friend's or a celebrity's face — clearly recalling the "feel" of that fac
by xpl 2y ago
I don't actually "see" mental images, but I "feel" them. For example, I can remember a friend's or a celebrity's face — clearly recalling the "feel" of that face — the exact qualia I experience if I actually saw it — but there is no "overlay image", my eyes see pitch black that moment! It is a very high level qualia, totally decoupled from visual perception. But I swear it is the same as if I actually saw a certain face. It is so strange.
Is that aphantasia? Not sure. I feel that the confusion lies in inability to properly describe what it is, when you recall something. People's descriptions don't match, just because it is hard to describe... not necessarily because someone has less or more imagination than others.
- smogcutter 2y agoThats just called imagination. Do you think that when other people picture something it literally replaced their vision?
- iwontberude 2y agoWhen I do mushrooms I like closing my eyes and watching my brain attempt to maintain the image as it swirls and contorts into analogous yet increasingly orthogonal forms
- cynicalkane 2y agoThis is a smug non-reply to the parent post. People with imagination might not always “replace” vision, but they can summon images to the mind’s eye other than complete darkness. And personally, I feel I can obscure the world around me if focused on a particularly powerful daydream.
- neom 2y agoFor me to do it for long periods of time in high fidelity, I need to either close my eyes or do this blurring/out of focus thing I don't know how to describe. So in a sense, it does have to replace my vision literally. I regularly lead high level strategy meetings with my eyes fully closed so I can use my memory and imagination fully, I've seen other people do this also so I presume I'm not alone.
- fzzzy 2y agoIt's a spectrum. Replacing their vision is called hallucination.
- hhjinks 2y agoThat is literally how it's presented in the article. >Most of her colleagues reacted differently. They reported actually seeing an apple, some vividly and some faintly, floating like a hologram in front of them.
- neom 2y agoFor me, that is the intermediary step before the drawing. I think the image is just my imagination of that feeling you discribe + some specific memory of aspects of the thing? I have very vivid mental imagery. I don't believe it's specifically drawn from memory, more generally drawn from that qualia you talk of + the attributes I know of the thing + situational memory.
- lainga 2y agoWow! Me too. When I go into apartments and think about how my furniture would fit inside, it's like it turns into a little dollhouse (or do I become giant?) and I'm physically running my hands over where the couch, table, TV, etc. will go, and I feel the couch juddering on the floor as I slide it into place, all without actually seeing the items. Like they've got an invisibility cloak on or something.
- lll-o-lll 2y agoThis. I’m convinced this should be one of the observable differences between aphant’s and others. I have this aphantasia, and I could always do great on those rotate the object style IQ puzzles, but get me to estimate whether a box can fit in a shelf; hopeless. Makes packing the boot (trunk) of a car difficult. My wife, who has hyperphantasia, is never wrong. I’m much better at looking at the things and arranging the group of items, but not being able to tell if things will fit. Somehow I just won’t learn though. “It won’t fit”, “sure it will… Oh…”.
- wdutch 2y agoI have aphantasia. I relate to what you say about how "feel" a face when I remember it. I'd compare it to a neutral nets embedding. I'm not storing every "pixel" of an image but instead a "vector" that corresponds to the key features (although I'm not consciously aware what those features are). I couldn't describe on demand the faces of my colleagues I see every day but I know them when I see them.