I thought I understood aphantasia and knew I didn't have it—until I saw this phrase:"trying to force even the outline of an apple onto the back of my eyelids." When I close my eyes I don't see anything on my eyelids. I can imagine apples, people, etc., but I am now skeptical that I actually "see" them in my mind. Aphantasia may be a huma…
I thought I understood aphantasia and knew I didn't have it—until I saw this phrase:"trying to force even the outline of an apple onto the back of my eyelids." When I close my eyes I don't see anything on my eyelids. I can imagine apples, people, etc., but I am now skeptical that I actually "see" them in my mind. Aphantasia may be a human variation that is too poorly defined for anyone to know for sure if he or she has it.
What I do know I have is a lack of binocular vision. The person sitting across from me looks no more 3D than a person in a painting. The only way I know how far I am from something is by noting its size and its relationship to other items that seem to be near it; this can result in some humorous mixups, like thinking a person has a vase of flowers on his head, and also probably some serious auto accidents.
This completely flat view of the world could explain my general lack of interest in sightseeing, action movies, most spectator sports, and life in general. Now I am wondering if the visualizations that people claim to have in their brains (or on their eyelids?) are flat or in 3D (whatever that looks like).
This might be still an aphantasia/non-aphantasia gap. No one (I don't think - articles such as this make it clear that no one really knows what goes on in anyone else's mind) sees things on the back of the eyelid. When Katie started talking about seeing white flashes, I knew it would not turn out to be visualization. You just kind of see it in the proverbial mind's eye. It is hard to describe in a coherent way. It just sort of exists on a different plain from the visual field in front of me.
I came on to say something similar. The “picture on the back of my eyelids” thing makes me think that in part it’s an issue of vocabulary. I mentioned it in the comments for the episode where it was brought up but I also don’t think anyone literally sees an imagined apple in front of them superimposed on their visual cortex. It happens in the amorphous space inside one’s head. I’d be interested to know how people with aphantasia experience memory as for me it’s the same thing. If I imagine an apple or if I remember an apple I just ate I’m picturing the same way - I just know that one was real and one wasn’t. But in neither case am I seeing them with my eyes. Katie’s trying to picture Jenna threw me though - what does it mean to “know” physical characteristics of someone without picturing them? Is it just a list of identifying words and when you see them again they click into place? If you’re not looking at someone do you still “know” what they look like, and isn’t that “knowing” what we mean by visualisation?
Yeah, I’m still not entirely convinced “aphantasia” isn’t just people taking other people’s descriptions of visualization too literally. But I woke up 30 minutes ago and skimmed the science parts of this essay. Maybe if I actually read them later that will convince me.
How did Katie write that final paragraph if she can’t visualize?
This is where I'm at too. I'm not totally convinced that we're not all capable of basically the exact same thing, but some people can just describe their visualizations better than others. Kind of like that thought experiment where people wonder about whether everyone is actually experiencing the same color when they say something is "blue" or whatever.
I used to believe this until I started hearing people use words like "vivid" and "clear as day." No one who saw the grayish, featureless apple I'm able to produce in my mind would describe it as "vivid." The only thing I've been able to imagine in full color is a firey red/orange sunrise. Everything else in my mind is washed out and gray, and most often in black and white. But I can definitely picture things and I'm a pretty good shape rotator. But I'm also a wordcel. Dunno what that means.
Aha! Yeh. That is interesting. She can tell us what she is seeing, present tense, but can’t recreate the image? Then how does she describe that image? It’s so confusing. I also would not 100% discount the possibility that Katie is fucking with us.
Ya I don't see anything if I close my eyes, but I can visualize many things. I just do it with my eyes open. I'm obviously not focusing on the things that I'm looking at when I do it.
I think non-visualizers imagine that we're seeing things with our eyes because they have no experience of what it's really like. Then again I also suspect some people who *can* visualize (if maybe relatively weakly) end up thinking they can't because of descriptions that make it sound more literally visual than it actually is.
Came here to say the same- the eyelid think made me realize she either totally misunderstands how the rest of us visualize or she just really cant fathom it. To me it’s more like a memory of a photo I never took. Always from the perspective of my actual eyes but not using my actual eyes. I can visualize just as easy with my eyes open as closed.
I can't just close my eyes and do it, but if I lay down and relax I can get to a spot where it's as if the back of my eye lids are a projection screen and I can "see" the images.
The best way I can describe it is if you are in a non-bright room, looking out a window in daylight (so strong light coming in) and you close your eyes, there's a residual image left. It's full color, it's 3d.....it's exactly what you were just looking at..but it fades out.
What I can imagine is like that same image, but maybe a second or two of fading.
Like, the Mona Lisa. I get people say they can't *visualize* it, but they *remember* what it looks like, right? I don't have the background but I can remember her face. (Couldn't draw it for the life of me, though.) If I said she had a wide open mouth, people with aphantasia would know that's wrong... would they?
Yeah it’s not seeing on the back of your eyelids, it’s not even like actual dreaming (which I experience as much more like “actually seeing”). But it’s definitely “visualizing”.
Like, right now, I remember visually what my garage looks like when I walked out the door this morning. I remember the color of my cars in a way that’s much more precise and distinctive than merely their name in words. I can “interrogate” my visual memory of my garage by focusing on one area or another, as if I were moving around in it, not merely listing its contents.
This is not a perfect photograph! And it’s not literal seeing the way I see my hands holding my phone right now. There are bits missing, detail that either doesn’t exist or would be wrong because my mind’s eye is filling in a blank.
But I can think of know way other than “visualizing” to explain the way in which I experience this memory of my garage.
Clicked through to the comments to say exactly this. I can IMAGINE things but I don't actually literally see those things in any useful way. I can conjure up visual memories of specific things, but it's difficult, and I wouldn't say that I'm actually SEEING those things.
I wonder if we all have basically the same ability of imagination but are simply describing it differently.
It wouldn't surprise me if scientists were more literal and skeptical about their ability to literally "see" things in their mind's eye.
I also have monocular vision, like horses! Did a lot of exercises as a child, also had to wear an eyepatch which was flesh colored and despised by me! I did have issues judging distance but see normally now except cannot see through 3D movie glasses or magic pictures
A member of my tribe! I wore an eye patch too; it was so annoying that I eventually put it in the toaster (I'll never forget that smell!). The first time I got a driver's license I had a note from the eye doctor explaining why I couldn't pass the binocular vision test. Now I just cheat and look with first one eye, then the other. Yeah, you do adapt to it, but I feel like I'm really missing out on the full experience of reality.
I also only see out of one eye at a time! And had a patch as a child and can’t see those magic pictures. My brother, who has the same thing, once found an article about a woman who had it too but had some kind of corrective surgery that wasn’t available when we were growing up and she said the world looked so beautiful compared to what she had seen previously. I think about that a lot
OTOH the one time my husband took me to shoot a rifle at a target I was much better at it than him which I put down to always focusing out of only one eye so swings and roundabouts I guess…
I had surgery on my eye muscles when I was about 30, but it was purely cosmetic: I was tired of people thinking I wasn't looking at them. It didn't last though. Pretty soon the right eye was drifting outward again. Then about 25 years later I tried doing eye exercises, which didn't give me 3d vision but did (I think) give me occasional double vision.
Argh feel you there on the people thinking you’re not looking at them! I had 5 ops when I was a kid to correct it and it’s def better than it was but I still have times where people ask me if there’s something wrong with their hair 😬 I worry about all the people who don’t say anything and just quietly think I’m judgy and rude!
Oh to clarify on the ops, mine was also on y eye muscles. But it didn’t fix the binocular vision thing - I think this woman had some kind of laser maybe?? Not sure. But in any case she suddenly saw in 3D using both eyes at once
LSD makes me see things on the back of my eyelids, but this is distinct from imagination because I have no control over the things I'm seeing. Generally if I'm imagining something its somewhere above my eyes, I look up.
I thought I understood aphantasia and knew I didn't have it—until I saw this phrase:"trying to force even the outline of an apple onto the back of my eyelids." When I close my eyes I don't see anything on my eyelids. I can imagine apples, people, etc., but I am now skeptical that I actually "see" them in my mind. Aphantasia may be a human variation that is too poorly defined for anyone to know for sure if he or she has it.
What I do know I have is a lack of binocular vision. The person sitting across from me looks no more 3D than a person in a painting. The only way I know how far I am from something is by noting its size and its relationship to other items that seem to be near it; this can result in some humorous mixups, like thinking a person has a vase of flowers on his head, and also probably some serious auto accidents.
This completely flat view of the world could explain my general lack of interest in sightseeing, action movies, most spectator sports, and life in general. Now I am wondering if the visualizations that people claim to have in their brains (or on their eyelids?) are flat or in 3D (whatever that looks like).
This might be still an aphantasia/non-aphantasia gap. No one (I don't think - articles such as this make it clear that no one really knows what goes on in anyone else's mind) sees things on the back of the eyelid. When Katie started talking about seeing white flashes, I knew it would not turn out to be visualization. You just kind of see it in the proverbial mind's eye. It is hard to describe in a coherent way. It just sort of exists on a different plain from the visual field in front of me.
I came on to say something similar. The “picture on the back of my eyelids” thing makes me think that in part it’s an issue of vocabulary. I mentioned it in the comments for the episode where it was brought up but I also don’t think anyone literally sees an imagined apple in front of them superimposed on their visual cortex. It happens in the amorphous space inside one’s head. I’d be interested to know how people with aphantasia experience memory as for me it’s the same thing. If I imagine an apple or if I remember an apple I just ate I’m picturing the same way - I just know that one was real and one wasn’t. But in neither case am I seeing them with my eyes. Katie’s trying to picture Jenna threw me though - what does it mean to “know” physical characteristics of someone without picturing them? Is it just a list of identifying words and when you see them again they click into place? If you’re not looking at someone do you still “know” what they look like, and isn’t that “knowing” what we mean by visualisation?
Yeah, I’m still not entirely convinced “aphantasia” isn’t just people taking other people’s descriptions of visualization too literally. But I woke up 30 minutes ago and skimmed the science parts of this essay. Maybe if I actually read them later that will convince me.
How did Katie write that final paragraph if she can’t visualize?
This is where I'm at too. I'm not totally convinced that we're not all capable of basically the exact same thing, but some people can just describe their visualizations better than others. Kind of like that thought experiment where people wonder about whether everyone is actually experiencing the same color when they say something is "blue" or whatever.
I used to believe this until I started hearing people use words like "vivid" and "clear as day." No one who saw the grayish, featureless apple I'm able to produce in my mind would describe it as "vivid." The only thing I've been able to imagine in full color is a firey red/orange sunrise. Everything else in my mind is washed out and gray, and most often in black and white. But I can definitely picture things and I'm a pretty good shape rotator. But I'm also a wordcel. Dunno what that means.
Aha! Yeh. That is interesting. She can tell us what she is seeing, present tense, but can’t recreate the image? Then how does she describe that image? It’s so confusing. I also would not 100% discount the possibility that Katie is fucking with us.
Ya I don't see anything if I close my eyes, but I can visualize many things. I just do it with my eyes open. I'm obviously not focusing on the things that I'm looking at when I do it.
I think non-visualizers imagine that we're seeing things with our eyes because they have no experience of what it's really like. Then again I also suspect some people who *can* visualize (if maybe relatively weakly) end up thinking they can't because of descriptions that make it sound more literally visual than it actually is.
Came here to say the same- the eyelid think made me realize she either totally misunderstands how the rest of us visualize or she just really cant fathom it. To me it’s more like a memory of a photo I never took. Always from the perspective of my actual eyes but not using my actual eyes. I can visualize just as easy with my eyes open as closed.
I can't just close my eyes and do it, but if I lay down and relax I can get to a spot where it's as if the back of my eye lids are a projection screen and I can "see" the images.
The best way I can describe it is if you are in a non-bright room, looking out a window in daylight (so strong light coming in) and you close your eyes, there's a residual image left. It's full color, it's 3d.....it's exactly what you were just looking at..but it fades out.
What I can imagine is like that same image, but maybe a second or two of fading.
Sometimes I wondered if this is just definition.
Like, the Mona Lisa. I get people say they can't *visualize* it, but they *remember* what it looks like, right? I don't have the background but I can remember her face. (Couldn't draw it for the life of me, though.) If I said she had a wide open mouth, people with aphantasia would know that's wrong... would they?
Yeah it’s not seeing on the back of your eyelids, it’s not even like actual dreaming (which I experience as much more like “actually seeing”). But it’s definitely “visualizing”.
Like, right now, I remember visually what my garage looks like when I walked out the door this morning. I remember the color of my cars in a way that’s much more precise and distinctive than merely their name in words. I can “interrogate” my visual memory of my garage by focusing on one area or another, as if I were moving around in it, not merely listing its contents.
This is not a perfect photograph! And it’s not literal seeing the way I see my hands holding my phone right now. There are bits missing, detail that either doesn’t exist or would be wrong because my mind’s eye is filling in a blank.
But I can think of know way other than “visualizing” to explain the way in which I experience this memory of my garage.
Clicked through to the comments to say exactly this. I can IMAGINE things but I don't actually literally see those things in any useful way. I can conjure up visual memories of specific things, but it's difficult, and I wouldn't say that I'm actually SEEING those things.
I wonder if we all have basically the same ability of imagination but are simply describing it differently.
It wouldn't surprise me if scientists were more literal and skeptical about their ability to literally "see" things in their mind's eye.
I also have monocular vision, like horses! Did a lot of exercises as a child, also had to wear an eyepatch which was flesh colored and despised by me! I did have issues judging distance but see normally now except cannot see through 3D movie glasses or magic pictures
A member of my tribe! I wore an eye patch too; it was so annoying that I eventually put it in the toaster (I'll never forget that smell!). The first time I got a driver's license I had a note from the eye doctor explaining why I couldn't pass the binocular vision test. Now I just cheat and look with first one eye, then the other. Yeah, you do adapt to it, but I feel like I'm really missing out on the full experience of reality.
I also only see out of one eye at a time! And had a patch as a child and can’t see those magic pictures. My brother, who has the same thing, once found an article about a woman who had it too but had some kind of corrective surgery that wasn’t available when we were growing up and she said the world looked so beautiful compared to what she had seen previously. I think about that a lot
OTOH the one time my husband took me to shoot a rifle at a target I was much better at it than him which I put down to always focusing out of only one eye so swings and roundabouts I guess…
Ooh, thanks for teaching me a new idiom!
I had surgery on my eye muscles when I was about 30, but it was purely cosmetic: I was tired of people thinking I wasn't looking at them. It didn't last though. Pretty soon the right eye was drifting outward again. Then about 25 years later I tried doing eye exercises, which didn't give me 3d vision but did (I think) give me occasional double vision.
Argh feel you there on the people thinking you’re not looking at them! I had 5 ops when I was a kid to correct it and it’s def better than it was but I still have times where people ask me if there’s something wrong with their hair 😬 I worry about all the people who don’t say anything and just quietly think I’m judgy and rude!
When I used to interview unsuccessfully for jobs, I would rationalize that the interviewers must have thought I wasn't making eye contact.
Oh to clarify on the ops, mine was also on y eye muscles. But it didn’t fix the binocular vision thing - I think this woman had some kind of laser maybe?? Not sure. But in any case she suddenly saw in 3D using both eyes at once
I have a theory that if you are blinded with a bright light, you can switch eyes and see normally!
LSD makes me see things on the back of my eyelids, but this is distinct from imagination because I have no control over the things I'm seeing. Generally if I'm imagining something its somewhere above my eyes, I look up.
I'm not sure I've ever tried, but since I see through only one eye at a time I don't see how that would work.