What you can see in your minds eye

[namcybotwinbloom]

There was a thread a while ago, I can't find it for love nor money but it was about visualising things in your head.

It was basically you can either see a picture of it in your head or you can't you can just use words to know what it looked like.

I tried this with my DD 7 just now and she's blew my mind.

She said it totally different if her eyes are open are closed.

So if I said can you imagine a green apple, yes she can and she can see it in her mind and describe it but it's different depending on whether he leaves eyes are open or closed!

I always wonder about this now and about people's dreams. Not everyone dreams in colour. Some people can control some of their dreams or wake up and go back to a dream by thinking about it.

I can do this, I've always done it.

Just wondering what everyone else is like?

I dream in colour, have sound, can control most things but not everything and I can see things on my minds eye.

If you read, like me a lot is this because you do this, ie imagine it all in your head like I do and is it linked to how you dream?

I 'see' a vague green apple type thing but not with my eyes, it's more at the top of my head if that makes sense? The more I try to picture it in detail the more vague it becomes, kind of like when you try to remember a dream.

@dogistoobigforthesofa

I still remember the moment when I first found out about aphantasia. It was like a weight had been lifted. All my life I'd struggled when people asked me to visualise things. As a child I was asked to visualise relaxing scenes to help me get to sleep, as an adult, I was asked to visualise things in training workshops, coaching sessions etc and I was even asked to visualise my happiest moments for coping with child birth. I just couldn't do it and didn't realise that other people actually could! I have a great imagination, though, but imagine through words. I heard that it could be connected with early reading. I guess this makes sense, because as children you only have pictures, but then the words replace the pictures and perhaps if that happens early, we lose the ability to use pictures? I also agree with the poster who says she can't recognise anyone out of context - very embarrassing!

That theory isn't correct for me. I'm hyperlexic and could read fluently at 2 years old. My mind's eye is vivid and I can visualise anything, even colours and smells in great detail.

I only realised a few years ago that i don't have a minds eye, i can't picture anything. I do get a fleeting image if it's something i have seen before, but it's a memory rather than a visualisation if that makes sense. If i am driving somewhere new i have to have exact instructions or i will get lost, while my dh has a mind map of roads and stuff in his head, i assume most people do? I have very vivid dreams though, i definitely dream in pictures, and i have a good imagination when it comes to ideas or telling stories, i just can't picture things.

May I ask a personal question please for those with aphantasia and I apologise if it's in any way upsetting.

My teenage daughter has aphantasia and although most of the time she's fine about it she's worried that, for example, she won't be able to remember me when I've died. Obviously she knows she will have memories of events and could describe me to others but won't be able to 'see' me. So for anyone who is the same and has lost someone close have you been able to remember them? Thanks.

@Monr0e

This is fascinating. I had no idea some people can't "see" in their mind.

I see things vividly, imagine whole scenes, conversations, like a movie. I just assumed, quite wrongly, that everyone else did too.

@Monr0e

same, until last year

That's interesting ofwarren. There's also supposed to be a link between aphantasia and autism, but I'm not on the spectrum. See: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053810021000131#:~:text=Aphantasia%20and%20autism%20linked%20by%20impaired%20imagination%20and%20social%20skills.&text=Aphantasia%20(low%20imagery)%20can%20arise,usually%20linked%20to%20high%20imagery).&text=Aphantasic%20synaesthetes%20have%20more%20'associator'%20than%20'projector'%20traits.

That was my post ( I name change regularly so I can't remember who I was )
It basically showed that most people don't have the ability to see in great detail, but perhaps a child's mind / imagination is far greater than our jaded ones.

@NashvilleQueen

May I ask a personal question please for those with aphantasia and I apologise if it's in any way upsetting.

My teenage daughter has aphantasia and although most of the time she's fine about it she's worried that, for example, she won't be able to remember me when I've died. Obviously she knows she will have memories of events and could describe me to others but won't be able to 'see' me. So for anyone who is the same and has lost someone close have you been able to remember them? Thanks.

I can remember my grandparents clearly, but not in a visual way. I have lots of photos, though, so looking at those helps me to 'see' them again.

I don't easily see things in my mind either and when I do it's fuzzy and muted. I can just about picture a scene but can't move around it and any characters are still, like cardboard cut-outs. I can't picture people, even those I see regularly like dh and my dc. I also struggle to hear their voices.

The strange thing is that my dreams are incredibly vivid and colourful.

I just looked at an object sitting next to me. I close my eyes and can not conjure up an image of it in my head. I can not conjure up a vision of my son or anything else for that matter. I close my eyes and I see darkness.

When I day dream I think it but do not see it. When I dream they are feelings and thoughts and not pictures. I know who it is in my dream but I don't see them. It's not like a film being played in my mine. I can control my dreams and go back to the same dream occasionally.

With my eyes open (say I am decorating / designing a room- which I'm pretty good at). I don't see what something might look like (on a wall for example) but I feel it but can not see it.

I also do not hear a running commentary in my head. I can think for example but I don't hear it, I think it. Although I don't really ever think in proper sentences just a few words thrown in.

When I read I don't hear or see the words in my head I just feel them.

Read this :

Visual imagery, in which your brain creates pictures inside your head, is a big part of how most people process information. But some people lack the ability to do this. They have a condition called aphantasia.

Aphantasia, which may affect as many as 1 in 50 people, happens when your brain’s visual cortex doesn’t work properly. Your visual cortex is the part of your brain that processes visual information from your eyes.

Scientists aren't sure what causes aphantasia. Most people with this condition are born with it and are otherwise healthy. Others develop it after a brain injury.

The ability to create mental images exists on a spectrum. On one end are people with complete aphantasia. On the other are people who can create extra-vivid mental images. Most people are somewhere in between.

How It Could Affect Your Life
Most people who have lifelong aphantasia first notice it when they're in their teens or twenties. That's when they realize that other people are able to imagine images through their "mind’s eye."

In one study, people with aphantasia reported having much less vivid mental images than those without the condition. Some of them described their aphantasia as a “substantial” loss of visual imagery. Others could conjure up no visual imagery at all.

We discussed this at home, my DH and DD were amazed I could see things, I was amazed they couldn't. I suppose we all assume everyone experiences things the same.

I can’t visualise at all. Say ‘green apple’ to me and I might get a fleeting sense of a green apple. I dream in full detail however. I am a huge reader but I never picture things in books, I just read and understand.

And yes, I sat like a lemon feeling daft as someone at NCT asked me to visualise walking down a corridor to the sea. What could I see, I was asked? I couldn’t!

Does it go hand in hand with face blindness, I wonder? I certainly have that too.

To someone asking about forgetting what people look like well, that’s where photos are amazing and it doesn’t stop me having a full sense of those people.

I can't fully see a green apple like a photo. It's more vague and fleeting than that. I can see bits of it but not clearly and not the whole apple
I don't have a good memory for faces either

@DelurkingAJ

I can’t visualise at all. Say ‘green apple’ to me and I might get a fleeting sense of a green apple. I dream in full detail however. I am a huge reader but I never picture things in books, I just read and understand.

That exactly describes me

I can see a green apple, apple is same with eyes open or closed but the background goes to black like apple in space when eyes shut whereas more like sky or white eyes open.

I think I dream in black and white.

@NormanCornerstone

I don’t see anything. Even when I’m reading a book with a vivid description of someone I don’t see an image of a person with those characteristics just a general ‘sense’ or feeling of the person

That’s interesting actually. I consider myself to have a good imagination, but with book characters I can’t really put a face to someone I’ve never seen before, so I get a general sense of whether they’re small or big, neat and tidy or boho etc and their hair is often described, but they do end up totally faceless! I’m some ways I prefer to watch a film or TV adaptation first so that I have a proper reference for their face!

I can imagine an apple in my head and 'see' it. When I think back to a book I've read I remember it almost like a movie, I can see the characters and the scenes, rather than remember what was written down. But I am no good with faces, ask me to describe someone I just met 5 mins ago and I can't, at work I often used to get what did the shoplifter look like? Approx age? I had no idea. I also find it hard to recognise people from photos to real life, or when people say my baby looks like his dad/brother/grandad etc I just can't see it at all.

As I'm writing this I'm speaking it aloud in my head, like my brain is speaking the words. I can't believe some people can't hear themselves speak in their heads

Yes, I can see a very clear image with sound smell etc too, but as above, in my minds eye, rather than in vision. I'm also creative/artist.

Weirder still, due to health problems now affecting my memory at times, if I can't remember say a shop name or similar, I can still see the scene clearly in my head, but the bit of information I need, is pixelated

[quote dogistoobigforthesofa]That's interesting ofwarren. There's also supposed to be a link between aphantasia and autism, but I'm not on the spectrum. See: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053810021000131#:~:text=Aphantasia%20and%20autism%20linked%20by%20impaired%20imagination%20and%20social%20skills.&text=Aphantasia%20(low%20imagery)%20can%20arise,usually%20linked%20to%20high%20imagery).&text=Aphantasic%20synaesthetes%20have%20more%20'associator'%20than%20'projector'%20traits.[/quote]
That's interesting. I'm autistic and it's the first time I've heard of a link between the two conditions.

I took part in research carried out by the Autism Research Centre at Cambridge University on possible links between autism and synaesthesia. I don't experience the latter, either.

I can't visualise and it was only recently that I discovered that other people can! I assumed when people said 'visualising' that they meant the same as me, ie imagining a description, not that they could see an actual image in their head. I also have a terrible sense of direction which I now attribute to not being able to visually map a place in my head, so I can follow directions but have no innate sense of how places link together. However, I have a very strong auditory imagination, I can 'hear' music and have a constantly running narrative in my head. Fascinating how we're all different.

@NashvilleQueen

May I ask a personal question please for those with aphantasia and I apologise if it's in any way upsetting.

My teenage daughter has aphantasia and although most of the time she's fine about it she's worried that, for example, she won't be able to remember me when I've died. Obviously she knows she will have memories of events and could describe me to others but won't be able to 'see' me. So for anyone who is the same and has lost someone close have you been able to remember them? Thanks.

I can't summon up a proper image of anyone in my mind, including family members who have died.

I can just about "see" a fleeting glimpse of them but I can't just see their face, no.

But I do have photos and I haven't forgotten them.

This was a BBC article about it www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-34039054