4 ms·

I’ve worked as a professional photographer for twenty years and I visualize absolutely zero with my eyes closed. It’s only recently that I learned of aphantasia

I’ve worked as a professional photographer for twenty years and I visualize absolutely zero with my eyes closed. It’s only recently that I learned of aphantasia. Even on most psychedelic journeys I don’t have closed eye visuals, NN-DMT being the consistent exception. Everything is more of just a “knowingness”.

pohl 12d ago
What’s it like to dream while you’re sleeping? Do you ever “see” anything then?
- _ink_ 12d ago
  Not GP, but also fully aphant: yes, I have visual dreams. I is very hard for me, to tell whether I also hear things in my dreams, but I think yes. For other senses, I am quite sure that I don't experience them while dreaming.
  - Akronymus 12d ago
    that made me realize I never once thought of whether I was hearing stuff in my dreams.
  - vidarh 12d ago
    Same here. The fact that I see things in my dreams is one of the reasons I feel I can know for certain I don't see things when I "imagine" things.
    - pohl 12d ago
      I'm still not sure the real difference isn't just where people draw the line in generalizing what it means to "see" and "hear" things. My dreams are more vivid than when I imagine an apple, but I still call it "seeing something in my head"—even when I know that it isn't exactly like "seeing"—and the sensation is different enough that I wouldn't blame someone if they chose to avoid calling it "seeing" something. How can we be sure that we're not just labeling the experience differently?
      - vidarh 12d ago
        When I "see something in my head" while dreaming, it is like seeing: There is a clear visual image. I don't see the black behind my eyelids. I can tell colours. I can tell shapes. When I "imagine" something while I awake, it is not remotely like seeing. There is no image overlaid on the "real world" whether obscuring the black behind my eyelids or anything else when they are open. I can't tell shapes, or colours. If my eyes are closed, I just see the inside of my eyelids, nothing more. My one experience of seeing something while awake during meditation was like being inside a movie. Everything was as clear as if I had been walking around in that setting for real. I don't know what it will take to make you sure, but for me, I have experienced three entirely different "modes" of imagining things, ranging from no visuals, to shifting and unclear visual, to crystal clear images, and the distinction is stark and obvious - there's no ambiguity in it.
        bvanheu 12d ago
        I don't think "imagination" should be remotely like seeing. it's completely different than dreaming or seeing with your real eyes, I would qualify it as a "different sense" if you will. for me, it's much less detailed unless I focus my imagination on the less detailed part.
        D-Machine 12d ago
        The distinction between imagination and seeing is regularly blurred, most commonly in dreams, but also on psychedelics or quasi-psychedelics (e.g. cannabis), and also in altered spiritual states (meditative practices). The two experiences are different, most of the time, yes, but only "completely 100% different" IMO to aphantasics, or those who are high in aphantasia. I.e. hyperphantasia is a thing, and a normal thing for most people in altered states (and schizophrenia might be seen as involving an extreme form of hyperphantasia intruding where it shouldn't, in some cases).
      - jerf 12d ago
        I've also wondered whether this entire conversation is just all of us collectively talking past each other for the entire conversation and we all in fact have quite similar experiences. The recent use of brain imaging to examine this question is sort of interesting, in that perhaps it could concretely and relatively objectively answer that question. Though my interest is somewhat diminished by the questions that have been raised around the entire premise of brain imaging as a solution to this problem, e.g., https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1602413113 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1602413113 (2016), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32483374/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32483374/ (2020), https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/140/8/e53/4032512 https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/140/8/e53/4032512 (2017). I invite you to feed your own friendly AI these references then ask it to analyze the recent papers trying to study aphantasia and come to your own conclusions about whether they're actually doing all that much. My own suggested that while there are some improvements since the papers I cited that it is still difficult to say that they've solved the problems in those studies. Still, directionally, while inferring from "brain activations" to qualia is a difficult path, if there was enough data to show big and consistent correlations that would tend to satisfy me that maybe there is some sort of real difference and we're not just talking past each other. It's not such a shocking claim that I need truly shocking evidence to believe it, just some support.
- nhinck3 12d ago
  I sometimes experience dreams when I go back to sleep repeatedly, but in all normal circumstances it is nothing
  - grugagag 12d ago
    Are you sure you're simply forgetting your dreams and you assume you don't dream?
    - nhinck3 11d ago
      I mean if I'm forgetting, how would I know, but I've never woken up for the first time with any experience of having dreamt.
- godshatter 12d ago
  I can't visualize at all when awake, but I have been into lucid dreaming in my past and my dreams were visual and more detailed than real life (no bad lenses for the light to go through, I guess). I can also visualize a little bit when on either edge of sleep. I've been noticing that the occasional images that I see in that state are becoming more colorful and detailed. I'm hoping that means actual phantasia in my future, but that's probably just wishful thinking. I should add that the only things I've ever been able to see when fully awake that didn't come through my retinas are auras (I went through a "learn to read auras" phase a long time ago) and ghosts. Or at least things that I'm assuming aren't actually real, like images of a friend who died before I knew about it and a woman who watched me watch TV for a few weeks. So this might mean that I'm not a complete aphant, or it might mean (based on this article) that sometimes those brain regions/processes can still align for me occasionally.
- chiefgeek 12d ago
  I do see images when I dream. It can get pretty immersive. Brains are wild.
- pstuart 12d ago
  I've had dreams where I was "there" and it felt like being present in a scene in a very real way (for a dream). But ask me to close my eyes and visualize a blue table with a red apple on it and its nothing but phosphenes at best.
_ink_ 12d ago
Have you worked mostly as documentary photographer, or did you also do stages setups, like portraying people? I am only a photo enthusiast without any mental images and I struggle with portraits. Since I know about aphantasia I am wondering whether it has something to do with the absence of mental images.
- chiefgeek 12d ago
  Honestly, I’ve done it all. I’ve shot thousands of headshots and portraits and hundreds of events. I’ve not typically been a “conceptual” photographer such as somebody like Art Kane. I started on film and moved to digital in 2003 before I was shooting professionally. I get more of an “idea” in my head, however I don’t “see” a final result. Digital has helped immeasurably to refine my work more quickly. Just as I “know” what a red fire hydrant looks like but I do not “see” an image.
wongarsu 12d ago
As somebody who only has closed eye visuals in deep meditation or in dreams, I would maybe describe what you call "knowingness" as "abstract representation"? As a kid I've always been really good at these "imagine how this shape folds in 3d" kind of tasks, and I would generally say I am above average at imagining how things relate to each other in 3d. I just can't turn it into an image in my mind's eye
- chiefgeek 12d ago
  Yes this. I have, based on a battery of spatial reasoning tests I took years ago, way above average spatial reasoning capabilities. I also notice a lot IRL that others do not, based on anecdotal evidence.
- vidarh 12d ago
  I have aphantasia as well, but have had visuals once during meditation, much clearer than in dreams. I've never managed to repeat it. Does it happen regularly for you? Any tips? Like you my spatial reasoning is very good, but no image.
  - bethekidyouwant 12d ago
    This makes no sense if you can visualize things when you’re dreaming your brain has no problem visualizing things it’s just correctly suppressed when you are awake
    - vidarh 12d ago
      It's not suppressed for the vast majority of people. If you consider that "correct", odds are you too have aphantasia.
      - bethekidyouwant 10d ago
        It’s a bell curve like anything else. Eg: hyperphantasia
  - 12d ago
karmakaze 12d ago
I've also had this kind of topological knowingness which I couldn't name. Another comment here says "schematic conceptual" which captures what it feels like for me. Another good explanation here is that it's all taking place but that last step of creating the visual is suppressed (as intended) while conscious as that would be hallucinating.
- grugagag 12d ago
  I feel that I could visualize internally but there's a curtain pulled over the visualization part of it. It's there, i feel it but it's blocked from my sight somehow. I've built intuitive ways to probe the imagination so I technically experience my image-less visualization. However, when I attempt to visualize something more complex (there are a lot of elements or minutiae) I'm reaching my intuitive limits. When it comes to auditory imagination, I can literally listen to a song from my own head all day long with no effort.
- Semaphor 12d ago
  I sometimes called it "textual memory of an image", but I also liked TFA with "we experience these as an awareness of a set of spatial facts"
  - karmakaze 11d ago
    Yes. Reminds me of "Poetry is the art of giving different names to the same thing" vs "Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things" -- Henri Poincaré. Set of spacial facts is what's left when all the incidental embellishments are removed--pure abstraction.
pstuart 12d ago
I always assumed that when people say "imagine this image..." that it was about the contextual nature of it. Only several months ago did I learn that aphantasia is a thing and I'm among the ~4% of the population in this group. With psychedelic journeys I do get visuals but they are indescribable. My pet phrase for it is "swimming with God" (disclaimer: I'm an ardent atheist).
deleted 12d ago
[deleted]
oivaksef 12d ago
Exactly the same here. When I learned that other people actually could visualise things, it made me realise why I've spent my life being a commercial photographer and camera developer. Capture the images - I guess most people get this for free to some extent
- sethammons 11d ago
  I am confused. You can't recollect a friends face? You can't imagine the feeling of sandpaper? You cant bop to a melody in your head? The "mind's eye" isn't an actual image. It doesn't pop into view like augmented or virtual reality. It is imaginary.
  - kaffekaka 11d ago
    How do you know that? Honest question.
    - sethammons 11d ago
      It stretches credulity that someone can occlude their vision with their imagination. Like, you are staring at a dog, you can't imagine a brick wall in front of it and not see the dog any more. Similarly you can't not see the back of your eyelids. Your imagination can kick in and your brain does $THINGS. But the back of your eyelid is still what you are seeing when you close your eyes.
      - kaffekaka 11d ago
        Occluding vision seems extreme yes, but what do you mean when you say "it is just imaginary"? What is an actual image? I ask because you seem to dismiss the notion that some people have stronger inner images than others.
        sethammons 11d ago
        I don't mean to sound dismissive of differing imaginary intensity. It sounds, to me, like people are confusing _imaginary_ vs _hallucination_. Sure, some people imagine a stop sign as an HDR image with a back story and others as "red octagon." I think that language is hard and it sounds, again, to me, like there are people who think there are AR/VR like experiences when someone closes their eyes. That makes as much sense to me as not seeing the back of your eyelids. People are not "seeing" things - they are "imagining" things to various fidelities.
etcetcetcetceta 12d ago
>I don’t have closed eye visuals Nobody does, this is all unfalsifiable nonsense, it's an artifact of the language used to describe imagination.
- edb_123 11d ago
  Many people have such visuals, so I'm very curious as to what you mean here? I have really intense closed eye visuals during psilocybin trips that basically feel like the fabric of space and time unfolding and presenting itself in an all-encompassing ocean of geometric patterns and fractal-like structures. And sound can become images, and images can become sounds. This can be a really profound experience, and I can assure you that they are definitely a real phenomena. I can also experience a form of closed eye visuals when not tripping but mediating (or while relaxing in bed in the dark, waiting to sleep). But they're of a quite different kind, and remind me more of a very active type of phosphenes morphing with blotches of color and light. But they are also kind of on a different layer (more in the background of the "mind's eye") than the strong "in your face" visuals I experience when tripping.
  - zug_zug 11d ago
    I put some thought on this in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49469729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49469729
- zbikowski 11d ago
  I agree that it's unfalsifiable - necessarily all discussions to do with interpretation of qualia are. I think, however, that your reasoning is backwards. Language such as "picture this," "envision yourself on a beach," the concept of the "mind's eye," or especially the word "imagination" from "image" is much more likely to exist as a result of the actual process than to be its cause. Parsimony favors assuming that the description evolved from the experience - if nobody "saw" mental imagery, we would more readily describe the thought process as "thinking about," "reasoning around," that sort of thing. The language used cannot be used as proof on its own. What makes me think this is more than a description problem is that reported vividness of imagery correlates to unconscious effects: pupils constrict to imagined bright shapes and dilate to imagined dark ones, scaled to how vivid the person says the image was[0]. People reporting aphantasia don't show those effects. Despite this not constituting "proof," I cannot rationalize it being a coincidence. If it matters, I call myself aphantasic, though I cannot prove it to you. You may relate to my initial thought - "surely all this language is metaphor, and people don't really walk around hallucinating on command." Taking (the vast majority of) people at their word, however, indicates that they really do see things when they think about them - though visual mental imagery is meaningfully different from actually seeing (but is more like seeing than aphantasics assume). Refer to Galton's original 1880 study[1] for 150-year-old rationalizations that are the same as mine. [0] https://elifesciences.org/articles/72484 https://elifesciences.org/articles/72484 [1] https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm

pohl 12d ago

What’s it like to dream while you’re sleeping? Do you ever “see” anything then?

_ink_ 12d ago
Not GP, but also fully aphant: yes, I have visual dreams. I is very hard for me, to tell whether I also hear things in my dreams, but I think yes. For other senses, I am quite sure that I don't experience them while dreaming.
- Akronymus 12d ago
  that made me realize I never once thought of whether I was hearing stuff in my dreams.
- vidarh 12d ago
  Same here. The fact that I see things in my dreams is one of the reasons I feel I can know for certain I don't see things when I "imagine" things.
  - pohl 12d ago
    I'm still not sure the real difference isn't just where people draw the line in generalizing what it means to "see" and "hear" things. My dreams are more vivid than when I imagine an apple, but I still call it "seeing something in my head"—even when I know that it isn't exactly like "seeing"—and the sensation is different enough that I wouldn't blame someone if they chose to avoid calling it "seeing" something. How can we be sure that we're not just labeling the experience differently?
    - vidarh 12d ago
      When I "see something in my head" while dreaming, it is like seeing: There is a clear visual image. I don't see the black behind my eyelids. I can tell colours. I can tell shapes. When I "imagine" something while I awake, it is not remotely like seeing. There is no image overlaid on the "real world" whether obscuring the black behind my eyelids or anything else when they are open. I can't tell shapes, or colours. If my eyes are closed, I just see the inside of my eyelids, nothing more. My one experience of seeing something while awake during meditation was like being inside a movie. Everything was as clear as if I had been walking around in that setting for real. I don't know what it will take to make you sure, but for me, I have experienced three entirely different "modes" of imagining things, ranging from no visuals, to shifting and unclear visual, to crystal clear images, and the distinction is stark and obvious - there's no ambiguity in it.
      - bvanheu 12d ago
        I don't think "imagination" should be remotely like seeing. it's completely different than dreaming or seeing with your real eyes, I would qualify it as a "different sense" if you will. for me, it's much less detailed unless I focus my imagination on the less detailed part.
        D-Machine 12d ago
        The distinction between imagination and seeing is regularly blurred, most commonly in dreams, but also on psychedelics or quasi-psychedelics (e.g. cannabis), and also in altered spiritual states (meditative practices). The two experiences are different, most of the time, yes, but only "completely 100% different" IMO to aphantasics, or those who are high in aphantasia. I.e. hyperphantasia is a thing, and a normal thing for most people in altered states (and schizophrenia might be seen as involving an extreme form of hyperphantasia intruding where it shouldn't, in some cases).
    - jerf 12d ago
      I've also wondered whether this entire conversation is just all of us collectively talking past each other for the entire conversation and we all in fact have quite similar experiences. The recent use of brain imaging to examine this question is sort of interesting, in that perhaps it could concretely and relatively objectively answer that question. Though my interest is somewhat diminished by the questions that have been raised around the entire premise of brain imaging as a solution to this problem, e.g., https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1602413113 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1602413113 (2016), https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32483374/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32483374/ (2020), https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/140/8/e53/4032512 https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/140/8/e53/4032512 (2017). I invite you to feed your own friendly AI these references then ask it to analyze the recent papers trying to study aphantasia and come to your own conclusions about whether they're actually doing all that much. My own suggested that while there are some improvements since the papers I cited that it is still difficult to say that they've solved the problems in those studies. Still, directionally, while inferring from "brain activations" to qualia is a difficult path, if there was enough data to show big and consistent correlations that would tend to satisfy me that maybe there is some sort of real difference and we're not just talking past each other. It's not such a shocking claim that I need truly shocking evidence to believe it, just some support.
nhinck3 12d ago
I sometimes experience dreams when I go back to sleep repeatedly, but in all normal circumstances it is nothing
- grugagag 12d ago
  Are you sure you're simply forgetting your dreams and you assume you don't dream?
  - nhinck3 11d ago
    I mean if I'm forgetting, how would I know, but I've never woken up for the first time with any experience of having dreamt.
godshatter 12d ago
I can't visualize at all when awake, but I have been into lucid dreaming in my past and my dreams were visual and more detailed than real life (no bad lenses for the light to go through, I guess). I can also visualize a little bit when on either edge of sleep. I've been noticing that the occasional images that I see in that state are becoming more colorful and detailed. I'm hoping that means actual phantasia in my future, but that's probably just wishful thinking. I should add that the only things I've ever been able to see when fully awake that didn't come through my retinas are auras (I went through a "learn to read auras" phase a long time ago) and ghosts. Or at least things that I'm assuming aren't actually real, like images of a friend who died before I knew about it and a woman who watched me watch TV for a few weeks. So this might mean that I'm not a complete aphant, or it might mean (based on this article) that sometimes those brain regions/processes can still align for me occasionally.
chiefgeek 12d ago
I do see images when I dream. It can get pretty immersive. Brains are wild.
pstuart 12d ago
I've had dreams where I was "there" and it felt like being present in a scene in a very real way (for a dream). But ask me to close my eyes and visualize a blue table with a red apple on it and its nothing but phosphenes at best.

_ink_ 12d ago

Have you worked mostly as documentary photographer, or did you also do stages setups, like portraying people? I am only a photo enthusiast without any mental images and I struggle with portraits. Since I know about aphantasia I am wondering whether it has something to do with the absence of mental images.

chiefgeek 12d ago
Honestly, I’ve done it all. I’ve shot thousands of headshots and portraits and hundreds of events. I’ve not typically been a “conceptual” photographer such as somebody like Art Kane. I started on film and moved to digital in 2003 before I was shooting professionally. I get more of an “idea” in my head, however I don’t “see” a final result. Digital has helped immeasurably to refine my work more quickly. Just as I “know” what a red fire hydrant looks like but I do not “see” an image.

wongarsu 12d ago

As somebody who only has closed eye visuals in deep meditation or in dreams, I would maybe describe what you call "knowingness" as "abstract representation"? As a kid I've always been really good at these "imagine how this shape folds in 3d" kind of tasks, and I would generally say I am above average at imagining how things relate to each other in 3d. I just can't turn it into an image in my mind's eye

chiefgeek 12d ago
Yes this. I have, based on a battery of spatial reasoning tests I took years ago, way above average spatial reasoning capabilities. I also notice a lot IRL that others do not, based on anecdotal evidence.
vidarh 12d ago
I have aphantasia as well, but have had visuals once during meditation, much clearer than in dreams. I've never managed to repeat it. Does it happen regularly for you? Any tips? Like you my spatial reasoning is very good, but no image.
- bethekidyouwant 12d ago
  This makes no sense if you can visualize things when you’re dreaming your brain has no problem visualizing things it’s just correctly suppressed when you are awake
  - vidarh 12d ago
    It's not suppressed for the vast majority of people. If you consider that "correct", odds are you too have aphantasia.
    - bethekidyouwant 10d ago
      It’s a bell curve like anything else. Eg: hyperphantasia
- 12d ago

karmakaze 12d ago

I've also had this kind of topological knowingness which I couldn't name. Another comment here says "schematic conceptual" which captures what it feels like for me. Another good explanation here is that it's all taking place but that last step of creating the visual is suppressed (as intended) while conscious as that would be hallucinating.

grugagag 12d ago
I feel that I could visualize internally but there's a curtain pulled over the visualization part of it. It's there, i feel it but it's blocked from my sight somehow. I've built intuitive ways to probe the imagination so I technically experience my image-less visualization. However, when I attempt to visualize something more complex (there are a lot of elements or minutiae) I'm reaching my intuitive limits. When it comes to auditory imagination, I can literally listen to a song from my own head all day long with no effort.
Semaphor 12d ago
I sometimes called it "textual memory of an image", but I also liked TFA with "we experience these as an awareness of a set of spatial facts"
- karmakaze 11d ago
  Yes. Reminds me of "Poetry is the art of giving different names to the same thing" vs "Mathematics is the art of giving the same name to different things" -- Henri Poincaré. Set of spacial facts is what's left when all the incidental embellishments are removed--pure abstraction.

pstuart 12d ago

I always assumed that when people say "imagine this image..." that it was about the contextual nature of it. Only several months ago did I learn that aphantasia is a thing and I'm among the ~4% of the population in this group. With psychedelic journeys I do get visuals but they are indescribable. My pet phrase for it is "swimming with God" (disclaimer: I'm an ardent atheist).

deleted 12d ago

[deleted]

oivaksef 12d ago

Exactly the same here. When I learned that other people actually could visualise things, it made me realise why I've spent my life being a commercial photographer and camera developer. Capture the images - I guess most people get this for free to some extent

sethammons 11d ago
I am confused. You can't recollect a friends face? You can't imagine the feeling of sandpaper? You cant bop to a melody in your head? The "mind's eye" isn't an actual image. It doesn't pop into view like augmented or virtual reality. It is imaginary.
- kaffekaka 11d ago
  How do you know that? Honest question.
  - sethammons 11d ago
    It stretches credulity that someone can occlude their vision with their imagination. Like, you are staring at a dog, you can't imagine a brick wall in front of it and not see the dog any more. Similarly you can't not see the back of your eyelids. Your imagination can kick in and your brain does $THINGS. But the back of your eyelid is still what you are seeing when you close your eyes.
    - kaffekaka 11d ago
      Occluding vision seems extreme yes, but what do you mean when you say "it is just imaginary"? What is an actual image? I ask because you seem to dismiss the notion that some people have stronger inner images than others.
      - sethammons 11d ago
        I don't mean to sound dismissive of differing imaginary intensity. It sounds, to me, like people are confusing _imaginary_ vs _hallucination_. Sure, some people imagine a stop sign as an HDR image with a back story and others as "red octagon." I think that language is hard and it sounds, again, to me, like there are people who think there are AR/VR like experiences when someone closes their eyes. That makes as much sense to me as not seeing the back of your eyelids. People are not "seeing" things - they are "imagining" things to various fidelities.

etcetcetcetceta 12d ago

>I don’t have closed eye visuals Nobody does, this is all unfalsifiable nonsense, it's an artifact of the language used to describe imagination.

edb_123 11d ago
Many people have such visuals, so I'm very curious as to what you mean here? I have really intense closed eye visuals during psilocybin trips that basically feel like the fabric of space and time unfolding and presenting itself in an all-encompassing ocean of geometric patterns and fractal-like structures. And sound can become images, and images can become sounds. This can be a really profound experience, and I can assure you that they are definitely a real phenomena. I can also experience a form of closed eye visuals when not tripping but mediating (or while relaxing in bed in the dark, waiting to sleep). But they're of a quite different kind, and remind me more of a very active type of phosphenes morphing with blotches of color and light. But they are also kind of on a different layer (more in the background of the "mind's eye") than the strong "in your face" visuals I experience when tripping.
- zug_zug 11d ago
  I put some thought on this in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49469729 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49469729
zbikowski 11d ago
I agree that it's unfalsifiable - necessarily all discussions to do with interpretation of qualia are. I think, however, that your reasoning is backwards. Language such as "picture this," "envision yourself on a beach," the concept of the "mind's eye," or especially the word "imagination" from "image" is much more likely to exist as a result of the actual process than to be its cause. Parsimony favors assuming that the description evolved from the experience - if nobody "saw" mental imagery, we would more readily describe the thought process as "thinking about," "reasoning around," that sort of thing. The language used cannot be used as proof on its own. What makes me think this is more than a description problem is that reported vividness of imagery correlates to unconscious effects: pupils constrict to imagined bright shapes and dilate to imagined dark ones, scaled to how vivid the person says the image was[0]. People reporting aphantasia don't show those effects. Despite this not constituting "proof," I cannot rationalize it being a coincidence. If it matters, I call myself aphantasic, though I cannot prove it to you. You may relate to my initial thought - "surely all this language is metaphor, and people don't really walk around hallucinating on command." Taking (the vast majority of) people at their word, however, indicates that they really do see things when they think about them - though visual mental imagery is meaningfully different from actually seeing (but is more like seeing than aphantasics assume). Refer to Galton's original 1880 study[1] for 150-year-old rationalizations that are the same as mine. [0] https://elifesciences.org/articles/72484 https://elifesciences.org/articles/72484 [1] https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm https://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm