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Comment by lowkey_ | Hacker News Reader

I have aphantasia and similarly didn't realize it until a few years ago, at 22, when someone asked me that "Apple" test.

Since then, I've noticed a few interesting things:

1) I remember things by association. I'm great with maps, physics, economics, and topics where things are inter-related, but terrible at memorization and obviously can't visualize anything.

2) I'm relatively unburdened by trauma. A lot of my friends will have a visual memory of things that have happened to them, but for me, if it's out of sight, it's out of mind. It's sort of sad to not remember all the good times, though.

3) It's not really related to taste (I think my taste visually is better than most of my friends and they ask me for fashion advice), but I have to see something to know how it will look and make a decision. Basically near impossible to be an artist or designer.

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100% visual aphant here, but have a very strong musical "minds-ear". So not full-sense aphantasic.

Best self-described mental model for how my brains feels internally is as objects (in the programming sense) with properties and relations. As I "imagine" something, I'm recalling the object "living room couch", and then enumerating properties of that object "leather, brown, L shape."

If I think of something on the couch e.g. "cushion", then it starts off being just a relationship "cushion is on the couch" without any location component. If I then inspect the "location" property of the cushion, then I think "the cushion sitting upright in the L-shaped bend of the couch."

I'm pretty damn good at spatial reasoning in my head, e.g. I can "design" a component in my head, and then sit with Fusion 360 and create it as a 3D CAD model... but I'm not actually seeing anything in my head at all. It still remains in that abstract object <> properties <> relations head-space.

In some ways, when I'm imagining a 3D object in my head, I'm actually thinking "this sketch" with "this shape" extruded by 10mm. So the actual constructive process by which an object is realized in my mind IS the actual process by which I'd design it.

I'm like you. I have good spacial intelligence, but I never realized until reading this headline that some people actually see what they are imagining? That seems insane.

Likewise, I think it seems insane to them that we don’t automatically form a mental picture of everything we think about! Did you see the apple test linked in a comment? Time I’ve seen the test and I am a four not totally aphantasic but close.

Every single time an article about aphantasia gets posted, there's always people like you in the comments going "wait, what, when people say they see things they're imagining, they actually do that?"

Yes. Most people do.

> That seems insane.

Think of a song you like. Play it in your head. Can you hear it? Can you tap the beat? Can you whistle along with the melody? Can you join in and sing the chorus when it comes? But you know you're not actually hearing the song, right?

Visualization is just like that, but for your vision, not your hearing. In the same way you can replay a sound you've heard in your head, most people can replay a thing they saw in their heads.

I relate, fun to see other people operate this way

Literally the same for me. Both the object + relation part and the 3D construction.

I can't see anything in my mind yet I can construct the full geometry of my living room very detailed just from memory or can easily trace a route between locations I know, even if I didn't visit them a lot. It's like being a 3D printing nozzle and being able to trace whatever I need in my head without seeing.

That's probably the reason why I really like digital/web design and CAD because the length and geometry is very well defined based on basic shapes. It's like the visualization of what I would do in my brain?

It's weird for me as I have absolutely no visual component to it, but I can still "visualize" objects in a non-visual way. I can "manifest" an object, and I can "feel" it is there, and transform it within reason (rotation, movement, scale). There is a subconscious "feeling" that the object is there, and what its current state is. However, there is no visual image. I cannot visualize an object and have any representation of it appear in my visual field, no matter how weak. I don't explicitly enumerate the properties of an object I'm "looking" at in the way that you do, though. It's just... "there", and I know it's "there" and what its properties are.

>I have to see something to know how it will look and make a decision. Basically near impossible to be an artist or designer.

When I became aware of the concept of aphantasia, it gave context to how I work in the visual arts. I was never really great at coming up with an idea and creating it - I always preferred to work off something pre-existing, whether that was painting from a photograph, or doing collage work. This transferred especially well into working in Photoshop, although I never latched on to Illustrator.

Sketchup was a revelation to me, once I got the hang of it. I was thinking about repainting my study, and ended up modeling my whole goddamn house. Sketchup's 3D warehouse is full of Ikea furniture, and I could rearrange my room virtually, try different colors, it was so great.

In trying to imagine what my 18th century home looked like when it was built, I again struggled because of the absence of photography, but ended up building the surrounding blocks in Sketchup and Twinmotion.

So, I think there's a path to the visual arts, to graphic design... it's just a different path, and one that, for me, means I have to lay my own foundations before I start getting 'creative'

I experience the same things.

With the remember by association I realised I think I can recall the layout of any building I’ve ever been in. I don’t get lost once I’ve explored once.

I did a thought exercise and it’s not validated - but I could “imagine” walking through my pre primary school. But in darkness. So when I have a memory from long ago I now try walk the area I was in when it happened.

It brings up other surprising memories I had forgotten about that were like geo specially tied to the location.

Yes, I too have insane memory for the layout of buildings, which i've only realised over the past couple of years. Super weird.

Interesting, I would say I have a strong inner eye and I remember things by association as well and I'm bad at memorization, as a fallback sometimes I try to visualize the page I saw something at with random amounts of success.

I would say trauma is an issue with me because my brain likes replaying awful/painful accidents in my mind, especially one particular bicycle accident. Funny thing is the playback is in 3rd person.

Visualization comes naturally, if some one describes something I start building it in my head. However I think you could be an artist or designer in some fields but drawing might be really hard for you.

Do you day dream?

Do you have dreams, sometimes lucid?

How does your memory work, are you able to replay a scene in your head?

When you read a fiction book does your brain not try to construct the scene in your head?

Like when you seen a movie/show based on a book you've read and are surprised at how differently the show runners imagined everything compared to you?

I'm curious:

1) But how do you navigate when you're not looking at the map? I'm placing myself mentally "in it" as a dot and can then know that I need to go two streets more etc. Or any game I've ever played I can recount now in my head, for instance I could explain to you how to get to a star in Super Mario 64. Can you do that without "visualizing"? What if I ask what level is to the immediate right when entering the castle? I can see it, but I wouldn't have memorized it any other way I think?

Also 1), when I do maths I also visualize it. Like I can mentally integrate a formula, and then I see it in my head as if it was on a piece of paper. How do you keep track if you can't see it? Or programming, it's like things that align in my vision when I design some piece of code, I can see the different parts and how they will fit together, how is that for you?

Not OP but aphant: the information is there, we just can't "see" it. So we can know how to navigate because the map is stored, it's just that we can't access it in a visual way. Note that for me the access is less detailed and also fades quicker.

As for maths: I actually have a physics PhD and am now a C++ dev. I couldn't mentally integrate anything complex. Never needed to, someone invented paper at some point ;) I'm a decent programmer I'd say, it seems to be common among aphants to be good at abstract reasoning, which I think really helps with coming up with good programming solutions to concrete problems.

Not OP, but another visual aphant.

Navigation - I'm doing the same thing, but without "seeing" it. I know Georgetown is N-NE of Austin, Liberty Hill is due W from Georgetown, IH-35 runs N-S but actually slightly NE-SW through Austin for example. I can draw pretty good maps on command (if not to scale), but I don't "see" that until I put it on paper. I think I actually have a much better recall of spatial relations than my wife, who has a vivid mind's eye.

Regarding math: again a similar process, but I don't "see"the equations. Coding is interesting because when I'm really in the zone I feel like I can sit, think, and come up with a holistic design for some problem. Then as I start to write the code I can "feel" the congruence or discongruence between the code I've written and the design I conceptualized. But it's not, for example, a visualized graph in my head. It's more of a physical graph, like holding a carved statue and feeling the curves, edges, and features. Except it's not the same physical sensation as touch, but a mental analog.

Edit: another commentator called it "imaginary proprioception" which I find very apt.

In order to navigate after I put down the map, I have learned I have to literally translate it into words. Like, “turn left, go two streets, and turn right”. Especially if I’m heading south — if I don’t reinforce that I need to turn “right”, rather than “west” I can easily do it wrong.

I have no trouble drawing a map of a place I know. But I’m not drawing it from an imagined map. There must be some spatial representation in there somewhere, but it’s not an image that I can see before I draw it.

So - as one who still has a tough time understanding how anybody can “see anything” in their head - you just connected that to something I have known is different about myself - I get lost instantly (google maps was a godsend). And when I mean instantly - I mean if I am in a new place, I can go a block away to a Mcdonalds and have no idea how to find my way back - I have zero ability to store any visual routes for something as simple as just a block away. Once I walk that block - can’t find my way back even though it’s literally just one block ways - everything looks the same to me. But - over time, I eventually memorize paths back and forth, and after a really long time I can mentally (but not visually) - start to place myself in context - just as long as I don’t ever turn a corner I haven’t before - at which point I’m totally lost - even if I’ve lived in the place for 5 years - one random street or corner is all it takes.

It used to be really annoying prior to smartphones - but now I just love that first time in a new place that I move to - everything is completely and absolutely a mystery for a few days - but I realize after a week or so I’ll be able to find my way back down the block without a smartphone.

It’s important to note you’ve captured something different than poor spatial perception (which I have as well - I am unable to navigate with a map.) - There isn’t a lot of spatial perception involved in walking one block down a street and then finding your way back a couple 100’ based on obvious landmarks. Though - presumably if you had good spatial perception (but no visual memory) - you could do it simply by remembering precisely what your spatial relationship to your origin was, without reference to anything visual - it’s the lack of either which results in me getting lost instantly.

Spatial imagination and visual are two different things it seems.

I am a visual aphant, but I can imagine objects in virtual 3d space - kind of like a blind person navigating through touch. It’s just that objects are points/lines and I remember what label a given point is.

Also, I can map things to a feelings - a feeling of going left/right etc.

Navigation is a non issue to me, whereas I have friends who have perfect visual imagination but they cannot connect it to spacial/physical imagination. E.g. a friend of mine can imagine various plants, but she couldn’t buy a container for them because she cannot imagine their volumes. I can imagine volumes, but cannot imagine visualy.

Same. I’ve adopted the “write it twice” (a play on WET/DRY) methodology to software & electronics development. Write v0 (formally called a “proof of concept” I suppose but perhaps a bit more developed), or protoboard a circuit, learn the problem domain, throw it out and write v1, or layout the PCB. That’s my compensation for being unable to visualise.

Same, no minds eye pictures and I also remember things by association and brute force learning takes many repetitions, deriving from some principles is how my mind is most comfortable working

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