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My gut feel has always been that it is just a language thing where some people think that when others imagine things that they literally see it right in front o

by cnity 1y ago

My gut feel has always been that it is just a language thing where some people think that when others imagine things that they literally see it right in front of them _the same way_ they see real things. Like, when I imagine a scene or object in my head, I am not literally seeing it. It's like some vague in-between thing. And that people who claim to have aphantasia just have a higher bar for what it means to "see" something. Though I'm open to being corrected if there's some concrete experiment that can be performed that shows definitively that some people can not imagine things _at all_.

card_zero 1y ago
Patient MX there is quite persuasive. Lots of neuroscience discoveries start with somebody having some brain damage and losing a facility of some kind. However, most of the people claiming aphantasia, or the extreme opposite, are not brain damaged. At least not literally. It would also be more valuable information if some area was damaged that was known to cause the effect.
roxolotl 1y ago
The parent article has brain scans showing different activations in control brains vs aphantasia vs hyperphantasia. Also when people self report that their experience has qualitatively changed that seems like a pretty strong indicator that’s at least a range.
- suddenlybananas 1y ago
  The fact that some people report aphantasia and some people don't implies that their brains are different but it does not imply that the reason the brains are different is aphantasia. For example, aphantasia has some comorbidity with autism, probably because autism leads people to interpret expressions in different ways.
  - roxolotl 1y ago
    So you’re saying you think people who report aphantasia see mental imagery but don’t think of it as imagery? And that the brain scans indicate difference but not around mental imagery?
    - suddenlybananas 1y ago
      Yeah essentially, or alternatively neither group has visual imagery. I think it fundamentally comes down to phenomenology being very hard to express in language.
      - roxolotl 1y ago
        That’s why the self reports seem valuable to me. If someone says “I’ve never seen something in my minds eye” and then they do dmt and say “oh shit I can see things in my minds eye now I totally get what people mean now” it seems to imply there’s a spectrum of visualization capabilities. There’s also people who’ve gone in the opposite direction due to injury.
        card_zero 1y ago
        But people who do dmt are also liable to say "oh shit I can see the machine elves, I totally get what people mean now". Which is not to say that their reports are unreliable, just inscrutable.
      - vidarh 1y ago
        I have aphantasia, but I have had one experience of seeing clear imagery while awake (and it was not on drugs) They are not remotely similar.
        cnity 1y ago
        Honestly, your meditation experience sounds more like an altered state induced by the meditation, rather than confirmation of what non-aphantasiacs experience on a daily basis. And I'm jealous you had that experience.
eitland 1y ago
Maybe you have aphantasia as well. I had without knowing it. Some observations: Someone told me to close my eyes and think about "an apple at a table". Then I was told to open my eyes and tell what color the apple was. The question didn't make sense to me: I only thought about about the concept of "an apple on a table". When my eyes are closed it is black. Absolutely black. Blacker than a Norwegian winter night with cloud cover and no moon. There is nothing. Until then I thought all this talk about seing things was just a metaphor for what I had also done. But when I talk to others they will often immediately say it was green or red. Because they saw it. Two extra observations: Sometimes just before I fall asleep I can sometimes think images of stuff that doesn't exist: think 3d modeling with simple shapes. And just after waking up I can sometimes manage to see relatively detailed images of actual physical things. Both these only last for a few seconds to a few minutes. Does this help?
- card_zero 1y ago
  Are you trying to help them believe?
  - eitland 1y ago
    Yes. Or maybe rather understand. For me it was a lightbulb moment just like my realisation of exactly how bad my colourblindness was: what is next to impossible for me to see (red drawings on woods in maps) was chosen by someone who thought it stood out. I'm at least pointing out that I now know personally that there are multiple levels of visualisation, from me just "feeling" what it would mean to rotate a 3d object (it works, I can absolutely determine if it will fit but it is absolutely not visual) up to some close friends of mine that see vivid pictures of faces and can combine them with eyes closed. For me who cannot see images except what I physically see it certainly is interesting to hear people describe remembering peoples phone numbers as text that they can see (I remember the feeling of myself saying it, not the sound) or memorising my name by mentally putting the image of ne next to their image of their brother who has the same name as me (!) It really is funny, because I can draw. For example the famous "draw a bike" thing seems weird to me because I can't see myself making any of the mistakes from any of the drawings. Not because I can see a bike, but because I know it.
bonoboTP 1y ago
My gut feel is that people's experiences can be quite different. V.S. Ramachandran's books have nudged me to take these things more seriously. I think visual imagination is also related to spatial rotation abilities. For example can you imagine yourself in your hometown, then imagine an "animation" as you (from a first-person perspective) fly up vertically, then turn in various directions and sort of feel where the landmarks are in the mind's eye? Or does that sound nonsense to you? Would you agree that being faster at certain tasks (that require a visual scratchpad - e.g. imagining a tabletop and being told what happens e.g. add a triangle on the left, add a square halfway overlapping the triangle etc) indicates that someone has more vivid imagination?
vidarh 1y ago
I have aphantasia. I do not normally see things in my inner eye at all, but I still "imagine" things. I can draw things I imagine, even though I can't see them. But I do see images while dreaming. It's very distinct from imagining things while awake and unable to see them. And I have had one waking experience where I saw images as clearly as if I was looking at a photograph while awake, in a dark room, with my eyes closed during meditation. It was very different from when I'm dreaming. This is not a "language thing". Until the experience mentioned above, I had gone ~40 years with no idea seeing things in your minds eye while awake was a thing at all.
- cnity 1y ago
  > I can draw things I imagine, even though I can't see them. This is what I mean though. What do you mean by "see" exactly, if not imagine? You can imagine something so clearly that you are able to replicate it on paper, yet that is not the minds eye? I also see while dreaming, in a way that is more like my day to day experience, and not at all how I would describe imagining things. > I saw images as clearly as if I was looking at a photograph while awake If anything this is more mind's eye clarity than I have ever experienced. My mind's eye is nothing like looking at an actual photograph.
  - tekla 1y ago
    It's super interesting to read these accounts. I have my doubts that Aphatasia is real for 99% of people who claim to have it and its a language issue. What is imagination if not seeing the thing in your head. Do people think others LITERALLY see an object like photons are hitting their neurons directly?
    - vidarh 1y ago
      Some people do report seeing things as clear as if photos are hitting their eyes. Most people report more diffuse views. I see nothing, but I have seen once, and when I did, I did "literally" see an object as clear as if I was looking straight at it, or to be more precisely a I saw a whole scene.
    - 1y ago
HK-NC 1y ago
Personally I can imagine something with such detail and depth that my eyes are effectively blacked out despite being open. I can also imagine a grayscale 2D apple fine too, so Im not completely fucked if I have an abstract thought driving a car.

by cnity 1y ago

card_zero 1y ago

Patient MX there is quite persuasive. Lots of neuroscience discoveries start with somebody having some brain damage and losing a facility of some kind. However, most of the people claiming aphantasia, or the extreme opposite, are not brain damaged. At least not literally. It would also be more valuable information if some area was damaged that was known to cause the effect.

roxolotl 1y ago

The parent article has brain scans showing different activations in control brains vs aphantasia vs hyperphantasia. Also when people self report that their experience has qualitatively changed that seems like a pretty strong indicator that’s at least a range.

suddenlybananas 1y ago
The fact that some people report aphantasia and some people don't implies that their brains are different but it does not imply that the reason the brains are different is aphantasia. For example, aphantasia has some comorbidity with autism, probably because autism leads people to interpret expressions in different ways.
- roxolotl 1y ago
  So you’re saying you think people who report aphantasia see mental imagery but don’t think of it as imagery? And that the brain scans indicate difference but not around mental imagery?
  - suddenlybananas 1y ago
    Yeah essentially, or alternatively neither group has visual imagery. I think it fundamentally comes down to phenomenology being very hard to express in language.
    - roxolotl 1y ago
      That’s why the self reports seem valuable to me. If someone says “I’ve never seen something in my minds eye” and then they do dmt and say “oh shit I can see things in my minds eye now I totally get what people mean now” it seems to imply there’s a spectrum of visualization capabilities. There’s also people who’ve gone in the opposite direction due to injury.
      - card_zero 1y ago
        But people who do dmt are also liable to say "oh shit I can see the machine elves, I totally get what people mean now". Which is not to say that their reports are unreliable, just inscrutable.
    - vidarh 1y ago
      I have aphantasia, but I have had one experience of seeing clear imagery while awake (and it was not on drugs) They are not remotely similar.
      - cnity 1y ago
        Honestly, your meditation experience sounds more like an altered state induced by the meditation, rather than confirmation of what non-aphantasiacs experience on a daily basis. And I'm jealous you had that experience.

eitland 1y ago

Maybe you have aphantasia as well. I had without knowing it. Some observations: Someone told me to close my eyes and think about "an apple at a table". Then I was told to open my eyes and tell what color the apple was. The question didn't make sense to me: I only thought about about the concept of "an apple on a table". When my eyes are closed it is black. Absolutely black. Blacker than a Norwegian winter night with cloud cover and no moon. There is nothing. Until then I thought all this talk about seing things was just a metaphor for what I had also done. But when I talk to others they will often immediately say it was green or red. Because they saw it. Two extra observations: Sometimes just before I fall asleep I can sometimes think images of stuff that doesn't exist: think 3d modeling with simple shapes. And just after waking up I can sometimes manage to see relatively detailed images of actual physical things. Both these only last for a few seconds to a few minutes. Does this help?

card_zero 1y ago
Are you trying to help them believe?
- eitland 1y ago
  Yes. Or maybe rather understand. For me it was a lightbulb moment just like my realisation of exactly how bad my colourblindness was: what is next to impossible for me to see (red drawings on woods in maps) was chosen by someone who thought it stood out. I'm at least pointing out that I now know personally that there are multiple levels of visualisation, from me just "feeling" what it would mean to rotate a 3d object (it works, I can absolutely determine if it will fit but it is absolutely not visual) up to some close friends of mine that see vivid pictures of faces and can combine them with eyes closed. For me who cannot see images except what I physically see it certainly is interesting to hear people describe remembering peoples phone numbers as text that they can see (I remember the feeling of myself saying it, not the sound) or memorising my name by mentally putting the image of ne next to their image of their brother who has the same name as me (!) It really is funny, because I can draw. For example the famous "draw a bike" thing seems weird to me because I can't see myself making any of the mistakes from any of the drawings. Not because I can see a bike, but because I know it.

bonoboTP 1y ago

My gut feel is that people's experiences can be quite different. V.S. Ramachandran's books have nudged me to take these things more seriously. I think visual imagination is also related to spatial rotation abilities. For example can you imagine yourself in your hometown, then imagine an "animation" as you (from a first-person perspective) fly up vertically, then turn in various directions and sort of feel where the landmarks are in the mind's eye? Or does that sound nonsense to you? Would you agree that being faster at certain tasks (that require a visual scratchpad - e.g. imagining a tabletop and being told what happens e.g. add a triangle on the left, add a square halfway overlapping the triangle etc) indicates that someone has more vivid imagination?

vidarh 1y ago

I have aphantasia. I do not normally see things in my inner eye at all, but I still "imagine" things. I can draw things I imagine, even though I can't see them. But I do see images while dreaming. It's very distinct from imagining things while awake and unable to see them. And I have had one waking experience where I saw images as clearly as if I was looking at a photograph while awake, in a dark room, with my eyes closed during meditation. It was very different from when I'm dreaming. This is not a "language thing". Until the experience mentioned above, I had gone ~40 years with no idea seeing things in your minds eye while awake was a thing at all.

cnity 1y ago
> I can draw things I imagine, even though I can't see them. This is what I mean though. What do you mean by "see" exactly, if not imagine? You can imagine something so clearly that you are able to replicate it on paper, yet that is not the minds eye? I also see while dreaming, in a way that is more like my day to day experience, and not at all how I would describe imagining things. > I saw images as clearly as if I was looking at a photograph while awake If anything this is more mind's eye clarity than I have ever experienced. My mind's eye is nothing like looking at an actual photograph.
- tekla 1y ago
  It's super interesting to read these accounts. I have my doubts that Aphatasia is real for 99% of people who claim to have it and its a language issue. What is imagination if not seeing the thing in your head. Do people think others LITERALLY see an object like photons are hitting their neurons directly?
  - vidarh 1y ago
    Some people do report seeing things as clear as if photos are hitting their eyes. Most people report more diffuse views. I see nothing, but I have seen once, and when I did, I did "literally" see an object as clear as if I was looking straight at it, or to be more precisely a I saw a whole scene.
  - 1y ago

HK-NC 1y ago

Personally I can imagine something with such detail and depth that my eyes are effectively blacked out despite being open. I can also imagine a grayscale 2D apple fine too, so Im not completely fucked if I have an abstract thought driving a car.