What Even Is a Mental Image?
March 25, 2025 12:51 PM Subscribe
The best way I can express what happens subjectively when I try to project a shape onto an empty canvas is "halos of attention." I don't see anything, in any common sense of the word—there are no contours, no filling, no colors, or connected patterns in my field of view—but I know that certain parts of the canvas are more important than others at any given time, and that can feel similar to seeing. It's as if those regions of the canvas are more "active," more alive than the others. from An Aphantasic's Observations on the Imagination of Shapes [Aether Mug]
My secret theory is that this is perfectly normal and what everybody does and that people who claim to have sharp vivid mental images that hold still are actually lying about it--or, more charitably, actively misinterpreting their experience, the way people will tell you about their narratively-consistent dreams that have plots and such.
It's a shame the science doesn't agree with me.
posted by mittens at 1:34 PM on March 25 [6 favorites]
It's a shame the science doesn't agree with me.
posted by mittens at 1:34 PM on March 25 [6 favorites]
Recently someone mentioned aphantasia, and I almost demonstratively tried to visualize a cube or cup or whatever. To my surprise, a perfectly vivid one appeared. As I sat there in stunned silence, summoning whatever random trinkets I could think of, inevitably I woke up. The fact that the hardware can *be there* but refuse to work unless you're asleep annoys me to no end.
posted by you at 1:36 PM on March 25 [6 favorites]
posted by you at 1:36 PM on March 25 [6 favorites]
I’m a total aphantasic person who dreams gloriously vivid visual dreams with coherent narratives, so who knows really what the hell is going on up there. I appreciate this article for trying to really put into words what their brain is doing when “visualizing.” I’m always at a loss for how to describe how I ‘see’ what I’m thinking about, and find it equally impossible that some people can just actually call up mental images. Someone who can do it, comment here! Can you seriously do it??
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 1:38 PM on March 25 [4 favorites]
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 1:38 PM on March 25 [4 favorites]
Someone who can do it, comment here! Can you seriously do it??
Yes. I'm not sure I can describe it, but I absolutely can call up mental images.
posted by cooker girl at 1:45 PM on March 25 [3 favorites]
Yes. I'm not sure I can describe it, but I absolutely can call up mental images.
posted by cooker girl at 1:45 PM on March 25 [3 favorites]
My secret theory is that this is perfectly normal and what everybody does and that people who claim to have sharp vivid mental images that hold still are actually lying about it
Isn’t this just the flip side of the “internal monologue” thing? I assume it’s actually more of a spectrum. I definitely do both but I’m definitely more of a verbal thinker.
posted by atoxyl at 1:47 PM on March 25 [5 favorites]
Isn’t this just the flip side of the “internal monologue” thing? I assume it’s actually more of a spectrum. I definitely do both but I’m definitely more of a verbal thinker.
posted by atoxyl at 1:47 PM on March 25 [5 favorites]
The experience of being aphantasic is described pretty well in the article, as close as I can imagine to my experience. But really we’re answering an unanswerable question: what we see if we can’t see anything? The author does a pretty good job answering it.
posted by Vatnesine at 1:47 PM on March 25 [2 favorites]
posted by Vatnesine at 1:47 PM on March 25 [2 favorites]
I think "visualizing" is probably a reductive adjective to use. I'm not sure what a better one would be, but the use of "visualization" in describing synaesthetic experiences kept me from attributing my "spelling is spatial" skill/attribute to it for decades.
posted by rhizome at 1:48 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
posted by rhizome at 1:48 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
Someone who can do it, comment here! Can you seriously do it??
Yeah, pretty well I think, but I also have a visual artistic bent and work in building design. Maybe something that illustrates it a little better than "I can have 'visual' mental images" is that I remember the visuals from some dreams I've had even years or decades later and pull them up; occasionally, dreams will take place in a location that I "know" in the dream is a certain place even though it looks nothing like it. When I'm awake I can remember the specifics of what that place looked like and compare/contrast it with my visual memory of what the place actually looks like.
posted by LionIndex at 1:56 PM on March 25 [4 favorites]
Yeah, pretty well I think, but I also have a visual artistic bent and work in building design. Maybe something that illustrates it a little better than "I can have 'visual' mental images" is that I remember the visuals from some dreams I've had even years or decades later and pull them up; occasionally, dreams will take place in a location that I "know" in the dream is a certain place even though it looks nothing like it. When I'm awake I can remember the specifics of what that place looked like and compare/contrast it with my visual memory of what the place actually looks like.
posted by LionIndex at 1:56 PM on March 25 [4 favorites]
Brains are weird, y'all!
I am maybe somewhat aphantasic. If I try to visualize a red apple, I have to work really hard, and usually get an apple-ish blob of indeterminate color.
But...if I'm working in the woodshop, planning out a project, I am visualizing, rotating and manipulating complex shapes without even realizing it. Best I can describe it is a kind of schematic collage?
I also daydream easily, so...yeah. Brains are weird.
I wonder if visualization is a skill that atrophies in our screen-rich environments?
posted by chromecow at 1:57 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
I am maybe somewhat aphantasic. If I try to visualize a red apple, I have to work really hard, and usually get an apple-ish blob of indeterminate color.
But...if I'm working in the woodshop, planning out a project, I am visualizing, rotating and manipulating complex shapes without even realizing it. Best I can describe it is a kind of schematic collage?
I also daydream easily, so...yeah. Brains are weird.
I wonder if visualization is a skill that atrophies in our screen-rich environments?
posted by chromecow at 1:57 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
When thinking about a room somewhere else, I know what is there, where it is, what color it is etc., but I don’t see it, like with my eyeballs. It’s there but not in a visual sense. When I close my eyes, in a semi-darkened room, I see sort of random patterns, some colored bits, and it feels just like seeing with my eyes, in fact, the general reddish tone is because I’m looking through my eyelids at something lit up. I attribute the patterns etc as just noise in my visual circuits. Open my eyes, increased signal, it all goes away. But with cannabis, I’ve begun to see in the same eyeball way, very realistic faces that morph continuously, I see going down forested roads, and other weird entertaining things. I then tried to see colored shapes. I can see various colored triangles, circles, squares with a little bit of effort.
There appears, for me, to be non visual visual memories. And then there are visual things which can be detailed and changing, but not under any control. And there are simple shapes and colors that I can conjure up consciously.
A recent discovery is that in a fairly dark room I can open my eyes and with a little effort I can see what I see with eyes closed overlaid on top of the ceiling I’m staring at. All this stuff is really fascinating but how does it all work?
posted by njohnson23 at 2:00 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
There appears, for me, to be non visual visual memories. And then there are visual things which can be detailed and changing, but not under any control. And there are simple shapes and colors that I can conjure up consciously.
A recent discovery is that in a fairly dark room I can open my eyes and with a little effort I can see what I see with eyes closed overlaid on top of the ceiling I’m staring at. All this stuff is really fascinating but how does it all work?
posted by njohnson23 at 2:00 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
From the article, it sounds like Marco is trying to wring mental imagery out of his perception by shaping his visual attention and sort of "upping the gain" within that attentional area? That's not what I would describe as my experience of mental imagery, but damn is that interesting.
I'd be super curious to see what the fMRI shows is happening in various areas of his visual cortex when he is experiencing what he describes as the "halo/layer mask phenomenon". Is the conscious selective attention priming certain areas to react more sensitively and effect his actual perception? If so, that's amazing and we should figure out how that works. If not, where is that halo phenomenon coming from? From his subjective experiences it sounds like his data may be more relevant to attention within the visual field rather than mental imagery or aphantasia. The "low-key mind-reading" he mentions suggests that some effect is being observed.
posted by Avelwood at 2:10 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
I'd be super curious to see what the fMRI shows is happening in various areas of his visual cortex when he is experiencing what he describes as the "halo/layer mask phenomenon". Is the conscious selective attention priming certain areas to react more sensitively and effect his actual perception? If so, that's amazing and we should figure out how that works. If not, where is that halo phenomenon coming from? From his subjective experiences it sounds like his data may be more relevant to attention within the visual field rather than mental imagery or aphantasia. The "low-key mind-reading" he mentions suggests that some effect is being observed.
posted by Avelwood at 2:10 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
I would never consider myself aphantasic, but I realized at some point in my 40s that my mental "images" are not actually very visual. They feel visual. I can imagine a scene and tell you what color the things I'm "picturing" are and how they're arranged in space. If I imagine a chair, I know whether it's a wooden chair or an upholstered armchair. If you tell me to imagine something or someone sitting on the chair, I can do it. But the more I try to really examine the elements of my visual image, the less visual it seems. A lot of details turn out to be unspecified. It feels like seeing, but it really isn't seeing, it's just having a lot of the information you normally get from seeing.
It was interesting to see how the author's experience of trying to visualize was different from mine. I'm definitely able to do things he can't do. I can picture a vertical line of whatever length or width I want. I can make it a narrow vertical rectangle with black borders, an orange background and blue dots, and I can vary the shades of orange and blue if I want. But am I actually seeing any of this? No, not really. I just sort of sense it.
One of the weirdest things in the article to me was the way the experiment called for him to look at a screen and imagine the shape on that screen. Does mental imagery actually work that way for anyone - you "see" the thing as if it were in front of you, superimposed on the real world? I imagine things in my "mind's eye," which feels like it's inside my head. If I look at that blank square in the article and try to picture one of the shapes, I can tell you how my "image" fits in the square - X reaching almost all the way to the corners, or tiny x barely bigger than the dot in the center. But looking at the blank square rather than into my mental mind space just makes it all the more clear that I'm not seeing anything at all. Is there anyone who can look at the blank square and see something in it in a way that feels like seeing an actual thing?
posted by Redstart at 2:18 PM on March 25 [2 favorites]
It was interesting to see how the author's experience of trying to visualize was different from mine. I'm definitely able to do things he can't do. I can picture a vertical line of whatever length or width I want. I can make it a narrow vertical rectangle with black borders, an orange background and blue dots, and I can vary the shades of orange and blue if I want. But am I actually seeing any of this? No, not really. I just sort of sense it.
One of the weirdest things in the article to me was the way the experiment called for him to look at a screen and imagine the shape on that screen. Does mental imagery actually work that way for anyone - you "see" the thing as if it were in front of you, superimposed on the real world? I imagine things in my "mind's eye," which feels like it's inside my head. If I look at that blank square in the article and try to picture one of the shapes, I can tell you how my "image" fits in the square - X reaching almost all the way to the corners, or tiny x barely bigger than the dot in the center. But looking at the blank square rather than into my mental mind space just makes it all the more clear that I'm not seeing anything at all. Is there anyone who can look at the blank square and see something in it in a way that feels like seeing an actual thing?
posted by Redstart at 2:18 PM on March 25 [2 favorites]
For those with aphantasia:
• Are you able to "visualize" with other senses? Such as imagining you're holding a cube and you can feel its edges and sides. What about taste, smell, hearing?
• Are you able to have sexual fantasies without being able to visualize? If so, what are you fantasizing?
posted by Sock, Sock, Sock, Sock, Sock, Goose! at 2:30 PM on March 25 [2 favorites]
• Are you able to "visualize" with other senses? Such as imagining you're holding a cube and you can feel its edges and sides. What about taste, smell, hearing?
• Are you able to have sexual fantasies without being able to visualize? If so, what are you fantasizing?
posted by Sock, Sock, Sock, Sock, Sock, Goose! at 2:30 PM on March 25 [2 favorites]
> Can you seriously do it?
Yes, to the point that I was dozing (not asleep yet, at the "things are getting weird" stage) the other day in a dark room, thought about headlights shining on a snowbank, and the light was so bright it startled me awake.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:31 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
Yes, to the point that I was dozing (not asleep yet, at the "things are getting weird" stage) the other day in a dark room, thought about headlights shining on a snowbank, and the light was so bright it startled me awake.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:31 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
I've heard of this before, and it's wild that there's things people's brains do that is so difficult to explain at all, let alone enough to realize you can or can't do it.
Like, somewhere someone upthread mentioned an "apple" , and when I imagine one, I 'see' a Red Delicious, with its wider top and bumpy 'feet' on the bottom, its speckly, not-quite-ripe surface, the little stem that's a deep brown-red, in my head. I can turn it around and see it from all sides.
The thing is: I also don't see it, like, it's not something visual. It's just "there". I'm imaging it, what I actually see is Metafilter and letters appearing as I type, but the apple is kinda just...is....somewhere.
Is this something different from memory, like if you're aphantasic is it possible to remember what something looks like? Like, can you remember what a single-serving milk carton looked like when you were a kid? Can you draw pictures of things you remember, or are you just drawing what it's supposed to look like (and I'm guessing you may not understand the difference)?
Redstart: Does mental imagery actually work that way for anyone - you "see" the thing as if it were in front of you, superimposed on the real world?
I wondered about that too and thought that the test in the article, trying to picture a thing in front of you, is not the same as imagining something. But I'd say you're not aphantastic, Redstart -- in as much as I can determine what's going on inside someone else's head, you're able to imagine images of things.
But I wonder if what I'm describing, the image of an apple is there but not "seeing", versus trying to "see" something that's not there, and my questions about remembering, may not be talking about the same thing.
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:32 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
Like, somewhere someone upthread mentioned an "apple" , and when I imagine one, I 'see' a Red Delicious, with its wider top and bumpy 'feet' on the bottom, its speckly, not-quite-ripe surface, the little stem that's a deep brown-red, in my head. I can turn it around and see it from all sides.
The thing is: I also don't see it, like, it's not something visual. It's just "there". I'm imaging it, what I actually see is Metafilter and letters appearing as I type, but the apple is kinda just...is....somewhere.
Is this something different from memory, like if you're aphantasic is it possible to remember what something looks like? Like, can you remember what a single-serving milk carton looked like when you were a kid? Can you draw pictures of things you remember, or are you just drawing what it's supposed to look like (and I'm guessing you may not understand the difference)?
Redstart: Does mental imagery actually work that way for anyone - you "see" the thing as if it were in front of you, superimposed on the real world?
I wondered about that too and thought that the test in the article, trying to picture a thing in front of you, is not the same as imagining something. But I'd say you're not aphantastic, Redstart -- in as much as I can determine what's going on inside someone else's head, you're able to imagine images of things.
But I wonder if what I'm describing, the image of an apple is there but not "seeing", versus trying to "see" something that's not there, and my questions about remembering, may not be talking about the same thing.
posted by AzraelBrown at 2:32 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
One theory about aphantasia is that the brain’s system for tracking objects in space picks up some of the slack, so that aphantasiacs are able to use that system to imagine an object’s existence in a particular location, but because the visual system isn’t strongly involved, it presents as something like a shadow or echo that fills a certain space. This seems to match quite well with the experience of the author, and with my own. I can effortlessly move an object around a mental canvas, it’s just that the object and the canvas don’t look like anything.
posted by bakerybob at 2:52 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
posted by bakerybob at 2:52 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
I can do the thing, a lot. I can picture an apple on the dresser in front of me, or on my computer keyboard, etc., in full color, reflections, shadows, etc. I can turn it on 3 axes, slice it, etc.
I took one of those aptitude tests in high school where I scored 99% on visualization, and I went on to study architecture and for a while specialized in 3d modelling and programming, so I'm probably on the far right of the bell curve on this.
My offspring, on the other hand, inherited a lot of my abilities and improved on them, including my Admin’s Aura, but is completely aphantastic.
posted by signal at 2:57 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
I took one of those aptitude tests in high school where I scored 99% on visualization, and I went on to study architecture and for a while specialized in 3d modelling and programming, so I'm probably on the far right of the bell curve on this.
My offspring, on the other hand, inherited a lot of my abilities and improved on them, including my Admin’s Aura, but is completely aphantastic.
posted by signal at 2:57 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
I took one of those aptitude tests in high school where I scored 99% on visualization
I remember one where there was a drawing of a three dimensional shape (like a cube) with a dot on one side, and you had to select which of the options below were the "unfolded" version of that polyhedron with the correct number of sides and placement relative to each other and where the dot went. Maybe more complex with one dot on one side and two on another as the test went on, and more irregular shapes. I did pretty well at it.
posted by LionIndex at 3:02 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
I remember one where there was a drawing of a three dimensional shape (like a cube) with a dot on one side, and you had to select which of the options below were the "unfolded" version of that polyhedron with the correct number of sides and placement relative to each other and where the dot went. Maybe more complex with one dot on one side and two on another as the test went on, and more irregular shapes. I did pretty well at it.
posted by LionIndex at 3:02 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
I can picture an apple on the dresser in front of me, or on my computer keyboard, etc., in full color, reflections, shadows, etc.
I want to hear more about what this experience is like. When you say you picture an apple on the dresser in front of you, how does that differ from seeing an actual apple on your dresser? The mental image of the apple isn't like a hallucination, is it - exactly the same as seeing a real apple except that you know the apple is imaginary? Can you also still see all parts of your dresser as if no apple were there?
posted by Redstart at 3:09 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
I want to hear more about what this experience is like. When you say you picture an apple on the dresser in front of you, how does that differ from seeing an actual apple on your dresser? The mental image of the apple isn't like a hallucination, is it - exactly the same as seeing a real apple except that you know the apple is imaginary? Can you also still see all parts of your dresser as if no apple were there?
posted by Redstart at 3:09 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
For those with aphantasia:
• Are you able to "visualize" with other senses? Such as imagining you're holding a cube and you can feel its edges and sides. What about taste, smell, hearing?
I'd like to hear what people without aphantasia say about this, too. To me, these types of imagining are all equally vague. Well, actually taste and smell are even more vague than the others. I can vaguely imagine all these things - holding a cube and feeling its edges, seeing that some of its faces are blue and some are yellow, smelling and licking it and finding that it smells and tastes like a pickle, shaking it and hearing a little bell tinkling inside. All those imagined experiences are only vaguely like reality. There's some sense of experiencing what I would experience in real life, but it's not clear or intense. Surely no one can clearly imagine all these sense experiences with a hallucinatory level of reality, can they?
Are you able to have sexual fantasies without being able to visualize? If so, what are you fantasizing?
Why would people need to visualize to have sexual fantasies? Don't you imagine blind people have sexual fantasies? Isn't a sexual fantasy mostly about other, non-visual stuff, like who touches what and how that makes the participants feel?
posted by Redstart at 3:26 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
• Are you able to "visualize" with other senses? Such as imagining you're holding a cube and you can feel its edges and sides. What about taste, smell, hearing?
I'd like to hear what people without aphantasia say about this, too. To me, these types of imagining are all equally vague. Well, actually taste and smell are even more vague than the others. I can vaguely imagine all these things - holding a cube and feeling its edges, seeing that some of its faces are blue and some are yellow, smelling and licking it and finding that it smells and tastes like a pickle, shaking it and hearing a little bell tinkling inside. All those imagined experiences are only vaguely like reality. There's some sense of experiencing what I would experience in real life, but it's not clear or intense. Surely no one can clearly imagine all these sense experiences with a hallucinatory level of reality, can they?
Are you able to have sexual fantasies without being able to visualize? If so, what are you fantasizing?
Why would people need to visualize to have sexual fantasies? Don't you imagine blind people have sexual fantasies? Isn't a sexual fantasy mostly about other, non-visual stuff, like who touches what and how that makes the participants feel?
posted by Redstart at 3:26 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
Redstart! Yes, you don’t see it, you feel it. I can make myself see simple shapes and colors, but only with my eyes closed. I guess I can manipulate the noise floor in my visual cortex. The faces etc. I see but I have no control. They come and go on their own. But I see them. Again eyes closed.
posted by njohnson23 at 3:41 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
posted by njohnson23 at 3:41 PM on March 25 [1 favorite]
At the end of my class in high school geometry, my teacher brought in a standardized test from a different curriculum.
It had an hour long plane geometry section on which it turned out I scored in the 97th percentile along with a couple of other kids when it was handed back the next day.
Then we took the solid geometry section even though we hadn't had any solid geometry in our textbook or class.
I paged through the booklet and the test was full of terms id never seen or heard of before, and complex diagrams that were increasingly baffling as the questions went on.
That made me angry. I slammed my pencil down and growled, causing the teacher to visibly start at his desk, and then shot my legs out and crossed my arms, fully intending not to participate in this ridiculous charade.
Then after a minute or so of fuming, I glanced over at the open test booklet, and the two spheres in the illustration for the first set of questions literally rose off the page and hovered over it like tiny hot air balloons.
'What the hell is that?', I thought to myself, and pulled the test booklet back over in front of me. And from those hovering spheres I was able to answer the first clutch of questions. And from those the next set and so on.
At one point it struck me that this wasn't a test at all, but some kind of wonderful programmed learning exercise and I burst out laughing, startling our teacher again and making everyone else stare at me.
I don't remember visualizing any of the succeeding diagrams in the hallucinatory way I saw the first one, but at the end of the test I was in some kind of ecstatic state and my mind was swimming with visions of spheres, lines and intersecting planes.
When that test came back the next day, I had gotten all the questions right, scored in the 99+ percentile while no one else was above the 50th, and our teacher remarked to me and the class that I "must have taken solid geometry at my previous school" (I'd moved to that school during the second semester of that year), and I replied "yes, that must be it, mustn't it?". Which earned me a deep frown from him, and there was a lingering moment before he moved on.
Two weeks later I did not know a damned thing about solid geometry, and my ability to visualize geometric shapes in 3 dimensions had returned completely to its relatively paltry status quo ante — to my great and lasting frustration.
posted by jamjam at 3:54 PM on March 25 [2 favorites]
It had an hour long plane geometry section on which it turned out I scored in the 97th percentile along with a couple of other kids when it was handed back the next day.
Then we took the solid geometry section even though we hadn't had any solid geometry in our textbook or class.
I paged through the booklet and the test was full of terms id never seen or heard of before, and complex diagrams that were increasingly baffling as the questions went on.
That made me angry. I slammed my pencil down and growled, causing the teacher to visibly start at his desk, and then shot my legs out and crossed my arms, fully intending not to participate in this ridiculous charade.
Then after a minute or so of fuming, I glanced over at the open test booklet, and the two spheres in the illustration for the first set of questions literally rose off the page and hovered over it like tiny hot air balloons.
'What the hell is that?', I thought to myself, and pulled the test booklet back over in front of me. And from those hovering spheres I was able to answer the first clutch of questions. And from those the next set and so on.
At one point it struck me that this wasn't a test at all, but some kind of wonderful programmed learning exercise and I burst out laughing, startling our teacher again and making everyone else stare at me.
I don't remember visualizing any of the succeeding diagrams in the hallucinatory way I saw the first one, but at the end of the test I was in some kind of ecstatic state and my mind was swimming with visions of spheres, lines and intersecting planes.
When that test came back the next day, I had gotten all the questions right, scored in the 99+ percentile while no one else was above the 50th, and our teacher remarked to me and the class that I "must have taken solid geometry at my previous school" (I'd moved to that school during the second semester of that year), and I replied "yes, that must be it, mustn't it?". Which earned me a deep frown from him, and there was a lingering moment before he moved on.
Two weeks later I did not know a damned thing about solid geometry, and my ability to visualize geometric shapes in 3 dimensions had returned completely to its relatively paltry status quo ante — to my great and lasting frustration.
posted by jamjam at 3:54 PM on March 25 [2 favorites]
I suspect the spectrum idea is probably true, very few things our brains do are binary after all.
I'm definitely on the aphantasiac side, and until just a few years ago when I heard the term I'd always assumed the "visualize a whatever" stuff was pure metaphor as I've never been able to actually visualize anything in my life.
If I try I can get a sort of weird flicker of a flash of something and that may just be me fooling myself, but it never lasts more than a zillionth of a second if it happens at all.
What weirds me out is when neurotypical people ask how I remember what things look like. Do they actually have to, for example, visualize the Statue of Liberty before they remember it's green? I remember how things look by remembering how they look, I don't need to see pictures in my head for that.
I think it'd be pretty damn cool to be good at, or able to, visualize.
I don't do the internal monologue thing either, or not usually. When I really need to work something out I usually talk to myself if I'm in a place where it won't get me unnerved attention from bystanders. If not I think it through word by word, but I don't hear words I just... know them? I don't know how to say it, I think of the word there's no sound involved because words are words, they have sounds by they aren't sounds.
I don't "hear" words when I read either, I see the words, I understand the words no sound involved. I also read faster than many people, maybe that's a factor? If you have to actually listen to imagined words when you read, I'd assume that means you can't read faster than you can talk?
I don't know if the aphantasia is why I'm better than average at remembering exact dialog from a vid or text from a book, but apparently my ability there is somewhat unusual because people have expressed mild surprise that I can remember that as well a I do.
I think it'd be pretty damn nifty to be able to see, or hear, or maybe smell (? is that a thing?) stuff just by imagining or remembering it. I do wonder how neurotypical people ever get bored though, if they have what sounds like a full VR rig built into their skulls. Like, if you're bored don't you just imagine a cow and rotate it around for fun? Or whatever?
posted by sotonohito at 5:50 PM on March 25
I'm definitely on the aphantasiac side, and until just a few years ago when I heard the term I'd always assumed the "visualize a whatever" stuff was pure metaphor as I've never been able to actually visualize anything in my life.
If I try I can get a sort of weird flicker of a flash of something and that may just be me fooling myself, but it never lasts more than a zillionth of a second if it happens at all.
What weirds me out is when neurotypical people ask how I remember what things look like. Do they actually have to, for example, visualize the Statue of Liberty before they remember it's green? I remember how things look by remembering how they look, I don't need to see pictures in my head for that.
I think it'd be pretty damn cool to be good at, or able to, visualize.
I don't do the internal monologue thing either, or not usually. When I really need to work something out I usually talk to myself if I'm in a place where it won't get me unnerved attention from bystanders. If not I think it through word by word, but I don't hear words I just... know them? I don't know how to say it, I think of the word there's no sound involved because words are words, they have sounds by they aren't sounds.
I don't "hear" words when I read either, I see the words, I understand the words no sound involved. I also read faster than many people, maybe that's a factor? If you have to actually listen to imagined words when you read, I'd assume that means you can't read faster than you can talk?
I don't know if the aphantasia is why I'm better than average at remembering exact dialog from a vid or text from a book, but apparently my ability there is somewhat unusual because people have expressed mild surprise that I can remember that as well a I do.
I think it'd be pretty damn nifty to be able to see, or hear, or maybe smell (? is that a thing?) stuff just by imagining or remembering it. I do wonder how neurotypical people ever get bored though, if they have what sounds like a full VR rig built into their skulls. Like, if you're bored don't you just imagine a cow and rotate it around for fun? Or whatever?
posted by sotonohito at 5:50 PM on March 25
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posted by MonkeyToes at 1:27 PM on March 25 [3 favorites]