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 ?

This is weird. I really thought I could see a star but when I closed my eyes there was actually nothing there, just a fleeting kind on ghost of one. But that was just me trying to make one. It was just grey.

I see 6. Exactly like the picture.

In my head it's like having virtual reality.
I can 'see' things in 3D and move around the space.

I dream very vividly with smells etc and can manipulate them sometimes.
(Also have a bad habit of maladaptive daydreaming. Even when having a conversation I can be playing alternative scenarios in my head like watching a tv.

I have a friend who pictures everything movie style when reading a book, along with inner monologue reading along

I do this too.

I wouldn't see just an otter like a flat image, I'd see the whole river bank as though I was there even hearing the water splashing etc.

I can walk around the house in the dark easily because I can see it in my mind.

The bad thing about it is not forgetting things like bad memories, and when they 'replay' in my head.
I also won't watch horror films for this reason.

SpacePotato I think it's been shown that horror movies don't tend to affect people with aphantasia as much. Weirdly when I dream it's like a movie, very detailed and often I an watching events unfolding rather than being actually in it.

Its a 1 from me . My dh Is the same .

I'm a 1 too which surprised me as I'm very creative in my thinking and was always described as imaginative throughout my school years. But nothing just a black space when trying to visualise a red star.

Likewise.
Perhaps we overcompensate for the lack of visualisation.

think it's been shown that horror movies don't tend to affect people with aphantasia as much. Weirdly when I dream it's like a movie, very detailed and often I an watching events unfolding rather than being actually in it.

Yes my DH and I used to get into arguments before we realised that I have Aphantasia and DH has Hyperphantasia. He cannot watch horror, violent/gory or anything sinister. He will walk out of the room. I just thought he was being rude.

My mind is blown. Blown, I tells you!

I can imagine in great detail - colour, texture, smell, feel etc., but I don't close my eyes and passively see an image on the inside of my eyelids. I find it inconceivable that people do!

Yes my DD and DH can have a video playing of anything they want and can project that image outside into the room. They are often distracted and appear rude lol.

From the responses on here and friends and relatives that I’ve also asked it’s those that can see images that just immediately say 6. Of course you can!
Those like us, that can’t, are the ones ones in shock.

My cousin spent a day trying to force herself to see an image 🤣🤣🤣😤 in total frustration.

We learn new things about ourselves all the time.

Reading the last few posts, I'm confused. I see images in my head like I think the majority of people do, but they aren't present on the inside of my eyelids, like my eyelids were a kind of cinema screen. That would be very strange.
I see black when I close my eyes (or in bright light, some filtered version of the light).
The mind's eye images are in the same place as thought. They aren't physically located. And I can see them with my eyes open too (the only point of closing one's eyes to observe the 'mind's eye' is to avoid distraction).
IF I am zoned out and daydreaming, the material that is actually present to my open eyes doesn't distract me at all, and the mind's eye images have free rein alongside my thoughts.

I’m afraid I don’t believe anyone literally sees images projected onto their eyelids. The mind’s eye is exactly what it says it is - it refers to ‘seeing’ images in your mind.

I don't see anything, like I said, but I wonder if people who do really strongly "see" like my mum have such a vivid picture that it is completely immersive.
Kind of like a strong smelly - you can smell it all around you but can you smell where it's coming from or is it just there, in the air, around you.

So if you 'see' it in front of you that's your brain trying to pinpoint an image that's everywhere and because when we physically see, it's in front of us we apply that reasoning to mental images.
I can 'see' it therefore it must be within my field of vision therefore I must be looking at it as though my eyes were open.
But in reality it exists entirely within the mind and you are aware of it, not seeing it.

If that makes any sense.

IANBU 6. I can picture things very vividly and was shocked to find out there are people who cannot picture anything.

I think I agree, @bookworm14 . It seems like people are getting confused by a metaphorical account of what these images are.

When I think, it feels like the thoughts are in my head; similarly when I visualise, it feels like the visions are in my head. But since neither thought nor imagined images are physical objects they aren't really located anywhere.

Framing it as "projected onto your eyelids" is a bit of an odd way to put it. Even things that are visible aren't viewed that way.
My experience of seeing tangible objects is as real as my experience of visualising imagined ones, whether my eyes are open or closed. In that sense I can see a red star the same whether it's there or not.
It's difficult to explain to people who don't see things that way but it is my actual experience and I'm not alone in that.

I have only today learned that some people don't have an inner dialogue! This is amazing to me as I struggle with mine. My thoughts seem to take over my life sometimes. I've done meditation and mindfulness, but I still struggle. I'd love to be able to switch them off and have no inner dialogue.

I can't see an image of the star with my eyes closed, only with eyes open in my mind kind of, so I'm a 1 xx

Yes that’s it.
But the image must be clear as people see clear colour and shape as they state they see a 6.

Agree about the inner dialogue, westsussex. It is a curse, most of the time, a dragging distracting drain. Unlike inner images, which are almost always enriching for me.

The only time inner dialogue is lovely is when I have been reading too much Jane Austen (or another similarly delicious novelist) and my inner dialogue goes all eighteenth century and precise and entertainingly caustic.

The bad thing about it is not forgetting things like bad memories, and when they 'replay' in my head.

I have this - there are a couple of memories from when I was really young that are basically "stuck" in my head and replay a lot. I sometimes wonder if people like me are more prone to PTSD.

I am known for my memory of past social occasions - it amazes people that i can remember what they wore where they sat etc but to me its like pulling up video clips in my head. So I can remember some of my first day at school very clearly and if I am going to run one of my regular routes I can mentally whizz myself round it in my head before I set off. The way I used to remember things at school was to write them down and then I could recall the sight of the words being written on the page.

Interestingly I cannot draw at all as what I want to put on the paper is
a photographic image that matches the one in my head - I can't break
the image down in the way that friends who are good at art can do. I can also "hear" music in my head - so I can learn a choral score by sitting at a table and hearing the music as I read it without needing to sing or lay it out loud. Its very useful.

When OP asked me to visualise a red star it was literally like pulling up a picture of an eight pointed star in bright red like this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Eight_rayed_star_(red).svg

I am a six and I also shut my eyes again and made the star change colour. I have dreams that are so vivid it’s like they have happened. So sometimes that’s great and sometimes that is bad. I am ill currently and in the we are ill support thread I wrote how in a Fever dream a couple of nights ago I really thought I was eating bread but it was a used tissue, yuck. But on the other hand I woke up once with a smile on my face having had multiple times of my life with JD from Scrubs.

So if I was to watch a tv scene with a pink spotted dragon in a cave, and close my eyes and 'watch' a pink spotted dragon in a cave, the only difference would be my eyes being open or closed (and one being real and one not, obviously!)

When you see any image, it's your brain interpreting light entering the eye, and when I visualize an image, I guess it's exactly the same bit of the brain, so I see it as though it was the same light signals coming through my retina.

Same with dreams. My subconscious brain often doesn't know the difference between actual reality and dream reality because they 'look' the same, hence night terrors.