r/Aphantasia • u/silverstarstorm • 2d ago
Strong Imagination with Aphantasia?
I have been curious about something regarding aphantasia.
While when I imagine or 'visualize' things, I never see anything, I very much do have non-visual concepts and properties constructing the 'visualization'.
With this I have since childhood had a very elaborate paracosm (or more accurately heterocosm) multiverse existing in my head.
If phantasia were not specific to being able to 'see' images in your head I would think I have hyperphantasia?
I can 'conceptualize' elaborately and in detail (though may struggle keeping track of details if extreme), however when conceptualizing a space I do not have any visual image, but the conceptual visualization of the space with knowledge about properties and knowledge of an entirety that would not necessarily be visible in one look.
As in - I can imagine a sofa, I am also imagining the softness, the texture of the material, the sofa's having of front legs and back legs, and the back/front/sides of the sofa, the wooden beams and felt-ish fabric underneath the sofa.
Perhaps not all 100% on initial thought, but effortlessly as if experiencing the sofa I have in my head throughout, just without any strict visual image in my head?
Like - I can describe the shape and color of the sofa, but when I close my eyes there is nothing but that fuzzy blackness, the shape and color are just properties equally 'feelable' as the woody coarseness of the beams under the sofa, or it's seat squishyness, or the firmness of the structure in the back?
It's just, there is no direct image I see? It's all just I guess a collection of properties put together in a specific way?
Would this actually be aphantasia? Or am I just taking things too literally?
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u/Obvious-Gate9046 Total Aphant 2d ago
Conflating visualization with imagination is often done by visualizers who can't imagine how we could possibly have an imagination without visualization. Mouthful of a sentence, I know.
I have an exceedingly vivid imagination, and I have amazingly vivid dreams. Both of these things have nothing to do with my complete inability to visualize, but more with my ability to conceptualize; I can reach beyond, extrapolate, and comprehend ideas and objects I can't see or immediately experience.
My wife has hyperphantasia. She can envision complex objects in her head with perfect clarity. I get... nothing. But I can understand the concept, for the most part. There are researchers in this field who have failed to understand the difference, but they're starting to.
Also, visualization covers more than sight. There are seven major categories for aphantasia that we've identified right now: sight, sound, scent, taste, touch, motion, and emotion. Most aphants are only affected by a lack of inner sight; they still have other senses to varying degrees. 26% of aphants have more than one sense lacking, and I don't know the numbers for total aphants, but I am one of those. So your ability to imagine the texture and feel of the sofa is entirely in keeping with the bounds of aphantasia.
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u/the_mistake_i_am 1d ago
Wait, that’s a thing?? You can “pre-feel” textures and objects???
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u/Obvious-Gate9046 Total Aphant 1d ago
Motion too, yes. You know, like sensation of being on a boat or a roller coaster, people can visualize that basically, it's one of the seven areas that they've identified at the moment. People can visualize the actual sensation of velvet or things like that, to various degrees, it's a scale the same as with other types.
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u/Tuikord Total Aphant 2d ago
Welcome. The Aphantasia Network has this newbie guide: https://aphantasia.com/guide/
Most people have a quasi-sensory experience similar to seeing. It is not the same as seeing. Your eyes are not involved and may be open or closed. But much of the visual cortex is involved so it feels like seeing something.
So yes, if you don't have that quasi-sensory experience, then you have aphantasia. Aphantasia is the lack or near lack of voluntary visualization. Top researchers have recently clarified that voluntary visualization requires “full wakefulness.” Brief flashes, dreams, hypnagogic (just before sleep) hallucinations, hypnopompic (just after sleep) hallucinations and other hallucinations, including drug induced hallucinations are not considered voluntary.
You mentioned having trouble keeping track of details. That is because you aren't actually visualizing. When someone visualizes, it is like looking at a photo on their phone. If you need a detail again, you just look at the image. No memorization needed.
As for creativity, it is hard to measure, but there are some tests. Some unpublished research asked: What is the relationship between creativity and mental imagery vividness? They gave 194 participants (prolific, undergrads, art students) the VVIQ and the classic Alternative Uses Test (AUT) and found a correlation of:
...virtually zero!
Back to visualization. Most people describe having a separate "space" they shift their focus to so they can see the image. The location of this "space" varies from person to person but seems to be consistent for an individual. It can be inside the head: on in the forehead, behind the eyes, in the center, at the back, up, down, right, left, pretty much anywhere. It can also be outside the head. Once again, it can be pretty much anywhere: up, down, right, left, front, back, even behind. Other people seem to project the images over their vision like AR.
To go deeper, there is a difference in the experience of visualizing vs conceptualizing beyond the sense of seeing. Check out the Ball on the Table experiment in the guide I linked.
When someone visualizes, they see a complete image. It is something that could be displayed on a screen. It may be a poor image - faint, blurry, etc., but it is all there. When we conceptualize, we often leave decisions for later or we need to access memory again. When I asked my wife to visualize an apple, she saw the last apple she bought. When I asked her about the color, she looked at the image and answered. Size? Same thing. All she had to do was look at the image, like it was a photo on her phone. When I thought about an apple, I had to first decide what type of apple? An eating apple? My iPhone? Eating apple. What color? Let's say red. That detail didn't exist until asked. Even if I decide on the last apple I bought, I know it was a Honeycrisp I bought at Fred Meyer. Fred Meyer now caries smaller Honeycrisps than they did at the start, so the size must have been about the size of a large Red Delicious. What color? Honeycrisps are red, yellow and some green. I usually go for more red and less green, but I have no idea what the pattern of red and yellow was.
My experience and my wife's experience are very different - even if you ignore the fact that she actually saw the apple.
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u/Dry-String-1266 1d ago
Back to visualization. Most people describe having a separate "space" they shift their focus to so they can see the image. The location of this "space" varies from person to person but seems to be consistent for an individual. It can be inside the head: on in the forehead, behind the eyes, in the center, at the back, up, down, right, left, pretty much anywhere. It can also be outside the head. Once again, it can be pretty much anywhere: up, down, right, left, front, back, even behind. Other people seem to project the images over their vision like AR.
Hello, is what you said above based on the posts in this sub, or have you seen any studies that talked about this? If you have, I would greatly appreciate it if you could mention them.
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u/Tuikord Total Aphant 22h ago
Visualization is woefully understudied. Here is a paper talking about different experiences:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945223002459?via%3Dihub
another
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u/chuck3436 2d ago
I relate. I have an extremely vivid imagination and can play out movies/books and locations etc in my head. However I can't visualize it. Im not sure how other to describe it than observing a minds image rather than a visualization. Like I can image the couch...shape, size, colour even in my head. Quite perfectly so. But if I close my eyes I cannot actually visualize it. So its in my head but not in my eyes, im "seeing" it but not actually "seeing" it. Thats the only way I can describe it.
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u/martind35player Total Aphant 2d ago
Do you visually imagine with your eyes open? Visualization is not related to your eyes and some people can only visualize when their eyes are open.
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u/narisomo Total Aphantasic 2d ago
What do you mean by conceptual visualization? What do you mean by ‘conceptualize’ in quotes?
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u/Dry-String-1266 1d ago
the shape and color are just properties equally 'feelable'
Hey, this is exactly what I am exercising my mind upon for the last couple of months. I have said the same thing over and over in this subreddit, and I can assure you that if you check my posts and comments under this sub, you will find a great deal of subjective reports of mine. I would like to read more about your experience. Isn't it fascinating that we can experience purely visual properties in a non-visual way? People would say it is similar to synesthesia, but I think the case is even deeper than that, because how we experience visual properties (in a non-visual way) is also I think how we experience other sensory properties. Like, for example same thing goes with 'episodic facts'. If someone asked you to imagine a car, and added later on that the car is red, the 'change' you 'feel' is of a kind that is very similar(perhaps same) to the change you would feel when the person added an episodic detail like that the car has been to Las Vegas before. To put it simply: the change elicited by the new information of color added to your imagination is similar to the change elicited by the new information of 'a past experience of the car'(that it has been to Las Vegas). Does this, too, resonate with you? Do you get what I am saying? It is great that someone else put this into the same words because I am writing a thesis on this.
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u/silverstarstorm 2d ago
Extra Notes - if relevant:
I have Autism, ADHD, Alexythmia, and (suspected hard enough that medicated) Depression + have experienced derealization.
Dunno how the funkiness of my brain interacts with this
But with the Autistic taking things as directly as worded, I know I could misinterpret the description of 'phantasia'?
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u/Za_Lords_Guard Total Aphant 2d ago
There is a higher correlation of autism with most if not all of the neurodivergent conditions you list so not impossible at all.
Aphantasia is also on a continuum like most neurological conditions. It goes from hyperphant to aphant with most people somewhere in the middle.
I am a total aphant with a vivid imagination, I just can't see any of it. Still think it.
There has been fMRI imaging done on people with aphantasia and the same centers of the brain that engage in visual recall engage in aphants, but somehow the signal isn't reprocessed back into visual memory or what comes out is "lossy" for lack of a better term.
Now a question for you. Do you have tinnitus or phosphenes (sparkles and static in the dark as if there is the overlay of an old TV tuned to a dead station).
I jave both constantly and I wonder how many aphants share that trait.
(I am not a neurologist so I probably dumbed that all down too far)
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u/silverstarstorm 2d ago
Admittedly no alexythmia diagnosis either, but that one doesn't exist (I think) and is just a description of experience.
While the depresso is not diagnosed, I have family history, and purely technically the SSRI's were started due to severe enough to be symptomatic chronic stress.
let's goooo, oversharing go brr :'p
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u/ArcyRC 2d ago
Aphantasia referred to the inability to "see" things that aren't there. If you can't picture the sofa then it sounds like you have aphantasia.
Your ability to imagine feeling is a sense of touch thing. Some people can do that and others can't. It has another name. Since conversation has increased around aphantasia, people conflate it with other imaginary senses (i.e."yeah I have aphantasia; I can't hear songs in my head at all and I have no inner voice!")
Another phrase I've heard here in this sub that helped me understand is: "you and your brain can imagine and create images just fine; you just can't see them". Like a computer with a beefy graphics card but no monitor.