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Comment by jermaustin1 | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, I can draw one. I actually took a lot of art classes, so it is kind of hardwired into me how to draw. That said, my lighthouse will not have details in it that someone who can recall a photograph of one might. Here is kind of how my brain describes a lighthouse for me to draw it: cone-shaped, white brick, wooden door at base, a platform on top without walls, a small shingled roof, large rotating light.

As I am drawing the lighthouse the part that I'm working on will have more descriptors popup in my inner voice. Like say I'm drawing the door, I will hear: "vertical slats, arched top, dark weathered wood" and as I drill into each of those, I will hear more words in my head.

Maybe I trained myself to do that over many many years of art classes, but I can't remember that not being the case.

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my lighthouse will not have details in it that someone who can recall a photograph of one might.

To be fair: most folks don't really remember as many details as you think. Definitely not photo-level. I generally tell folks that you'll be able to draw a bird, sure. Even different kinds of birds - but they will be fairly generic and simple. You'll know it is a duck or goose or little bird or owl. But unless you've studied birds and drawn a lot of them, it won't be a blue jay, an exotic duck, a snowy owl, and so on. Not without a reference picture, of course.

Those reference photos are important enough that I had an art teacher that tasked us with taking reference photos with disposable cameras. This was mid-90s, before phones were everywhere and there were so many resources for such things.

I'll also add that I keep a dialog in my head as I draw. I can visualize well enough, but the 'thinking voice' come along and narrates the things I'm drawing. "Put that line there and go down and across the page...." "Just add that little window down there and remember the handle!"

I am 100% convinced people who self-diagnose with aphantasia think normal people hallucinate images in their mind. They are just being dense. Unless they've had a MRI, they are just shockingly confused.

Umm... Are you sure you don't have aphantasia?

When I've asked a room full of people "close your eyes. Think of an elephant. What do you see?", 80% of the people say "I see a rough elephant". I've asked "do you really see it? Like, there are proportions, colors, etc.?" Most people say yes.

When I close my eyes and I do this, I see... nothing but dark eyelids with sparkles.

Are the other people I've asked this of lying? Or are you mistaken that normal people don't have a mind's eye which actually reproduces images?

EDIT: OK, I'm curious. I've created an HN poll. Obviously our readership isn't an unbiased sample, but I'm very interested to learn how different people experience this experiment.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38660632

The problem is what you mean by "see". It's not using your vision so there's no "overlay" as I'm assuming people expect. Unless someone has been diagnosed with an MRI, I'm not buying it.

Edit: I didn't make my point clear. I think that people who claim to have aphantasia expect to see a hallucinated overlay over their vision, which is obviously not what someone means when they say "imagine what an apple looks like".

It's not using your vision so there's no "overlay" as I'm assuming people expect.

Speak for yourself. Just because it doesn't happen to you doesn't mean it doesn't to others. This is a skill you might be able to develop, if you can visualize already. If you lack resources, you might visit various occult groups for tips. Visualisation is a big part of practice for some people.

An MRI will not "diagnose" you.

Google aphantasia MRI.

Ok. I did.

"Yet, there is no consensus on whether aphantasia should really be described as a 'condition', and there is no battery of psychometric instruments to detect or 'diagnose' aphantasia. Instead, researchers currently rely on the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ) to 'diagnose' aphantasia." [1]

There is not a test that can realistically be relied on. At least one of the top results was someone getting an MRI because of sudden aphantasia. At least one of them was about mouse studies.

And I'll just go back to what I've said: You can't get diagnosed with an MRI, and honestly it'd probably be irresponsible to do so since folks with actual issues need the MRI (aphantasia generally seems to be a simple difference in the way one thinks rather than an actual condition. More akin to which hand is dominant than to anything physically wrong).

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8186241/

I completely agree and think it's nonsense.

The visual experience happens in your brain, not your eyes. There's multiple ways to have a visual experience. It doesn't have to come from the optic nerve.

Seriously: How is someone else going to diagnose you with it? If not self-diagnosed, how is it done? Do you think there is a test? And MRI generally isn't going to tell you this (this article was research on mice, after all) and even if it did, it would be fairly irresponsible to use up medical resources on something like this.

And sometimes, yeah, they might - especially with the way some folks describe it. It is very difficult to describe such things to other people who do not experience them.

I mean, how is someone else able to diagnose any mental condition? Why do you ask this as if it can't be done?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8186241/

That seems to be the way I see objects in my mind. It starts as a basic formless "idea" of a lighthouse. Vague images come to mind: Tall, pointy, seaside, seagulls, looming. Then I sort of focus on one part of the lighthouse instantly to figure out the details. Like the walls: Brick, painted over with white paint, moss and lichen growing on them. Then the door: Wooden, one handle, thick, dark wood, little peep hole.

Etc.

I never fully visualize it instantly. It's like my mind is creating the details over time. A minute later if you ask me to visualize it again, I still don't see it instantly, I need to remind myself "Oh yeah the door was wooden, the walls were white" etc.

I feel like a lot of differences in people's experience of this is less to do with their actual abilities of visualization and more to do with not being able to describe what is happening and observing yourself as a third party while you're thinking.

hmm that's weird, you forgot that they're usually painted in stripes (red/white?)

It probably depends on which ones they have encountered in real life. From a Google image search, it seems that less than half are.

That's funny - I also have aphantasia and described it in much the same as the parent. But your comment threw me, I think of them as plain.

Looked it up, and turns out the ones in Oregon are. https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=oregon+lighthouses&form...

That is not something I have encountered (I don't think), or if I did, I didn't absorb that detail. The words don't exist in my brain.

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