Can you see actual images in your head?

[pontipinemum]

Sorry not really an AIBU but I wanted the voting buttons.

I was watching a reel earlier and they were joking that their dad cannot see images in his head.

I can't see images in my head. When I close my eyes it's black (or red if it's bright!) DH said the same.

I know what things look like, and when I am asked to visualise a beautiful beach, I can remember places I have been but I don't 'see' them in my head. I can get a good 'sense' of what it is like in a book but I don't see the characters.

I'm not sure I am explaining this right at all.

YABU - I can actually see the things I am visualising in my head
YANBU - I see black

I find this stuff very interesting. I was just talking about it yesterday with family.
I can visualise things and that's how my memories work. I don't see them in front of my eyes when I close them but I can see things in my mind's eye - e.g. the house I grew up in, a holiday location etc.
Yesterday, we were talking about having a mind's nose as in being able to imagine a smell of you thought about it.
I don't really understand how people's memories work if they can't visualise things. That's not because I don't believe them it's just not how my mind works and I'm curious.

I can't really picture anything at all, sometimes the vaguest of fleeting images but I think I basically have aphantasia.

I can "hear" very well in my mind though - I can hear how different people's voices sound, I can "listen" to songs I know well etc. I imagine that picturing things is a visual version of this, and I really wish I could do it!

@Mauhea I was shocked (in a jealous way) to find out that people could see things in their mind. So I am trying to imagine a table. How do people not have an inner voice? Surely they have to, that's just your thoughts.
@Mmhmmn I'm trying to see it in my minds eye as such. I know what a table looks like I'm describing to myself what the one in the kitchen looks like. I know what it looks like but I don't see any image of it in my head.

It's like when I am watching Law and Order or something and they say 'you know I see that' when they are remembering something from and they bring up the image in their head and can now see clearly the woman had a blue scarf. I thought that wasn't possible

I'm the same. It's quite common in autistic people.

I have a very visual memory-it's like looking at pictures; I don't even have to close my eyes.

Yes, I can visualise things in my head. I don't need to close my eyes. I can't understand how anyone can enjoy reading without being able to do this.

I am very visual though, and quite (irritatingly) precise when describing colours 😂

@BatshitCrazyWoman I like reading but I LOVE audio books. Harry Potter really got me into reading. Maybe because it is so descriptive

@Bananazebra I believe you too, but I honestly until I saw that video did not know that people could actually visualise things in their head. I thought it was just a saying

I visualise pictures in my head; I've only found one drawback with it.

I used to write fanfiction but it would take me ages to write a single story because I'd have to visualise it more-or-less in real time and describe what I was seeing. A friend who could "hear" her stories but not visualise them could scribble them down in minutes.

@BatshitCrazyWoman colours is another thing. I was talking to colleagues about it before and they thought I was loopy. I was saying, the blue folder I am looking at, I wonder if we are actually seeing the same blue. We will both be seeing what we know as blue, but are the shades different inside our heads.

So if you've aphantasia, you couldn't look at a familiar object (eg a lamp on your table), then close your eyes and form an image of what it looked like, even immediately afterwards, even though youre concentrating? I get there are degrees of it, but eg

And to some people, it's just 'blue', and they can't see any shade or undertone 😂 It could be navy, cobalt, sky blue, royal blue, air force blue, teal blue, turquoise ... to them it's just blue!

I really struggle to see images in my head but I can do it if I make a supreme effort. DH can’t do it at all. He also rarely dreams. I dream a lot but not really in images- sort of a narrative thing.

I can visualise in my head right down to the smallest detail. Using the apple example given upthread, not only can I see a shiny green apple, but also the stalk with a small, dark green leaf on it.

I'm trying to see it in my minds eye as such. I know what a table looks like I'm describing to myself what the one in the kitchen looks like. I know what it looks like but I don't see any image of it in my head.

My Mum can't and that is how she describes it. So yesterday we walked to town, I can picture the whole route, she will be able to describe it all in great detail, just with no image.

I, however, have no sense of direction and have real difficulty driving out of somewhere I've just driven into.

Yup. I have no mental picture of what anyone looks like. Even my nearest and dearest.

I would be rubbish with a sketch artist if I ever witness a crime - two eyes, nose and mouth, all pretty much in the right place. That’s about it.

I used to worry if I would recognise someone I hadn’t seen in a long time, as no picture to refer to, but no problem with face recognition.

I don't think I can. I also have no inner monologue. My head is totally silent unless I'm reading or playing a song in there. My husband always thinks I'm talking to him 😂

No, I can’t ‘see’ anything. Regardless of how familiar it is to me or how recently I’ve seen it.

I recognise people and things but I can’t picture them and am generally terrible at describing them.

I also don’t really have an interior monologue, so I don’t ‘hear’ voices or songs etc. either.

I have lots of thoughts (maybe too many) but there more abstract concepts rather than visual or auditory in nature.

I can't see images, I can't even recognise faces unless it's someone I know really well, oh and I can't picture something and draw it, I draw like a 3 year old because I just don't have an image of what I'm drawing to know what it should look like.

All my thoughts and memories are visual!
Nothing to do with closed eyes, if I think of something it is a picture eg the time, days of week, directions, shops.

I take it for granted it’s not like that for everyone.

I have a whole imaginary life in my head too though!

I can.
I have a running soap opera in my head that I watch every night when I'm falling asleep.

The only things I actually picture are quite gruesome. For example I quite frequently have a clear vision of an ankle breaking and the bone sticking out. But other than that I can just about visualise something if I try really really hard but if I try and actually focus on a specific bit of it, it gets blurry and dissipates. Mostly when I close my eyes it is like at the movies with the Pearl and Dean asteroid commercial. I have wondered if this inability to visualise is why I am absolutely hopeless at art.

I definitely can visualize things, people and scenarios in my head whether I close my eyes or not. Sometimes it’s actively distracting because I can be driving and I can start thinking of something (be it something I need to do later, a memory or an invented scenario) and I will suddenly find myself «right there » and will be actively living the experience and then something snaps me out of it (a change in traffic for example) and I will just be back on the road and think «wow that was kind of dangerous I don’t feel like I was watching the road at all » but clearly I guess I also was (otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed the change in traffic etc…).

Similarly I do have the « inner voice » thing as well, and same thing, it can be good escapism but also annoyingly frustrating when you are trying to sleep and your brain and takes you to scenarios you don’t want to visualize.

and now I am actually curious if people who can’t see things in their minds but happen to see traumatic pictures or read graphic details of something traumatic or have gone through trauma. Can they relive the scene? And if so is it through another way than visualizing the scene?

I am now curious if people who don’t have the capacity to visualize thing (+ no capacity to have that inner voice in their head) might therefore heal a little faster from trauma or be little less tormented by it long-term due to not being made to visualize the scene or have that inner monologue and having a “silent brain” (therefore maybe keeping some thoughts at bay) ? (Not sure at all that’s the case but genuinely curious if that’s the case.)

No, can't visualise at all. We do meditation as part of the yoga class I attend and it's all "imagine there's a beam of light from your crown" and I can't do it at all. Still, it's nice to lie down and do some breathing.

How interesting. !

I dream so very vividly like a movie playing in front of me, super amount of detail and close ups, feelings about what I’m dreaming the lot ! Not always nice 😞

I visualised the table and apple and could easily ‘see’ it - what an interesting thread 😊

Yes, if I imagine something I can see it