I incidentally visualize a 3D object in my head complete with blender’s UI. For some reason that helps
Now render it with cycles.
Sorry, my brain just crashed
Now I have a fever
Now do a shiny apple, on a mirror.
A talking apple? How novel.
I have a friend at work who openly confessed to not being able to mentally create images when discussing why he wasn’t into reading books.
I was like “Wow, I can’t really imagine your reality for myself, that sounds strange.”
he said, “Now you’re getting it, as I can’t imagine it, either.”
Video games and film though? 1000X more entertaining for him via his testimony. He can’t conjure those images so seeing someone else’s interpretation is often thrilling.
On the other hand, I also can’t create images in my head and prefer reading.
I can’t really do that either and I read books.
I also do have an inner monologue which might be a part of it.
Wait are there people without inner monologue?
Yes, it’s quite wild but I guess I can’t really say that as someone without the ability to imagine things.
I remember what it was like before I had one.
I often find myself getting distracted from whatever I’m watching because my brain takes over and starts making up alternative scenarios.
I’ve noticed my brain lately has been doing this thing where I’m watching something cool and it goes, “hey, wouldn’t it be cool if <exact thing I’m watching>?”
Well, yeah, but why are you activating the “I have a cool variant idea related to this” pathways and distracting me instead of just watching how this one plays out?
Edit: corrected “largely” to “lately”
apples are uniquely hard to rotate in your head because apples are bland and uninteresting and nobody’s favorite fruit. try rotating a cow instead. it’s free and the cops can’t stop you
Same as the comic, you got to utilize the stem and the leaf, or maybe give it a worm or something
What the fuck did apples do to you to deserve such a scathing review. Are you a doctor?
Teacher
Is your specialty oranges?
'90s Internet rotating cow GIF now playing in my head.
Me: Hmmmm.
everybody loves, magical trevor
A cow is too complicated, I would rather rotate a banana. I’m actually doing that right now, just rotating a banana in my head.
And there’s nothing we can do to stop you!
You lied to me! I started rotating cows but the cops still arrested me for tax evasion
I don’t know how a cow looks like directly from the front though. How would you even imagine that??
How would you even imagine that??
I would imagine a cow, directly from the front. Or maybe starting with the side on, then slowly rotating so it’s facing my minds eye.
Oh dear, it looks angry!
A friend of mine has that condition where she can’t visualize things. I wonder how she would like this comic. My guess is she’d crack a joke about it being a good thing she can’t do this.
I developed aphantasia. I used to be able to visualize things and now cannot… EXCEPT for in the first 20-30 minutes after waking up. It is quite disturbing since I only recently realized this, but can’t actually tell when the last time I was able to picture or conjure things in my mind visually.
What’s crazy is that I have no problem conceptualizing the apple. I am highly capable of imagining it. Not only that, I am a DM for a D&D game that’s been going on for nearly a decade - so it has no bearing my creativity. Also, I am an artist and can draw and paint both realistic images as well as stylized or abstract things without problem.
I wish I could see images again. I do like being able to do so after waking up. Perhaps that’s how I can exercise the skill and try to extend it.
Sorta sounds like your job / routine is making you stressed and unable to focus
This might be it.
I gave up watching the news daily back after the November election. Since then, my creativity has returned.
The only logical thing to do is quit my job so the hallucinations will return.
I’ve got aphantasia and honestly the comic kinda reminds me of how I feel ‘left out’ but I also spent most of my life trying to draw and only found out about the term a few years ago making me realize I spent so much time following a dead end. that’s just a me thing tho
Oh, no, that’s not a dead end! Holding mental focus is a skill you develop and you can practice it, and doing exercises specifically for that will help you learn to draw
I should preface this by saying that this is just my opinion and that I may be completely wrong.
I’m convinced that for 99% of people thinking they have aphantasia, it’s just a miscommunication about what it means to “see” something in your mind. When people picture something in their mind, they can’t literally see it in the way that they would see something with their eyes. Seeing something in your mind is just having an understanding of what it would look like.
People will say that they can “see” whatever you’re asking them to “picture” but they only ever hold an understanding of what the thing would look like. This understanding can be elaborate but there is not actually an experience that could be perhaps better described as a visual hallucination.
If you visualize a cube in your mind, you don’t actually see it. You just understand where all the lines, faces, and vertices would be. If you rotate it in your mind, you understand how those angles and the appearance would change at each moment as it rotates. You can even superimpose where these lines would go onto something you’re looking at, but still you don’t actually see it there, you just understand how you would perceive it, where the edges would go, what it would obstruct.
The reason that I’m convinced that people only hold concepts and visual understanding in their minds and not actual images is that most people are pretty bad at drawing. When people do start drawing, they create a representation of the sparse landmarks that actually made up their visual idea and then they have to start filling in the details using reasoning and logic. Artists and people who practice drawing get better at this, are more attentive to detail and learn techniques to make more convincing images. If people actually saw complete images in their minds, they’d be far easier to recreate and I think everyone would be more artistically inclined.
Furthermore, unlike “seeing” when you picture something while conscious, I think dreams actually do include visual hallucinations that can seem similar to actual visual perception.
It’s not as clear as real vision, but if I close my eyes I can really “see” a visual image of the thing I’m thinking of.
Really like a “visual hallucination” as you said, but it clearly exists in, how can I say? “Another space”?It doesn’t automatically translate to the muscle movements required to draw it.
Interesting. Maybe if there’s a spectrum of ability for visualizing things, I’m just closer to aphantasia than I am to vivid mental images which rival visual perception.
Yes it is. People on the opposite spectrum of Aphantasia have what is called hyperphantasia.
I think that’s the case. It’s definitely a spectrum.
Sounds like somoene with aphantasia would say.
But jokes aside, it’s most likely a significan difference since people with aphantasia would lack the physical reaction to inner images.
For example, when a normal person is asked to imagine a bright light source, a slight dilation of pupil can be noticed. Kinda shocking to find out that tbh.
I have aphantasia. I definitely cannot rotate a cube in my mind. I can with great effort and concentration kind of do what you describe, follow where individual edges and vertices would be in space relative to each other, but normally it would just be the idea in my head “there’s a cube and it’s rotating”.
My go to test for aphantasia goes like this:
- “Imagine a circle”
- “OK”
- “What color is it?”
People always answer with color and many times with a more detailed visual description, like texture, material, the surrounding scene, etc. I personally would very stumped by that question because when asked to imagine a circle, I just imagine the concept of a circle. It has no color, no texture, no substance.
when asked to imagine a circle, I just imagine the concept of a circle. It has no color, no texture, no substance.
I mean, I don’t have aphantasia, and if you ask me to imagine a circle, with no other details, I won’t get most of that either right away. If anything I guess I’d tend to “see” it as a black thin outline, i guess because that’s how it appears commonly in math problem figures. But I certainly wouldn’t make up a texture or material for it if it wasn’t mentioned.
Now if you’re talking about a green and red tartan circle that smells like rotten cheese, yeah sure, I can summon that.
Very insightful! No pun intended.
when asked to imagine a circle, I just imagine the concept of a circle. It has no color, no texture, no substance.
Huh.
Is the association with the word circle? Like, what does the concept of a circle involve?
The infinite sharpness of its edge, the rigid but smooth change of direction as you move along it. The feeling you get when you see a circle. The concept of rolling.
… but primarily just circle-ness.
For me, “imagine a circle” is kind of a meaningless instruction until you follow it up with something
Ok, I’ll add my personal experience here. When I imagine something, like an apple, my perception of the imagined object ranges from a rather blurry apple to a very detailed apple, but anyway I do peceive it very visually. It’s definitely not just understanding in my case. I perceive the color, the shape, movements if need be, everything. When I do this, the normal perception coming from my eyes kind of shuts down and I only concentrate on “seeing” the thing I imagine, but if I focus I can also imagine something being somewhere in a real lication I see with my eyes, so then it feels a bit like AR. I’ve read somewhere that the same centers in the brain are active when you imagine something and when you see it, so you could say it’s a kind of deliberate visual hallucination. I can also do this with music - I can play it in my head and enjoy hearing it.
How do you even know you can visualise things? Like, I think I can imagine an apple rotating, but it’s not like you actually see it the way you’d see an actual apple in front of your eyes, right?
Like, I think I can imagine an apple rotating, but it’s not like you actually see it the way you’d see an actual apple in front of your eyes, right?
That highly depends on your specific definition of that. But personally I can do things like think of a place I’ve been, and basically walk around like I’m controlling a video game character. “Seeing” the place as if I was there.
Same. I also like to study floorplans of places and “walk around”, exploring it in my mind.
That sounds neat. I definitely don’t have that.
Maybe you can toggle it on if you mess with some of the menu settings?
Aphantasia is a spectrum, but even when you can visualise a full realistic scene it should be easy for most people to tell the difference between that and seeing something physically. When you can’t tell the difference that’s a hallucination.
It’s only total aphantasia if you can’t visualise an image in your mind at all. I believe then you’d get more a concept of an apple than an image or other depiction of an apple but that’s only my understanding from hearing other people talking about it.
No, but you should be able to imagine the relative change in the angles and orientation of points on the apple - like, if you carved your name on it, you could imagine rotating it so only part of your name is visible and the remaining letters start to skew
I can only rotate the apple in my head vertically
Try doing it diagonally with a wobble.
This comic always freaks me out
Something about those characters is so uncanny
Lol. Im on the autism spectrum. You have no idea the complexity I can visualize and manipulate in my mind. I basically have CAD software in my brain.
That’s a good point. I haven’t used drafting software in a long time, but that shows this imagery is a practiced skill rather than an innate ability.
My first attempt at rotating an apple in my head after reading this had the apple moving in 4 steps to do a full circle. Now the apple is spinning at a high speed after some more thinking.
