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?

Yeah my sheep are basically clouds with heads and legs rather than real sheep

@Charley50 what line of work are you in, I’m fascinated by you line I can create strong visual imagery for others with words

This is weird - maybe I have it too!

I just tried visualizing the dashboard of my car (I'm not in the car now!).

I can't see any image, but I can still "picture" where the gear-stick/radio/indicators etc are. So maybe picturing it in my minds-eye, without visualizing it.

It was actually easier to picture it with my eyes open, but gaze softened.

I've never thought about it before, but I doubt people visualize images in such clarity, that it's like they're looking at a video (and could read detailed numbers/letters etc).

I was just walking back from the school run and trying to analysed what it is that happens when I remember things, I definitely don’t see anything but I can sort of feel it, sense it maybe is a better way to describe it. I certainly can’t see the colours of things but I know the colours by remembering past observations I made when I looked at thing previously. One of things I’d love to be able to do (and which would save me humongous amounts of time and effort in my work) is visualise the things I’m designing and change the colours in sections to decide what I like best before commuting it to paper. I know I could do this is photoshop and do sometimes but most of the time i just think, ooh orange and pink would be nice try it and see if I like it and if not then redo it with a tweaked colour palette

@user1471604848 but seeing it like a video is exactly how a few app’s have described it, ofwarren and bookworm14 both said it’s like that

I've never thought about it before, but I doubt people visualize images in such clarity, that it's like they're looking at a video (and could read detailed numbers/letters etc).

It certainly is for me. I can change the clothing people are wearing too, picture them with hats on, it's very vivid.

I tend to day dream in words rather than anything visual. So a sort of running commentary in my head

This is fascinating.
I have the opposite, I can "see" things in my head really very strongly. I see everything, colours, details.... I can go back "into" my past and see events as they occurred so vividly I can re-live it. I can also create scenes, landscapes, images that don't exist, that I've never seen before. I can walk into an empty house and, in my head, redecorate it, "seeing" how different colours would look on the wall and what my own furniture would look like in different places.

When I was a small child my imagination was so strong that I would get mixed up with reality sometimes. I would read stories and totally "live" them in my head, over and over. As a teenager or young adult I had to be careful as I could re-live sad events and get so lost in them it was as though I was back there....I once remember arriving at work when I was in my 20s, crying my eyes out, and realising I'd walked the whole length of town re-living something which happened years ago.

I can draw and paint a little bit, just a poor amateur. If I draw it has to be from life as really, I'm just 'copying' really. I can't draw what I see in my head at all. You would think it would be just a case of copying the same but it isn't that simple....if I see things in my head I'm in another place with my brain, which I have to come out of to make a mark on the page, and then go back in again. It's impossible.....

Not sure whether that answers your question though.

think I have it, and also I get lost easily, because I can't picture maps in my mind. Does anyone else have this?

No I have an incredible sense of direction. It's hard to explain, almost like a wolf may map out an area. I think other elements must help me like where the sun is positioned etc. I really can't explain it. I am terrible with maps, but never get lost!

@wolfstarling that made me laugh, I hope you don’t actually map put an area like a wolf… I’m pretty sure that involves peeing on trees and pooing in strategic places 😂

[quote Aphantasia]@RomComPhooey I love that you and your dh have decided I see in broad strokes, nope, I can assure you I see nothing. I watched an interview recently from another artist who is aphantasic who decribed her mind like a computer, all the files are there and the hard drive is working etc, except her monitor screen is turned off, that what it feels like to me, I ‘know’ what things look like, but there’s no screen in my mind to see them on, I can however output them onto paper if that makes sense?[/quote]
I haven't read the full thread, but this is exactly what it's like for me. I graduated in an art-related field, so I know I can draw and make 3D models of things. I can't visualise them, but my hands can create them.

@Aphantasia but a sense of smell may help me locate somewhere in a city. I would know which side of a town pumped out noxious fumes from a factory for example.

@mathanxiety

I did the test in the link.

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.

That confused me too

I have a very vivid mind’s eye and can imagine some very detailed scenes/imagery.

I often did this when I was younger before going to sleep, could just conjure up my own little world. I can draw pretty well from memory too and got told off many times in art classes for drawing from my head and not what was in front of me

OP, I’m trying to understand. If someone said think of an apple, would you just see blackness or a fuzzy idea of an apple but not clear? I’m just trying to work out how you can draw from imagination but can’t picture things

@Aphantasia
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.

That does make sense to me on. I'm in a construction based design job, so construction always come first however I visualise, and I trained in both the hands on making as well as the design.
But I know exactly what you mean, having worked with people who complain about having to work with impractical designs that have been created without the expertise of knowing how it will be constructed.

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

Yes me too. I was told design is 90% problem solving. Even though I have a visual design in my head, once it's on paper, it needs refining and reworking. Yet I can't imagine not having the pictures in my head.
This is all so interesting!

No I have an incredible sense of direction. It's hard to explain, almost like a wolf may map out an area. I think other elements must help me like where the sun is positioned etc. I really can't explain it. I am terrible with maps, but never get lost!

I have a hood sense of direction too, and I think a lot of it depends on the sun and do on - we have a datacentre with lots of corridors and very little natural light (no windows), and I found it very disorientating, took me literally years to get round without having to retrace my stress at least once, because I took the wrong turning.

And then in Adelaide, I walked miles in what turned out to be the wrong direction, which I think was because the sun was in the north, not the south. I wasn't actively using the sun, but I think it does inform my sense of north, south, etc. I have learnt more people are likely to be confused by directions saying, "turn east onto X Road," rather than, "turn left onto X Road."

I'm not sure how much sense of direction links to phantasua or not. I suspect they are separate - highly visual people probably do use visualisation to map routes, but others do it in other ways. What's normal for you is normal for you. The brain is very plastic, and there's rarely one way of doing things - people relearn things after a stroke, things like that, and map new neural pathways.

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, I had PND and unwanted visualisations were one of the worst parts. But also I can't stand watching violent films, because the images stay with me so, so clearly. Is this why other people can watch awful things, you don't actually picture it afterwards?

@NotThatHomer

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, I had PND and unwanted visualisations were one of the worst parts. But also I can't stand watching violent films, because the images stay with me so, so clearly. Is this why other people can watch awful things, you don't actually picture it afterwards?

Yup, this is a thing. When my DD was almost 1, I was drying the dishes when she crawled into the kitchen - just as I dropped the cast iron casserole I was holding. It missed her by about a foot.

Every so often that moment will "replay" itself in my mind and I'll feel sick with remembered horror and fear.

Oh, and a similar moment with my DS, when I was pushing him over a pedestrian crossing in his pushchair, and a car came speeding down the right hand lane and missed him by inches.

What makes these moments even worse is that my vivid imagination will then add in what didn't happen, but could have, in vivid technicolour.

Oh, I’m like this too. I have no idea what colour my front door is. I think it’s either blue or maroon… I’ve only lived their 5 years. And there’s a knob to hold to push it open in the middle, but I can’t remember what shape it is. Maybe a sideways diamond, or maybe a big round one… I’m sure both exist in my apartment building but I couldn’t tell you which one my front door has. I’m pretty face blind too. It’s always terrifying having to find people in a new context. The first time I had to pick my kid up from our childminder at the park and not at her house I was worried I wouldn’t recognize her or my son…

Face blindness is called prosopagnosia. Google it for some really interesting articles. It has been well studied.

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 sometimes.

@whatwasIgoingtosay

Face blindness is called prosopagnosia. Google it for some really interesting articles. It has been well studied.

I have the opposite of this I think. I can see someone during my day and if I come across the same person I will remember them and where I saw them.

I thought everyone was like it until one day I said to DP, “that woman (in shop) was in the restaurant with us just now” and then I realised not everyone could recognise faces in the same way.

I can go out for a walk now, see a stranger and recognise I saw them yesterday for example.

@NotThatHomer

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, I had PND and unwanted visualisations were one of the worst parts. But also I can't stand watching violent films, because the images stay with me so, so clearly. Is this why other people can watch awful things, you don't actually picture it afterwards?

@NotThatHomer I’m the same. I always turn away at violence in films as when I see something I literally can’t unsee it. I don’t want stuff like that etched into my soul as it were to carry around with me for eternity

This could be why I have vivid dreams too. I can remember dreams I had 20 years ago, as if they were films. Not all, just the ones I vividly remembered when I woke up