To ask if you see pictures in your "mind's eye"?

[MakeItRain]

I was reading about "aphantasia" and realised that it applies to me to a large extent. It's when you have no visual pictures going on in your head. So if someone says "imagine a beach, what can you see?" I was shocked to realise that some people can see the whole beach with colour and detail. Where even is this picture? I get a sort of vague sense of sand and waves, but no detail or colour. I realised it's probably linked to my appalling ability to recall faces.
What do you see if you're asked to "imagine a beach?"

Or is it just that you can't 'reproduce' familiar faces in your mind, which is different?

I can't even 'see' my husband's face in my mind's eye, or my children's

Me too. Have aphantasia. Almost nothing at all, except v v occasional snippets in dreams.

Oh and I dream in colour, and was surprised to hear that many people dream in black-and-white. I do wonder whether that is influenced by film and tv being b&w for so long, in which case it might gradually disappear?

@notso that’s exactly how I felt when I first discovered I had aphantasia. For years I had used the language of “seeing things” meaning feeling them and describing what they looked like. So I thought I was seeing things.

Google aphantasia and try some of the tests they suggest. Particularly walking around your house. It was mind blowing for me.

My mind's eye is very vague. I see more of a concept of a beach than an actual beach... kind of an impression of a shoreline and a palm tree and a lounger, but more like a blurry sketch than a photograph.

I can't recall faces. The closest I can get is recalling an impression of a particular photo of someone.

It's like these images are on the edge of my mind, and if I try to focus on them they'll slip away - like trying to remember a dream you just woke from.

What do you see when you’re reading? When I’m onto a good book, the words disappear and I see only the pictures - like a film.

When shut eyes is just a red/brown blank with particles of light.

Apparently the difficulty in researching this is how differently people describe the same experience.

‘See’ nothing at all when reading. Enjoy it though!

How do you dream OP? My dreams are like a film where I can see what's happening

I can if I really really concentrate, if its something I know well. Usually not though, its weird to imagine thoughts full of pictures.

I’m testing myself now to imagine different images, and I realise I can imagine/recall pictures, faces, etc. better with my eyes open.

I took one of the tests and I don't have aphantasia. I found this a helpful differentiator:

People with aphantasia cannot experience sound, smell, taste, or any other senses in their mind’s eye.

I am rubbish at this too. Wish I could do it. My faces and names memory is awful too. I can't draw and don't do ideas or creativity well but I can take an idea and make it happen. I believe in teamwork and collaboration

@merryhouse actually mind blown! I've tried to explain how I see the months of the year to people before and they have never understood.

I see them very similarly to you, mine is an oval but not vertical, god I am trying to explain it to DP now and he thinks I've lost the plot! It's kind of like a oval on an angle. December is to the left March in front of me Sept to the right (and up) Oct comes back down to meet the start of the oval.

Have often wondered why I don't see it as a calendar or at least in a linear way.

I have no imagination, so if I'm reading a book the characters will just look like someone I know and any places will be based on places familiar to me, but still not visualised.

I remember reading the 3rd Lord of the Rings book years ago and having to give up because I just couldn't imagine the setting, it was great when the films came out and I could watch it instead.

A pps description of the pictures constantly being just outside of your vision which disappear as soon as you try and focus on them is very accurate.

I can see a beach. A real one and a made up one. I'm good with faces and apparently one of those super recogniser types.

I ‘see’ the same as Dowzer describes, just a darkish space with flecks of light.
I too enjoy reading and I have a good mind for languages and facts and a good imagination. I can make up stories easily. However, I was terrible at maths puzzles that asked you to rotate shapes etc, it just made no sense to me at all. I am also very poor at art or anything like recognising people’s faces. I have an internal monologue and think in words.
I find it mind blowing that people can watch a film in their heads!

Hmmmmm that’s quite fascinating that there seems to be a link with autism as the person I mentioned earlier had autistic family members and had a lot of autistic traits herself but I don’t think she was aware. She’d never “get” implied meaning in films or books or anything that was subtly “suggested” and often got the plot of things completely wrong. She’d become very frustrated when the majority of people didn’t see things her way, would ask very blunt and too personal questions. I had real concerns that she was susceptible to sexually abusive relationships and coercion. She was extremely, EXTREMELY intelligent but would come out with things like;

“If you don’t allow him to throttle you during sex he might say he can never love you. What would you do then? You should let him do it in case he falls out of love with you.”

and

“I would sleep with the boss if it gets me a promotion. Why not? If I don’t, someone else might get promoted over me? Surely it’s a logical decision.”

She also tried to force everyone to be gender neutral and was very critical of people who were not willing to go along with it but it all stemmed from her being uncomfortable with femininity and not being able to understand that not everyone had that same experience as her. She was very caring but couldn’t step in someone else’s shoes if that makes sense? Everything was rigid and black and white and everyone else was wrong if their experience was different.

It took me years to realise that she may not be neurotypical but maybe I’m just jumping to conclusions here.

I don't 'see' things in my mind. I know what familiar things look like, I'm not face blind - in fact I often see faces I recognise and they turn out to be a person I once saw in a supermarket. I also love reading and can lose myself in a book very easily and I have set ideas of how the characters will look and dress but I don't 'see' images in my mind at all.
If asked to visualise something I internally tell myself what it looks like, as if I'm writing a paragraph. I can, however, 'hear' music, songs etc.
In one school I worked in we did a LOT of visualisation in maths - imagine a triangle, turn it 1/4 turn clockwise, make is purple and fluffy , that sort of thing. I had to point out that not everyone could do that and no on believed me.

I am not NT.

I see things like a movie - colours, detail, movement and yes, sound!

My internal monologue also never shuts the fuck up

I get full technicolour, intricate detail down to grains of sand. And sounds. Smells. Sensations. Emotions. 4D movie with touch!

I also have aphantasia so I was always confused when we did those "close your eyes and picture you're on a beach" things we did in school or that memory technique where you put objects around a house.
I never realised people saw these things until my friend sent me a meme about it

If I close my eyes I see nothing but dark. I can't put pictures or colours in my mind at all.

But I am very creative and, whilst I don't have a picture in my mind, I know exactly what a finished project (cake, decor, art) is going to look like.

Your difficulties with recalling faces are a little reminiscent of a condition called prosopagnosia, OP, but this generally also involves difficulties recognizing the faces of familiar people in day to day life. (People with this condition often rely on other cues like hair and voices, body shape and height, etc. but if they were just presented with just a face without any of these cues they would struggle.)

I worked with one person with topographical agnosia which was fascinating - she couldn't orient herself even in what should have been familiar places that she had visited hundreds of times. In her own home she described having to try all the doors to find her own bedroom every day of her life, and try all the kitchen drawers to find what she was looking for as she just had no recollection for this. Otherwise she perfectly cognitively intact, it looked like a very specific brain lesion in the visual cortex.