Does aphantasia have any impact?
A common post among the people over at /r/schizophrenia is that the so called negative symptoms of schizophrenia (anhedonia, apathy, reduced social drive, cognitive impairment, etc) are just as bad if not worse than the positive symptoms (hallucinations and delusions). Unfortunately the negative symptoms are not adequately treated by any medicine and are in fact made worse (!) by medication. This is probably the number one reason why schizophrenics quit their medication - the medications are simply so shitty that people would rather risk the positive symptoms than experience worse negative symptoms.
There's no good research directions for new schizophrenia medications either. Schizophrenia research certainly isn't discussed (or have funds raised for it) as much as Alzheimer's research despite the fact that 3.5 million people in the US have it, and it affects people at a much younger age.
Edit: Before starting medication I noticed some visual disturbances related to schizophrenia often known as sensory gating deficits. I would get an overload of visual sensory information to the point where I would notice nearly every detail in my visual range simultaneously (that's the best way I can explain it). At times it was actually quite beautiful since the whole world would pop out in vivid color. However as soon as motion was introduced it quickly became overwhelming.
It isn't in any way an analogy, they literally do see the things they're imagining. It's like a hallucination, except with control and full awareness that it's not real.
It's easy to see how that could turn into actual hallucinations, I'll agree.
Other -non visual- sensations I am able to simulate: - Taste/smell, able to taste specific foods without eating them - Sound, able to hear conversations, music, etc. - Pain, able to feel the sensation of touching a hot stove or breaking my arm
If any people with aphantasia are in this thread, are you able to "simulate" any of these experiences? Also: are you religious in any way? There is an interesting history of religion and schizophrenia [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_schizophrenia
No. Memories are like non-verbal propositional knowledge. You know what happened, you can articulate connected facts about it. But the idea of “hallucinating” a visual memory is absolutely foreign to me. You bunch of crazy people actually see things that aren’t there, in your mind’s eye?
> Also: are you religious in any way?
Strong no, but I fail to see the relevance. I’m atheist for entirely unrelated reasons.
It's not so much that I "see" them -- it's very distinct from the visual perception. For me, actual sight is associated with some physical feelings - not only do I see objects/colors/etc but there's some degree of feedback from the muscles of my eye, best demonstrated by looking at bright lights vs dim surfaces. It's very, very clear when I'm actually seeing something.
Then, separately from ocular perception, there's an ethereal space inside my head where I can conjure up various "platonic ideals" of things, and the senses they generate. It's like a sandbox of sorts, or perhaps that loading scene in the matrix where Neo and Trinity grab a bunch of guns.
By platonic ideal, i mean that when I think "Apple", I sort of see an apple in that internal space, but it's neither red, nor green - unless I focus on "red apples" in which case it will no longer be green, but also won't yet be specifically a Fuji apple or a Red Delicious apple. It's just an uninstantiated class of "apple.red" existing in my headspace.
No matter how hard I visualize the apple, no matter how many specifics I give it (Fuji apple, small soft brown spot on one side, with broad color splotches rather than narrow bands)...it never activates the "feeling" of real sight. It very much feels like it doesn't exist, a temporary cloud of vapor that just "poofs" away instantly if it's not constantly regenerated.
For me, there's very little way I could see getting confused between my visual imaginations and my visual sight.
Generally when I conjure something up I don't just see it visually, potentially I also sort of taste or smell or can recognize the feel of its texture, and maybe hear associated sounds like the breaking open sound of the apple. Again, all of these are extremely non-tangible and generally would never be confused with real sensations. They occupy a different space.
It's like a simulation and modeling environment with a physics engine, more than anything else. It's a place to run experiments - with or without hypotheses.
Also, almost all my thoughts have a verbal monologue. There aren't "characters" in my head talking to me, it's usually my own voice, but sometimes I can use other people's voices to sound things out as well. Rather different from my internal monologue I can also pull up "recordings" of what other people said to me (which are really generative models, akin to a decoder in machine learning).
That being said, I'm one of the folks who have to choose how to add spices when I cook based upon what I remember working together in the past. As I understand it, some (perhaps only a talented few and perhaps including some unimodal aphants) are able to use the same part of their brain that processes taste and smell to imagine the taste and smell of new combinations of flavors.
Another quirk: I don't think I get songs stuck in my head in the same way as others. I may have a particular verse or rhythm on my mind... but I'm pretty sure that I'm lucking out in this regard.
In all the cases mentioned, I'm reasonably capable of predicting or extrapolating outcomes based upon past experiences (I don't stick my hand on many hot stoves, for example). But my brain just doesn't seem to run through the process of recreating sensations to get there.
Particularly, the idea of imagining pain and feeling it is strange to me.
No, I'm not able to simulate any of that, in the way I think you mean. I can predict the outcomes, but I can't at all claim to be experiencing any of it. It involves no more sensation than reading words on a page.
(Which is to say, none. I understand that that can also vary. The only time that changes is when I'm dreaming. So I know what experience I'm not getting, I suppose.)
No, I'm not religious, but nobody in my family is. We used to be subjects of the Thunderer; that was a couple of generations back. Christianity managed to break us of that, but not to make us believe them.
I took the VVIQ online and it concluded that I "probably don't" have aphantasia (but merely "You do not have a vivid imagination"). Basically it seems that unless you're 0's across the board, you can form some part of some image in your mind, and thus don't meet their definition.
Then again, the only one I rated above a 1 was "gait", and that's as much auditory as visual, so I'm not sure I believe them.
I took another online test which asked me to look at a 3D shape made of blocks, and then later compare others (drawn from different angles) and determine which was the same, without referencing the original. It was an easy test, but to me it had little to do with visual imagery. I just remembered the original shape as sounds (far easier than remembering a shape!), and then picked which of the others sounded the same.
That's the fundamental problem I see with tests that try to figure out how a person thinks. You try to invent a test which you believe can only possibly be solved in one way -- but people who don't think that way already have a lifetime of experience living and thinking, so surely they've developed other mechanisms by now.
It's like saying "I know how to test if someone has two legs: we'll put the finish line 100 meters over there! Then anyone missing a leg won't be able to get to it." Just because you don't have two legs doesn't mean you can't get around just fine.
I'm absolutely sure there are people who solved the block problem visually, and tactilely, and other ways I can't even guess at. I think "aphantasia" is all wrong. It implies visual thinking is normal, and "non-visual" is the only alternative. We don't have a special word for "people who don't have blue eyes". We say directly what color we mean.