Casual Conversation

But actually it feels more something like:

class Apple {       
  public:             
    string color;  
    string shape;
    string taste;
    string recipes[];
};

I know what an apple is, I know stuff about it and what properties it has, but it produces no picture (nor code btw...) in my head.

Solid 1. Reading a book is like watching a movie to me.

5, unfortunately 😕

I can rotate a cow in my mind.

I’m a 5 on this scale. I was 50 years old when I discovered aphasia. When discussing this with my father I realised he has eidetic memory. This prompted me to think back and I remembered that used to see pictures in my head but it changed when I had traumatic head injury at 7 years old.

1. I can spin it, animate it, transform it into other things

It's complicated for me because it's not a specific one? It depends on my present state of mind and stuff, like when I try to visualize an apple I can kind of do it but sometimes it's a little staticky, or my mind just kind of cycles through a bunch of what feel like video feeds? Like memories of times i have seen an apple played as YouTube videos in a series? Except some of them are purely imagined?

Sometimes I can have a pretty much perfect mental visualization of what I'm thinking of though.

Question: when you picture something in your head, do you actually see it clearly, as if it's right in front of you?

I don't. My girlfriend claims that she does. I can imagine things on a level 2 or 3, but it's just a thought in my head, not a detailed image manifesting in front of me.

-1.

I can daydream so hard that it should be studied

1 i can make a 3d model with full detail color reflections and picture it at any angle

It varies based on context and how much thought I put into it. I might just think apples and not image them if its just a place holder but if Im thinking more about apples or like a scene in a book is engaging then the apple will be there in the visualization but how detailed it is is going to be based on its importance in whatever the thing is. I would have to be really trying to visualize the perfect apple to get a high detail one in my head. I used to read a lot and I feel like I visualized a lot more then but now that I am consuming media that just has the thing its like im not working out the muscle.

Follow up question.

Is it easier to imagine it with your eyes open or closed?

I’ve always thought this was really hard to describe. I think I’m a 1. The idea of fully picturing something is such a natural thing, but I also don’t know what level of vivid people actually mean.

When I picture the apple, I could easily write a detailed paragraph about what it looks like. I could even easily picture an environment for it that just sort of comes into frame (always on an apple orchard, during the afternoon).

I can easily even put myself in that space mentally.

I’ve just never thought about this being something other people can’t naturally and quickly do that when I saw this question, I assumed people were describing actually fully fooling their senses into the thing physically appearing before them.

I picture it like another monitor or render layer that I can flip to, manipulate, and test in to work out concepts.

Full on 5. Maybe a 4 if I try really hard. But I still have a "big imagination", I just can't see it in my mind.

Can you guys actually see things? Like I can pretty clearly imagine things but theres no physical things to see things. I can imagine folding a box in my mind or spinning it but I wouldn't say I can see the box

Probably a 3.

Unless I have nightmares, then it gets hyperrealistic and off the scales like I can see the the mushroom cloud of the nuke going off.

Edit: To add to this, I hate reading books, its just not enjoyable for me, for the most part. I need visual media to understand. whats going on.

I always thought aphantasia was a thing you either had entirely, or not. I thought it ought to be a scale but I never heard anyone say it was until today. I'm a 4.

There was an interesting comment when this image was posted to reddit 6 years ago.

quadraspididilis

I'd call myself a 3, but I don't find the twitter illustration very accurate. The apple isn't low resolution like in the drawing, but it is insubstantial. Like hold your hand a couple of inches in front of one eye and then try to read this; you can still see your hand, but it's mostly see-through because your brain is mostly ignoring that eye. My experience of picturing the apple is like that, but the apple is in focus. Also, I have a hard time holding the image for more than a second.

This is me, but with a very faint ghost hand. I also can't hold it still. Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night I become a 5. Sometimes if I have an edible I can hold on to images longer.

I feel like i understand so much more now about myself and others. This is why I struggle to make art that isn't just copying something. This is why I struggle with role-playing games.

5

I can see a kind of a framework. If I imagine a wooden cottage in a mountain scenery, what I see is just metadata. I "see" the following:

• The concept of a mountain scenery
• The concept of wooden cottage exists within the said mountain scenery (its location is not defined, though).

Then I can take a look at the mountain scenery. I "see":

• The concept of there being a valley
• The concept of a river flowing in the valley

Next, let's take a look at the valley. I "see" for example:

• There is a concept of another mountain beyond the valley.
• There is a forest growing on the slopes of the valley

If I "look" at the forest, I "see", among others:

• Many individual coniferous trees

Etc.

But, when I'm "looking" at the trees, I never see the actual tree, only a knowledge of "here's a tree". And while "looking" at the forest, I do not see the rest of the scenery, only the tree. I can of course go back to seeing the whole scenery with the cottage in it, but now I only "see" the information "there is a mountain scenery with a valley, and a cottage exists within the scenery". Okay, the valley has appeared in a more stable fashion now that I've taken a look at the image.

So, shortly put, I do get very precise instructions for how to draw the image, but I do not see the image. The only way I can actually see it is to take physical pencils or an image editing program and actually draw a picture according to the instructions. This is also how my memories work. Everything is just metadata. A very thorough metadata that can be used for drawing a very precise replica of what I have seen, but no real visual information.

I can even "paint" the abovementioned scenery more precisely:

• Mountain scenery
  • Valley with river
    • River: Water is streaming relatively fast
      • White "foam" visible on top of waves
      • Basically this is something between a river rapid and a wide mountain creek
    • River: Slightly bending here and there
    • River: Has waves
    • River: Going from near the lower right corner, meeting the horizon maybe 30 % from the left side of the image.
    • River: Direction of flow not clearly defined
    • Valley: A slope exists on the other side of the valley
      • Forest on the slope
        • Consists of coniferous trees
          • Spruces, maybe 70 % of trees
            • About as tall as a four-floor building
            • The shape is uniform, beautiful
              • Branches have needles on them
                • Branches have subbranches
                  • The branches' structure seems to be recursive
                • Needles are dark green
                • Individual needles are visible
            • For some reason, there is one squirrel among the spruces.
              • The squirrel is brown.
              • Its tail is fluffy
                • Reaches a bit over the top of its head
          • Undefined coniferous trees, remaining 30-ish %.
            • Cannot be further observed
  • Sky
    • Covers a bit over a quarter of the upper part of the image
    • The sun is setting or rising
      • Yellowish or orangeish colour
      • Seagulls or similar
        • Far away, not visible very clearly
        • Gliding, not flapping their wings
• Cottage
  • Wooden
    • Made of horizontal planks, possibly logs
      • The logs/planks have lines visible in them, as wood does.
        • Lines are somewhat winding, calmly
  • Has a door
    • Wooden
    • No window
    • Planks on door are vertical
    • I am apparently unable to see a handle in the door
  • Has a window
    • Made of four panes
      • Pane is transparent
      • A sofa visible through the pane.
      • A flower vase is standing behind the window
        • It is on a windowsill
        • The flowers are roses
          • Red
          • Petals
            • Petals are more tall than wide
            • Overlapping each other
          • Leaves
            • Two
  • Chimney
    • Smoke rising from the chimney
  • A person is sitting inside the cottage (okay, apparently I can "see" through the walls; hadn't really noticed this earlier that this makes very little sense)
  • Male
  • Old
  • In a rocking chair

(Et cetera. I could "zoom" into different things in this "image" forever, and yet I cannot see it or anything it. Every time I zoom, I just get more information on what's visible – more "instructions for what to draw" if I ever wanted to make the image visible by bringing it physically to existence. I could also probably make the river flow to some specific direction or have the "undefined coniferous trees" defined more precisely, but those are not "visible" in the original image I got when I chose "a wooden cottage in a mountain scenery" as the image I'll be observing, so it means I'm kind of "painting over" the original image if I define them.)

Between a 4 and a 5. I also have no inner monologue, just thoughts in the form of impulses and instincts

I guess when it comes to visualizing things, the apple I'd see would be between a 1 and a 2.
But to me when I try to fully imagine an apple, I also imagine how I can feel the texture of its skin, the weight of it in my hand, the taste and sensation when taking a bite out of it, the smell of the juice, the stickiness of my fingers afterwards, etc.
Or is this also included in the scale? Because then I guess it's a 1.

Solidly 5 (no visual dreams either or much of any sense memory in general) and I thought "picture this" and similar sayings or instruction was figure of speech until aphantasia as a word became popular...less than a decade ago? idk I learned of it during covid I think.

Wait, there are people who aren't a 1?!?!

4 1/2. I can "plot" various shapes, etc. but it isn't visual, it's spacial information. It's like an un-rendered cad file. Also, the more I concentrate on a detail, the less I perceive of the whole.

A complete 5 for both me and my partner, but her daughter has 1 to the point of "watching movies in her head" when she's bored. Her uncle is the exact same way, at least as a child.

2 when I don’t think about it, 1 with some effort.

1 or less I think. My mind also populated scenery in addition to the apple (a walnut stained table it was on outdoors).

5. I cant picture my own partners face in my head.

4.5 on a very good day

5. No pics in my brain at all. Also have Anendophasia (no inner voice).

I dream but it fucks me up. Same system my brain uses for reality stuff. Takes time to sort out if not fantastical. I still don’t see anything. Just remember like I do other stuff without pictures. It so disconcerting that I have smoked cannabis every night since I was 13 before bed to suppress the dreams even though they surface from time to time, at least then I know they are dreams.