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?

OP, I have aphantasia (as does my mum) and have always used it as my excuse as for NOT being able to draw well. Slightly disappointed there are artists with aphantasia out there. Now what's my excuse?!

My mind is blown😵 I can't visualise anything but didn't realise that wasn't normal! Never able to visualise sheep to count to get to sleep and now understand why relaxation classes just made me agitated........ All that 'picture your on a beach'. 😤 Fairly recently I did realise I have a degree of face blindness, I recognise people by their shape, hair, way they hold themselves or their gait. If I see people out of their particular hospital uniform I struggle to recognise them or if they change hair colour, leads to some embarrassing moments! I do, however have a good sense of direction and permanent internal monologue............ Get on my own nerves sometimes😳

@ExPatHereForAChat 😂 sorry! Blame the gin instead 😂

If I asked you who was at the last party you went to, how would you do it?

Because I'd do it by "looking" around the room. I was at a wedding a few weeks ago, and to tell you who was on my table, I'd look around it from the place I was sitting. My brain definitely cheats a bit though — I knew all the people there so I can picture their faces easily, but I couldn't tell you what all of them were wearing.

I think your brain reinforces some bits — so if I imagine one of my dance classes, I'm pretty sure I don't recall it like a video. My brain knows what the room looks like, so while I can picture where people were in the room, I'd struggle to tell you where people had left their bags (for example) because my very clear picture of the room is coming from lots of different memories.

I can't visualise anything but didn't realise that wasn't normal!

It is normal, it's just a different place on the spectrum of it all.

...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?

Because a visual memory of some scene isn't going to include every single detail of it, and you can't conjure it up in its entirety at will as you plod through a picture. A visual memory can be fleeting. You can draw what you know was there, not necessarily what your mental picture is - were there three distant headlands visible in your memory of the beach you loved as a child? Or five?
But some people simply can't draw, regardless.

A drawing of something right in front of you is a different kettle of fish.

While they perhaps can't draw from memory, many people can visualise where they last saw something they've misplaced, after concentrating for a while.

DS has aphantasia and used to keep everything he needed scattered all over flat surfaces in his room because putting clothes and papers and other items away meant he would never find them again.

I have the same thing. I noticed it once when my 2yr old fell down the stairs and her mouth was bleeding. Her little baby teeth were jagged and crooked. I had NO IDEA if she'd just done that then, or if little baby teeth are always jagged. I couldn't picture how they were before. She went to nursery the next day and her keyworker said "has she chipped her tooth?!"

I can tell you my children have blue eyes. Because I have looked at my children and thought "wow, you have the loveliest blue eyes" but if someone asked me to describe what shade of blue, I honestly couldn't tell you. I have no clue. I can't picture my own children's eyes.

you can't conjure it up in its entirety at will as you plod through a picture...or hone in on specific details either. It's not like looking at some painting in a museum.

I have always skipped over long descriptive passages in books, even ones I'm really enjoying, because I can never conjure up a picture of what's being described so I find it boring! Whereas a friend said she loved a certain descriptive passage and could imagine the exact coffee shop described in so much detail that she could almost smell the coffee. I felt quite envious hearing this.
I also struggle with counting sheep at night because I can't bring up a spontaneous image of sheep jumping over a fence. I have to use a "stock image" in my mind if that makes sense.

[quote Aphantasia]@bookworm14 no, I can’t imagine what anything looks like when I’m reading. If I really enjoy a book I create a conceptual feeling of the world and will feel immersed in it while I reading but there are no images. I can feel disappointed if I see a book made into a film and it’s doesn’t match my sense of the book, but it’s not a visual thing for me[/quote]
Wow this is so interesting. You should do an ask me anything so I can bombard you with questions! I just can’t imagine it.

So if someone says a character from a show you’ve seen, like if someone said ‘eleven from stranger things’ you don’t see a picture of the little girl from the show? But you do remember her? Does that make any sense?

So you would think the words hospital gown shaved head bloody nose? But no actual picture of the person? Or am i all confused?

@tomorrowalready, YY to strong smell associations with memories.

The first time I went into Whole Foods I was immediately transported to Superquinn in Bray (Ireland).

But to answer your question I have a fantastic memory and can’t draw things from it. I also can’t draw things that are right in front of me. Being artistic is a wonderful talent but I don’t think it bears much relation to remembering things.

I'm not sure where my mind's eye fits in... I'll do the online test posted earlier soon. I have a friend who has aphantasia, so I've 'tested' myself before to see what I think my mind's eye is like.

If you said to me, "Imagine an apple", a pretty detailed picture pops into my mind instantly. It flickers a bit, but I can generally 'hold' it, more or less, if I concentrate, and even zoom in or out, and rotate it to see it from different angles. The particular apple that popped into my head right now is a deep red one, with a little bit of yellowy striation near the top. It has a stem. It's sitting on a dark wood table. The 'focus' of the image in my mind is on the apple, so there's a background, but it's blurry. I can see the background has a fireplace, a wide, low, open one, with a fire blazing, and the bricks around the fireplace are very dark, blackish brown.

If I add the concept that this is a video image rather than a still image, now there is movement in the image, a play of light from the fire that bounces off the apple. There's also another light source in the image, from the left... it's probably a floor lamp that's 'out of the frame' I'm looking at, because it's not a strong light, more of a glow. I could rotate this scene in my mind if I wanted to, to see what kind of lamp it might be, and if you said 'add a chair to the scene', I could also do that. Something will automatically pop into my head, but I could change the chair if I don't like it and imagine one I like better.

This is an imaginary scene, as far as I know. I don't recognise the house, though I suspect that maybe I've seen an image like this some time in my life, and that's what my brain is generating from.

"Okay, now imagine a completely different apple, outside, on a tree". I can drop the current apple completely and now have an entirely different picture in my head. It's interesting, because the apple I'm now seeing on a tree does come from real life (though I didn't intend to do that) - it's one of the little hard, red-green apples that are only really good for cooking, and it's on a tree that really did exist in my childhood backyard.

Brains are SO interesting!

What I’m wondering, is if I asked you imagine a random selection of things, could you?

For example, a panda, playing a piano, wearing a bowler hat and Elton John sunglasses, on a beach with a flamingo kicking a beach ball to the side.

I’m using a bit of odd example, but is that absolutely impossible for you or do you have a concept of it?

[quote Aphantasia]@NightmareLoon nope, haven’t a clue what you mean, I can’t see anything at all, is there a difference for you between closing your eyes and seeing something in your minds eye? Where do you see it then?[/quote]
You don't see it on the inside of your eyelids! You think about it in your mind ,hence the expression 'mind's eye.'

Do people with aphantasia dream when they sleep?

@Gertie75 DS says he doesn't.

@Gertie75

Do people with aphantasia dream when they sleep?

I think I read before that all people dream, no matter whether they actually think they do (If they remember it).

What I think is an interesting question is do people with aphantasia dream in images or is it something else?

This is interesting. I can picture my front door, and I can vaguely picture my hallway but it’s quite blurry. I know (can see?) there are photos on the righthand wall, but I can’t ‘zoom in’ to see what they are.

But I can’t visualise walking through the front door or play videos in my head like some posters. I didn’t know that was possible!

But if you can ‘see a bicycle how can you not SEE an actual bicycle including the shape of the frame, agh!!

Maybe the same way you can read this:
www.sciencealert.com/word-jumble-meme-first-last-letters-cambridge-typoglycaemia

...there is some science behind why we can read that particular jumbled text.

The phenomenon has been given the slightly tongue-in-cheek name "Typoglycaemia," and it works because our brains don't just rely on what they see - they also rely on what we expect to see.

In 2011, researchers from the University of Glasgow, conducting unrelated research, found that when something is obscured from or unclear to the eye, human minds can predict what they think they're going to see and fill in the blanks.

"Effectively, our brains construct an incredibly complex jigsaw puzzle using any pieces it can get access to," explained researcher Fraser Smith. "These are provided by the context in which we see them, our memories and our other senses."

You expect a metal object with two wheels, handlebars, a chain, and a saddle to be a bicycle. You can't see the object in detail. You don't have to.

@FourteenSixteenTwentyTwo

What I’m wondering, is if I asked you imagine a random selection of things, could you?

For example, a panda, playing a piano, wearing a bowler hat and Elton John sunglasses, on a beach with a flamingo kicking a beach ball to the side.

I’m using a bit of odd example, but is that absolutely impossible for you or do you have a concept of it?

Yes I saw all of that. I just added the bits in as I read them. It was in carton form though automatically. Maybe my mind defaulted to that sub consciously because it knew wha you described wouldn't happen n in real life.

I will have to keep an eye on that, to see if it happens again.

Very interesting topic.
I took the aforementioned test and probably have hyperphantasia, but I struggle with faces, which is odd. Even when I have a vivid picture in my head of what someone looks like, I can picture what they are wearing, even what their hands look like, but their faces aren't as clear.
I'm in a design based profession, can draw and it blows my mind that you draw without a picture in your head.
I'm also a maladaptive daydreamer, only recently realised that not everyone has a built in story running in their heads most of the time!

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.

[quote Aphantasia]@sjxoxo it’s like if I’m drawing I can sense what I want to communicate, so if I want to draw a figure I’ll know that I want it to be short and fat and that for it to read the way I want it to it needs to have a fullness around the tummy or it’s shoulders need to be narrow and rounded… it’s so hard to explain, but I don’t see it, I just know it…[/quote]
Off topic sorry, but in case you don't know, you can teach. If I was asked to draw someone short and fat, I wouldn't know those features you described was what I needed to draw, even though I can see the short fat person in my mind's eye.

I can also teach (not art and teaching isn't my job) practical skills from how to ride a horse to how to use the company's in-house computer system. I think it's because I understand what I'm doing on a conscious level. Having struggled to learn these things myself, I go through the process without missing out any steps. I won't say "go to the home screen, then...", I'll say "click on that square blue icon with the pink shape inside it on the bottom left corner of the screen, to go to the home screen, then...".

You just did the same thing with that description of how to draw a short fat person (who I can now see in my mind's eye and who looks quite different to my version of the short fat person (mine was more chunky in a large-framed, possible-some-muscle-covered-with-fat type of way) and as soon as I read your words and pictured it, my next thought was how would I draw that? which was met with a blankness non-answer, then I read the rest of the sentence. But I didn't pause, I literally pictured my figure and had my thought as I was reading your post, it took nano-seconds).

I'm just mentioning it because a lot of people can do something, with unconscious natural talent, but can't teach it. You have no mind's eye, maybe that's why your skills are conscious, and you can also effectively explain the steps you take in detail. It's a useful skill. Plenty of people are teachers for a living, who actually have no ability to teach, they just repeat words or concepts learned from a textbook with limited understanding behind it. Everyone is different with different skills, don't feel "lesser" because you have no mind's eye.

I think I can understand how you can draw without a picture in your head, because I can draw fairly well but when I'm doing it, I'm not necessarily following a picture in my head. Like, if you told me to draw a dog, I don't need to picture a dog in my head and then start trying to render that picture on the page.

What actually happens is that I pick up a pencil and start sketching out what I 'feel' is the right shape, without any particular intent about what kind of dog it will be. I know dogs have a snout, so I just kind of start with a 'snoutlike' shape, and the image just starts unfolding as I put lines on the page, and continue them. It either looks right or it doesn't and I make adjustments accordingly.

It's just kind of making it up as you go along, improvising. Some writers write like that – some can just start with a first line and see where it goes –these ones often talk about their characters "leading them places", while others have to basically plan the whole story structure out in their head first before they feel comfortable writing the first line.