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Comment by gnz11 | Hacker News Reader

I am also the same as the person in the article. Pure speculation on my part, but I am convinced that it’s the people who can fully visualize things that are the outliers and not the other way around.

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I learned about Aphantasia about eight months ago, and it really sent me for a trip. I have no problems visualizing in my mind and sometimes can get lost in it, to me that’s what daydreaming is.

I discussed it with some of my friends, and it seems to exist on a spectrum. The most different from me was one friend who had to really focus to visualize in his mind, and even then he could only do so in black and white.

I find it absolutely fascinating that the human experience can vary so greatly at such a fundamental level, yet it doesn't manifest in ways that are obvious to others, and everyone thinks that their form of thinking is a common shared experience so they don't even bother to talk about it.

We have these common concepts which are actually very personal everywhere. Even with good eyes the color perception differs a lot between different people. For most it's obvious that this is red and this is blue, but in between the colors it gets very fuzzy. The same goes for sounds and smell and touch, so for every sense.

Totally, the gold/blue dress picture is a perfect example of that[0].

I think with aphantasia, what makes it so interesting to me is just how much I consider visualizing in my mind to be core to how I think and understand things as well. It's not as subtle or isolated as a reaction to external stimuli but more fundamental to who I am along sitting along side my inner monologue.

[0] https://slate.com/technology/2017/04/heres-why-people-saw-th...

> but I am convinced that it’s the people who can fully visualize things that are the outliers and not the other way around

Most people can't draw (at all) and I think that supports your point.

Example: https://twistedsifter.com/2016/04/artist-asks-people-to-draw...

When awake I imagine things but they're fleeting, hazy etc. and I have to really concentrate.

But something happened to me a few years ago, I can't really say what. Basically my dreamscape when I was asleep changed. I went from sort of greyscale dreams with 1-2 people at a time, very little audio to basically full-blown movie quality with up to thousands of people in the scene. Long ago I achieved a lucid dreaming state but it was always a bit boring somehow, there wasn't much happening. Now I can do the same and there's a whole storyline going on for me to experience.

Also when waking up I could now just turn around and immediately go back to sleep and resume the dream.

My point in all of that is that somehow when my full conscious mind isn't present it's as if in computer terms I just have a lot more CPU power available for creating the scenery, up to the point where it's as real as real life. I'm sure it's not a "CPU" issue, the brain should easily be powerful enough to do it while conscious, but maybe it's more of a survival thing.

How do you navigate via memory without some degree of mental visualisation? I’m convinced many aphantasia folk are just heavily overrating what other people are describing as visualisation, as if it’s some kind of minority report style interface that appears before you and is perceived by the eye. It’s simply being able to reconstruct physical entities as mental models. Again, without being able to do that it just seems impossible that you could navigate from memory, unless every destination is recorded in your mind as a series of “left, right, left, left, right at church” instructions that you’ve managed to memorise, but surely you’re not doing that? You must be about to walk through the steps of a journey in your mind? I struggle to believe people are getting through life without this ability, it seems so essential to me in all sorts of scenarios.

Maybe, but what other people write about their visualization experiences is completely alien to me. It's not a matter of degree.

Is there any analogy between reasoning about relationships and paths through complicated source code code vs paths through a street map? I don't think I visualize either, I just kind of absorb knowledge and piece together plans.

I don't have an inner monologue either, and I find that I've not infrequently found myself having to pronounce a word I've only ever read before. Ihhave to invent a spoken pronunciation for the first time ever and get self-conscious. It's not the same as aphantasia, but kind of similar. Well, maybe: when I see a movie about a book I've read, I never say, "oh, that actor looks different than what I thought the character looked like".

I don't mean to argue that aphantasia is "real", but I do feel there is evidence for it.

The difference is the recognition. If you tell me "to go right at the wall with the lion on it and left after the blue door" you're giving me an immense difficult task. If you want to totally screw me just show me pictures of the wall and the blue door, I probably be really lost.

It's not only about what is visualizable, but also what form of representation is comparable. I can read a map in a matter of seconds and find my way. I can find a car plate within my line of sight instantly. The way to the parking lot behind the <insert picture of something> and finding the blue <insert car brand> there is basically impossible for me. Of course I'm able to concentrate, but it doesn't come naturally.

> How do you navigate via memory without some degree of mental visualisation?

How do people who are physically blind from birth navigate without mental visualization?

> I’m convinced many aphantasia folk are just heavily overrating what other people are describing as visualisation

I find the utter disbelief expressed by people who don't have aphantasia exhausting. It would be similar to encountering someone who has been deaf from birth and trying to convince them that they're not really deaf, they just don't understand what it means when other people say that they hear things. They could also hear things if they just try harder.

> How do people who are physically blind from birth navigate without mental visualization?

I assume they create a mental model of space. To me, this is basically what I’m describing as visualisation. In ones mind one can arbitrarily place themselves in space and move around it. I guess this is slightly different to conjuring up an image, but to me it feels very similar. If you can “see” space in your minds eye, it seems like you could see other arbitrary things.

I’m not saying I don’t think this is a real phenomena, just that it’s hard to empathise and understand it.

If you could describe your experience of navigation from memory I would appreciate it. When someone asks you for directions somewhere, what goes through your mind?

because the average person relies so heavily on visualization in their day to day life, people that claim they dont have this ability but also seem to have no discernable difference in the way they interact with the world is what is confusing. everyone understands that deaf people exist because its really fucking obvious when someone is deaf. they interact with the world differently.

its really weird to me, and most everyone that you could be looking at a cup and trying to commit its visual properties to memory, and then close your eyes and be complete incapable of re-constructing even a vague visual representation of it.

I can visualize nothing, but have excellent navigation skills. I can accurately remember the geospatial arrangement of cities and locations and routes I visited only once decades ago. That part of my brain has nothing to do with “seeing things”

do you have any experience of feeling like youve been at a particular place before. if you dont remember seeing it, do you just remember the arangement of landmarks like dots on a grid?

It’s an innate sense which most closely resembles proprioception (knowing where you arms/legs/etc are), or remembering where you put your keys. I suppose maybe it’s similar to “seeing” landmarks on a map (not necessarily a grid) but it’s simultaneously abstract while being very well defined in some intuitive sense: I know the Vatican is this way and the Colosseum is that way and the Spanish Steps are that way (and every other spot I cared to notice on the map), and no matter where in the city I walk and so long as I know which way I’m facing, I’ll 100% know the relative direction and distance of every other spot (as well as the pathing! Not just locations but also streets, etc). It’s actually hard for me to get lost.

You can see references to this geospatial sense in ancient Roman times: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Method_of_loci

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