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Comment by ThalesX | Hacker News Reader

As someone suffering from Aphantasia [0] (I don't have mental imagery at all) and I've been telling people for the longest time that this is how I relate to the world. I summarize things. Even my mother's face. A post by a Facebook engineer [1] felt like a good way to understand it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia

[1] https://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/media/universityofexeter/medic...

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I am aphantast, but I do not suffer from it. When I am fully conscious, I have no inner vision, but I have vivd and colorfull dreams. If I remember them, outside that twilight zone shortly before full awakening. So I have an idea what it probably is like to have inner vision when fully awake.

Allthough there are some disadvantages, of course. I admire people that are able to draw and paint based on their inner vision.

Much more important for me was the realization that I can evoke images, scenes, etc. in other people that trigger feelings in them. Which in turn can trigger actions or omissions. Fear, joy, hate, love, disgust, lust. Which they can't do to me, at least not just by invoking visual images in my mind through words. Manipulative, but not manipulatable in this regard. With time, that came in handy.

By the way, I am friends with a handful of people who suffer from schizophrenia. They say they envy me a little because in their worst phases they wished they didn't have this movie in their head. It repeats itself, over and over again.

And aphantasia is a spectrum, I have known people who describe rather dull, colorless inner visions and others who can sustain them only for short periods of time. On the other hand, I met an artist who seemed to live in his own private vibrating Van Gogh painting. Judging by his descriptions. And of course, without DMT.

> Much more important for me was the realization that I can evoke images, scenes, etc. in other people that trigger feelings in them. Which in turn can trigger actions or omissions. Fear, joy, hate, love, disgust, lust. Which they can't do to me, at least not just by invoking visual images in my mind through words. Manipulative, but not manipulatable in this regard. With time, that came in handy.

I've also discovered this but I can only admit it to my closest friends else I'd be labeled a psychopath. There are things that trigger these kind of feelings in me, but it's more about situations than images and never in remembering something.

I do have a feeling that we might be more susceptible to do really nasty deeds if push comes to shove (Nazi Germany?) so I think it's something we need to be careful about as we can be manipulated into doing things that other people might find gut wrenching just thinking about.

Which is the greater danger: the fearless few or the fearful masses? Who kills more, the ice-cold predator or the whipped-up herd of people?

Of course, for hell on earth, you need both.

You can also reverse it and perhaps claim that doctors can benefit from less visceral reaction to seeing blood/internals. Though of course it is a learned behavior anyone can get better at.

I realized some time ago when I learned of Aphantasia that it is a spectrum. From 0 to 10, 10 being perfect photographic memory and zero being total Aphantasia, I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle. I can recall images, sounds, memes, faces, but in terrible quality, with very little color or focus, more similar to fast paced dreams than photographs.

I wonder if that's something that can be practiced and improved upon.

I've been wondering the same ever since I read that Nikola Tesla invented/designed the AC motor in his mind's eye.

Seems to be along the lines of lucid dreaming, with a vast difference in degree. Sometimes as I'm falling asleep I can see vivid scenes or objects that I can--to minor degrees--play with for a short time before I either fall asleep or wake up, then it's gone.

I would take something written about Tesla on such an intimate level with a grain of salt though. He is very very hyped and often elevated to a God-like level.

I don't doubt that some people have this ability and have no reason to think Tesla wasn't one of them.

His feats are perhaps even more remarkable if he didn't have any superpower abilities such as this.

also, consider somebody who is an expert already in the problem domain.

most of us here are programmers and do this on a daily basis. somebody describes "A GraphQL API driven by a clojure back end connected to a postgres database" and to a layperson that looks like either a bunch of nonsense words or maybe a few boxes, clouds, and arrows. but to you and me we can visualize the individual lines of code, configurations, functions, and infrastructural requirements behind that simple sentence.

same with an electrical engineer/inventor in their domain.

I wouldn't say that I exactly 'visualize' it. For me it's more of a bunch of formless even nameless things and connections that don't have specific shapes or places, only logical structures. The lines of code also flows freely but it feels more like synthesis from those ideas rather than copy-typing. Eventually the 'picture' or network in my mind gets complicated/unstable and I have to draw it out.

I've been trying for years to visualize. My SO is an artist and my mother a psychologist, so I've been trying to gets tips and tricks from them. I never managed to even get a hint of color.

You sound similar to me, girlfriend is an artist with an incredible visual imagination, mother is a therapist, and I was at a 0 on the scale before I met her. My gf and I have had some deep conversations, sometimes assisted by MDMA, and at times to the point of crying in front of her in a state of completely trusting her which uncovered some past trauma, social fears, and other discomforts I needed to work through. Anyway after each of these times it would get a little easier to visualize; simple colors at first, then colorful shapes, now small snippets of images that come in and out. Maybe a 2-3 on the scale. Also my memory has improved, not so much for technical stuff, but just remembering the details of my life which before had huge spans (in years) that I mostly didn't remember.

Anyway this might just be specific to me but something to think about.

I definitely think the ability is there and can be unlocked. Like the way you can sometimes figure out how to fire some random muscle on your body with practice.

While I was in jail I managed to imagine images in vivid color and detail several times, but never on demand. It would happen randomly when I was just lying, bored, thinking about stuff. Each time was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. It was like going from being a caveman looking at scratchings on a wall, to straight into a 3D IMAX movie. The quality was that spectacular, with bright colors and completely 3-dimensional. Since I left jail it hasn't happened again a single time.

I have to wonder if that's how others see inside their minds? If so, I am in awe.

I am very interested in the topic, and have been looking into it for ages. I think most people vastly exaggerate their ability to visualize anything. Most people can't really hold a square or a sphere in their mind, rotate it, or change colors. The only people who truly can are really good artists. My point - you may be mis-diagnosing yourself, especially since aphantasia doesn't seem to have clear tests or definitions. How could it, if a verifiable test would be to ask a person to draw what they see, and obviously that confuses the whole test with one's art skill.

Could be that I am mis-diagnosing myself. I've never seen a mental image in my mind. I've never been able to conjure one and I've been trying for years before falling asleep to conjure even a sense of color. Nothing. Black.

To be honest, it doesn't feel like such a handicap to my life that I would start submitting myself to clinical trials. If the worst to come out of my mis-diagnosis is this post, I can live with it.

I’ve always thought of myself as being fairly good at visualization.

For example, I can imagine multiple 3D shapes at one time, rotate them, keep track of which direction a face is pointing on each one, etc.

However, I don’t really “see” any image. It’s more like a feeling of seeing it. Now I’m wondering to what extent other people actually see things they imagine…

a good test would be:

Look at this thing, and describe what you see

Now, close your eyes and imagine another thing and describe it

comparison of imagery in reality and visualised. This presupposes people describe things visually even when directly seeing them, and not in other modes (texture, sound, smell , etc)

I am an atrocious artist who absolutely kicks ass at those mental object rotation tests. I can very easily manipulate objects in my head, but draw a picture? It's an ugly mess.

Is it really unique? I can visualize a sphere, rotate it, rotate the "camera", see it in wireframe, apply any kind of texture, reflections, make it bounce, like working with CAD software. I can picture the image through a fishbowl lens, or through telephoto. However, I do not believe, for example, the reflections or the light sources to be realistic. I can "see" the effect of changing the lenses, but I don't think they correspond to reality. I think that's where people exaggerate. The dimensions, light sources and reflections are not based on reality.

I can picture anything that I want. Movie scenes with my friends faces in them. I always thought everybody could do this. If it's somewhat unique, can I use it for something?

This is absolutely exceptional if true. As far as I am concerned you should be a good artists out of the box. The argument that "well, it's drawing the line well" is mostly bs - it's being able to visualize proportions, distance between things, etc. Most artists actually don't - they follow rules. A person starts as a square and gets broken into quarters with each quarter denoting say the middle of the chest, the groin, the knees, etc. Each box is then broken down more (eyes in the middle of the top box, etc). If you can actually visualize things accurately, especially "wiremap it", you should be able to draw a portrait from memory in 3D. Otherwise you are lying to yourself.

As far as use - Tesla was said to have "run" schematics in his head to see what would break. I believe it. This allowed him to rapidly prototype.

Also, your working memory should be off the charts, which should be indicative of a very high IQ

I could do all that as a kid. Was almost a hobby. Not so much now.

Same here. Recently tried to explain this to someone who has vivid imagery, but it was challenging. It seems we do have a wildly different experience of life in this aspect.

I'll take a stab at it.

Imagine you sit at your desk all day answering emails. Emails come in, responses go out. Except when you step back from the desk, it's just a black void. Information from your eyes? That's just an email saying what grandma looks like. Pain in the leg? Re: URGENT. Nothing exists beyond the emails. The emails are reality. The brains representation language is the same as it's actual language. Why have more than one language?

Fellow aphantast here. I can dream and I think its somewhat visual. But when I try to recreate what that visuality was, I can't.

Never heard about this before and it seems I'm on the 0 side of the spectrum!

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