Do you have a minds eye

[PlantingTreesAgain]

A bit of fun here to see how many MN have Aphantasia. I’ve posted in competitions as I’m guessing people who enjoy them might find this interesting.

This is the ability to see images in our minds.
To simply test this.
Close your eyes and imagine a red star.
Can you see one and to what extent,
Post here which image you see numbers 1-6 as you imagine that star .

Please note there is nothing wrong if you can’t see a star about 2-3% of the population can’t either.

Im also doing AIBU to get a quick tally
AIBU - what star? Can people see a star?
IANBU - I see a star can’t everyone ?

I "hear" it I think, as in my brain is telling me what it sounds like, and my inner monologue sings along but there's no actual sound.

Yes exactly. It's the same with images. You create the image in your mind, just like with sound. You don't see it with your eyes and you don't hear the sound with your ears. So I would say you have a "normal"/typical mind's eye.

My mum OTOH can replay every moment from her life as though she's watching it on video. She says she always just assumed everyone can do that. She can see and hear and feel and smell her memories. She once described her first day at school and you've never heard anything like it! She told me everything her mum said, how the wind felt, her mum's hand, what they were wearing - she had access to absolutely everything.

I find that so bizarre! I can't close my eyes and picture the cup of coffee that's right in front of me and she can describe the smell of the perfume someone wore when they walked past her one day 60 years ago.

Re the mind image v seeing with your eyes, I think when people use the word seeing in this context we actually are meaning seeing via our brain. I am anyway. I say can't see but I don't mean can't see it on the inside of my eyelids. I use seeing in this context to mean being able to picture an image using my brain. I don't think people can project an actual image onto their eyelids and see it from there iyswim. I know it's coming from the brain

Or not, in my case. 😁

That’s spot on. A good way of describing it.

1 or 2 for me, I really only realised this when reading about it yesterday...I also have trouble with people's faces.

Aphantasia doesn’t affect our ability to design and apparently lots of artists have it.
We just work differently.
But I’m now quite envious that all my colleagues can actually visualise what they are designing whilst I’ve got my figures stuck in glue making another bloody model just to see what’s going on.!

I think it’s like when you have a word on the tip of your tongue - you know the concept, you can sort of give it a mental nod, but you don’t have to mentally sound it out to use it to think.

Exactly the same here.

Fingers…..not figures….
im clearly losing the ability to spell now as well 🤣🤣🤣

Yes, I can.
I have a very vivid mind's eye and can see very clear, specific images. If eg someone is describing something that happened to them I can see it in my mind totally clearly.
Also, if I listen to Mozart or Bach I can see what look like mathematical/geometrical patterns/symbols. Hard to describe but very very vivid in my mind.

I'd actually love the option to turn off the images and constant inner monologue of songs, chatter even full movie reruns occasionally as it can be quite distracting.

I would say I also don't need my eyes closed to see a star, I can just think of something and plonk it next to me, even my odd elephant! But I think people might question my sanity if I mention creating a room full of stuff whenever I want 🤣 I've been internally creating my dream home for a longgggg time!

@RainbowZebraWarrior I also have vivid dreams, and frequently lucid dreams where I am almost conscious that I'm dreaming, but I never see myself in dreams, it's always like a POV video.
I am also rubbish with directions as per a pp, and if I'm using a map I have to turn it round so it's facing the direction I'm going in.
Dh has a beard and if he shaves it off, I don't usually notice until he points it out. I really struggle with TV programmes where there are similar looking actors, they don't even need to be that similar but just same hair colour. I frequently get people mixed up, there are two people I work with that I've known for 5 years and I struggle to tell them apart unless they're in front of me.
It suddenly occurred to me a few years ago that one day my parents won't be there anymore and I won't remember their faces unless I look at photos, I take a lot of photos.

I’ve read similar threads before where people who can visualise think those that can’t are just misunderstanding words. There are two main types of evidence that that’s not what’s going on - 1) there are people who lose (or more rarely gain) the ability to visualise after a stroke or sometimes taking particular medications, and 2) there are experiments where they ask people to visualise something then show them different images to each eye - if you can visualise then you are primed to see one of them, whereas for people who can’t it’s just random (‘binocular rivalry’ experiments if you want to look them up). There are also some average differences in autobiographical memory, facial recognition, and other things people have mentioned on this thread. And like others I have visual dreams, and hypnogogic imagery, so I have an understanding of what a mental image is from those, and know that I don’t experience anything like that during the daytime.

I was hoping for a prize as this is in the competitions section!

I can visualise most things very strongly. I can take my self into whole scenes visually and hear and feel what is around me too. I can sit on a beach, see each of the pebbles, hear the waves coming in and out and the gulls over head. I can feel the weight of a pebble in my hand, the stones beneath my bum, the wind against my arms.

It's both a blessing and a curse. I can 'take myself away' at the dentist to a pleasant place. But unpleasant happenings also remain really strongly present in my eye and in the rest of my senses, which means trauma is a very real place.

Like others, my achilles heel is peoples faces. It drives me insane that I have to work really hard to determine who I'm looking at. I now have to explain to friends and colleagues that I won't be introducing them to people at a new meeting, not because I'm rude, but because I'm crap with names and faces.

6, although the background is wasn’t just black (unless I aim to make it like that, as after looking at your guide). Even if I close my eyes, it’s like looking at a star in front of whatever is there anyway (my kitchen). My mind’s eye generally supplies complete scenes, I can zoom in and out of the details just like in real life. I just spent a few seconds imagining a red star in a whirling galaxy after seeing the next few posts…

I am a 1 and an artist. I find it amazing that people can visualize in their minds. It seems to me it would be a nuisance for creating new images because old ones would be constantly interfering. When I compose a painting or sculpture I may have an idea of what I want to do but I am completely open to the moment of creation and allow my hands to guide me. I stop, pause, consciously think about the direction I want to take, but I don't see it until it takes form.

Picasso once said, if I knew what I was going to do ahead of time , why bother?

Sorry for the mistake in my name. I live abroad and cannot change it.

@Emma8888 · I have Aphantasia and can still do all of those things. I rarely lose things or get lost. In fact, if I go somewhere new, my mind maps things quickly not sure how? May be in relation to the sun, buildings etc. My DH has a photographic memory and loses everything! I can't read a map very well though.

I used to also have near perfect spelling. The menopause has decimated my ability to write and spell.

Oh well this is all sorts of odd.

I can't imagine actually seeing a picture of things when I close my eyes.

When I imagine a red star I know what a red star is. I think of a red giant. I know what one looks like and it's properties. I can at the same time think about other sorts of red stars like the soviet symbol. I hold them all in my head. I don't see them though, I just know what they look like.

If you asked me to imagine something I'd never seen, I'd just take the elements that I knew and put them together to work out what it should look like. I've never seen a green elephant in a top hat but I know what green looks like and elephants and top hats so I can put those together and understand what that would be inside my head but I don't have a picture just an understanding.

Memories are the same. I know what my childhood home or school looked like, what things were in it but I don't have a picture in my head or any sort of visualisations, I just know, the same way I know 2x2=4 or that I know air exists.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm a very average visualiser. I'm envious of some of the PPs with highly detailed, realistic 'visions' - and also of those with none!

I have an active imagination. If I want to flesh out a scene, though, I have to prompt myself, as therapists do in guided visualisations - what's underfoot? Look closer. What does it feel like, does it make a sound, are your steps releasing a smell? And so on, all the way through. The ability to just put myself there instantly like @OhYouBadBadKitten would be incredible.

When I create stuff, though, I begin with only a vague thought and let it design itself as I work. It would probably be better (certainly faster) to plan properly, but the fun is in seeing how it develops.

Clearly a red star in 6 for me

No 1.