Some people can't see mental images

The test is this:

Close your eyes and try to visualize an apple. Do this for 30 seconds or so. Try to visualize the skin, the reflection, the texture, the stem, the depth, etc. Try to hold a stable mental picture of that apple.

After the 30 seconds, rate your ability to picture the apple from 1 to 5, where 1 is complete inability and 5 is as if you were looking at a picture of an apple for those 30 seconds. 1 is aphantasia.

Another idea is to recall a vivid dream you had. I think most people would describe it as being part of a movie or reality. While awake, are you able to recreate scenes in vivid detail as if you were dreaming? 5 for complete parity and 1 for not at all. 1 is aphantasia.

Are you really saying you can see an apple in the same way you see an apple with eyes opened? The exact same way? So if you close your eyes, imagine an apple and then look at an apple that someone holds in front of your eye, the apple looks exactly the same? As if you could look through your closed eye lids?

But what does it mean "visualize" ? I can "think" of an apple and all it's detail, but I wouldn't describe any visual sensation. If I had to draw the apple I could draw it detail, right down the the variation in colors on it's skin. But no sense of this experience feels like a visual sensation. It feels like "thinking". To me, the act of closing my eyes emphasizes that this isn't a visual sensation for me, because with my eyes closed, I see darkness.

Some people can project the image of an apple into the real world. As in, they are able to imagine an apple on the table that they see with their eyes. They 'see' it, but see that it's a projection. It's a lot like when you have two very similar images (except one change), and you cross your eyes such that they overlap to highlight the change (it's ghostly, as it's only seen in one eye). Same Idea, only instead of the other eye, that projection is coming from your brain.

I can visualize an apple, somewhat vaguely, but I've never been able to hold a stable mental picture of anything for longer that a split-second. It just blinks out of existence the moment I "see" it, which makes it rather dysfunctional...

Not at all the case with sounds though, I can play back some of the music tracks I listened a lot to, flawed of course but still recognizable. My brain even starts doing it on its own at night, not letting me fall asleep.

Imagination is weird.

Bring a picture of an apple up on your computer screen and look at it for 30 seconds. There is a fidelity to that image that includes the color, texture, stem, shape, reflection, etc.

Now close your eyes and try to picture an apple for 30 seconds. Is the same experience as if having that picture in front of you? As in, can you picture, in your minds eye, an image of an apple as if you were looking at on your computer screen? On a scale from 1 to 5, where 5 is complete parity as if you were looking at it from your computer screen and 1 for no visualization possible, what is your ability to do so?

It sounds like you're a 1, as in you have aphantasia.

I know it sounds crazy but I think there really are people who can visualize that apple.

Note that inability to visualize doesn't mean you can't recognize or differentiate one apple from another. It doesn't mean you can't draw that apple from memory, in perfect detail. It doesn't mean you can't describe or recreate that image of an apple. It mean that you cannot literally have an image in your minds eye of that apple.

Here are some other articles of note:

"Quantifying Aphantasia through drawing: Those without visual imagery show deficits in object but not spatial memory" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7856239/

"I can’t picture things in my mind. I didn’t realize that was unusual" https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/feb/26/what-is-aph...

That's interesting, so how can people like that know which is real and which is not? I don't understand it.

I'm not saying that at all. I think I have aphantasia. For me the score is 1 or 2 to picture that apple.

I was shocked to realize that when people said "imagine in your minds eye", they meant it literally. This seems to be a common experience for people with aphantasia [0].

Note that when I'm close to sleep or dreaming, then yes, my minds eye visualization is close to photographic parity. While awake, its almost completely non-existent.

[0] "I can’t picture things in my mind. I didn’t realize that was unusual" https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/feb/26/what-is-aph...

This is similar to how I'd describe it for me. I can mold the apple into what I want it to be, adding a sheen or showing the bottom or the top, but any "visualization" that I do disappears basically immediately.

Try the crossed eyes 'find the difference' technique. Which is crossing your eyes such that a third image (a blending of the two images: one from each eye) appears between those two images.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvdVBzuGWr4

You can easily understand where the difference is because the data is different between the eyes. The difference appears 'ghostly'. In a similar way, data from the mind's eye is different from data from the physical eyes when those two 'streams of data' are blended.

> I think there really are people who can visualize that apple.

Based on what evidence?

I don't feel like I know better what other people experience talking about it here. :)

Just now, what you wrote for example.

> my minds eye visualization is close to photographic parity.

What does this mean? Does this mean it's literally the exact same experience as if your eyes were open and you are looking at the picture? Or is it more like you imagine it and it's somewhere popping up in the back of your head?

When I read a book for example I can imagine what I read but it's not even close to "seeing" it. It's a completely different sensation and visual fidelity. It's just not "seeing".

The article goes into the history.

Here's an article I found recently:

"Quantifying Aphantasia through drawing: Those without visual imagery show deficits in object but not spatial memory" https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7856239/

Yes, I often don't realize I'm asleep and dreaming while I dream. It's a common experience for me to dream and think I'm experiencing reality while I'm asleep. Are you saying you have never had a visual dream?

Sometimes when I'm close to sleep or when I'm lucid dreaming, I can visualize things with good fidelity. While I'm awake, I'm almost completely unable to.

Yes I can do this. I can see the image in the middle the same way as I see each individual image. (But not both at the same time, the outside images get blurry when I focus on the one in the middle).

Anyways, this is nothing like what I experience when I imagine something.

Interesting!

I experience visual dreams the same way I described imagining the environment when I read. It's a completely different experience than seeing with my eyes open.

I am exactly like this. Great description.

Interesting. So it sounds like you don't even dream visually.

I think for many people, even people with aphantasia, dreaming is akin to watching a movie or actually experiencing the event (myself included). I know the experience is immersive because it's the same feeling as watching a movie, but I can't recall it visually the same way after the fact, while I'm awake.

I also am often kept awake by my brain playing songs, wishing my brain would stop.

A friend of mine spent about a month very focused on the aphantasia discourse, polling everyone he knew about little details. It forced me to consider it a bit as well, but I never quite landed on an understanding of how much a person's exposure/experience is a factor, versus what is (assumed to be) innate or genetic.

Where it was most interesting was when he asked whether I could imagine music or a song. In that area, I seemed to have a more realistic imaginary experience than any of the friends he had surveyed. I am classically trained in music (and ultimately am not very skilled), so I wonder to what degree I would have this level of clarity with recalling sounds, or even imagining new sounds or songs, if I had not been trained for years in music.

That's what it's like to 'overlay' imagination onto your vision. But that requires - like the eyes focusing correctly - for the 'imagination vision' and the physical vision to 'line up'

your imagination is more like it's in the the back of the head, yeah?

What helped me 'move' where my imagination was (to the front and center), was to do the flame meditation. Which is to focus on a flame in a dark room for a few seconds, close your eyes, and try to retain the phosphene afterglow in the flame shape. and repeating that until you are able to retain image of the flame while your eyes are closed.

Similarly: 'drawing from memory' - particularly from recent short term memory - was another method that had a profound impact on my ability to visualize.

Both of these take time and commitment, but they have worked for me. They may work for you.

I prefer this test: "Imagine a ball resting on a table. A person walks up to the table and pushes the ball". Question for the test subject: "What will happen?"

Everyone answers correctly the ball will roll of the table and fall to the ground. But then ask them" "What was the color of the ball? What was the size of the ball? What was the gender of the person pushing the ball, what clothes were they wearing?"

People with aphantasia are usually stunned by the follow up questions. People who don't have aphantasia really have seen the table, the material its made of, imagined a ball of certain size/type color (e.g. multicolor beach ball, or basketball or what ever), and they saw an actual person pushing the ball, they saw the ball rolling on the table an falling to the ground and can answer details about their vision.

I suspect that much more people can do it than unable to do it (aphantasia)

I suspect the activated Default Mode Network interferes with the ability to perceive with detailed clarity.

I can do this, the best I can describe it is that your brain "knows" you're imagining it so it's different than for example hallucinations.

It's similar to replaying music in your head (if you can do that), you can hear the tune but your ears "know" no music is actually playing.

What if you try it with the apple slowly rotating or moving in some way?

I can keep a visualization as long as it keeps moving or rotating. As soon as I try to visualize it as still, it disappears.

I have a suspicion that aphantasia - in some cases - is something that can be trained out of. The mind is a powerful thing.

In the right circumstances and frame of mind, symphonies or sometimes brass band tunes play in my head, multilayered and everything. They've even got enough persistence that I can "rewind" them a few seconds (probably within some kind of working-memory window), even isolate parts of them and usually know exactly what instrument is playing it, and so on, then let them continue. The course of them is automatic, I don't control them, though.

If I had the first clue how to record them, perhaps I'd have a career as a composer, LOL. The actual invention of them would be no work whatsoever, though the writing it down would be, and I'm sure there'd be a good deal of editing and arranging afterwards to fix them up (plus, who's to say if they'd be any good, or wouldn't all sound kinda the same, to a trained ear?)

I'm only barely familiar with the body of "classical" music, and even less familiar with big-band or brass band music, is the oddest part, but those couple narrow sorts of instrumental music are all I get without having to put effort into it (and I mean none, it just "plays" when I'm in the right head-space and surroundings, and no I don't mean "on drugs", and actually it can be really fucking annoying if I'm trying to sleep). I wouldn't be surprised if I actually lost that ability (such as it is) if I tried to train up enough to write the tunes down.

... maybe I should look into humming-to-MIDI software, hahaha.

> Everyone answers correctly the ball will roll of the table and fall to the ground.

For me the ball kept rolling off the table and rolling through air but not falling to the ground, even while realizing I should be causing it to fall to the ground, but rolling straight just "felt" natural at that moment because it's in make-believe land it can do whatever.