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?

@Elphame if there were excercises I could do I’d do them in a heart beat but I’ve never found anything on line

I have aphantasia and can’t draw for toffee! It’s so frustrating to know other people can literally watch the tv in their mind or conjure up lovely images! I found out in therapy when the therapist asked me to visualise being on a river and things drifting past me and it went on and on and I could see nothing and in the end was like I don’t understand what I’m supposed to be doing and she was baffled!!
However, on the plus side she said that it probably meant I didn’t get the intrusive visual flashbacks many people get after trauma so that’s a positive…

Also, I have a great memory for things I read and facts. I can remember the lyrics for songs I’ve only heard a couple of times and pass exams with ease. I also have adhd and other neurodivergencies so I wonder if it’s linked somehow. It’s really fascinating stuff for sure!

@NoSquirrels but if you read other people accounts them they absolutely can see their door, open it in fact, walk around it and through it and change the lighting on it all visually in their head, I can’t do anything of the sort, I just know it’s grey!

The phrase “mind’s eye” is perhaps confusing..?
If someone said can you imagine what your best friend would look like if you put a top hat on them?
Can you “see” that?
You might be able to recollect events and people etc but the memory of such things surely aren’t just thoughts of I felt sad, then happy then bored etc…?
Is there no “I remember I was wearing those shoes that hurt and the blisters etc and no visual memory (however inaccurate) of that?
Closing or opening your eyes makes no difference..
If you were relaying a car accident you witnessed to a police officer would you not be able to say “he came out of the right hand lane at speed and hit the white car head on”.
You don’t need to be able to zoom in or see from above or draw the face of the driver iyswim

And if you can’t visually imagine your front door how are you not surprised and/or lost all the time?

Sorry for the question ms it’s fascinating (I have intense visual memories and can describe accurately conversations, what people were wearing, what was in the room etc years later (if not decades). And I have non stop internal monologue with music and several visual “streams” if you like , at the same time

I'm training as a florist and I knew what I'd make today. I can see it in my mind and I made it today!

[quote Aphantasia]@NoSquirrels but if you read other people accounts them they absolutely can see their door, open it in fact, walk around it and through it and change the lighting on it all visually in their head, I can’t do anything of the sort, I just know it’s grey![/quote]
Everything’s a spectrum though, obviously. So I know I’m not as visual a thinker as my DH, who has more of that photo-realistic thing going on.

But I honestly can’t see how you can draw from your head without having a “picture” - even if that’s not super visual but more conceptual. You do know how to describe your front door when you’re not directly looking at it, after all. You can “picture” it.

I agree with this!

I am not great at recognising/remembering people out of context (but I have honed coping strategies!) and I don’t have great spatial awareness - I cannot move a 3-D object through space in my imagination and know if it will fit etc. Again my DH is amazing at both these. It’s just a spectrum thing, I think. And the way we describe how we “see” or “picture” things when we should say how we “imagine” them.

@EBearhug

I am hyperphantasic. I have mad, vivid dreams, glorious technicolor, cast of thousands, bloody exhausting sometimes. My memories are very visual, too.

The way I think, it's sort of like I have a whole load of different bands running concurrently, and different ones are at the top concurrently. A lot of it's visual, but there's usually some music running, and I think in words too. It depends what I'm thinking about. Mathsy stuff can be quite visual rather than words.

I can imagine an bluebell clearly, and could draw it, though it probably wouldn't come out perfect - I don't have the drawing/painting skills to be a hyper-realistic artist, though I could probably do it well enough that it would be recognisably a bluebell.

8 haven't done any drawing or painting for years.

This is how my mind works. I sympathise with how exhausting it is! I’ve found by overloading my mind consciously with lots of images it then quietens my mind so I can focus on specific images. But i can effectively create another world in my mind full of sights, sounds, smells, I can feel what my imagination creates, I can effectively dream whilst awake in a very lucid way. I find it very useful for sorting out problems offline so to speak, running through scenarios in different world.

For those who struggle. There are many techniques for building imagination. Many spiritual practices really concentrate on this as it’s so useful in helping you order and interpret the world without being limited by language.

@Anythingbutsnow

I don't understand how someone came up with this. No one knows what actually happens in another person's mind. So what I describe as seeing something in my mind, may not be what you assume it would be. Infact, when I think about seeing something I'm not sure I actually do see it in the way you describe. So maybe I have what you have, but wouldn't have ever thought of it like that. Or, maybe everyone has it but we think everyone else see things differently??

It helps if I include the post I agree with! I agree with this!

I don't understand what is meant by not being able to see in your head.
If you close your eyes, do you still see pictures?

@NoSquirrels but i can’t picture it that’s the point! I can describe it because I remember the observations I’ve made in the past when looking at it but there’s nothing visual there. I used to know a girl who was registered blind and had very limited sight who could see sounds. There’s a name for it but I can’t remember, but she used to describe thing like what the sound of an ambulance siren looked like. She said I appeared in the lower left quadrant of her vision as a red jagged shape that pulsed with the pitch of the siren. I have no idea of what it would be like to experience sounds visually, same way I have no idea what it would be like to mentally visualise I guess

OP if you were to think of your bathroom can you remember what it looks like? If I asked you to tell me what’s in your kids bedroom on the right of the door can you answer? Or how to give directions to your house.

I’m trying to understand how you do any of this without visualising in some way. It’s really interesting.

I agree with this. I think literally having no mind’s eye at all must be pretty rare.

I have it and I am beginning to believe it is quite common!

I cannot see anything in my head. My dreams are visual but this uses a different part of the brain. I cannot draw from memory but I can draw pretty well from sight.

I also have a terrible long term memory. Childhood memories below 11 years old are pretty nonexistent.

My sense of direction is accurate. I rarely get lost. I am good at pattern recognition and spelling. I am terrible at learning new practical tasks I have to perform something regularly to remember.

I am also not that emotional - out of sight out of mind. Which can be useful. I don't replay traumatic stuff in my head so move on quite fast.

I don't see it is a disorder, I like having an uncluttered mind. I cannot visualise books so long descriptive texts are annoying I prefer philosophical or conceptual novels.

What an interesting thread OP! Thank you. I always wanted to ponder this but never got round to it.

And I have a question: how do you draw from imagination if you can’t visualise?

To answer your question… I can visualise, but I often don’t have the patience to imagine every detail and I usually bring something else into my visualisations. More of a feeling or presence. It’s weird.

Off to read the whole thread now with a cuppa, curious what everyone is saying!

@XenoBitch no none at all

[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]
I got "You're probably hyperphantasic".
I can see things vividly in my minds eye.

I can visualise things in my minds eye, but I can't draw very well at all. I also can't draw something which is right in front of me.

When I visualise things in my minds eye they seem clear, but get fuzzier when I focus on the detail if that makes sense.

Op can you 'hear' a tune in your head (from memory, not one that is actually playing)? My minds eye is pretty much the same thing only visual. I can hear a tune in my head but that doesn't mean I can actually sing it in tune .

@Aphantasia

If you want to message me then I'm happy to walk you through the basics. They can strengthen and develop weak visualisation skills dramatically but if you have true aphantasia I'm not sure whether they will work. I'm happy though to help if you want to try

*lots of grammatical errors!

There's an entire book that explains this.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

I'd really recommend it for anyone who can't draw and would like to learn. Honestly, if you read it, take it all in and do the exercises it can turn a crap drawer into someone who can actually draw.

Anyway, basically, the explanation according to this book is that the left side of the brain mostly deals with symbols whereas the right side of the brain deals with spatial awareness (among other things), and in most people the left side of the brain is dominant, so when most people try and draw, basically they aren't actually looking properly. They are seeing what they expect to see, and then they draw a series of symbols. Eg., when children start learning to draw, they start drawing faces as circles with two dots for eyes and a line for the mouth. They draw houses as a square with a triangle on top and some rectangles to represent doors and windows. Then, as they get older the symbols they draw might get more sophisticated (eg. they start drawing faces as ovals instead of circles... eyes as almond shapes, someone tells them that the eyes should be halfway down the face instead of near the top). But as long as you are drawing a series of symbols rather than drawing what you actually see, there is a limit to how good your drawings will be. You'd have to read the book to really understand what I'm trying to say though...

Personally I find it absolutely fascinating that you can draw things from your imagination when you can't mentally picture them....

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

but i can’t picture it that’s the point! I can describe it because I remember the observations I’ve made in the past when looking at it but there’s nothing visual there

That’s why I keep putting “picture” in quotes - it’s a language issue as much as a visual processing issue, to my way of thinking. You may be towards the non-visual end of a spectrum but how can you draw or describe or imagine if you totally have no way of ordering those remembered observations?

Well I can picture things, but not like a picture infront of me. It's hard to describe. Ut just black when I close my eyes too, I can't actually see the things I'm picturing.