Aphantasia - I have it and have questions for people who don’t!

[Aphantasia]

For anyone who doesn’t know what aphantasia is, it’s not being able to mentally visualise imagery. I only recently found out that 99% of people can actually see things in their minds eye, I can’t, at all! I always thought it was just a figure of speech when people said things like ‘picture this’ or that when people meditated they could actually close their eyes and see beaches and sunsets or whatever. I have never been able to see anything when I close my eyes, just blackness, can’t see my loved ones faces or relive any memories visually. I imagine in concepts and can feel the shape of things and remember details that I can describe in words but not see.

But… here’s my question. I’m an artist, and I can sit down and draw from my imagination pretty much anything I want but why, if you can see things in your minds eye, can’t the 99% of the population that can visualise not sit down and draw things perfectly accurately from memory? My husband is crap at drawing, like if I said, draw a giraffe, he’d draw some god awful looking creature that looks like it should be put out of its misery!

When you imagine imagery in your minds eye, is it complete? Can you see every detail or are there blurry bits to fill in for the details you never quite noticed before?

I can't literally see things with my eyes closed, it is darkness. But I can see something in the same way I can remember hearing something. I'm always confused when people talk about this stuff. If I think of what a robin sounds like I can hear their singing but not literally. I can see a robin too but not like really seeing a robin in real life... I'm too inarticulate for this... Can you hear the robin but not see the robin at all?

I also struggle with face recogntion of people I know and the embarrassment it brings of being considered rude. Curiously that's with living people , in memory I can visualise without conscious effort faces and the physical presence of those who are long dead. I suppose that's to do with social anxiety. I get anxious also when I 've been in relaxation/ silent prayer/ thoughtfulness on command situations. My mind goes blank and i just feel incipient panic.

Aphantasia, are you a trained artist? Did you find it easy to understand the different techniques and mediums? I only ask because that visualisation exercise I did brought up the sense memory and picture of me doing art homework in our living room, trying to draw a portrait of my father. It brings back the room, the fire, the furniture, the smells, my brothers and sisters , the television, the way my dad always sat on a hard chair and the the related memory of my art teacher's impatience with my artistic inability. And yet he gave no assistance or instruction in how to actually draw. Now i'm back in the art room with disdainful Mr Day. I enjoy watching art programmes now and learning about the techniques artists use. Do you feel your inspiration is in your hands and/or the materials you use rather than a prior notion of what you are going to do? Are you an abstract artist? Do you feel conceptual art requires different skills or is an innate preference?

@NotThatHomer I’m in a design based industry. I paint/draw/model all my designs, hard to describe but I work on contract so regularly have different team members and invariably get comments from the people who realise/build my designs that they love working on them because they don’t have to fill in the gaps as I think about how things are constructed and design them accordingly. I think I’m part that’s because I have to think about the construction as I go because working it out on paper is part of my design process rather than just seeing an image in my head and running with it I need to iron out all the details through refining it by redrawing and redrawing. Does that make sense? I actually really enjoy that process, one of my favourite things about my job actually is just sitting sketching and refining till I have resolved everything that I wanted into a final sketch

@Iamanicepersonreally

I can’t visualise anything. I’m not sure that I’d want to either. Don’t you sometimes get unpleasant images of bad experiences that you can’t control?

Yes. It's not all good news!

I'm an artist and I cannot draw things properly unless I have a visual prompt to refer to.

I know what things look like but they come out really wrong if I don't use a visual prompt.

I have prosopagnosia (faceblindness) which doesn't help. So, for example, I can remember people's faces etc to a point but my memories are more based on sounds and clothing and smells.

My dreams are really messed up - I know for example that I'm dreaming of the house I grew up in, but it's not represented identically at all. It'll have weird rooms and layout, etc.

I'm not sure what the situation with my minds eye is.

So for instance, if I showed you...I don't know, a picture of my new suitcase covered in palm trees, then tomorrow you tried to recall what it looked like, you wouldn't be able to?

I’m blown away by the post! I see everything visually in my mind. Remembered when I rode a bike? I see a picture of me and my dad on the street outside our old house. Can see the house and street vividly and what my bike looked like. I suspect these images are augmented by photos I would have seen since (as opposed to a true memory) but everything I remember is in pictures not words. I assumed that everyone was the same!

I can’t draw though, unless its stickmen.

Well this has totally blown my mind.
I've literally told my kids before that the scenes in TV of remembering video type scenes of memory was just a tv thing, not how it works in real life.
How did I get to 37 without knowing this?

In my own particular case, my lack of imagination leads to me not being able to accurately predict what's going to happen in various situations. Leading to quite a few problems in life relating to abusive relationships etc. And genuinely not being able to predict what someone else might be thinking or planning on doing...

I think this question assumes that if you put a vase down in front of anyone, they could draw it accurately, and of course that's not the case. Being able to visualise something and being able to draw it accurately are different skills, just like being able to see something and being able to draw it accurately are different skills.

I think it's much more interesting that you can't visualise things but can still draw from memory - I can't picture how that's possible it all! It's a fascinating process to me.

@tomorrowalready Yes, I have a really strong smell memory too. My emotions come with a smell and I can get anxious by smelling certain smells.

This has come up on here before. I struggle to picture things, they are never quite right.

I hated the counting sheep thing, I could never make them bloody jump!

I can picture things in my head as clearly and accurately as watching TV. If you asked me to picture a giraffe, it would be either the giraffes I've seen on TV, loping around on the savannah at a distance, or the ones I've seen at the zoo, much closer up, with their amazing eyelashes and very mobile lips. I can't draw for toffee though!

I didn't know some people couldn't this, tbh. Can't imagine what's that like.

[quote user1489520963]People might find this aphantasia test interesting! I'm not sure how scientifically acurare it is but it gives you an idea of where your "minds eye" fits on the scale :

aphantasia.com/vviq/[/quote]

Ooh, I love a quiz. According to that, I am "probably hyperphantastic"

I was constantly lost in a dream world in as a kid. My DD is the same.

Mine says I'm probably phantasic

This thread has actually blown my mind. Just gone running round the house checking that DH, DD and DS can all see things in their heads (they can)

@EveryFlightBeginsWithAFall

This has come up on here before. I struggle to picture things, they are never quite right.

I hated the counting sheep thing, I could never make them bloody jump!

I'm not sure sheep can jump. Why did they have to jump to count them?

Well I can't link because I have a new phone and haven't figured it out yet

But studies on it say count sheep jumping over fences. I have no idea if sheep can jump fences or not. They definitely can't in my head!

I can both see images and have a jukebox in my mind.

Songs can just randomly appear in full detail without me having heard them for ages.

When I heard "counting sheep" I always imagined the sheep jumping over a stile for some reason.

^I'm not only phantasic but also a pedant.
'A strong wind blows on the trees and on the lake causing reflections in the water' isn't physically possible.^

Exactly my thoughts!

Although I can't see things in my minds eye, I have a really good visual memory; e.g. for faces, journeys and where my partner and son have left their crap around the house. But I still don't think visually. Maybe I get a flash of 'where the keys are' but I don't re-picture it, just remember seeing them.

@IhateBoswell

When I heard "counting sheep" I always imagined the sheep jumping over a stile for some reason.

I think that image used to be in cartoons and picture books a lot.

Yeah it must be that Charley, the vision I conjure up is very cartoon like.

When I read I follow the narrative of the story, I don't visualise it, and I also like a PP, tend to skip over description once I've got the general idea.. I would love to be able to see clear pictures in my minds eye.
As well as being an artist, I can create strong visual imagery for others with words, but I just don't 'see' these things in my head. It's such an interesting subject.

I think the link between smell and memory is more universal.