To ask you all about your minds eye?

[GrampieRabbit]

I've had a really long running thread about this a few years ago, but I wanted to revisit it - firstly because I find it really interesting, and secondly for dissertation ideas

So I don't have a minds eye. I couldn't picture a tree in my head, or a house, or my baby's face. I couldn't tell you 100% which colour my room is painted in, or what colour my dads car is. I literally think in words.

This means I have trouble with directions, even to places I've been several times. My memory is absolutely terrible - my long term memory is practically non existent.

Does anyone else experience similar? There's a test you can take here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-340390544*

I know I want to do my dissertation on this condition. I'm so fascinated by it, and have been ever since I realised it was actually a thing (on Mumsnet!)

But I want it to be on aphantasia AND something. I was thinking aphantasia and memory.

But I remember that last time I had a thread on this, Mumsnetters with aphantasia (and myself) read extraordinarily quickly, and always had done from a young age. So I was thinking maybe I could test the strength of participant's minds eyes (couldn't work out the grammar for that phrase!), and then timing them whilst they read something. But might have to include some comprehension questions I guess to check they've actually read it.

Then I started thinking about the fact that people said they had always read quickly - so is this something we're born with? Could I figure out a way to test kids for it? Maybe a little too complicated?

My dissertation proposal's due in a couple of days. It can be really vague - I could probably just get away with writing 'aphantasia', but I want to get paired with the most appropriate supervisor, hence the forward thinking. Am waiting on DD to go to bed then I'll research some more, but these are just some initial ideas.

Please, please share your experiences of aphantasia and thoughts on interesting dissertation ideas

So, I can 'daydream', I can drift off thinking about something, or imagine scenarios in my head, but I just don't 'see' them in pictures, it's more an idea, an abstract notion. Definitely not a 'picture'.

Reason that back makes no sense really! It's very hard to explain.

*Reading.
Fucking hell, it's going to be a looong day.

I had a "winning Wimbledon" drifting-off-to-sleep dream/fantasy in early childhood.
It was all about what it felt like to play, my breath, my tiredness, the sense of being the centre of attention, and above all things that were said and how they were said.

Having said that, in recalling it now I am getting brief glimpses of (i) the bright green against white conrast of a tennis court and (ii) the lifting and swooping motion of a tennis player serving or reaching.

I think those of us who are very weak/in the low percentiles will naturally be better able to visualise stuff that is either drummed into us (letters and numbers) or has extreme qualities that are repeated again and again (a tennis game) or which connects to something we are better at (bodily awareness, which I'm extremely good at, in the way that a dancer is).

I have very vivid dreams and although I'm rubbish at faces during the day, at night I can have such clear images of people that they feel burnt into my brain/ retina. Great if it's a funny dream like last nights when I wassonehow left to take care of 5 young children plus DS, and was going crazy running around. When I woke I realised the children were the beautiful catholic family I used to babysit as children still (they're all huge now!), plus DS as he is now, so he'd be joint eldest.

Not so great when it's my dad, or my sister and I wake crying and I don't know why because for a moment I forget they are dead. Fuck vivid dreams, and fuck minds eye stuff.

Using that test, I don't have aphantasia, but I'm not far off it.

The test comes back as 36/40 'hyperphantasia'.

Which explains the vividness of meeting people on my dreams I guess.

Until a few years ago I couldn't get to sleep unless I made up stories in my head. I'd slowly create a scene using all my senses, and put myself in it and basically, press play, and it slowly merged with dreams as I fell asleep. The best type were lucid dreams where I could carry the plot on for ages, the most annoying was when I fell asleep quickly and dreamlessly, so all that work creating the perfect moment visually, physically etc went for nothing! Creating the static image was just the way into a story, not the finished artifact, and was most frustrating.

Since having DS and the sleep deprivation that went with him (!), I can now sleep without doing the ritual of visualization and film making, but that's because tiredness grabs me whenever I relax and I fall asleep whatever I'm doing!

Thank you @ringle and others for this insight. Very interesting. A couple of questions leading on from your answers re drawing, inability to fantasise in bed (visually) and learning (sports) if you don't mind my curiosity are:

1. Why do some people only realise they have aphantasia as adults? I realise you can't miss what you've never had, but I would've thought when a teacher said in class "now draw a house" or whatever and you saw everyone else do it from the picture in their head, why didn't it trigger a "how's everyone managing that?" thought? Or when people describe their dreams, didn't you think, what's going on there?

1. When someone's say househunting for instance and they describe one to you, don't you wonder how they're remembering all those details? Or do you, if you were doing the describing, describe something as having 3 windows, a modern kitchen and pink walls without visualising them?

Just trying to understand a bit better here! There's a facebook group apparently in case any people with the condition are interested.

I have realised doing this test (which I'm very average on) that I have no problem with visualising and remembering images, but that I seem to forget smaller details. I'm great with words but when it comes to finding my way around a new place, or picking out a detail in a picture, or finding that bird or insect that someone's just pointed out in my surroundings, it seems to take me forever. It's like I get overwhelmed with visual stimuli and can't process them properly. Oh, and I can't do left and right without thinking hard.

"when a teacher said in class "now draw a house" or whatever and you saw everyone else do it from the picture in their head"

How would someone see the internal process of drawing a picture in their head?

I think people don't realise there is a variation in the ability to visualise anything in their 'minds eye' or other senses, because everyone believes that their normal is what's normal...

skopu my husband asks this.. As I say to him, it's not that I haven't got an imagination, I just can't create visual images.

So if asked to draw a horse. Sure, I could draw one, but I could visualise the horse. I would simply remember the key facts about the horse... mane, long face, two eyes, sticky up ears etc and draw it. But I'm drawing from my memory of a horse, not from my picture of it.

In a similar way, if I were asked to recall a song, I could remember the lyrics. I could even sing the song to myself (in my head) but I couldn't hear the original artist singing it in my head.

As for plans for a house... I have still got an imagination, so I can still imagine what a house would be like... just my imagination would be verbal and not visual. In fact, when DH and I were house buying, he couldn't understand how I would just know what a house was going to look like from just the description (back in the days before plans) but I often did. However, I didn't visualise the house... but where I don't visualise, I guess I'm good at processing verbal instructions and so gaining a clear understanding from words.

My imagination is still there - it's just verbal, that's all.

pretty much the same as alletik here....

Thought this was interesting - a picture of a horse drawn by a congenitally blind woman. As far as I can ascertain, the spatial extent of the horse was established through touch, so she was working from a tactile memory rather than a visual one.

I would've thought when a teacher said in class "now draw a house" or whatever and you saw everyone else do it from the picture in their head, why didn't it trigger a "how's everyone managing that?" thought? Or when people describe their dreams, didn't you think, what's going on there?

I just thought I was crap at drawing along with everything else I was crap at and maybe if I tried harder I'd learn whatever skill it was. Same as when the PE teacher said to imagine where the ball was going not where it currently was. As an adult, for years I've watched in awe as people draw, wondering how on earth they know where to put the lines. It didn't occur to me that it was a recognised, nameable thing. I just thought I wasn't visually inclined.

When someone's say househunting for instance and they describe one to you, don't you wonder how they're remembering all those details? Or do you, if you were doing the describing, describe something as having 3 windows, a modern kitchen and pink walls without visualising them?

This may sound stupid, but I've always thought it was about visual memory. I've always known I have a fantastic aural memory and a crap visual one, but it genuinely hadn't occurred to me it was about inner ear and inner eye. There's no way I'd be able to describe a house I'd only visited once, but I've always put it down to lack of visual memory.

again, similar comments to mornington.

Draw a house?= triangle on top of rectangle. You just learn rules...

There will be lots of aphantasia folk on mumsnet because it is very text and word based compared to other social media.

If you said to me draw a house I could because I know what a house looks like, however if I read a book say "the hobbit" and it described what a hobbits house looked like and you then later you asked me to draw the hobbits house, I couldnt because I wouldnt remember the details given and would not have pictured it in my head. If you asked me to draw from the description then I could because I'm just following the description bit by bit, but I wouldn't put any details in that are not in the description.

Hi there!

I am a doctoral researcher undertaking my PhD in visual imagery and aphantasia. The study will examine cognitive function in individuals with aphantasia, and I am recruiting both aphantasics and individuals with a highly vivid visual imagery. The study involves two visits to Westminster University, London, UK and you will be paid in vouchers (£20) for your time. If this is something you would be interested in, please email [email protected] or [email protected].

Please take our questionnaire too to see how vivid your mental imagery is: westminsterpsych.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bvifuc5zeU7IlBH

Best wishes,
Zoe