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this is something i've mentioned in byob a few times before but after a recent attempt to discuss this in real life that ended in kind of a "oh that's interesting anyways" way i decided to bring this to the yob, because holy loving poo poo i can't stop thinking about this. wikipedia defines aphantasia as "the inability to voluntarily create mental images in one's mind." and also states that "A 2022 study estimated the prevalence of aphantasia among the general population by screening undergraduate students and people from an online crowdsourcing marketplace through the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire. They found that 0.8% of the population was unable to form visual mental images, and 3.9% of the population was either unable to form mental images or had dim or vague mental imagery." it was only recently that i discovered this was even a thing. i foolishly thought everyones brain worked kind of like me - minus the bipolar stuff, at least, until that study about internal monologue made the rounds on the internet. i guess not everyone has one? anyways this lead me into researching this stuff more fully, and finding out that imagination isn't just a figure of speech, that 90 whatever percent of the population has an ability i struggle to understand. i already knew my brain worked differently than most but this revelation has been something i've been thinking about a lot, so here are some questions so i can try and understand humans a bit more. do you have a visual imagination? how vivid is it? how is doing any other leisure activity better than just imagining flying? how does it loving work - do you just see 2d images over layed on reality? how do you trust your perception knowing that sometimes you're just visualizing a unicorn? do you have control over the images? my dad used to complain about my choice of dinner conversation growing up, and i never got why, till i discovered this bullshit and talked to him about it. i guess his imagination just runs sometimes outside of his control, and he visualizes things that are described to him as a reflex. what the gently caress? how do you even live with this? does it enhance your life? is backing up trailers or remembering directions easier when you can imagine the trailer or a map? i am pretty sure i have some more questions but these are the most pressing. i have always kind of felt like there was some general secret everyone knew but didn't express publicly and this really feels like the key to me feeling out of place. clearly not the only reason, but wikipedia telling me hey idiot 99.2 percent of people have this basic rear end ability that you completely lack has been a brainworm i can not shake. oh yeah because i've posted about this before here are some answers to questions you may have. when i dream i THINK i see things, but it's hard to tell when i awake because i am remembering a dream, not currently in it and when i'm in the dream it's very dreamlike and hard to pin down. if i try and imagine something i use words and only words. my internal monologue never ends to the point that i wish i could shut it down without needing some sort of physical activity i can lost myself in. chopping wood, cutting a path, sex, etc. anyways tldr: i have no visual imagination and i'm super loving jealous of people who can imagine a butt |
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Jun 6, 2022 02:41
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| # ? May 5, 2024 13:49 |
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What a cool thread, tyvm for making me look at something I take for granted from a new perspective. When I am concentrating on a picture in my head it doesn't at all overlay my vision, it's in the same part of my head that thoughts come from. If I really concentrate on what I'm picturing in my head it's sort of like it's behind my eyes. It's a lot like the reflex of blurring your eyes when looking at a stereoscopic image. I also noticed I would glance upward while pulling up a mental image. I don't have strong spatial knowledge, I'm horrible at maps but I was able to pull up a red delicious apple in my mind and flip it over and look at an imagined light source through the bumps on the bottom as I rotated it in my head. I do a lot of wireframing in my day to day work and being able to visualize a page layout in my head before mocking it up is something I've always assumed that everyone can do. Tldr; can see a rotating shiny apple with a light and advertisements in my head. when I look at maps I have to pretend I have suction cups on my feet and I'm standing on the map in front of me. |
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Jun 6, 2022 03:11
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so i THINK i'm at another end of this, which is that i think i have kinesthetic synesthesia. (i haven't been formally confirmed to have it, but i share a LOT of anecdotal evidence/experiences with other people who discuss it.) it's really difficult to describe how my thought process works but it does feel "clearer" when i'm working with math, programming, music, and so on. the best way i've come up with to explain it is that i have kind of a spatial map of where different concepts belong, and they move in different ways depending on what's being done to them. some things like math are simpler with numbers moving in space in different directions when adding, squaring, etc. others are more complex...i have no idea how to explain how different chords in a chord progression change other than that they change size, get softer/harder, and just generally do a bunch of weird stuff. one wild part is that things can kind of twist and shift in directions that don't exist in the real world. i definitely couldn't explain how a 4d shape works but it seems like a good description of how my thoughts shift around a lot of the time. as far as concrete "think of a dog" imagination, i guess i see the platonic ideal of a dog, and then i can attach details if you tell me to think of "a red dog" or "my parents' dog". it feels like i'm looking through a pinhole--i can't get a full picture of the dog, but if i concentrate on specific parts i can imagine them visually. otherwise it's just kind of the abstract lump that represents "dog". i don't know that this is exactly what you were looking for but hopefully it's interesting! |
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Jun 6, 2022 03:28
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I have profound ADHD, and I see excessive amounts of things in my imagination. It's a constant, rapid cascade of images, sounds and ideas. It doesn't overlay my vision or anything, but if I concentrate on it, my vision kind of blanks out, like when you watch television and your mind ignores the rest of the room. I don't have an internal monologue unless I'm reading or going over a speech or whatever. I realized while driving the other day that I don't actually know the names of many of the streets I'm driving, I just have an entirely visual 3D map of everywhere I go. I find the idea of a thing or place or even person comes to my mind far more easily than a name. Stuff like this is probably why I became an artist. |
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Jun 6, 2022 07:38
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OP your brain thing makes me think of an entrance exam I did once. There were a series of questions with various diagrams of enmeshed gears and pulleys, and you had to say which way the final gear would rotate if the input gear rotated (for example) left. Sort of like this one only maybe a bit less complicated. You have to rotate the gears in your mind to get the answer. At least, that's how I did it. I don't know how you'd do the puzzle if you couldn't do that. But then again, they're testing for mechanical aptitude and if you can't do that you probably are going to struggle with stuff as a mechanic. Like if you have to locate a blind fastener, upside down, with your hand and arm jammed somewhere at awkward angles, and then figure out which way you have to turn it, I don't know how you can do that without picturing what you're doing in your head. So, by the sounds of your condition, OP, you'd have a hard time with that kind of work. What would be really interesting is if you were actually pretty good at it because I would love to know how! |
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Jun 6, 2022 09:24
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OP this makes me wonder if you have a talent/inclination for writing, since you use words in an area where most people use visualization |
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Jun 6, 2022 13:52
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Finger Prince posted:OP your brain thing makes me think of an entrance exam I did once. There were a series of questions with various diagrams of enmeshed gears and pulleys, and you had to say which way the final gear would rotate if the input gear rotated (for example) left. Sort of like this one only maybe a bit less complicated. it's open right? i had to trace over the gears with my finger to kind of hold the motion in my head and move onto the next one, otherwise i would lose track pretty much instantly
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Jun 6, 2022 15:35
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so I'll be happy to give my .02 about your questions op but let me ask you this: can you imagine music? do you get earworms for example, having a song "stuck in your head"? if you do, I guess I would make an analogy between visual imagination and auditory imagination: I at least can decide to picture something the way you might decide to mentally "hear" a song you like, or sometimes the pictures will come to me without my wishing for it, the same way that earworms can be intrusive. if you don't tend to imagine music that's also kind of interesting, I feel like a big chunk of my life is spent listening to music mentally, and very occasionally it's unpleasant (for example if I'm dealing with an earworm of something I don't actually enjoy listening to and I'm otherwise stressed). but outside of dreams I am never, in the normal course, confused about whether a given image is imagined or real. I've had sleep paralysis very occasionally and that is a very different feeling, I am convinced that I actually see things (like spiders or snakes) for a short while before they disappear, and it takes conscious cognition to convince myself what I saw wasn't real.
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Jun 6, 2022 15:50
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hp i am curious as to how well you can navigate in the dark/with your eyes closed! if i'm in a moderately familiar place i can move around pretty much blindly because i'm holding the geometry of the place in my head
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Jun 6, 2022 17:05
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They Might Be posted:Tldr; can see a rotating shiny apple with a light and advertisements in my head. when I look at maps I have to pretend I have suction cups on my feet and I'm standing on the map in front of me. thanks for posting, trying to understand other people is very interesting to me and any insight is useful. i am jealous of this ability, though. i get lost without directions all the loving time. your friend sk posted:i don't know that this is exactly what you were looking for but hopefully it's interesting! it is, both what i'm looking for and very interesting. it would be interesting to describe these ideal forms tho', like is your platonic ideal dog a german shepherd or is it based on an important childhood animal or even a cartoon dog? GODSPEED JOHN GLENN posted:I have profound ADHD, and I see excessive amounts of things in my imagination. It's a constant, rapid cascade of images, sounds and ideas. It doesn't overlay my vision or anything, but if I concentrate on it, my vision kind of blanks out, like when you watch television and your mind ignores the rest of the room. I don't have an internal monologue unless I'm reading or going over a speech or whatever. I realized while driving the other day that I don't actually know the names of many of the streets I'm driving, I just have an entirely visual 3D map of everywhere I go. I find the idea of a thing or place or even person comes to my mind far more easily than a name. Stuff like this is probably why I became an artist. this focusing on the tv or movie is something i also lack the ability to do. oddly enough i can focus intensely on books or reading. a general lack of internal monologue is completely foreign to me though, i think this is why i'm not big into movies or television? i am always thinking over the narrative, and if a bird flies by a window or something i notice it and lose focus for a moment. this connection to your art makes sense to me - when you are planning a piece do you start with a blank slate imagination then like, conjure an image, then replicate it digitally/physically? Finger Prince posted:OP your brain thing makes me think of an entrance exam I did once. There were a series of questions with various diagrams of enmeshed gears and pulleys, and you had to say which way the final gear would rotate if the input gear rotated (for example) left. Sort of like this one only maybe a bit less complicated. i tried this puzzle but realized i was using my hands to indicate the direction each turned. so then i tried with my hands balled into fists and found myself nodding my head to the left or right. so i stopped that and tried again but i was just using words, in my internal monologue, to describe the movement. then i gave up because the point of the puzzle had kind of been made. this is interesting because i am not terrible at mechanical jobs, but i rely on sight and touch to know what to do. i can look up schematics, and kind of store in memory said schematic, but not in a way i can pull up and inspect visually, just sort of a list of words describing the schematic. for a while i would put glow in the dark nail polish on to do mechanical work because having even a slight glow on my finger tips made work in places i couldn't see exactly what i was doing easier. Sherbert Hoover posted:it's open right? yeah there are tricks to work around this but i assume someone with a highly developed visual imagination could start the gears in motion and instantly know the answer. Manifisto posted:so I'll be happy to give my .02 about your questions op but let me ask you this: can you imagine music? do you get earworms for example, having a song "stuck in your head"? if you do, I guess I would make an analogy between visual imagination and auditory imagination: I at least can decide to picture something the way you might decide to mentally "hear" a song you like, or sometimes the pictures will come to me without my wishing for it, the same way that earworms can be intrusive. if you don't tend to imagine music that's also kind of interesting, I feel like a big chunk of my life is spent listening to music mentally, and very occasionally it's unpleasant (for example if I'm dealing with an earworm of something I don't actually enjoy listening to and I'm otherwise stressed). i can imagine music! i also spend a good amount of time whistling or humming to myself. today as i was walking to my car to go get coffee my neighbour stopped me by asking "are you... whistling mr grinch?" because it was raining and i was feigning being grumpy about it. so i'm bipolar, maybe another wrinkle to this understanding other folks brains thing, but anyways when i've been in a poor mental state, on the manic end, occasionally i would get auditory hallucinations. nothing sinister, thankfully, just muffled voices at a great distance, which is unsettling. what is way more common though in these times is what i call the music of the spheres. my brain will take bits and pieces of environmental sounds and fill in the gaps to make everything glorious music. the whir of a fan, a dogs nails tapping on wood floor, an aquarium filter running, cars passing by - all these things are woven together in an aural tapestry that is usually overwhelmingly lovely. sleep paralysis sounds terrifying, i will gladly take my occasional bouts of somnambulism over sleep spiders. biosterous posted:hp i am curious as to how well you can navigate in the dark/with your eyes closed! if i'm in a moderately familiar place i can move around pretty much blindly because i'm holding the geometry of the place in my head this brings to mind 2 (two) things. firstly i am... okay at navigating places i know in the dark. i do get sleepwalking injuries once in a while which implies my brain does not have a good map of my home. HOWEVER do you ever close the door in a washroom and notice that you've locked the door without realizing, it was just muscle memory? or when you're splitting wood and reach for the axe without looking - i don't have an active mental map but i do have a degree of muscle memory. i can get to the bathroom at night without much trouble but i do occasionally stub my toe or whatever because i'm just sorta feeling my way around. the second thing is that in an attempt to have a better memory and be a better friend/family member i've tried building a mind palace. it's the house i spent most of my youth in, one that is now sold and gone to me. it isn't a place i visualize at all, just a combination of that muscle memory sensation and a bunch of words to describe the spiral staircase and my bedroom and the unfinished basement, etc. frump truck posted:OP this makes me wonder if you have a talent/inclination for writing, since you use words in an area where most people use visualization i almost missed this, whoops. i initially went to university for journalism because i really do like writing and wanted to find a way to make it pay. whether or not i'm good at it is not something i feel super confidant in saying because who can say but others? the reason i love byob so much, beyond the obvious things like a cool font and a swingin' kitty, is that it provides me an avenue to write creatively collaboratively with a bunch of people funnier and clever-er than me. thank you everyone for the thoughtful responses thus far. this has already been helpful and illuminating.
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Jun 6, 2022 17:52
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Finger Prince posted:OP your brain thing makes me think of an entrance exam I did once. There were a series of questions with various diagrams of enmeshed gears and pulleys, and you had to say which way the final gear would rotate if the input gear rotated (for example) left. Sort of like this one only maybe a bit less complicated. Option 2 involves putting a turn arrow/indicator on each cog as you go through the connections, did this mentally but a pen on a printout also works For HP I do think I have a good visual imagination, but as others have said for me personally it is not an AR (augmented reality) type affair where it overlays your vision. It's off at the back, and if I want to focus on it I end up closing my eyes. It's also not hyper detailed with lightsources and bumpmaps like They Might Be, unless you count dreaming I guess? I'd describe it more as a separate computer monitor behind the eyes, with vague details by default, and requires concentrating on it to get any improved fidelity. I can concentrate one one or the other, but trying to pay attention to both my imagined scenario and Actual LifeTM simultaneously is extremely hard, and one or the other suffers for it. Regarding dreaming, whenever I realise I am dreaming (it happens a fair bit tbh), I'd say the visual fidelity is better than I could get my conscious imagination to be, even if I closed my eyes and concentrated on it 100%, but it is definitely subpar for a VR style experience. I definitely see all the flaws once I realise it is actually a dream, while before I realised I was dreaming, I'd have been oblivious to those same flaws. Much like bios I also have internal maps of places I know well, and will happily walk around without putting lights on as I imagine my surroundings from memory. I started that as a "game" when much younger as a coping mechanism for (unfounded and purely speculative) fears I'd somehow become blind, and somewhere along the line it became a habit. Combined with reaching out for walls for the tactile reassurance, it works fine right up until a box / bag / errant lego I was previously unaware of turns up in my path 
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Jun 6, 2022 19:58
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| # ? May 5, 2024 13:49 |
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Heather Papps posted:it is, both what i'm looking for and very interesting. it would be interesting to describe these ideal forms tho', like is your platonic ideal dog a german shepherd or is it based on an important childhood animal or even a cartoon dog? that's the hard part lmao. there's not really a concrete shape, or at least not one that would make sense if you happened across it on the sidewalk. if I were pressed... "dog" is kind of a faint light blue cloud, very soft and fuzzy. it lives on the right side and a little low on my "mental canvas" (if you're looking at the center of your monitor, the visual equivalent would be roughly at its bottom right corner). if you demanded physical details I'd say it's a brown beagle with curly hair and a dark red collar, but I think those just happen to be the first descriptions that came to mind. color doesn't often play into it. most things are robin's egg blue on a midnight blue backdrop. often at work, if I'm thinking about some business process it takes the form of a lumpy mass kind of shaped like a stubby cigar. it feels like it's on 3d space but I can "see" the other side even though it's obstructed by the shape. different variables or parts in the process sit in specific places, and manipulating one makes the other ones move accordingly. I have no clue why they move the way they do without thinking more concretely, but it tends to be a correct intuition. I'll have to think about music... it's definitely a different "flavor" of abstraction that involves textures and movements in space. I'll see what I can come up with! |
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Jun 6, 2022 20:19
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