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Some people can't see mental images

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183 points petalmind | 7 comments | 30 Oct 25 17:45 UTC | HN request time: 0.427s | source | bottom
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pfgallagher ◴[30 Oct 25 19:31 UTC] No.45764287[source]▶
I have aphantasia. Like many others, I am able to see images when I dream and very rarely in a hypnagogic state.

My partner is on the opposite side of the spectrum; she can conjure mental images with ease. Our differences in that respect have led to a lot of interesting conversations.

I think aphantasia is quite misunderstood by people able to visualize. I can remember how things look, have no issues identifying faces, have a strong spatial understanding of places I've been, etc. It's hard to describe precisely; we just remember things differently.

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1. anthk ◴[30 Oct 25 19:34 UTC] No.45764317[source]▶
Instead of the whole image, you just visualize the main aspects as vectors?
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2. pfgallagher ◴[30 Oct 25 19:39 UTC] No.45764382[source]▶
Your metaphor isn't bad, actually. I just don't visualize anything. It's more like a feeling of abstract relationships. It often feels like most of my brain is in RAM; I can usually recall things almost instantly. And if I can’t, I can do the trick where you think of something else and let your mind crunch in the background until it pops up.

I should clarify that I can still imagine what a room looks like and what’s in it. I just don’t see it. It’s more like I feel the layout or know where things are, almost like navigating a mental map without any visuals. Specific details like colors, patterns, etc. are much harder to recall unless I am intimately familiar with the object or whatever.

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3. cperciva ◴[30 Oct 25 21:59 UTC] No.45765896[source]▶
a feeling of abstract relationships

This. If you ask me to imagine a triangle I'll start thinking about having three sides and three angles and the area is half of the base times the height and it's a rigid body and the angles add up to 180 degrees... but there's no visual aspect to it.

Sometimes I wonder if aphantasia gave me an advantage in mathematics, because I had no trouble whatsoever with the concept of "abstract symbols".

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4. Refreeze5224 ◴[31 Oct 25 00:02 UTC] No.45766908[source]▶
Your description matches my experience exactly, and I find it oddly comforting to know someone else has the same thing going on in their head.
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5. saltcured ◴[31 Oct 25 00:05 UTC] No.45766927{3}[source]▶
I think you have some abstract symbol capability that is not the opposite of imagery.

I lack imagery but also am nonverbal and hit limits in math. I am terrible at rote memorization or application of formulae.

I did well in math up to a point, which may have hurt me. I simply felt answers to quite a bit of algebra and some calculus, but it doesn't scale. I also got accused of cheating a couple times in primary school, when I could not explain my work when arriving at an answer very quickly.

6. pfgallagher ◴[31 Oct 25 03:43 UTC] No.45768180{3}[source]▶
Yeah, people are definitely wired differently! It’s cool to see there’s a lot more research going into how minds like ours work.
7. theshrike79 ◴[31 Oct 25 10:15 UTC] No.45770312[source]▶
My brain is like a vector database, it stores the "feelings" of information, not the actual information - if that makes sense?

I can make lightning fast connections in my head when something happens, like when something breaks in production, I see the symptomps and the vectors just connect from effect to the cause.

Can I explain to others why and how I know where the problem is? Nope. ...Or yes, but it'll take a long time for me to follow the feeling-vectors and put them into words I can actually communicate to other people.

For actual people and characters in books I also retain the shape and ...something about them, but I couldn't explain how most people in my life look like to a sketch artist.

From a previous comment of mine[0] on this subject:

> When I read a book, I kinda retain the "feeling" of the characters and maybe one or two visual traits. I can read thousands of pages of a character's adventures and I can maybe tell you their general body type and clothing - if they have an "uniform" they tend to wear.

> I've read all 5 books (over 5000 pages) of The Stormlight Archive and I couldn't tell you what Kaladin (the main character) looks like. I have no visual recollection of his hair colour, eye colour, skin tone or body type.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45687441