Do you have a "mind's eye"?

[CurlewKate]

I was just listening to a podcast where someone said they have no mind's eye- they can't visualise things in their heads. Apparently, some people can visualise something in colour and 3d, some in colour and 2d, some in black and white 2d, some just as a hazy image and some not at all-no image at all, just words. I realise that now I can't think about which I might be....I THINK I'm 3d colour, but I don't know! You?

There is so much variation - maybe neurodivergence has nothing to do with it!

I do get very vivid and realistic hypnogogic hallucinations, usually spiders, but occasionally other things too.

The cube nets were an ‘aha’
moment for me. I can do them by talking my way through them - okay, the pointy bit of the heart points at the square, so it could be A or C, not B, can’t tell about D etc. DD could do them while singing - clearly doing something different to me. Then I learned about aphantasia and realised she was seeing and manipulating the shapes in her head 🤯

I think I have good visual memory, but no ad hoc access to it. So if you ask what shop is next to say the local chippy, I don’t know. But if I go along and they’ve repainted the front, or it’s a totally different shop, I’ll know. I also can’t give directions but once I’m travelling I know the junction when I get to it.

I have very poor autobiographical memory, which is mostly rubbish. On the plus side it does mean no flashbacks to traumatic events.

The one odd thing I wonder about is something with faces … there were a few people I first met masked up during covid. When I met them unmasked, their lower faces weren’t how I’d imagined them - but I’d never consciously imagined them. And I couldn’t picture what they were meant to look like … just not that.

I dream in all senses, and have an inmer
monologue that rarely shuts up (sometimes catch it singing songs without my conscious input) but no minds eye at all.

Same! I thought everyone did 🙈

Not reddish-black, or maybe bluer/black if there's more light is in the room?

If you've closed your eyes in daylight, and put a hand over your closed eyes, does the visual stimuli get noticeably darker?

I remember things that people said, word for words, 20, 30 years after the fact. Objects and things that I've seen, places I've been, not so much.

This is what is so interesting to me. The fact that you know there's a change in shop front or peoples faces aren't as you'd 'imagined' leads me to think we still have that mental image in there somewhere, it's just not accessible.
I'm exactly the same as you describe. Dreams in all senses, have to talk myself through pictures, recognition but not recall.

Nope - I can just hear / imagine the words with no visual.

When describing it to people I use an example like, imagine a cat in a tree. What colour is it? In my mind it has no colour, it's a concept not a car I can see.

I can visualise in detail, in both colour and 3D. Helps with my sewing and though I'm just learning, today I visualised how to sew a polar fleece lining to a pink and blue hats and yes, it worked.

It was my first attempt and I now have 2 lovely warm fleece lined hats I croched.

What, you actually 'hear' your inner voice as if it were a real sound? 🤯

This is like when I found out people actually 'see movies' behind their eyes!

Both phenomena sound to me like hallucinations. I've only had these experiences under hypnosis.

But ... I can picture what's in the salad drawer of my fridge. I'm not seeing it like I was really looking at it. It's a mental reconstruction, as detailed as I choose but it isn't an image or a movie. My inner voice is constant, but it's not a sound. I read in what I think of as my voice but it doesn't really sound like mine or anyone else's.

I honestly don't think I'd like to have full 3D, technicolour, surround-sound movies playing in the background of my life!!

We’ll have to agree to disagree then.

Interestingly, the person in the podcast said he couldn't do nets either. And I can-I have quite a vivid mind's eye.

My inner monologue is my own voice talking- I remember when I was a child and on my own, I actually spoke it aloud. I Donny do that any more, but I do hear my own voice in my head.

Interesting. Some of the therapy I did required visiting my younger self during a traumatic incident and, as an adult, helping her. The instructions said to imagine the scene as a black-and-white movie, filmed from a distance, then step into it as our present selves. I found the first part worked well for me, then the helping segment was more of a narrative. It was a good exercise but I guess it could be terrifying for someone with the kind of immediate first-person experience PPs are describing here.

I'm really short on memories, too. Pretty grateful for it on the whole!

I understand what you’re saying about hallucinations, but aren’t hallucinations where the person experiencing them can’t tell that they aren’t real so they are frightening for those experiencing them?

Internal monologue is just my thoughts, not a voice that anyone else can hear but it’s me thinking. I suppose it’s like saying to yourself in your own mind “Shall we have chicken or beef curry tonight?” not a noise that anyone else can hear and not audible.

The quietest audible whisper that ends up just a thought. God it’s hard to explain 🤣

Ilovelowry,that sounds a bit like my photographic memory. I can remember being in a pram in my grans garden....I'm 74. I know someone with ADHD, they have just been prescribed meds to stop the "inner voice" and she said it's bliss, the silence, and that until now, she didn't realise that no everyone has an inner voice. I used to be told I was "weird" at work.its annoying when you're trying to relax and get to sleep, like being in a cinema!

Maybe this is to do with visual perceptual skills which everyone has a varying degree of. I was surprised to learn my DD had a low score and in few years was diagnosed with ADHD. She struggled with non verbal reasoning type skills or to find things which were in front of her (couldn't picture the object she was looking for).
Get an ed psych test - for those who are curious to know where they stand and why

@happy2025 I'm good at visual perceptive skills, we used to do a test in primary school - see in colour, 3d and have synaesthesia. Good at cube nets, too.

@Nannyfannybanny I have a clear internal monologue, can play conversations - I used to say them out loud when young too. I was often told it was a sign of madness 😠

@quirkychick - that's what I meant. Those with poor Visual perceptual skills are unlikely to have 3D mind's eye visualisation.

So interesting. Yes, I can see/visualise things in 3D and colour. If I try, I can also change elements of it (for example, changing the colour of paint/curtains when considering decorating choices).

I do have a VERY active internal monologue, too.

@happy2025 absolutely, I'm a visual learner. I can do auditory, but prefer visual. I think it's fascinating how different people's minds work.

Love this thread. I only found out about this when I was describing how a room at work would look when we had it redecorated and the person I was talking to said "you do realise I have absolutely no idea what you're describing don't you?"

I was gobsmacked she couldn't visualise the walls being a different colour but she absolutely couldn't.

I think this is why I love travel so much. It adds new worlds and sounds and smells to my internal range that I can access again whenever I like. I could be on a Thai beach in my head right now.

And I spell by copying the word I can see in my mind.

I have no mind's eye. I am also faceblind (prosopagnosia) and have often wondered if the two are connected.

You’ve just touched on another area. I can imagine smells. Perfumes are easy, but the smell associated with a memory can be weird.

Stepping off a plane after landing in Greece is one I can smell easily, the hot dry air combined with pine resin and a strong hint of rotting rubbish.

My favourite body shop oil from my late teens - apple blossom.

The smell of rain after a long hot spell of weather.

I think that writers must have a both minds eye and minds nose to be able to describe a setting or location. And maybe the ability to visualise what the author describes is what separates readers from non readers ( as a pastime).
I also think it forms the basis of empathy. I often find descriptions of accidents or violent crimes really distressing because they play out visually in my mind.
The accident in Wales were four teenagers drowned when their car left the road haunted me for days, not just because I had a DS around the same age but the image of them trying to get out of the car just wouldn’t go.

I have discovered my probable aphantasia thanks to this thread. However I am great at spelling. To be confident of giving someone correct advice though I would need to write the word down to see it. So I clearly have a visual expectation of what the correct spelling would look like. My visual memory is terrible so I don’t think it’s that. I’m not remembering seeing the word written down from a time before. So I must have some visual imagination?

As said earlier no minds eye but I do have a pretty constant internal monologue going on in my head. (Similar to how some sitcoms have them usually at the end of the episode) I also have conversations with my monologue, is That just me????

Also just read that people with aphantasia often have higher IQs. My iq is (or was when I was younger) pretty high. My common sense is low tho 😂