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Comment by Semaphor | Hacker News Reader

I was decent at the simple ones, where I could essentially map them logically. As long as it was simple enough to keep every step in my brain kinda "as text", I could solve them. Those in school were simple like that.

But IQ tests have more complicated ones, and there I’d not manage to keep everything in mind.

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I think I have kind of aphantasia as well, but I usually score well in those, but what I think is going on is that I solve everything kind of like an LLM would, with my internal monologue I will try to come up with the first simple idea, and then count the objects to see if it fits that idea, and then if not (likely not if it's a tricky one), I will start to bruteforce more ideas and then count the matching with my internal monologue rather than imagining anything. How are you at math, e.g. calculations in your head?

All of it is much easier of course when you can write things down, or make notes.

I'm not truly sure if I have aphantasia, but I do think I don't get as vivid imagery in my head considering what other people claim to see. Although I always thought they were embellishing it. But for example when reading books I never found any use for scene etc descriptions, and they seemed just words, while I think other people got images in their head, and for this reason those descriptions were good.

Talking to Claude it thinks I don't have aphantasia, since I think I can see vague flashes of things. E.g. I try to recall my family member's face, I get what I think are vague flashes of the face. But it seems to require a lot of effort and definitely not voluntary based on text.

But I may be better at imagining some abstract content, like numbers. E.g. if I have to remember a 2FA code, sometimes I can keep visual imagery for 3 of the numbers and the other 3 I keep repeating in my head. Maybe text and numbers I can keep visualisation better, but not true 2d or 3d detailed imagery.

Out of curiousity can you imagine any numbers or abstract shapes at all?

It sounds like you are close to full aphantasia, but not quite. I usually describe it as having a memory of seeing something.

> Out of curiousity can you imagine any numbers or abstract shapes at all?

No, nothing at all, I have to (e.g. a 2FA code) repeat it to myself repeatedly, and then I’ll remember it by rhythm. Which is also how I remember e.g. months in a year, or the order of cardinal directions.

What if you look at a some sort of writing, e.g. 4 large letters and then close your eyes can you, can you at any capacity visualize them or.also absolutely nothing?

Not the guy you were asking, but it's like old tube tv when you switch it off. There is an after image for an fraction of a second at 2% opacity and then blank, nothing.

Ideas live like a non-visual, non-textual concepts more akin to feelings but not quite so.

I am good at maths, IT, programming and reasoning problems.

Bad at any sort of visual, mehanical problems. For example in a car engine I can not connect naturally how one part effects the other without knowing operational concept beforehand.

I also don't have any narrator voice in my head but my dreams can be extremely vivid.

I remember in meditation guides when they tell you to imagine you are on the beach and whatnot, I always assumed this is figure of speech.

Yeah, this is spot on. I just tried it again with 4 large letters I had conveniently in front of me, they were instantly gone, and I could only remember what they said, but have no visual.

I'm not sure what the opacity is for me, I think higher than 2%, but I wouldn't necessarily describe it as low opacity, it's more like very low frame rate of the actual image vs everything black. Or sometimes it's off color like grayish blueish instead of colorful.

I also have to focus hard. When I look at an object and then I close my eyes, if I put effort in I can see it blinking fast between black and the object and then black smoothly becoming more and more dominant, but it's longer than a second, and I guess how long depends on how much effort I put in.

I'm also terrible at real life 3d things and remembering how to navigate without GPS, or remembering places.

> I remember in meditation guides when they tell you to imagine you are on the beach and whatnot, I always assumed this is figure of speech.

I kind of also thought it was figure of speech, I do feel like I can get some sort of low imagery to black framerate going on if I imagine penguin in a snow cave, but it takes so much effort it doesn't feel pleasurable or worth doing. I never understood counting sheep either, thought it was some sort of joke.

I wonder how much miscommunication or misunderstanding there is between people, because everyone assumes they process things in the same way.

Also I wonder when saying disgusting, shocky or dark humor related things, it seems nothing to me since it's just words, but I wonder if it offends or shocks some people so much because they get the actual imagery.

> Also I wonder when saying disgusting, shocky or dark humor related things, it seems nothing to me since it's just words, but I wonder if it offends or shocks some people so much because they get the actual imagery.

Ohh, that is yet another thing I never thought of. Would be interesting to know.

I asked someone with hyperphantasia, and they said that they do indeed see images, but they also don’t bother them or are a positive even. Someone on the more normal side said they need to actively picture them, it’s not unbidden. And finally, someone else said that they can’t read about child sexual abuse without seeing it, which makes them avoid any such accounts.

Interesting issues I had never thought about.

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