Some people can't see mental images

Some people can't see mental images(newyorker.com)

183 points by petalmind 199 days ago | 368 comments

andy99 199 days ago |

I’ve read tons of these and still have no idea if I have aphantasia or not. I can’t understand whether people just have different ways of describing what’s in their minds eye or if there’s really a fundamental difference.

Sharlin 199 days ago | |

Yep. Problem is that there's actually a spectrum of vividity of mental imagery, but in popular discussion it's always seen as a binary on/off thing.

An old post by Scott Alexander (16+ years, mind blown) discusses this, long before the term "aphantasia" became a thing [1]. There was a debate about what "imagination" actually means already in the late 1800s; some people were absolutely certain that it was just a metaphor and nobody actually "sees" things in their mind; others were vehement that mental images are just as real as those perceived with our eyes. The controversy was resolved by Francis Galton, who did some rigorous interviewing and showed that it really does vary a lot from person to person.

[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/baTWMegR42PAsH9qJ/generalizi...

hackinthebochs 199 days ago | | |

Modern brain imaging techniques also weigh in on this issue. Mental imagery corresponds to voluntary activation of the visual cortex[1]. The quality of the self-reported imagery corresponds to the degree of activity in the visual cortex[2] while imagining some visual scene. People with aphantasia have little to no visual cortex activity.

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4595480/

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8186241/

pavel_lishin 199 days ago | | |

In Russia, color-blindness is referred to as Daltonism, and I figured Francis must have been the one to be the source of that (given this topic), but apparently it was John Dalton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalton

agentcoops 199 days ago | | |

Comically, though, programming communities really seem to have a statistical over representation of both aphantasics and hyperphantasics. One of these articles comes out every few years and I've witnessed at numerous workplaces how quickly a large portion of the engineers realize they're aphantasic and everyone else is aghast that they can't rotate complete architectural diagrams etc.

That said, it really is binary or not whether you cannot see images at all in your head and there are, in fact, some very real downsides related to episodic memory. As someone who realized I was aphantasic late in life, I think it's pretty important to realize you are if in fact you are---ideally as early in your educational process as possible. For everyone else, it's interesting to realize some people have more vivid imagery than you and some people less, but probably that doesn't change very much about your life.

w_for_wumbo 199 days ago | | |

"Others were vehement that mental images are just as real as those perceived with our eyes" - This sucks as a child, where you see a gymnasium floor open up beneath you. So you run to safety, just to be punished for what was an appropriate response.

Some children don't see any differentiation between their imagination and reality, so it's a matter of paying attention to how others' behave to know what to do.

Because you can't trust that the reality that you're in is shared by the people around you.

bigyikes 199 days ago | |

I’ve interrogated people about this but can never get a straight answer.

——

“So you can really see things in your head when your eyes are closed?”

Yeah!

“And it’s as though you’re seeing the object in front of you?”

Yeah, you don’t have that?

“So it’s like you’re really seeing it? It’s the sensation of sight?“

Well… it’s kind of different. I’m not really seeing it.

——

…and around we go.

Personally, I can see images when I dream, but I don’t see anything at all if I’m conscious and closing my eyes. I can recite the qualities of an object, and this generates impressions of the object in my head, but it’s not really seeing. It’s vibe seeing.

nosianu 199 days ago | | |

For me it is like a different "space" for mental vs real images. It is not the same neurons, I would guess.

The real images are (and feel) outside of myself (obviously, you may say). The mental image feels very close and kind of "inside my mental space", in a dark space. It is far from how I see with my eyes on all levels, very basic. It is more conceptual, that concept given some vague form, not "pixels" (not that the eye is like a camera sensor either, it is much more complicated, a lot of pre-processing taking place right in the retina, which developed from a piece of brain in very early embryonic development). The better I know the object the better this internal concept-image, but far from what looking at the real thing is like.

I am able to visualize, that's why I could write this, but I think my ability to do so is near the bottom. It is vague without details unless I concentrate on them specifically, and it is very dark in there.

On https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia I am between apple #3 and #4 in that picture. When I read novels I develop barely any internal imagery, only barebones conceptual ones. Sometimes I look at fancy visually stunning movies, Youtube videos, or graphics sites on the web specifically to "download" some better images into my brain. Mostly for fantastical landscapes and architecture.

The Lord of the Rings movies, for example, completely replaced all internal mental images I may have had, even though I read the books long before those movies were made. People like me need graphically talented people around, or my mental images will be very much limited to drastically reduced versions of what I see in real life. (THANK YOU to all graphical artists).

darkmighty 199 days ago | | |

I'd describe it as like having a second monitor in your desktop. It's not inherently "over" what I already see or anywhere physical, it's like in a different space. Sometimes it can feel like it's "behind" what I am seeing indeed (i.e. kind of over), but it can vary and I suspect that's just a learned position (I just tried and I can shift the position images 'feel where they are').

I don't see with full fidelity, I suspect that's to save power or limitations of my neural circuitry. But I can definitely see red and see shapes. Yes, it's not exactly like seeing with your eyes and if you pay attention you can sense there's trickery involved (particularly with motion being very low fidelity, kind of low FPS), but it's still definitely an image. It's not that it's a blurred image exactly, more that it only generates some details I am particularly focused at. It can't generate a huge quantity of details for an entire scene in 4K, it's more like it generates a scene in 320p and some minor patches can appear at high res, and often the borders are fuzzy. I can imagine this with my eyes open or closed, but it's easier with eyes closed.

It feels (and probably is?) that it's the same system used for my dreams, but in my dreams it's more like "setup" to simulate my own vision, and the fidelity is increased somewhat.

tbabb 199 days ago | | |

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".

kraftman 199 days ago | | |

It's like hearing a song in your head, you can listen to it and maybe keep time roughly but if someone asks you what instruments there are you might not be able to get all of them, or might not remember the drums or the baseline. It's all much more vague. If you asked me to remember my childhood home I can visualise 'all of it' in my head, but maybe not what the type of bricks are like, or where all of the windows were.

kulahan 199 days ago | | |

It might be easier to describe as an eye that is only opened manually, and can only focus on highly specific things. This is my superpower - I can see things vividly in my mind, spin them around, zoom in/out, and more.

When I'm looking at it, the only thing I can see is whatever object is being imagined. However, yes - it's similar to the sensation of seeing with your own actual eyes. The reason it seems so foreign is because our real eyes can see more than one thing at a time. Our mind's eye can only see exactly one subject at a time (though I should mention that when I navigate cities, I do so by imagining a birds-eye view, so there are many objects IN the map, but I cannot see anything other than the map, and it becomes extremely blurry outside of the section I'm focusing on).

RajT88 199 days ago | | |

For me, it's a little more like you describe these days. It is images, but fuzzier and more impressionistic than it used to be. I have to concentrate harder to have a full-on image of a scene, and can't so much when multitasking.

In college, especially when I was studying Japanese and had to memorize a lot of shapes, I could look at a poster filled with characters and recall it hours later to translate those characters. Your mind is a muscle and it gets better with exercise, and grows weaker when lazy.

mnmalst 199 days ago | | |

I am the same and I am not convinced people can really - see - things. Like, when I close my eyes, I see the inside of my eye lids, the blackness. When I then try to imagine a candle for example there is no candle appearing in the darkness, I just remember how a candle is shaped its parts and similar characteristics. I see nothing.

goatlover 199 days ago | | |

Some people can see images while they are conscious just like you see them in your dreams. Perhaps even better, depending on their ability to visualize. Maybe you just never developed the conscious ability to visualize.

SamPatt 198 days ago | | |

I can visualize things in a lucid dream, and it's identical to seeing for me. But I can only control it for a short time before I wake up.

When awake, I have a "mind's eye," but it's more like what you're describing. As I fall asleep, I can actually begin to see things. I wonder if some people can do that when awake.

itsamario 199 days ago | | |

Can you remember seeing? I use my imagination to get a very grainy image but it's usually my interpretation of it and what I'm using it for.

Like when in school I'd imagine graphs lines before drawn or best example is a cad test and from reading the directions I could get an idea of what I was about to draw in cad

Man made computers in our image, it use to be a job title.

antonvs 199 days ago | | |

> Personally, I can see images when I dream, but I don’t see anything at all if I’m conscious and closing my eyes.

That's classic complete aphantasia. I have it too.

The "kind of different. I’m not really seeing it" would apply just as well to dream images. If you're interrogating people, you might try asking them whether it's similar to that.

lm28469 199 days ago | | |

When people tell me they can see things in their mind I usually ask something like:

"imagine a ball, can you see it?"

"yes"

"ok what color is it? "

I never heard anyone say anything other than a variation of "hm I don't know". It's just an anecdote but still

noir_lord 199 days ago | | |

> Personally, I can see images when I dream.

If I dream I don't ever remember them - I assume I must, I think everyone (barring medical issues) has REM sleep.

I envy people that, dreams sound amazing.

ehutch79 199 days ago | | |

Pretend you're talking about photos and cameras. You mean you can see the image? even though the camera isn't pointed at it now? Like it's really seeing it?

Same idea. You're seeing it, but you know it's just a memory of the thing, not a live view. Like pulling up a video or jpg instead of a live feed.

agentcoops 199 days ago | |

There is really a fundamental difference as many studies now have shown---and I can attest from personal experience. Honestly, if you have to ask the question there's a pretty high chance you are: everyone at some level believes that their own inner experience generalizes to the rest of humanity, but it's those with aphantasia who thereby believe that everyone else's description is just a manner of speaking ("they, like me, surely don't really think in pictures").

I find the typical thought experiment of "picture an apple" less illustrative than something like "picture the face of a co-worker you see every day but aren't friends with and tell me the color of their eyes." In the apple case, everyone has a "concept" of apple and an experience of "thinking about an apple"---the difference is really in what you can deduce from that thinking and how, if that make sense. Are you reasoning on the basis of an image or from more or less linguistic facts ("apples are red therefore..." etc)?

The main difference that's more than an "implementation" detail of how you think, so to speak, but really a limit concerns what's called "episodic memory." People with aphantasia rather singularly cannot re-experience the emotions of past experiences. There are a lot of studies on this and I can look up the references if you're interested.

When I was really trying to make sense of my own aphantasia, I found https://www.hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/codebook.html to be one of the most fascinating resources: it's essentially a catalog of all the different modalities of inner experience a large study found. Probably there are critiques of his methodology etc, but regardless it's an invaluable aid for trying to figure out how exactly you think.

woopwoop 199 days ago | | |

Are you saying that a non-aphantasic person can recall the eye color of everyone in their office?

____tom____ 199 days ago | | |

Aphantasia has nothing to do with emotional recall. You make the first assertion of this I've ever heard.

I am mostly aphantasaic, but have no trouble at all remembering emotions.

Amorymeltzer 199 days ago | |

YMMV, but for me, the image on en.Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia> made it easy for me to understand. That and having a frank conversation with someone close to me: "Wait, you just think of something and see it, like a picture or real life?" "Wait, you actually see anything?"

ergonaught 199 days ago | |

Okay, so, if you think people are only metaphorically referring to their "minds eye", then you probably have aphantasia. If the idea of people "counting sheep" to go to sleep confuses you, thinking that perhaps you could not go to sleep if you just lay there counting to yourself (hint: that's not what they mean), welcome to club aphantasia.

I haven't even read the comments yet and I guarantee there are people here debating that there is some spectrum or degree of quality to the imagery of the minds eye, and those people don't understand that there is nothing which can possess qualities when you have aphantasia. If there are degrees, then you don't have aphantasia.

It's entirely possible to imagine things, and to access data/information about things that the brain is presumably constructing, but there is no direct, sober, conscious access to mental imagery. None. Not "fuzzy", not "cloudy", not "not very strong": none.

Resonates? Again, welcome aboard.

No? Thanks for stopping by. :)

Sephr 199 days ago | |

Throwing in my anecdote: I acquired aphantasia after a viral infection as a child. This also slightly impacted my speech. There can definitely be a fundamental difference.

In my case, I can distinctly remember my experiences from before the infection, and recall a clear difference in visualization capabilities before and after.

altruios 199 days ago | |

"where" the mind's eye is also variable. And may be moveable.

For a time, my mind's eye was 'on the floor, sideways, behind "my driver seat"'. With some effort, it is now 'in front' of me, closer than where my vision is, occupying some space between where my vision is, and where I perceive my sense of self to be.

The efforts were a combination of trataka flame training, training to remain conscious through the process of falling asleep (for lucid dreaming), and drawing (seeing an image, quickly memorizing it, and drawing it from the mind's eye projection {as in, literally trying to see the image on the blank page without access to the reference image}).

tines 199 days ago | |

It's quite funny, for myself, if I concentrate I can so strongly visualize something that I stop seeing through my physical eyes and kind of go "blind," only perceiving with my eyes once I decide to again or once some large visual stimulus surprises me.

buttercraft 199 days ago | | |

Same for me. It has led to some awkward moments in public where it looks like I'm staring at someone from across the room, but I'm just thinking/visualizing and am only vaguely aware of what my eyes are looking at.

rayiner 199 days ago | |

I can basically do a Google Street View of places I’ve been before, seeing what I’d be seeing if I was there. It’s not as clear as being there and having my eyes open, and th animation is jerky, but it’s in color, and I have the same spatial sense of where things are relative to where I am mentally standing.

For the most part, I can’t “think” about things except maybe mental math. I see things, and I talk to myself in my head.

redhed 199 days ago | | |

I have the same thing, I can "walk" through my childhood home. I see how the living room was set up, I can walk from there to my bedroom and "see" everything. Honestly if I had good art skills I feel like I could draw it out pretty well. However I would in no way describe it as looking like I'm there at the real thing or looking at photograph, not even close really. It's kinda just a hazy construct in my mind.

I feel like that is where a lot of the miscommunication comes from, people who think others can close there eyes and be transported somewhere else by imagining it. That is unless I actually just have aphantasia.

Jordan-117 199 days ago | |

My understanding of it has been that aphantasiacs can only imagine in terms of verbal descriptions, not images. If that's the case, it seems like visual analogy would be a good differentiator.

For example: without any internal monologue, think of the Sydney Opera House, and then name some other objects it resembles.

Someone with visual imagination should be able to rattle off stuff like sailboats or seashells or folded napkins based purely on visual similarity, while a true aphantasiac should be lost without being able to look at a picture or derive an answer from a mental list of attributes.

(Likewise, if you gave a non-aphantasiac a written list of visual attributes the Sydney Opera House and ask them to name similar objects without picturing anything visually, it might be much more difficult to get the same range of answers.)

saltcured 199 days ago | | |

Just as an aside, I am aphantasic but also do not think verbally. It isn't a single dimension with images on one end and words on the other.

sean_pedersen 199 days ago | | |

By this reasoning aphantasiacs should be incapable of drawing anything from their mind.

brooke2k 199 days ago | |

It might be easier to think in terms of what you can actually achieve with your visualization.

I am terrible at visual art because I struggle to picture what I am drawing before I draw it. When I do calculus problems, I have to write down in full every intermediate step because I can't visualize how the equations change more than one or two steps in the future.

Those kinds of things seem to me like more objective measures of someone's ability to visualize, although I have nothing other than anecdotal evidence to back that up.

ElevenLathe 199 days ago | |

Relatedly, I'm not sure I really believe people who say they think in code and can't be bothered to render their ideas in design or decision documents with actual reasoning. I can't even tell if something is a real thought I'm having /in my own head/ until I've written it down or otherwise recorded it somewhere in the consensus reality. Very often, I /think/ I've got some problem or idea all fleshed out in my mind, but the process of writing it down (in code or prose) reveals that this was all just a kind of illusion. Or maybe I really did have it all figured out but something got lost in the process of writing it down? Seems literally impossible to say.

But IMO it would be weird if all of us meat machines of the same species had radically different methods of cognition, since the empirical evidence suggests that our behavior, in the broadest possible sense, is not radically different, and neither is our thinking hardware.

ambicapter 199 days ago | | |

I think its far more likely that they're just bad at writing or drawing. Tons of people can picture a scene in their head but are absolutely terrible at drawing it, and can only render much more boring imagery in text.

gowld 199 days ago | | |

Code is "written it down or otherwise recorded it somewhere in the consensus reality"

"thinking in code" means "render their ideas in code", like you render your ideas in English.

conception 199 days ago | |

https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd....

Seems like a good test?

gowld 199 days ago | | |

It's nothing like that at all. First, when you are awake you still see whatever is literally in front of you, even if it's your eyelids. Second, when you fail to recall something in detail, it isn't a sketch or child's drawing, it's just... incomplete sensation. We don't imagine things the way a painter paints a picture bit by bit (unless you are an experienced painter!)

teamonkey 199 days ago | |

I have aphantasia. I know what something looks like, I just can’t see it.

It’s not like a written or verbal list though. I also have no internal voice so that wouldn’t make sense. It’s just like the concept of what I’m thinking of is right there in all its detail. Its extremely spatial - I’m thinking in 3D even if I’m not visualising it.

On the visual side, sometimes if I try hard I can make out an amorphous blob. Mostly colourless, though sometimes it has some abstract colours. Trying to recall actual detailed features is very hard, especially faces.

Occasionally I get memory flashes which are more like actually seeing a photograph in my head, but they last a fraction of a second and can’t be done on demand. Sometimes I have dreams which are more visual. This is how I know that my normal way of thinking isn’t visual.

kraftman 199 days ago | | |

If you think about something famous, like the Eiffel tower, or big ben, you don't picture them?

parpfish 199 days ago | |

it reminds me a bit of the debate in psychology back in the day of propositional vs. analogical representation.

there was a long running debate in the literature about how mental information (like images) were represented: a bunch of discrete language-like symbols OR a more continuous image-like format.

two very different philosophies about how the information was stored and processed, but the tricky thing is that they were completely indistinguishable experimentally -- any effect you observe and try to attribute to one scheme could be accommodated in the other.

with respect to the afantasia debate, it could be that everybody has the exact same mental experience but one camp describes it in a propositional (non-image based) framework the other group describes it in an analogical (imge-based) framework

teaearlgraycold 199 days ago | |

A guy was talking to me about designing some robot legs. He was just getting started and was new to mechanical design. The more questions I asked him the more I realized he couldn’t internally visualize what he was designing. When I’m putting something together in my head it’s like a mental CAD where I can place objects down, constrain them to each other, and see how they move in relation to each other. For this guy I recommended simply diagramming on paper to work out how it should function.

I have a fuzzy mental stage for these things. It’s like my mind’s second monitor. It mostly goes ignored but I can focus on it if I want to. Shapes and colors are weak but are definitely there. But still a useful tool.

abetusk 199 days ago | |

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.

vorbits 199 days ago | | |

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.

super_mario 199 days ago | | |

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.

mnmalst 199 days ago | | |

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?

Anonyneko 199 days ago | | |

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.

aytigra 199 days ago | |

For me, even if I drop into "mental space" completely and stop seeing(or being aware of) real world while thinking about something I saw/did recently, vividness of this mental image will depend on how close I am to dream state, but even so I think I can never see this image with a lot of details, I think even in my dreams I never see very detailed image.

It is like seeing with peripheral vision, I know that is there and sometimes see it with quick glances, but details only appear if I focus on some part of it and disappear quickly when focus shifts.

normalaccess 199 days ago | |

For me it's a gradient, depending on how tired I am. I can go from fairly vivid mental image to full on seeing things with my eyes closed. It's that window when falling asleep that is the most impactful visually and very close to lucid dreaming.

So I would say yes, it is like you are seeing things but in your "minds eye".

If you can "hear" music in your head when thinking about a song it feels about the same as "seeing" without seeing. It's imagery but from a different place.

hvs 199 days ago | |

If you have something to describe "in your mind's eye" then you don't have aphantasia. We can't "see" anything in our mind.

skinkestek 199 days ago | |

The way I understood it was the apple on a table test:

I was asked to close my eyes and think about an apple.

if you do it now, close your eyes for about 10 - 20 seconds and think very hard about an apple on a table.

spacer

then immediately after opening your eyes tell me what color the apple was.

For me and many others it is an absurd question. We only thought about the thing apple on the thing table, absolutely no visual representation.

For some of my siblings they saw the apple and could of course tell me the color and also the color of the table.

YurgenJurgensen 199 days ago | | |

The apple was red.

I didn’t even try to imagine anything. Apples are just conceptually red by default. I can also tell you that it was tart, and crisp. I didn’t imagine those sensations either, they were just the first words that came to my mind when thinking about apples. The table is brown. I didn’t try to imagine anything table either, but the table in my kitchen, where there might be apples, is brown.

Can you see how this exercise is flawed?

zephyrthenoble 199 days ago |

I think an interesting different way to talk about aphantasia is not, "Can you see an apple when you close your eyes" but more along the linked of, "Can you mentally edit the visual reality you see?"

A common exercise while being in the back seat of a car while I was young was to imagine someone in a skateboard riding along the power lines on the side of the road, keeping pace with our car.

It's not literally overriding my vision, it's almost like a thin layer, less than transparent, over reality. But specifically, it's entirely in my mind. I would never confuse that imagery with reality...

Having said that, I think that is related to the way our brains process visual information. I've had an experience when I'm driving that, when I recognize where I am, coming from a new location in not familiar with, I feel like suddenly my vision expands in my peripheral vision. I think this is because my brain offloads processing to a faster mental model of the road because I'm familiar with it. I wonder if that extra "vision" is actually as ephemeral as my imagined skateboarder.

happytoexplain 199 days ago |

I have no real basis for this, but I always suspected that the majority of differences in ability to picture things is actually just a difference in semantics about terms like "visualizing", "picturing", etc. I don't think anybody is "literally" envisioning things, as in hallucination. On the other end, I don't think anybody is actually unable to "think of" what a thing looks like. But it's really difficult to objectively describe what it's like to picture something in your head - so difficult, in fact, that I can see some people calling it "literally summoning an image" and others calling it "not seeing anything at all", while both talking about the exact same thing.

Not that there isn't a difference in ability, just that it might not be as dramatic/binary as we seem to think.

pfgallagher 199 days ago |

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.

Matterless 199 days ago |

I don't know why I'm surprised every time to see so many people astounded in the comments every time another of these articles come out. I guess I thought by now this phenomenon would be more common knowledge... I'm a non-seer and a non-self speaker. That is, I do not have any clear monologue whatsoever, nor can I visualize anything at all. However, I have a pretty great memory, just not for the experience of things, but instead only the circumstances, the trivia, the conclusions, and all of those can be very granular.

Words exist for me in the space beyond my lips, or my fingertips; what that feels like, in the moment, is that it is the act of externalization of words which makes them come into being, but not for a moment are they ever out of my control.

I can't remember the sound of my mother's voice. Not really. Of course if I heard it in a recording it would be as recognizable as any voice, and in fact when I watch animated shows, like classic King of the Hill for example, I'm extremely good at picking out all the celebrity voices and I'm often surprised that I can identify a voice I didn't know that I knew.

I used to have an internal monologue. I used to be able to picture things. That all went away in my teens. Not only can I somewhat remember what that was like, I'm able to experience vivid internal pictures and internal sounds sometimes in the moments just before I'm fully asleep. It doesn't happen very frequently, but it's enjoyable when it does.

And that's it. If you have any questions for thisaphantasic non-self-speaker, have at it.

ourguile 199 days ago |

https://archive.ph/iMdvd

I have aphantasia and it always astounds me when I see an article like this, or hear a friend talking about it (about not having it) and realize that their experience of the world is so fundamentally different than my own.

tekacs 199 days ago | |

Have you seen the Aphantasia Apples?

https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_b...

As in: if you look at this image, can you place yourself on a scale of 1 - 5 of with what kind of fidelity you can picture an apple if you try to imagine it?

I'm a 5 for example, and in asking many people this question I've gotten a solid spectrum of answers from 1 - 5. Generally in a single group of a handful of people I'll get several different numbers.

tekacs 199 days ago |

For those who find themselves wondering whether they 'have' aphantasia or not, I would really recommend looking at the aphantasia apples:

https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_b...

As in: if you look at this image, can you place yourself on a scale of 1 - 5 of as to the fidelity with which you can picture an apple if you try to imagine it?

I'm a 5 for example, and in asking many people this question I've gotten a solid spectrum of answers from 1 - 5. Generally in a single group of a handful of people I'll get several different numbers.

adt2bt 199 days ago |

This has always been interesting for me, as I think I have aphantasia but also can vividly experience taste in the same manner as if I'm eating foods.

In other words, if I think about, say, spaghetti & meatballs, I can feel the exact sensation of the taste of the spaghetti & meatballs. I can even vary aspects of the dish without much effort (e.g. adding dusted parmesan, basil, the pasta is more/less al dente, etc). I use this all the time when cooking, as I 'think with my tongue' and pre-taste what I think a dish will taste like as I'm considering what ingredients to add or different techniques to follow.

I think my experience with visualizing taste is what some people can do in their minds eye with images & sounds, yet I can barely visualize any images in my head when I close my eyes. Frustrating, but gives me a bit of hope. In my younger years I did not have this virtual food tasting ability, but I think I slowly gained it by paying close attention to the experience of eating food I made in order to improve my cooking ability.

I wonder if I can pay similar attention to the world around me and develop image visualization abilities over time.

cookingmyserver 199 days ago | |

I am fascinated by the extent to which people can mentalize their different senses. I can visualize most of my primary senses. Sight would probably be my weakest one. I am definitely not aphantasic, but the images seem much more ephemeral than what other people experience. I can conjure up an image at will but if I focus too much it will become fuzzier.

Fuzzy isn't even the best word to use though. It's not fuzzy but lacking detail while at the same time my brain isn't comprehending that it is lacking detail. It is almost as if my brain can only focus on a few aspects of the picture at once with the most striking characteristics being rendered while the other parts are inferred or filled in with the most perfect placeholder - something that perfectly represents the idea of what is missing, but which it is not.

None of my other senses suffer from this. I can smell pumpkin pie or treated lumber on command. I can conjure music in my head all day (and often do without trying). I can metalize the feeling of cold or warmth. I too can taste spaghetti and meatballs. When I read that my mind immediately went to those cheap pre-made meatballs in the frozen section, my teeth cutting through those dense almost hard meatballs that are somehow so bland yet over spiced.

I also wonder how much of our differences are often our inability to communicate our experiences in a sufficient manner.

abetusk 199 days ago |

I've only skimmed the article but it seems to relate memory with aphantasia, which I haven't heard before. I'm a bit skeptical of this take.

Note that people aphantasia tend to score better at scene recall, at least in some metrics, than people without ("Those without visual imagery show deficits in object but not spatial memory" [0]). I think the idea is that people with aphantasia tend to build language "scaffolding" to describe relations rather than relying on a visual representation.

If true, this might be why people with aphantasia tend to gravitate towards some engineering and science disciplines.

There's a lot of people lamenting the loss of minds eye visual imagery but a potential benefit is to have a lifetime's practice of using language to reason and quantify relationships between pieces of knowledge.

[0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7856239/

rogual 198 days ago |

I do have the "second visual canvas" people here are talking about, but the thing about mine, and I haven't seen anyone say this yet, is that I don't have full control of it.

For example, I have a memory from childhood of visualizing a yellow bucket, and it showed up in my mind's eye with big cartoon eyes. I tried to delete the eyes because I just wanted a normal yellow bucket, but they kept coming back.

Also, when reading Harry Potter as a kid, Severus Snape always showed up in my mind's eye with the head of a crocodile. I remember telling my brain, no, he's just a guy, just give him a normal man's head, but it never worked. Even now when someone mentions Severus Snape I see him with the crocodile head.

Anyone else, or am I just nuts?

tolerance 199 days ago |

Some people have more vivid imaginations than others and a vivid imagination entails more than just noodling and doodling well. Evidently.

People vary in their capacity to reason with things. People who “see” things with their eyes closed probably don’t believe that they are physically seeing them (i.e., with their actual eyeballs). People who can’t...probably can; they just expect to actually see what it is that they're thinking about.

This is a sensitive subject. At its core it beckons forth for questions of spiritual import.

Is society fit to address something as abstract as this problem in an age where “Chatbot psychosis” is becoming a thing?

skinkestek 199 days ago | |

I'm a bit tired of people trying to explain it away.

I'm affected by it, and I know it isn't like you describe because I have experienced and sometimes still experience seeing actual images with my eyes closed but most of the time it is absolutely impossible.

There's also IIRC the fact that the reason someone started researching this topic was because a person who had very clear visual imagery with closed eyes lost it after surgery and his description got this thing started.

FloorEgg 199 days ago |

For me I can "see" things in my minds eye and it almost doesn't matter if my eyes are closed or not. The detail isn't perfect and it's unlike anything else I would ever "see", such as a blurry image or simple drawing. I can manipulate the image in my mind, rotate it or fold it over, etc.

The longer I think about a specific part the more detail I can see in that part. Unlike when I look around and see infinite detail all at once, my minds eye only sees the detail when I really focus on generating it.

Amorymeltzer 199 days ago |

>Aphantasics might skip over descriptive passages in books—since description aroused no images in their minds, they found it dull—or, because of such passages, avoid fiction altogether. Some aphantasics found the movie versions of novels more compelling, since these supplied the pictures that they were unable to imagine. Of course, for people who did have imagery, seeing a book character in a movie was often unsettling—because they already had a sharp mental image of the character which didn’t look like the actor, or because their image was vague but just particular enough that the actor looked wrong, or because their image was barely there at all and the physical solidity of the actor conflicted with that amorphousness.

I definitely have aphantasia, but this description really didn't connect with me. I don't have a mental image of something, I have the vague sense of knowing what that thing looks like. I read both fiction and non-fiction fervently. I frequently am annoyed at film adaptation, since they conflict with what (I have a vague sense of knowing) the character looked like.

However:

>Some aphantasics found the movie versions of novels more compelling, since these supplied the pictures that they were unable to imagine.

I do find that, once I've seen a movie or show adaptation, that portrayal becomes much more compelling in the mind than the book. The quintessential example for me is the snake exhibit's glass in the first Harry Potter book/movie.

daemonologist 199 days ago | |

These passages about reading were interesting to me as well, particularly the preceding one:

    > Naturally, aphantasics usually had a very different experience of reading. Like most people, as they became absorbed, they stopped noticing the visual qualities of the words on the page, and, because their eyes were fully employed in reading, they also stopped noticing the visual world around them. But, because the words prompted no mental images, it was almost as if reading bypassed the visual world altogether and tunnelled directly into their minds.

I do not have aphantasia, but I'm not seeing mental images when I'm reading unless I'm not "in the zone" and consciously choose to do so. Good fiction especially is more direct-to-memory.

zeryx 199 days ago |

That's me! I can visualize processes really well, and complex systems. But ask me to picture or hear something in my head and I'll just stare at you.

pitdicker 199 days ago | |

To add something similar: I am now at the point where maybe a few times a day I can visualize a glimpse of a memory, but otherwise it is blank and I have no visual dreams. But it does not hinder the ability to think about complex systems in any way. My day job involves making 2D technical drawings from multiple angles, 3D modelling, and of course to come up with the solutions before putting in the work of drawing/modelling stuff.

Matticus_Rex 199 days ago | |

For what definition of "visualize?" I have partial aphantasia but am great at understanding the inner workings of complex systems/processes. I used to think of it as visualization until aphantasia discourse, and then I realized it's not really visual at all, though there seem to be dimensional/spatial elements.

zeryx 199 days ago | | |

If I'm in a quiet place I can walk through the project, and understand where different things fit into place - even for very very complex systems, I can almost simulate algorithms and see where things go wrong without looking at my code. I realized this ability is not normal, and many people even software engineers struggle immensely with fully understanding large complex systems

YcYc10 199 days ago | |

I was about to write something almost exactly this. However I can "hear something" if I try but definitely not picture something in the literal sense.

Edit: I also have trouble recognising the faces of people I've only met once or twice, and I'm assuming the two things are related. Do you have the same?

zeryx 199 days ago | | |

Yes same even multiple times, but if I met them online (slack, teams) I'll always remember them.

When I was younger I was much worse at recognizing people and names, as an adult it's gotten much better

sharkjacobs 199 days ago |

> He knew, of course, that people talked about “picturing” or “visualizing,” but he had always taken this to be just a metaphorical way of saying “thinking.” Now it appeared that, in some incomprehensible sense, people meant these words literally.

This is the quintessential aphantasic experience. I still struggle to believe that other people "see" things in their heads.

khazhoux 199 days ago |

Something not usually discussed is the different kinds of internal sensing:

- Seeing images (what we usually talk about). Can you see your loved ones’ faces in your mind’s eye? Can you picture an elephant? Can you hold an image still or is it an ever-shifting scramble?

- Seeing color. In your mind’s eye, can you conjure up just the colors green, red, yellow…? No shape or imagery needed, but only the plain color. To my surprise and delight I discovered I can visualize colors without being able to see any actual image.

- Seeing movement. Independent of actual imagery, can you visualize pure motion. Again to my surprise, I can visualize movement without any associated imagery. Like, I can imagine a runner on a treadmill and clearly see the motion of the arms and legs going back and forth — but I don’t actually see the arms and legs at all. I’m seeing only the first derivative of an image, like a Schlieren image.

- Hearing music in your head. Can you pick out the different instruments? Can you anticipate the guitar stab in the 2nd verse. Can you hear the harmonica in Karma Chameleon even though you’ve only ever listened to that song a couple of times, and probably not in over 20 years?

- (might be same as above) Can you hear people’s voices? Can you randomly conjure up your parents or Obama or Tina Fey counting to ten?

Any others I’ve missed?

vanadium1st 199 days ago |

Speaking of the Apple test, as many other commenters here I truly believe that people who describe themselves as being at 1 are actually much closer to 4, they just aren’t aware of it or don’t understand the concept well. https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_b...

I’m an artist - I draw professionally and studied drawing in a group setting. It seems like a profession that would require the highest level of visual imagination. And I wish I could see clear pictures in my head, but I don’t. I need to have a reference in front of me, constantly compare it with my sketch, and refine it using knowledge and techniques that took years to learn.

When discussing this concept with my artist peers, many say they’re at 1. But they clearly aren’t - I can see that in their work process. There’s an immediate difference in art quality depending on whether the artist is drawing from reference or not. If someone could truly see the picture in their head and draw from it, they could skip years of art training and become good almost immediately. Such a genius would be clearly obvious to their peers. But I haven’t met a single person like that - it seems like everyone works with roughly the same hardware as I do and has to develop the same workarounds to become good.

I believe that Kim Jung Gi was a 1. I’m sure there were other historic geniuses with such a superhuman ability. But I’m also sure that 99% of people just aren’t there - whether they admit it or not.

raron 199 days ago | |

Maybe that are two different thing? Some may experience what is in their head the same or very similar way to how they would experience it if they would actually see it, but I think that doesn't mean that what is in their head must be static or photo-realistic. I suspect these are important factors, too, in a reference image you use for drawing.

vanadium1st 199 days ago | | |

I mean - it's either similar or it's not. Things I see with my eyes are definetely photo-realistic. So mental visualisations similar to that would also be photo-realistic. If they're not - they can have interesting qualities, but they're not similar.

yeellow 199 days ago |

From my recent experience I believe you can train your mental vision, at least to some extent. I play chess and the ability to imagine a position and moves in your head is quite common among chess players, but I was always struggling with it. I could not see the board clearly in my mind and when I was doing exercises on telling the color of a given square I was checking coordinates parity, as I could not see it in my mind. Only recently I tried to train chess vision starting with 3x3 board, than extending to 4x4 and finally glueing 8x8 with 4 4x4 boards. To my surprise after a while I started seeing the board more clearly and I could memorize some simple positions. I've noticed that my general mental vision improved significantly at the same time. If you don't play chess you can start with playing tic tac toe in your head, focusing on seeing the board and marks. I think such exercise is better than imaging an apple, because you can objectively check if what you see is correct. Any board game would do, but start with a small board, and extend only when you feel comfortable. Imagining horse moves on a 4x4 board, focusing on seeing square colors helped me a lot.

gxs 198 days ago |

I wonder if this explains at all why I've never had the need to diagram anything before I build it - whether it be software or something concrete like a cabinet - I just don't

I work very much like my dad, as I build I just refer to the image in my head

On the other hand, some people keep meticulous notes and diagrams about what they are going to do

This isn't a knock - I have some very sharp co-workers that do better work in some areas even than myself who need to compulsively diagram/take notes

Each has its pros and cons. For me the pros are I can get to building super quickly. It means on a microlevel I can explain things to people who will help with the build in great detail and make sure they "build the right thing"

On the other hand, the con is communicating at a macro level. I don't have anything diagrammed out typically, or notes even, so sometimes it feels to people like they are working with a black box and I have to make a conscious effort to document and diagram

Interesting stuff

For the people here debating whether they have it or not: my take away from many years of therapy is that when it comes to mental stuff like this, it's pretty much just whatever you say it is and how much it impacts your life

If you think you have OCD but it's not interfering with your day to day life, you're probably fine, even if you feel like it's overboard

On the other hand, even mild OCD can be devastating to a different person if they feel like it's making their life hell

So while not quite the same thing, if you think you have aphantasia and you think it's to the point where it's affecting your life in one way or another, than you probably do

If you think you have it but you don't really notice/care and feel like you get by just fine, then you might or might not

Moral of the story is that I hope it's just a thought exercise for you and nothing you're sweating about

mandolingual 199 days ago |

I think it's easier to square the circle about this by focusing on 'internal voice' - For those with an internal voice, where do the words come from? We don't pick them from a conscious word bank (mostly), they arise from the subconscious brain thinking about the topic at hand. So to sever the 'internal voice' step of thinking and go from the sub/semi-conscious to the page is if anything just more efficient. It's interesting to think about what we actually gain from conscious articulation of words and images - the benefits of visualization seem more clear cut(though more limited than non-aphantasia-havers might assume) than internal vocalization.

WithinReason 199 days ago |

I wonder what happens when you e.g. flash a 5 digit number to a person with aphantasia for say 0.1 seconds. Can they read it from memory? Or are they worse at this task than people with mental imagery? How about mentally rotating 3D objects?

fellowniusmonk 199 days ago | |

I can no longer rotate or even imagine 3d objects.

My lexical memory is very high, and I have long running echoic memory so I can post process audio but a 0.1 second visual flash?

Unless my brain picked it up and had time to parse out the numbers into lexical storage I would not be able to go back and recall it at all.

I don't have congenital aphantasia and it's clear to me that there are certain kinds of background processing still occurring in my subconscious, it's like a unidirectional connection between parts of my brain that was once bidirectional.

anthonypasq 199 days ago | |

that was what i was wondering. if i showed someone a strange sort of asymmetrical 3d object and told them to tell me what it would look like if there were looking at it from the back, it seems like it would be almost impossible to do.

Matterless 199 days ago | | |

If it's something I'm capable of figuring out, then I'll just know the answer (and I guess I'm pretty good at this sort of thing). I recognize that that's a terrible non-explanation but I can't explain what's happening outside of my awareness. I'm just good with spatial problems. I can't /visualize/ a damn thing but that doesn't appear to be necessary.

fellowniusmonk 199 days ago |

I developed aphantasia around 13 after a series of heart procedures where I had to be under.

Evaluating qualia in others is extremely difficult/philosophically impossible, I have pre/post expierence with both states of being.

I can still somewhat conjure up imagery from prior to the procedure series, it almost feels like I can see them, my mother's face, my father face, kinda of, it did not effect my dreams or ability to have imagery in my edge of dreaming state, not immediately at least.

I went from being very imaginative to trying to surf that half awake state in the mornings because it was such a loss.

At this point it's all mostly gone. My memory is entirely text strings now.

bena 199 days ago | |

Thank you for sharing your experience.

So, for you at least, there is/was a significant difference between "seeing things in your mind" and not being able to. Have you ever gone under any studies or tests to compare your brain activity to others?

fellowniusmonk 199 days ago | | |

No, if there was a study I would join it. I wish I had done an MRI in my "pre" state, the change was very rapid.

You'll see a bunch of people always pile into these aphantasia threads and basically show a bias towards their own qualia being the only type of existing experience and the whole thing being mere semantic differences to describe the same mental function.

It really boggles my mind, it's like in HS when I told people I was mildly color blind and they literally took it as being "like, blind?". I get that from a bunch of high schoolers, it's very odd to see in what are presumably adults on this site.

Those people are simply incorrect, I and many like me didn't have congenital aphantasia, it's well established in the literature.

Simulacra 199 days ago |

Is this related to internal monologue? I don't see mentioned in my view.

aurumque 199 days ago | |

There is a related set of experiences that articles like this tend to conflate.

* presence of internal monologue

* ability for visualization

* ability for audiation

* affective memory (remembering feelings)

* SDAM (weak autobiographical memory)

It speaks to the larger questions around the human experience, and that we are only now discovering the many ways it differs for each individual.

ourguile 199 days ago | |

I've seen some sections discussing memory, but not necessarily internal monologue.

YcYc10 199 days ago | |

I think it might be. I'm pretty sure I don't have an internal monologue the way people describe it, and I definitely can't conjure up actual images in my mind. I can however imagine sounds or music.

Sharlin 199 days ago | |

Yeah, aphantasia is talked about a lot but similarly whether people have an internal monologue, and to what degree, varies a lot. But they're not necessarily highly correlated, if at all.

drdec 199 days ago | |

I don't think so.

Anecdotally I know someone with aphantasia and they report having an internal monologue.

racingmars 199 days ago | | |

From everything I've read about aphantasia, I'm certain it described me -- I have absolutely no ability to consciously "visualize" things in my head (I was also surprised to learn that some/most people sometimes experience a smell sensation if they recall smells, or "hear" music when they think about music or have a song stuck in their head, etc.)

Really the only thing in my head is my internal monologue. If I'm thinking about something I've seen, it's my internal monologue "saying," with words, physical attributes I remember about it. If a song is stuck in my head, it's my internal monologue (in my own voice) signing the lyrics or my own voice humming the tune in my head. No sensation of it being the original artist or the actual instruments, it's 100% my own voice in my own head.

I have a friend who says she does not have any inner monologue at all, and thinks entirely visually. I can't imagine! We're on the pretty extreme opposite ends of the spectrum of how we think, apparently.

khazhoux 199 days ago | | |

I’m aphantasic and can hear internal monologue just fine.

jibbit 199 days ago |

If you could see a photographic-quality image in your mind, you could answer questions about it the way you’d answer questions about a photograph in front of you. 'what’s written on the sign?' 'how many windows?' That's photographic memory. Since that’s not real, the 'normal visualization' everyone's comparing themselves to doesn’t exist either. Yet we keep treating as credible people who assert what others experience based on not experiencing it themselves. This is epistemically bankrupt.

mandolingual 199 days ago | |

'If you could see a photographic-quality image in your mind, you could answer questions about it the way you’d answer questions about a photograph in front of you'

...yes. I wouldn't describe it as photograph-quality, for me it's fuzzier and lower fidelity than that, but yes.

Jaynes 197 days ago |

Vestiges of the bicameral mind pre consciousness. The cartesian theatre replaced the external "voice" or volition that gave impetus. Think Old Testament "voices" which were external to the hearer and the need of external laws as in tablets, eventually replaced by internal thinking and Laws on the heart which are internal. Old to New, rough to smooth, external objective to internal subjective thinking and mind mapping

paulsutter 199 days ago |

What about visualizing physical systems. Billiards, air flowing over a wing, what's causing the flaws in an anodizing process. This is really more important because you can't invent machines (or even diagnose them) if you cant visualize how a physical system operates.

This is an clear shortcoming of LLMs/RLHF. They can talk a good line about any subject, but become hopelessly confused when discussing a physical system. Because they just knows the words, they dont really have any idea about the physical world.

pitdicker 199 days ago |

There is an interesting reddit community 'CureAphantasia' with resources to develop your ability to visualize mental images. Together there are ca. 25 posts that offer a complete guide that might as well have been a book.

This seems like a good start: https://www.reddit.com/r/CureAphantasia/comments/xgtyd3/trad...

hondadriver 199 days ago |

Same here. I can't see, hear nor smell anything apart from what is really there.

I can 'imagine' in great detail, have a good visual/ auditory memory, but there is no real picture or sound. It is black / silent. I never forget a face just can't picture them.

I found out about this via an article posted here when I was 45 years old, now 4 years ago.

It never felt and does feel like a disability in any way.

Dreams in contrast are a full sensory experience for me, so the route back from memory to senses is there, only it is blocked when I am awake.

aaroninsf 199 days ago |

Based on comments here I guess in addition to having no internal monolog, I also have no "mental images."

I can imagine how a specific voice sounds, or singing, etc.; and I can summon a vague visual impression of something,

But ITT people are describing a level of detail I can't comprehend. I have no images I can "study" and I can't solve visual puzzles in my head. I can't rotate arbitrary objects and tell you the shape of their outline.

I guess some of you can do this? Jealous AF.

mackeye 199 days ago |

i can visualize only faint wireframes and blobs, if that makes sense. the closest analog is, my internal monologue can speak, as if i were to physically speak, but i cannot "hear" it with my ears. i can visualize "where" each part of a composite scene should go (e.g., my laptop on a table, with a whiteboard in front of me, and a window to my left), and rotate a representation of the scene, but there is no visual component aside from a very plain outline, if i concentrate.

speaking to people who claim to be able to visualize colorful scenes in 3d, with sound, etc., and truly see the scene before them --- there is probably _some_ variance. i wouldn't say it affects my cognition, but how could i really know? i've never asked my friends, but i imagine the percentage of people who use 3d visualization to reason, e.g., complex math, is small, given the number of people i've seen use the right-hand rule on exams :) (especially given aphantasia is supposedly quite rare).

i attended a talk recently on experience with organic chemistry pedagogy at a university for deaf students. few requisite terms are defined in american sign language, so the professor formed a committee to create 400 or so signs. "tetrahedral" uses four fingers in a tetrahedral formation, "chiral" moves one hand about the other to simulate a mirror, etc. education of stereochemistry wasn't necessarily heavy on visualization, as you can draw the molecule and reason about it without conceptualization in 3d, but i caught that i'd often look at clocks for R/S rotation problems (where clockwise-counterclockwise in 3d was relevant).

kaffekaka 199 days ago |

Given how diffently people describe various phenomena which are easier to actually compare, I have lost most hope of quantitatively understanding aphantasia. Of course people differ in ability to visualize thing and using "the minds eye", but exactly what they mean when describing their experience is only confusing.

Many, many people are so very imprecise with words. And we humans are generally bad at analyzing ourselves vs others.

tsoukase 199 days ago |

I am sure any statement "Some people can't X", for X a mental trait, capacity, capability or measure is valid. The thing is how often such happens and how the spectrum severity distributes between normal and total absence.

Exactly the same holds for "Some people can X more than average"

sandspar 199 days ago | |

The article suggests that 2-3% of people have aphantasia.

deadbabe 199 days ago |

I wouldn’t doubt that maybe there’s also some condition where people can’t see physical images at all. Like they know where stuff is because signals go to their brain but if you ask them to describe what they are seeing they can’t, they see nothing. It’s really not much more bizarre than aphantasia.

colechristensen 199 days ago | |

There are several levels of this. There are people who can do things as though they see but have no conscious access to the interpreted visual information. Or they can do something that requires vision with one hand but not the other.

You can think of it like a bunch of different subsystems responsible for different kinds of tasks and some of them can be broken so the connections between them don't work.

Read Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks for a lot of case studies.

levocardia 199 days ago |

The most astounding thing to me (able to form mental images just fine thanks) is that aphantasia does not cause more problems. Naively I would have assumed such a condition would cause problems navigating abstract problems, nearly as badly as actual blindness impairs physical navigation.

Sharlin 199 days ago | |

One of the "big" things I've come to understand is that there really are very different ways to think, but yet it seems that they all have more or less the same "expressive power", up to some natural variance in how good people are at specific tasks like navigation.

fellowniusmonk 199 days ago | |

It's possible that in some configurations of aphantasia the brain is still doing some sort of processing that is made available via a subconscious process.

So you can't visualize an occluded surface in an active way but your brain still prevents you from running your rear bumper into another car.

Many people with aphantasia still dream at night.

Congenital aphantasia and emergent aphantasia may effect brain structures differently, perhaps some forms just disconnect the pipeline that feeds the brains computed data back into our visual centers for further visual analysis.

It's very interesting, in running down these differences we would probably learn a lot about the brain.

kaffekaka 199 days ago |

Looking at it from another direction, sometimes daydreaming can get so intense that what is in front of your eyes disappear. Internal imagery completely takes over. Does this happen to people who identify as aphantasiacs? Is everyone able to daydream?

runekaagaard 199 days ago |

Thats me to a tee. I also don't have a inner dialogue when thinking through a problem:)

kgwxd 199 days ago | |

> I also don't have a inner dialogue...

I wonder if some people grow to develop an inner monologue, but also immediately start developing an ability to silence it, to the point they don't have to try.

Mine is basically always on, and it can be problematic.

dang 199 days ago |

Ok, here's the 'related' list that I could come up with. Anything I missed?

(Note: lists of previous threads aren't meant as criticism for a topic being repetitive! On the contrary, the classic topics always reappear and that's fine when the new article is interesting. Lists like this are just for curious readers who might want more.)

Aphantasia and Psychedelics - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45438296 - Oct 2025 (117 comments)

I do not remember my life and it's fine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44196576 - June 2025 (223 comments)

Most self-reported aphantasics also reported weak or absent auditory imagery - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42534859 - Dec 2024 (6 comments)

What do you visualize while programming? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41869237 - Oct 2024 (167 comments)

What happens in a mind that can't 'see' mental images - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41138338 - Aug 2024 (432 comments)

Aphantasia Is No Creativity-Killer - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40810777 - June 2024 (1 comment)

Aphantasia: I can not picture things in my mind - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40757775 - June 2024 (401 comments)

Deep Aphantasia: a visual brain with minimal influence from priors? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39951990 - April 2024 (114 comments)

Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39887661 - March 2024 (89 comments)

Aphantasics less likely to be engaged with a short story, but still enjoy it - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39113343 - Jan 2024 (2 comments)

Aphantasia: The inability to create mental imagery - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38877146 - Jan 2024 (1 comment)

Poll: Can you visualize details with your eyes closed? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38660632 - Dec 2023 (60 comments)

What happens in the brain while daydreaming? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38654388 - Dec 2023 (146 comments)

My Brain Doesn’t Picture Things - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37789989 - Oct 2023 (50 comments)

My Brain Doesn’t Picture Things - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37784984 - Oct 2023 (60 comments)

How to see bright, vivid images in your mind’s eye (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37718999 - Sept 2023 (232 comments)

Images in the mind’s eye are quick sketches that lack simple, real-world details - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36807533 - July 2023 (88 comments)

Aphantasia: Picture This? Some Just Can’t (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36723060 - July 2023 (2 comments)

How blind photographers visualize the world - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36719490 - July 2023 (48 comments)

Ask HN: It seems I lost imagination, what to do? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34862427 - Feb 2023 (41 comments)

Aphantasia: Ex-Pixar chief Ed Catmull says 'my mind's eye is blind' (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31862468 - June 2022 (1 comment)

Ask HN: Do you think in words or pictures? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31684070 - June 2022 (29 comments)

Aphantasia: Not Everyone Can Picture Things - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31377295 - May 2022 (5 comments)

Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind (2016) [pdf] - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31153061 - April 2022 (1 comment)

Pupils Reveal ‘Aphantasia’ – The Absence of Visual Imagination - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31121556 - April 2022 (111 comments)

Aphantasia, or how not to do math in your head (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30573004 - March 2022 (2 comments)

How do you visualize code? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29979958 - Jan 2022 (86 comments)

I Can’t See You but I’m Not Blind - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29551579 - Dec 2021 (306 comments)

Aphantasia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29365277 - Nov 2021 (276 comments)

Not spooked by Halloween ghost stories? You may have aphantasia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29049356 - Oct 2021 (10 comments)

Picture This? Some Just Can’t (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28997320 - Oct 2021 (1 comment)

Simple test reveals if your mental images are more vivid than other people's - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27669211 - June 2021 (146 comments)

Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind (2016) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27588905 - June 2021 (1 comment)

Many People Have a Vivid ‘Mind’s Eye,’ While Others Have None at All - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27437001 - June 2021 (31 comments)

Seeing things a different way; simple test for aphantasia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24532946 - Sept 2020 (1 comment)

People who can't see things in their mind could have memory trouble too: study - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23689667 - June 2020 (147 comments)

Picture This? Some Just Can’t (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22800815 - April 2020 (103 comments)

Aphantasia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20267445 - June 2019 (72 comments)

Aphantasia: 'My mind's eye is blind' - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19618927 - April 2019 (424 comments)

The blind mind: No sensory visual imagery in aphantasia - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18799550 - Jan 2019 (100 comments)

What it’s like to be unable to visualize anything - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11730505 - May 2016 (11 comments)

Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11554894 - April 2016 (202 comments)

Aphantasia: A life without mental images - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10148792 - Aug 2015 (73 comments)

Aphantasia: A Life Without Mental Images - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10121678 - Aug 2015 (2 comments)

jedberg 199 days ago |

I have no mind's eye, and neither does my wife. Neither of us even realized people can actually see images in their head until recently.

Our children appear to have a mind's eye though.

ectospheno 198 days ago |

I tried telling people I couldn’t. I don’t mention it anymore because inevitably there is a person who doesn’t believe me and won’t stop trying to argue I’m wrong.

jessyco 198 days ago | |

I believe you, It think I'm also the same; however for me at least, I feel like I can "think" of what something looks like. This is hard to explain since its very "personal" way its easier to say "i can see a square" nope I can't see anything but I can "think" of a square.

The whole imagine a ball in your mind. Now tell me what colour it is. No idea you tell me :D I can pretend and make up a color or go with what my gut tells me which is the most common color my brain was probably trained on.(red). but in reality I don't see any ball.

mannanj 199 days ago |

Flouride calcifying the pineal gland, the center of visualization internally, doesn't help.

Matterless 199 days ago | |

That take is firmly rooted in fantasy.

incomingpain 198 days ago |

I have aphantasia and autism. There are pros and cons. It seems to be the reason we're good at tech.

I dont have a narrator neither. No voices in my head at all. If im talking to myself, im saying it outloud. But imagine as well, there's little to no distraction. We can focus on what we want. But it's also amazing to see other people in society who are clearly hearing voices in their head and completely and utterly distracted from day 2 day life. It's like they are possessed by demons in the bad cases.

>a vulnerability to trauma

But because of aphantasia, we dont ever qualify for PTSD. A key part of PTSD is flashbacks and rumination that we dont get.

>emotions and memory

Since memories dont have a visual aspect, the emotional impact of memories is greatly reduced.

>meditation

Since we dont get distracted, we are naturally significantly better at meditation.

abstractspoon 199 days ago |

Does that mean they also can't dream?

dvsgaevsvsgavsv 199 days ago |

Mental images are a distraction from what is here right now. Be here now. Not be here yesterday or be here tomorrow..

neRok 199 days ago |

Regarding "a propensity to hold grudges" and "easily move on, forget, not hold grudges": I find this to be the case. I can easily hold a grudge, because it's like the grudge is a post-it-note stuck to the front of my book-of-knowledge. This means I can readily recall the grudge, and that I can also easily forget/move-on from the grudge (just remove the note).

Continuing with the post-it-note analogy, the note can only hold a small amount of information, and so the grudge will be recorded as something simple like "fuck ___, they're an arrogant twat". So then the situation arises where you're talking to someone else and they ask "what do you think about ___?"; and so you answer "I can't stand them, they're so arrogant"; to which they respond "oh really, how so?"; and you can't give an answer, because it wasn't written on the note.

I think this ties in with memories not making you feel the relevant emotions, because the emotion you felt was also just saved as a "fact". I have found though that if I step through all the facts of an "event" and consider each "moment" along the way, that I can often generate the relevant emotion. So say I was remembering an argument, I can remember various facts about the argument and that I was angry about it, but I can't feel that anger. But if I walk through the moments, like `they said this, which made me think that, to which I rightly responded with...`, then eventually I'll start to feel angry just like I would have.

For an analogy on how I think memories are stored differently: then for non-aphantasiacs, I reckon their brain must save `memory.zip`, which contains `video, audio, smells, emotions, etc`. For a person like myself with aphantasia however, it's like I asked ChatGPT for a summary of `memory.zip`, and then I only saved the summary.

Saying that though, I do wonder about the connection between "fact based memories" and aphantasia's lack of mental imagery. Because if >50% of the usefulness of `memory.zip` is from the video, but you can't "see" the video because you aphantasia — then has your brain decided/learned to not bother saving `memory.zip` and instead just save the summary, or are all components of `memory.zip` also corrupt/unplayable?

jamiek88 199 days ago |

Must be a boring wank.

bondarchuk 198 days ago | |

The question is: why is there so much porn out there at all, if most people can visualize it in their heads?

pessimizer 199 days ago |

I simply do not buy any aspect of this. It is absolutely untestable. It's not just that I don't think people who can't see mental images exist, I don't think that you can prove that anyone does see mental images. It's pure introspection and self-reporting, and half of the scientists named had very odd, old-timey standards of evidence that led them to many very wrong conclusions in their fields.

I couldn't say whether I, myself, have any mental images. I wouldn't even know what it meant to see without eyes. Does that mean that I don't have mental images, or does that mean that I have them so easily that they pass without notice? Or does it mean that this is horseshit, and the consequences of it very much not profound or even detectable?

People's self-reported subjective experiences, about any subject, are almost worthless. You are even an unreliable narrator to yourself. The burden of proof lies on the people who would claim these mind ghosts, not the people that deny them. These descriptions are all so much poetry, so literary.

Eric Schwitzgebel has done a lot of work on introspection, and reminds us of things like how we thought we all dreamed in black and white before the invention of the color television, and we thought that dreaming in color was a sign of mental illness; and how blind people who experienced "blindsight" had no idea that they were reflexively echolocating until you covered their ears and tested them again.

People can have entire, sound chains of reasoning that they are only aware of the conclusions of (and unaware of the process even existing.) We are not aware of all of what we're thinking or how. Our self-perception relies as much or more on our self-images than actual recall of our experiences.

Also, going through severe trauma and saying you see the world differently afterwards is not evidence of anything. If it was brain trauma, it'd be surprising if you didn't have a different understanding of the world during and after your recovery.

I understand this will be downvoted by people who have their self-image tied up in this, or synesthesia, or any number of untestable hypothetical mental states that are painted as mysterious superpowers. I do think it helps to remind ourselves in these times how far just babbling the most likely thing can get us, now that we're in the age of LLMs. There doesn't have to be anything inside.

edit: I've been paid as an artist at times in my life, and very much like to draw, and I still have no idea if I have any mental imagery. It's just not a concept I can attach any meaning to.

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edit2: I entirely forgot that there's a specific essay on this subject by Schwitzgebel.

How Well Do We Know Our Own Conscious Experience? The Case of Visual Imagery

> Philosophers tend to assume that we have excellent knowledge of our own current conscious experience or "phenomenology". I argue that our knowledge of one aspect of our experience, the experience of visual imagery, is actually rather poor. Precedent for this position is found among the introspective psychologists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Two main arguments are advanced toward the conclusion that our knowledge of our own imagery is poor. First, the reader is asked to form a visual image, and it is expected that answering questions about certain basic features of that experience will be difficult. If so, it seems reasonable to suppose that people could be mistaken about those basic features of their own imagery. Second, it is observed that although people give widely variable reports about their own experiences of visual imagery, differences in report do not systematically correlate with differences on tests of skills that psychologists have often supposed to require visual imagery, such as mental rotation, visual creativity, and visual memory.

https://faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/SchwitzAbs/Imagery.htm