Comment by Ccecil | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Ccecil | Hacker News Reader

I was reading a biography of Nikola Tesla and they mentioned he could visualize entire machines in his head, rotate, tear them down, revise and redesign.

My first thought was "wait...not everyone does that?"

When I am describing a mechanical device the description builds in my vision...to the point where if I focus on it I can nearly block what I am actually seeing with what I am visualizing. My hand gestures are actually me mentally manipulating the device as I describe it. And immediately when I stop...my vision restores and the "real world" is back.

When I was a child I was a "daydreamer"...constantly looking out the window. Now that I am older I realize this is why. Not everyone is like this...that was something I had no concept of...I have always been this way.

I am not an exceptional artist...but I have a near photographic memory for things I read and conversations I have had. On the flip side though...I am for the most part totally face blind. I have trouble finding people in a crowd...especially if they change clothes, difficulty placing where I know someone from (but once they say "you know...at that one party"...I can remember the entire conversation we had).

My suspicion is the mind typically balances these things and somehow I am "off balance". It is very much a gift and a curse.

FWIW I have aphantasia, but my abstract visualisation skills such as imagining and tearing down machines in my head, or even daydreaming, is on point. Which is why software engineering is my career path, as most of it is keeping a complex abstract idea in your mind to flesh it out and think most of the corner cases before sitting down to write code.

I just do all this visualisation without seeing anything, but I describe myself as a visual thinker.

I describe aphantasia as not being able to literally see things with my mind's eye, but still having the feeling of seeing them. Like running a headless browser.

From the sheer amount of different descriptions of this Aphantasia it should be obvious that most of it will cluster not in "disorder of the brain" or some such, but in "different levels of ability, due to skill".

I was blanker than you describe it. Nothing moving, nothing seen, nothing.

Now I can light subjects, take measurements, walk around things with moving parts, roll them forward and backward through time.

I went on a hunch that it just doesn't fit. Has to be learnable.

And it was.

Not learnable for everyone, in my opinion. I have no evidence of this except my own failed attempts. But I think your only evidence, also, was your successful attempt

Or maybe we just don't have a good understanding of how to learn it (and/or most people don't try). I can't visualise anything but the briefest of fuzzy flashes, and I'd love to learn, but I have no real idea how and not sure I'd invest enough time into it if I did because most of the time it doesn't affect me, so I'd "love to learn" the same way I'd "love to learn" better French (he says while 2 days overdue with his Anki deck) - it's an aspiration that often falls flat in the face of having to invest time.

To be motivated to invest the time you want successes. Small ones will do.

You can't be failing all the time, that's frustrating.

How do you approach learning?

I'm very good at learning, can I maybe help? Talk to me.

> From the sheer amount of different descriptions of this Aphantasia it should be obvious that most of it will cluster not in "disorder of the brain" or some such, but in "different levels of ability, due to skill".

Yes, though it was a shock to learn of its existence in my 30s, but probably explains why getting into drawing has always felt so hard for me, especially as I've never used reference images. I guess it's perfectly fine not to be good at everything, and it's never impacted me in any way in my life.

You have wings. Don't talk yourself into not trying flying.

How did you teach yourself?

I started with a journal, 5 minutes or so of practice every 2 to 10 days.

First three I spent with my eyes closed, boxed breathing and not thinking of anything. It is hard to engage your mind in something while it's thinking this and that. That has to stop first.

Then I'd try to localize a point. Move it around. A spot of my attention.

Then try to understand what it would feel for it to be red, or green.

Then I'd add a second point, and spread them apart or move them in closer together.

Then I'd make one larger, a spot. The other smaller, and move one around the other.

All of those are exercises for different days, and are progressively unlocked by succeeding at the previous exercise, not once but thoroughly.

Then you could try tracing letters, imagining yourself following the motion.

Putting letters together, one after the other.

Reading that backwards.

You should expect just that to take about 6 months of practice. Then it gets easier faster.

Similar here. Abstract and spatial models are easy, but I can't "see" them.

I am also unusually obsessive about what my code looks like, because even though I can't see it, my recall is very much linked to an idea of what it looks like. I can navigate code by remembering what the right part of a piece of code looks like on screen. Just writing that made me recall the visual structure (without seeing it) of parts of the text editor I use and develop, as well as the appearance of a page of a paper I read 25 years ago.

Wow, this confuses the hell out of me and I will have to think about it. I describe my self as definitely not having aphantasia because...basically I can do what you describe.

I can also visualize real things to a degree, but it's kind of like when you see something in the corner of your eye, the brain has some visual info that makes it to your experience, but it isn't super legible. I can visualize pretty much whatever to that extent. But it is the other stuff, what you were describing, that made me totally sure I couldn't possibly have aphantasia. That's the visualizing I'm actually really good at.

Edit: Also, what is the difference between mentally seeing something and having the feeling of having mentally seen it? How are these not the same thing?

> what is the difference between mentally seeing something and having the feeling of having mentally seen it?

The same difference between seeing an apple with your own eyes right in front of you, and the memory of having seen an apple. In the first case, the apple has a specific colour, shape, size. In the second case, it's just the idea of an apple. Many people can conjure vivid imagery as if seeing the object right in front of them, or at least so I understand. I can't.

Sorry if I can't explain it better, our own minds are so unique it's not easy to explain concepts like these with words. I have written and deleted this comment half a dozen times, I can't do better than this.

I think I see what you mean after some thought. For me, "the memory of having seen an apple" includes imagery. I had thought the memory actually was the imagery, but thinking about it I decided that's not entirely true, but it is mostly true for me.

Thinking about how I remember conversation is a metaphor that worked for me to get what you're saying. I often remember the voices and inflections and everything, but after some time, especially with less important conversation, I might remember the conversation having happened but only remember a kind of summary without the vocal/auditory details.

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