You say “apple” to me and I’m #1, glossy skin, insides, all that
And how in the hell does one navigate life, or enjoy a book, if they’re not a #1?! Reading a book is like watching a movie. I subconsciously assign actor’s faces to characters and watch as the book rolls on.
Yet #5’s are not handicapped in the slightest. They’re so “normal” that mankind is just now figuring out we’re far apart on this thing. Fucking weird.
EDIT: Showed this to my wife and she was somewhat mystified as to what I was asking. Pretty sure she’s a 5. I get frustrated as hell when I ask her to describe a thing and she’s clueless. “Did the radiator hose pop off, or is it torn and cracked?” “I don’t know!”
EDIT2: The first Star Wars book after the movie came out was Splinter in the Mind’s Eye. I feel like I got that title. What’s it mean to you?
Isn’t 5 is called Aphantasia ? To be unable to visualize something in the mind?
Yep! Craziest thing is that we just started looking into this thing in the past 10-20 years. Proof to me that it’s no handicap, but if you took my mind’s eye away I’d feel crippled.
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My sister has #5 and I can ask her to make a response if you want OP.
Last we talked about it she said if she tried really hard she can see come colors and shapes but that’s about it.
The best conversation about it we ever had went something like this (keep in mind were both autistic and when together dont always communicate like neurotypical people do):
*while driving*
her: “get in that turn lane to the right”
*i do the 👆hand tricks and turn*her: “when I don’t want to do that I always think in my head ‘never eat soggy waffles’ and remember that east is left and right is west”
me: “that’s not even correct, but like WHY would you do that??”
her: “to remember how to turn”
me: “why wouldn’t you just do the hand things?”
me: “like imagine them in your head and-”her: “MUST BE NICE HUH?”
*we both explode in laughter*she didn’t even mean to make a joke about it, that’s just genuinely the way she remembers lefts and rights
also this meme has become a common occurrence whenever the topic is brought up
Also a pretty interesting thing I remembered while writing this is a clip on TV (can’t remember what show it was) where they asked a room of people to draw a bicycle then they made it IRL by welding it and told them to ride it a block or two and back. Only 1 of ~15 did it correctly, one girl got it exactly but forgot the peddles. Pretty interesting how they could all imagine a bike but couldn’t draw it correctly
The left/right story might be a different thing. Was in my 40s until I could instinctively know left from right. Before that I would snap my left fingers, or mime it, because I’m sinister and can’t snap my right.
Only way I got better was saying to myself, “This is bullshit and you’re all growed up. Work on this thing.” Somehow I got better, can’t say how.
I have serious issues with modelling the world in 3D, but I’m a solid 1 on the aphantasia scale. Weird.
The left/right story might be a different thing.
very well could be, our genetics are a concoction of adhd, autism, anxiety, depression, etc etc
i used to be able to know without doing the L R hands in highschool, but I guess that skill faded over time 🤷♀️
personally it’s not big enough of an issue for me to do anything about bc taking a wrong turn is way more embarrassing than doing a L R hand.I have serious issues with modelling the world in 3D, but I’m a solid 1 on the aphantasia scale. Weird.
that’s interesting, my sister has done some stuff with a CAD program for 3d printing and it wasn’t an issue for her. What specifically do you have trouble with?just realized you were probably talking about a mental map rather than a 3d modeling program 😂, my sister has the same issue and hates driving because of it
My brain is like a vector database, it stores the “feelings” of information, not the actual information - if that makes sense?
I can make lightning fast connections in my head when something happens, like when something breaks in production, I see the symptoms and the vectors just connect from effect to the cause.
Can I explain to others why and how I know where the problem is? Nope. …Or yes, but it’ll take a long time for me to follow the feeling-vectors and put them into words I can actually communicate to other people.
For actual people and characters in books I also retain the shape and …something about them, but I couldn’t explain how most people in my life look like to a sketch artist.
When I read a book, I kinda retain the “feeling” of the characters and maybe one or two visual traits. I can read thousands of pages of a character’s adventures and I can maybe tell you their general body type and clothing - if they have an “uniform” they tend to wear.
I’ve read all 5 books (over 5000 pages) of The Stormlight Archive and I couldn’t tell you what Kaladin (the main character) looks like. I have no visual recollection of his hair colour, eye colour, skin tone or body type.
It always baffled me when a movie adaptation of a book came out and people were really upset that the characters looked wrong. And I was just “… you remember what the people in books look like??”. It turns out they do.
Oh, and DEFINITELY no voice in my head. I’d get myself committed if I had someone talking to me in my brain.
Holy cow. This is possibly the best description of how I usually think I’ve ever encountered. It was actually a bit unnerving to read. Though I’ve always conceptualized it as “shapes” and “holes” rather than vectors.
The ability to near-instantly make connections between symptoms and cause for any given issue in a system I’m familiar with especially resonated. The best explanation I could give someone without stepping back and basically re-solving the whole thing from a standing start would be “the shapes fit together”.
It feels like I’m being asked how I knew a puzzle piece fit in a space, and for some reason “I looked at it and could see that it fit” is not a sufficient explanation. No, I didn’t need to investigate other possible pieces. They are obviously different shapes. The one that you’re asking about doesn’t even belong to the same puzzle.
Similarly I am also utterly incapable of describing what a person looks like in any detail. I have a “mind’s eye” and can conjure up images of them in my head, but for whatever reason I just completely lack the ability to express what I see in words outside of very high level details. They have brown hair, they’re tall, what do you mean “what shape is their face?” Sara’s face is the shape of Sara’s face. It couldn’t be any other shape.
I do have an internal monologue or voice though, but it’s not constant. It usually only comes up when I’m dealing with other people and need to try to reason through what someone else is doing.
For those who are a 4 or 5 on this diagram: What are your dreams like?
They can be amazing or terrible. Fly, go through days in dreams, sex, get chased by a monster. Lucid dreams. I also have sleep paralysis, so it can get pretty fucked up. It’s like having another life. Best part is I should be too old to have nocturnal emissions. Worst part is you can be so scared you wake yourself up (and your partner) by screaming. Or, in a few instances, choking or hitting your partner in your sleep.
But you see things vividly in your dreams?
Like, I’m a 1 on this scale. I remember and imagine very visually. I can picture an apple sitting on a plate on a table and it looks real. In fact, my mind imagined it being slid onto the table, and the apple rocked on the plate as it slid to a stop. My imagination has a physics engine.
I also dream vividly, the experience feels very lifelike. The few lucid dreams I had tended to fade quickly when I realized I was dreaming. I’d love to be able to cause, and then maintain, that state.
Your mind has an active visual cortex. Other folks think more using their audio cortex. Some more with somatic awareness (feeling tone).
Mathameticians can visualize math.
Everyone is wired a bit different.
I’m a two or a four on the scale, depending on how much weed I consume. As heavy weed use dulls the minds eye. Though irregular use can enhance it.
And after years working in kitchens, I can think in smells. I.e.mix spices in my mind and smell them in my head before adding to a dish.
Some of us can even think without any senses.
I do have a hard time thinking without “listening” my own voice
Yeah I think everybody actually does, but the sense consciousnesses are a lot less subtle than stuff like intentions.
And even that last part can be let go of. What is beyond that is beyond conceptualization, but it’s not nothing. Nor is it something. As both are concepts.
How many Au/ADHD can do this vs non-neurospicy? Just curious of there’s a difference or likeliness one way or another.
I can see and manipulate objects in my head. I can make up voices or objects in my head and “hear” them. I can remember a smell, but I couldn’t make one up - iow I could slice an imaginary apple and imagine the smell. I can feel an object’s texture without touching it.
I can’t imagine not having these things in my head.
Have taught Au/ADHD kids who range from one to five. I’m an ADHD one, but one of my favorite students is a total ADHD five.
Seems like it’s all over the place.
Adhd “levels”? A quick look around gets anywhere between three and seven levels of adhd depending on the website. Got a reference by a reputable org that lists what levels mean?
I assumed it was just the numbers on the image, not the level of ADHD. As in “a person with ADHD who matches with number 5 on the imagination scale in the OP”.
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.
That is what I meant.
I’m a 5, yet I can have extremely vivid dreams that are exactly like I am in that world. I can perfectly picture peoples faces from the past too while dreaming. So the ability is in there somewhere. 🤷♂️
Are you able to see your memories more like dreams or are your memories more like a vibe?
Wait, clarify for me.
If you are a 5 and cannot visualize at all while awake, how do you know your dreams were vivid? Can you imagine the dreams once awake and picture them? Otherwise how can you know how vivid they were?
Maybe my question is dumb haha, i just cannot grasp not being able to use ones mind to imagine.
Yeah - I can recall the dreams that are that vivid just like I would remember seeing a sunset or another impressive scenic view. I can’t see the view again in my mind, but I recall it.
A big one kind of recently was flying in my dream over this gigantic megacity theme park, I remember waking up and being awed by all the varied things I had populated in my imagination (had recently learned that other people could visualize anything so it was curious to me what I could do subconsciously). Right then I recalled it enough that I probably could have drawn some of it, now it is much more vague.
It does make me wonder if I could train myself to visualize while awake.
Interesting, this is my own theory so take it with a grain of salt. But I think everyone has wild confusion with the subject of the minds eye. We are all just recalling things, it’s the same thing.
I believe the difference between 1-5 is much smaller than online discussing would make us think.
I can “see the apple” and I can “feel it crunch” but not actually. I’m just recalling the “idea” of those sensations.
If I stare off in my environment, I can place the apple on a table, I can “pick it up” but there is no apple. I’m simply recalling what it feels like to take that action, or what I would think based on previous experiences it would feel like.
I don’t think anyone is able to legitimately hallucinate things into their reality (within reason of course haha, mental conditions and such) and I always leave these discussions feeling like people who align with 5 think 1’s can legitimately create objects in their reality.
But I can only experience my mind, so we will probably never have a solid answer to this.
I would also be very interested to know if people who align with 5 are able to “train” themselves up the scale.
Do you ever experience hallucinations? Like see people or animals in the corner of your eye that turn out to be just shadows or a coat. I’m a 1 and I sometimes experience vivid hallucinations when I’m really tired or have just woken up. Like I have a recurring hallucination that I occasionally get. Sometimes when I wake up I see a spider hanging above my head. Then I jump out of bed and notice that nothing is there.
I have a visual imagination but it usually works on a higher level of abstraction than simply imagining a picture of something. Let’s say that you see a mouse run by. You feel that you have seen a mouse - it was small and gray. My imagination seems to work on that level - it goes straight to the feeling of seeing something rather than generating pictures and then processing them to create that feeling.
This might not seem visual but I can rotate 3D objects in my mind to solve geometry problems, so I think that it is.
(A related question: can other people imagine smells and tastes? I cannot.)
When I read “you see a mouse run by” I saw it like a movie. The background was rather generic, a wooden floor, chair leg in the foreground, warm lighting, but that’s it. But I clearly saw the little gray mouse, pausing for a second, whiskers twitching about before continuing on.
I am utterly broken as to rotating objects in my head. Took me until I was into my 40s to figure out that my brain simply doesn’t work.
Standardized tests in 70s-80s elementary, rocked out on every subject until spatial reasoning. Didn’t give up because I found it hard, really tried my little ass off, couldn’t do it, mostly guessed.
Say I get an antique shotgun and tear it down. I’m mostly mystified as to reassembly, very little online to explain old stuff like that. Have to have my young friend across the street come over and figure it out. He’s a born mechanic, hates the work. 🤷🏻♂️
Interesting… I can’t do what you describe with regard to the mouse. If I focus on actually picturing the mouse, the most I can do seems like a child’s crude sketch, and only the parts of the scene that I am particularly focused on are pictured at all. The rest is abstract. And yet I can entertain myself by daydreaming in visual impressions. For example, just now I thought about a cool car chase, and I was thinking visually rather than verbally, but then I noticed that I hadn’t bothered to imagine what color the cars were - I can assign them colors now, but before there was just no impression of seeing any color.
Edit: And now that I think about it some more, the same is actually true with sounds. I can, for example, imagine the feeling of hearing a woman’s voice, but I can’t hear the voice. And the same goes for sounds that aren’t speech. I can imagine the feeling of hearing one piece of metal hitting another, but if I try to hear it the best I can do is the sound of myself saying “Clang!”
This whole thread is blowing my mind. Second you said car chase I imagined a red car chasing a yellow car, but that may be because you mentioned color. Woman’s voice? I get a somewhat husky tone, not saying anything in particular, but if she was, I’d hear it. No idea what authors are on about with voices being “contralto” and such. And yes! I can hear the clang!
Speaking of mind blowing… I took ketamine for the first time a few months ago (by prescription from a psychiatrist, yada yada yada). I have just come back to normal from a ketamine trip during which I constantly kept thinking about what you’ve said. In fact, I was thinking about it so much that I couldn’t relax enough to get the full effect of the ketamine. For me, the first thing that lets me know that the ketamine is kicking in is that I become able to “see” even though my eyes are closed. I remain aware that I’m sitting in my living room and wearing a blindfold, but in my mind there are patterns that I can look at and think “Ooh that’s pretty.” Not just the abstract sensation of seeing a pretty pattern, but actually an experience like vision, complete with the ability to look at a different part of the pattern and see something new. When I stop being able to do that, I know that the ketamine has worn off.
I thought that that’s what people called hallucinating, which seemed odd to me since I never felt like what I was seeing in my mind was real, whereas people say that hallucinations can seem real. Now I wonder - can some other people, like you, just see things in their mind that way all the time? Amazing!
I don’t mean to imply that I think your experience of the world is the same as mine is on ketamine, since ketamine does a lot more than let me look at pretty patterns. The first time I took it, I was sad since I realized that I was all that existed and the entire world was a figment of my imagination, a dream that I woke from. But being able to look at things in my mind has been beautiful and very dramatically different from the way my brain works without ketamine. So far I’ve only seen patterns like twinkling lights, clouds, or mazes. You’re saying that you can see anything you want… Excuse me because I’m going to say something immature: if I could see things in my mind like that, then it would take me a really long time (if ever) to get tired of just seeing naked ladies.
But if I really have aphantasia, how is it that I’ve always been good at “using my imagination”? I love reading fantasy novels and they’re not just words on a page for me. And how do I solve geometry problems in my mind? I’m better than most people at geometry. Strange.
Spatial skills seem to be separate from visualization. Elsewhere in the thread a commenter said they can’t visualize, but do very well with rotating objects in the mind and fitting shapes together.
As to your question, people indeed can imagine smells, tastes, and sounds. Smells are supposedly one of the strongest factors in evoking memories — although my own olfaction was always questionable and got worse with age, but some strong smells still elicit recall from ages ago, e.g. the mechanical smell of subway around here when I haven’t been in it for fifteen years.
Another commenter said they can imagine the taste of a dish from its ingredients, which I can do only approximately.
However, I’m pretty good with imagining sound, particularly music — while knowing jackshit about music theory. This actually brings some annoyance, as I’m trying lately to finally do some music production, and it never sounds quite like I want it to.
being a 1 with ADHD is crazy, like I can be in the middle of a class and zone out and start visualising myself walking around the campus in incredible detail, or FPV droning inside a friend’s house, or really anything I can think of, although that said it takes a fair bit of effort to keep it going beyond a certain amount of time.
Dude it’s a constant battle to not get lost in thoughts. The real world is boring af 90% of the time. I’ve sat for hours quietly immersed in the imaginings. It’s also fantastic for extrapolating and working through ideas though. Sights, sounds, tactile sensations, movement, it isn’t vivid like reality but it has such depth.
And don’t get me started on the times you imagine yourself doing a task and then completely believing you actually did it until someone gets mad at you for it, it’s funny but also kinda ass
Haha 😅
This one is a cluster fuck for me… I can visualize an object in my head and even to the point of placing it in real space in my hand and being able to rotate it. I cannot however, see your face in my mind after you have just left the room.
Don’t really know how that fits in.
Face blindness (prosopagnosia) seems a different thing altogether, though you would think they’re related.
Thats so weird! As I was reading one of the other comments I realized that I can almost live in the fantasy world of a book, but no one has a distinctive face…
Yep, this is my club. Also, I can only remember few faces of people I went to high school with. Others are just blurred to central attributes.
Other thing is, for long I noticed that peoples faces fall in distinct groups according to their appearence even though they are not related. I always thought that they had a similar distant ethnic background and that genes relating to appearance had a type of “quanta” that can’t be completely diluted, which causes faces to fall in groups.
Now I’m starting to realize that it’s just me and my face-blindness averaging my memories of peoples appearances, creating those groups.
What do you mean to the point of putting it in real space in your hand? Like you can just hallucinate it at will and view it with your eyes open as if its in the room with you?!
We have hardware in the brain wired to recognize faces. For some people it’s not working too well, independently of the other abilities.
I thought it was either 1 or you have aphantasia. Didn’t realize there was a range.
I have severe 5 aphantasia. It was such a relief when a name was put to it.
No snark, but how do you test this?
Like I can picture an apple, but it’s not real, so how do I know if I’m a 1 or a 4?
I think the “test” is to describe a scene, then ask details that weren’t explicitly described, but would be necessary to fill in the gaps. It requires honesty (nothing to prevent 5s from making up answers post-hoc or 1s just feigning ignorance.)
I think it’s the amount of detail when you picture it. Can you rotate it, cut it, maybe take bite out of it?
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If he see something with one eye but not the other, is it real?
Describe the apple you see in your imagination. Color? Texture? Shadows? Environment? Can you draw your image?
There is some flexibility here; I tend to have different levels (1-4) based with numbers scaling to how awake I am. (More awake = less detail)
Did you try to think of a real apple but got a not real picture of it? Can you change it into some different thing? Can you change it to a realistic picture if you want?
I am probably 1/2, but creating images in my mind is not something I do on a daily basis, which is probably why I lack creativity in certain areas. Also I had hard time remembering faces for most of my life, and only recently it get slightly better.
Also I’ve noticed that the more I think about how something looks like the less I am able to picture it in my head, sometimes even not being able to remember my crush’s face which is probably strange as fuck.
