Erin S Kittens
Member
If you are ever afforded the opportunity to take LSD in a controlled environment, I say give it a shot.
Came here to post this. I have this condition, meditating and psychedelics have helped immensely.
If you are ever afforded the opportunity to take LSD in a controlled environment, I say give it a shot.
I thought people saw images as vivid as a dream or their cell phone image. I can imagine stuff with my eyes opened or closed and get a "feel" of the objects but it's not vivid. I only see black or what I'm looking at. I can dream vividly tho
Wait so if you have this are you unable to draw from memory? Say I sat you down, gave you a piece of paper and pencil and said draw Mickey Mouse without referring to a visual drawing of him. Would you be unable to do it?
We don't need to close our eyes either to "see" those.
Closing your eyes might just help focus on the mind picture.
Do a test, can you see Batman or Goku at all in your mind ? What do they look like ? What's the color of their belt ?
This is a skill that can be learned and refined.
As I pointed out in the previous thread on this, no one capable of visualizing complex things in realistic detail was born that way. It takes practice. If you want to learn, get yourself a pencil and sketchbook and start practicing drawing things from life, forcing yourself to see what shapes things are made of and how they fit together. Then trying to translate that onto the page forces you to reckon with the image in a more thorough way.
I can't guarantee it will work if you can't visualize anything at all, but it's definitely a skill, not something you're born with.
I'd only just realized I had this myself, But i'm a professional artist having been in the business going on 17 years now. I didn't get held up on the fact and it never bothered me. I don't consider it a handicap at all. Just the way it is.
Shit some artists draw with their feet, I've got nothing to complain about
I just think in words and concepts. Like if you say Shakespeare I think of plays and sonnets. If you ask me to draw Mickey Mouse, I know conceptually that he has big round ears and a swoopy nose. I could maybe draw a rough sketch. Drawing is very hard for me without a model of some sort though.Being unable to create/store mental images must impact memory formation and recollection in a huge way, right? I can't imagine what it would have been like in school not to recall diagrams I'd seen, faces, paintings in history, even visualization of timelines and things like that. Even remembering what I did that day might be really hard, not to mention managing the memorization tasks that K-12 education is built around.Even things like direction, landmarks, maps, etc.
When I hear the name Shakespeare, I picture him outside a cottage on a stream (stratford upon avon) with a pig in a crown beside him (hamlet, lear), and a witch's cauldron (macbeth). And from his clothes with the clown collars and slashed balloony sleeves I get a rough idea of the era and that he was alive during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. This was how I memorized stuff,
It seems like relying on recognition abilities versus being able to generate mental representations would make learning and remembering a totally different task. And maybe it would make learning in certain disciplines way easier than in others.
Holy shit. I also have this. Im mind blown right now.
Wait. So you can see an imaginary picture with your eyes open full stop?
Fuck.
How do you draw something if you can't imagine what you are going to draw? How do you know where the next line will go or what color to use?
Do you dream?
But can you, like, describe something you have seen though ? Like, a screenshot from a videogame you played/saw ?
Can you draw ? Does that help or is it impossible to draw for someone with aphantasia ?
Do you dream?
I can't lucid dream (jealous), but yeah, plot summary. That's a great analogy.I dream, and Ive even lucid dreamed; but it just feels like I wake up knowing that my dream happened. Like I just read a plot summary off wikipedia
About a year ago I learned for the first time that other people can actually visualize things in their minds. I have always had this vague sense that how my mind worked wasn't quite right, but I could never put my finger on it until I stumbled across this. Not knowing I was missing out on something so big was fine, but now that I know it is painful. I can ignore the fact for a time and act like I'm normal, but then suddenly it's there glaring me in the face that I am missing something so basic. I've always felt I was a creative person that just couldn't quite make things click and now I know why and there's nothing I can do to fix it. I love to read, but realizing that other people can actually picture the characters and the scenes while I just get a general 'feel' for everything is painful. Knowing other people can picture the faces of their loved ones and I can't makes me feel awful too. I am not as bad off as Blake Ross. I have a very small amount of sensory imagination, I have some imagination for audio and scent, I have a vague visualization of 'movement' as though I can imagine the most basic of lines it would take to make up the thing or event, but never the complete thing or event itself. I do have dreams, so I feel like perhaps the connection could still be made and I could one day visualize, but I have no idea where to start and research on the topic of aphantasia is so new that I feel I have little hope of finding out how in my life time.
So far not a single person I have talked to in real life suffers aphantasia and it makes me feel very alone. Who else on GAF suffer from it?
Oh weird. I'm going to get tested for ADHD finally.Well I haven't been officially diagnosed, but that sure sounds a hell of a lot like me. I always thought it was due to ADHD, that I couldn't focus long enough on something to visualize it.
I got the exact opposite problem, if anything. I visualize and hear voices whenever I read anything. I read pretty damn slow because of it, but I do think it enriches my overall experience.
so... no wank bank?
Now that we are on the subject, how consistently can you guys visualize stuff? Like if I try to imagine a person walking on the street that I might not even know, I can't hold a gif like clip in my head with all clarity. It's more like a gif that has a lot of frames skipped so the animation is not fully smooth and the details aren't coming to my head like you would see in a gif animation. The details and colors will many times get lost. I can make out the overall scene and flow of things because I'm the one visualizing it but it's very bad quality if it could be exported into a video clip.
I have always assumed that this is how it is for most people, but maybe there are people who can picture a perfect "movie" in their heads rich with details etc.?
I don't understand how you have a memory of those things but have no idea what they look like.
Holy shit. I also have this. Im mind blown right now.
Wait. So you can see an imaginary picture with your eyes open full stop?
Fuck.
Here's a question: when you think of things, when you hear words in your head, are they in your voice?
I don't know if it's unusual or not, but for me, it isn't. I can't even make it be in my voice if I try. I don't know whose voice it is, if anyone's, but I know it doesn't sound like me, it doesn't even have my accent or intonation, and it's in a completely different register.
Is that normal?
Hmm, I may have those. I can imagine things, but they are are feelings as to a straight up image.
So people who can see pictures, do you literally see a picture in your mind?
Hmm, I may have those. I can imagine things, but they are are feelings as to a straight up image.
So people who can see pictures, do you literally see a picture in your mind?
Here's a question: when you think of things, when you hear words in your head, are they in your voice?
I don't know if it's unusual or not, but for me, it isn't. I can't even make it be in my voice if I try. I don't know whose voice it is, if anyone's, but I know it doesn't sound like me, it doesn't even have my accent or intonation, and it's in a completely different register.
Is that normal?
Hmm, I may have those. I can imagine things, but they are are feelings as to a straight up image.
So people who can see pictures, do you literally see a picture in your mind?
This is blowing my mind that there are people unable to visualize. So what do you do when you are reading a nonsensical line that is impossible to remember facts from because it is impossible in real life. Something like flying pigs.