Some people can't see mental images

Here is some context: Early in the aphantasia discourse, someone asked a group I was in to do a mental exercise: Imagine an apple. Can you tell what color it is? What variety? Can you tell the lighting? Is it against a background? Does it have a texture? Imagine cutting into it. And so on.

For me, not only was the color, variety, lighting, and texture crystal clear, but I noticed that when I mentally "cut into" the apple, I could see where the pigment from the broken skin cells had been smeared by the action of the knife into the fleshy white interior of the apple. This happened "by itself", I didn't have to try to make it happen. It was at a level of crisp detail that would be difficult to see with the naked eye without holding it very close.

That was the first time I had paid attention to the exact level of detail that appears in my mental imagery, and it hadn't occurred to me before that it might be unusual. Based on what other people describe of their experience, it seems pretty clear to me that there is real variation in mental imagery, and people are not just "describing the same thing differently".

I can _remember_ the properties of an apple - approximate size, weight (my hand does not instantly drop to the floor due to its weight), etc.

I can't _imagine_ an apple in my hand if you defined the colour, size or weight (for example, purple, 50cm diameter and 100Kg).

In my mind I am recalling a _memory_ of holding an apple in my hand - not imagining the one according to your specifications.

One example I can give is being tasked with rearranging desks in an office. I can't for the life of me _imagine_ what the desks would look like ahead of physically moving them into place.

I can make an educated guess based on their length/width but certainly not "picture" how they would look arranged without physically moving them.

It's like my brain BSODs when computing the image!

The same applies to people - I can only recall a memory of someone - not imagine them sitting on a bench in front of me. I might remember a memory of the person on _a_ bench but certainly not the one in front of me.

but are those details fabricated on demand?

I don't have any trouble following your path of increased detail, but if someone says "imagine an apple", I get a vaguely apple-shaped, generally redish object (I like cosmic crisp), which only becomes detailed if I "navigate my mental eye" closer.

Can I ask you a personal question? How do you imagine sex? I thought that everyone kinda thought about themselves doing it with someone else, a bit like a porn movie that you make in your own mind.

I can't imagine it being at all interesting to just think about it the way you are talking about it, like it would just be a sort of description of what the other person looks like, without the multifaceted sensations. Touch, smell, visuals.

And if you can't imagine it, how do you go about ever doing anything about getting it? It's like saying you want a juicy burger without imagining yourself eating it. Like a paper description of an experience, rather than a simulation of it. It doesn't seem motivating enough that you'd bother washing yourself, getting nice clothes, and going to chat with women.

I think that is pretty normal while dreaming, daydreaming, or awake if you don't have aphantasia. Someone skilled in neural-linguistic programming can guide someone into developing greater and greater details.

Psychedelics and certain meditative practices can enhance this effect. There are also specific practices that allow imagined object to take a life of its own.

That's in the private imaginative mindspace. There are other mindspaces. There was one particular dream where I can tell, it was procedurally generated on-demand. When I deliberately took an unusual turn, the entire realm stuttered as whole new areas got procedurally generated. There were other spaces where it was not like that.

I have so many questions to ask people with aphantasia related to sex, but it would get uncomfortably personal, so maybe best not to.

The best I can do: do people with aphantasia only get aroused if the stimulus is present? Can't they not get horny just imagining things, like I imagine most people can?

Does steamy literature do anything for them? I imagine it doesn't, since if you cannot imagine things then words on a page just have no power.

In my opinion, the fact erotic literature exists is proof aphantasia is not normal. Words cannot be arousing if you cannot imagine things "in your mind's eye".

> In my opinion, the fact erotic literature exists is proof aphantasia is not normal. Words cannot be arousing if you cannot imagine things "in your mind's eye".

The opposite seems to follow? erotic literature is proof you don't need images to be aroused.

For me visualization by itself is mostly useless, it is more of a concept of something arousing happening and vague visual flashes of something similar I have seen. It somewhat works, but nowhere near as effective as real pictures.

What works for me - is imagining sensations, they could enhance both real and vague pictures, and I feel them directly in the body which makes them very effective.

Good erotic literature does not only describe images, but also desires, emotions and sensations, all of which I think have different channels of imagination/recall.

> I can't _imagine_ an apple in my hand if you defined the colour, size or weight (for example, purple, 50cm diameter and 100Kg).

I think most people couldn't imagine holding an apple specced like a washing machine in one hand. :-)

When you image slicing, does the video your head renders smooth or jittery string of pictures strung together?

Hmm, no? The words must elicit images and sensations, otherwise they wouldn't work as erotica. Words are just words. If you cannot picture what they are describing, you cannot get aroused.

I didn't mean it describes images, I meant it elicits them. If you cannot imagine what's happening, you cannot get aroused. Words are just words, they must conjure an image.

Aphantasiacs often cannot imagine sensations either (at least, my friend doesn't. He cannot imagine the smell of coffee either).

That'd be a tiny washing machine, to be fair. That said, a 50cm diameter apple would weigh maybe half that, unless it's made entirely of water ice.

> If you cannot picture what they are describing, you cannot get aroused.

This is your thesis. In the first place, the existence of erotic literature doesn't prove this is true, like you claimed. I would furthermore claim that it calls this assumption into question. If the goal was imagery, the more straightforward approach would be to draw an image. If that wasn't possible, you would instead describe the image you wanted to draw in words in great detail. But this isn't at all what most erotica consists of.

For me the default is typically an instant view of whatever is described, first an apple, then when I read "sliced" now it's suddenly in slices. But if I want to image motion I can easily do that also, like of a knife cutting down through an apple and the two halves falling to either side, just like a video but with a generic background and other simplifications, like the knife suddenly disappears when the cut is complete.

> In the first place, the existence of erotic literature doesn't prove this is true, like you claimed

Everything we are discussing in this comments section must be understood in an informal way. I obviously did not "prove" anything; I don't think anything can be proven about this anyway. Whenever I say "proof", read my statements as "[in my opinion] this is strong evidence that [thing]".

It's a figure of speech: "this cannot be so!", "it must be like this other thing", etc. It's informal conversation.

> If the goal was imagery, the more straightforward approach would be to draw an image.

Maybe straightforward, but as with anything related to the phenomenon of closure (as in Scott McCloud's closure), drawing an image closes doors. If you describe but don't draw an image, the reader is free to conjure their own image. Maybe they visualize a more attractive person than the artist would have drawn, or simply the kind of person they would be more attracted to.

Have you never seen a movie adaptation after reading the book and thought "wait, this wasn't how I imagined this character"?

> If that wasn't possible, you would instead describe the image you wanted to draw in words in great detail. But this isn't at all what most erotica consists of.

That's such a mechanistic description! Words don't work like this. Sometimes describing less is better, because the human brain fills in the gaps. You don't simply list physical attributes in an analytical way, you instead conjure sensory stimulus for the reader.

(If talking about sex and adjacent activities makes anybody nervous, simply replace this with literature about food. In order to make somebody's mouth water you cannot simply list ingredients; you must evoke imagery and taste. Then again, some people -- aphantasiacs -- simply cannot "taste" the food in textual descriptions!).

> Whenever I say "proof", read my statements as "[in my opinion] this is strong evidence that [thing]".

read my statement as "it isn't any evidence at all"