How it feels to be blind in your mind

[renata ricotta]

The strangest part for me to read was the part about not being able to hear music in your head.  Learning a piece of music without being able to hear it in your head first would be incredibly difficult.

I would imagine that unusually talented musicians, and especially composers, have a particularly strong "mind's ear." To be able to imagine something you've never heard clearly and vividly enough to reproduce it in the physical world. And that talented visual artists have an unusually vivid "mind's eye"; otherwise they'd just have to be casting about with paint or whatever and hoping that what happens in front of their physical eyes turns out to be nice-looking? They wouldn't be trying to bring to life something that is in their heads.

Every so often something arrives in my life as a colossal revelation which breaks apart everything I thought I knew about how other people experience the world and it takes me days to get over it. I remember as a child the horror and fascination of it really coming home to me that French people think in their heads in French. I feel like my world has shattered and I will have to work out how to stick it back together. Other people are just SO complicated and weird!

...

I don't really have an inner monologue in English, at least when I'm doing my most natural, zoned-out thinking. I think in linear sentences only when reading someone else's words/imagining a conversation with another person (perhaps an "inner dialogue"?), or when I'm doing very deliberate thinking that does not come naturally (like thinking through a complicated math-related concept). My "easy" thinking is more a combination of physical and emotional feelings, non-language-based impressions, and visualizations. I think about needing to go to the store by noticing I'm hungry, flashing back to an image of my empty fridge, recalling the smell/taste of a particular dish that sounds good, and having a little bit of a restless feeling in my legs and body as I subconsciously get ready to leave the apartment. I don't think, in English, "Self, you are hungry and out of food. Let's go to the store."

As a result, I often think in ways that are non-linear, jump around, and are often difficult to explain to others without spending some time "translating" them into English. It's actually kind of similar to the experience discussed up thread, about how you can "lose yourself" in a book and not even really notice the individual words in front of your eyes and instead live in an immersive movie for awhile (that's how I read fiction, too). I "lose myself" in the immersive experience inside and outside of my brain.

[HPstache]

Fascinating.  Strangely, I cannot make up my mind if I have this condition or not...

[arebelspy]

Fascinating.  Strangely, I cannot make up my mind if I have this condition or not...

Interesting.  What makes you say you can't decide?

It seems like something you'd know.  Close your eyes.  Can you picture the face of, say, your best friend, or your partner, or mother?  Can you picture an analogue clock with the hands pointing at 12:00?  Can you picture a red apple, like the one Snow White bit?

[Philociraptor]

I love this topic. Here's my data points for the interested:

I can visualize a red triangle or a green apple, but I have a hard time visualizing faces beyond the caricature level. For example, unless I just looked at a picture of her, I have a hard time visualizing my wife. I can imagine dimples, or a certain kind of nose. Colors become muted the more complicated that object that I am trying to visualize is. I also don't really have childhood memories. I could count on both hands the total number of memories I have from childhood, and most of what I have is secondhand knowledge from parents or older relatives relating the stories back to me.

Inner voice can be turned on or off mostly at will, but sometimes it can run away on its own if I'm not actively controlling it. If I forget to turn my car radio on when I leave work, sometimes I'll find myself at the gym 12 minutes later having thought about an endless string of different things. But if I do turn on the radio, my mind will remain relatively blank as I focus on the music. I can also actively keep my mind blank without tv/radio, it's just more difficult.

In conversation my mind can rapidly jump from topic to topic extremely fast, using each topic as a springboard to another one, like the cat, horse, motorcycle, closet example. This too can be turned off at will. It's fun tracing back 5 or 20 steps when my wife asks how I thought about something seemingly at-random. This makes me bad at telling stories, which grow like a shrub in my mind: a single starting point with several paths, which continuously split into more paths. When trying to tell a story to someone I try to move upwards through all the paths simultaneously, but it typically ends in disaster.

I can generate music in my head if I want to and actually 'hear' it, but often only a few parts. The more instruments/voices I try and add in my head the harder it gets. And the voices and instruments actually sound like themselves, not just doots; the timbre is correct, trumpets sound different than strings which sound different than voices. A single word, phrase, or sound can trigger a song to start playing in my head. Once they arrive, songs are VERY difficult to get out of my head and I usually just let them play until something else takes over.

When reading I tend to skip over details and I don't actually visualize the scene in my head; that's too much work and I'm more interested in plot than the color of someone's eyes or hair. However, when reading series books like ASOIAF where details actually matter, I'll just note "brown eyes", "blue hair", etc. I think it goes back to not being able to generate faces very well.

[HPstache]

Fascinating.  Strangely, I cannot make up my mind if I have this condition or not...

Interesting.  What makes you say you can't decide?

It seems like something you'd know.  Close your eyes.  Can you picture the face of, say, your best friend, or your partner, or mother?  Can you picture an analogue clock with the hands pointing at 12:00?  Can you picture a red apple, like the one Snow White bit?

I guess I just never realized that when people "picture" things they are actually seeing them in their mind.  For me, if someone says to "picture" a paperclip, I have to think about all of the features I know about a paperclip and I can kind of "see" it, but it's more a combination of facts.  I just tried "picturing" my wife, and in my mind it's more like, "well I know that she has brown hair, and that looks like this, and I know she has brown eyes that look like this, and I can recall what she looks like in a picture", but I don't actually 'see' her...

The strange thing is that I'm a fairly good design engineer, and have invented many things, but I'm not sure if I actually "see" them ahead of time or just think about them.  I do know that I can take things apart and spin them around in my mind as well as do "mental experiments" on the objects so I do know that I have that creative ability, but I'm not sure if I'm getting the sensation of "seeing" them as is apparently normal. This is really starting to trip me out...

[arebelspy]

That sounds like aphantasia to me.

Here's the crazy thing: People actually SEE it in their mind.  Like a real picture of it.  You always assumed people were like you, and not really seeing it, but I guess that's just a small percent of us, and most actually are seeing it.

Although my wife told me (and it was in a podcast I listened to a small part of, about aphantasia) that their picture isn't quite life-like..I guess there's some element in it that makes it seem not real, even though they're seeing a picture in their mind?  She (and the podcast) said it's hard to describe, but people who picture things should know what I mean?

It is very strange.

[HPstache]

Well, if I do have it, which would be the epiphany of the year for me... it should be noted that I do have a very active internal dialog.

I wonder, how can I draw something if I'm not able to picture it in my mind?

[Inaya]

I... might have this? Is it one of those you-have-it-or-you-don't things, or is there a spectrum of severity?

I visualize... but I don't see it in front of my eyes. Does that make sense? Like when I close my eyes, all I see is dark. When somebody says blue triangle, I don't actually see the blue triangle, but I think OF how it would look if it existed. This sounds dumb. I can't even describe it. It's more like an afterimage, like when you've been looking at something for a long time and close your eyes. Or maybe like seeing an image made of smoke--it's there for a split second, but then dissipates? Or maybe it's in my peripheral vision... or like having a second monitor you never really look at? And I feel like I have to recall individual details to bring them into "focus"? I'm not even sure if "see" is the right verb... it's really more somewhere between see and feel. This is so hard to describe.

I have awful spatial reasoning skills--I might have been a geologist if it weren't for my inability to handle maps. And very bad pattern recognition. Trigonometry was a nightmare. I could not see how to get from point A to point B in proofs. I literally had a tutor say there was nothing they could do to help me since I couldn't see the patterns. Logic puzzles are nightmarish. Sudoku ain't happening. Even word-based puzzles are extremely difficult.

I do have issues with long-term memory. Most of my memories have that smoke/afterimage/peripheral quality to them--but I can recall details that I don't actually "see" when I visualize. I have one or two memories that are very vivid (like when I fell in the pool as a toddler), but they still don't actually overlay my vision.

I don't think I visualize when I read. Or if I do it's that second monitor situation. I mostly just zone out and lose myself in the narrative--I don't see the individual words anymore, but I'm not really sure what I see instead. I do definitely prefer action and dialogue over descriptions.

I do know I have a very persistent internal monologue. It just goes and goes and goes. It can be useful sometimes. My problem solving process usually involves going off and doing something else while my subconscious figures out a solution. But mostly it's distracting, overanalytical, and often abusive. And it keeps me up at night. Reading shuts it up if I get engrossed (otherwise it constantly revises the sentences as I read them). TV helps and video games shut it off almost completely. The problem is if I do anything for a long time before bed, it keeps me up instead--almost like it took the place of my internal dialogue.

ETA: Is it possible to hallucinate if you have aphantasia? I just recalled that I have very vivid hypnopompic hallucinations several nights a week. Like I'll open my eyes and see spiders climbing on the wall, and even reach out to try to catch them. Or I'll see somebody standing by my bed, which results in me diving off the other side in panic. I have no idea whether a hallucination counts as a visualization in this context.

[arebelspy]

I wonder, how can I draw something if I'm not able to picture it in my mind?

How can you describe something if you can't see it?

[shelivesthedream]

I... might have this? Is it one of those you-have-it-or-you-don't things, or is there a spectrum of severity?

I visualize... but I don't see it in front of my eyes. Does that make sense? Like when I close my eyes, all I see is dark.

When I visualise things, if I had to point to where the picture is I would point to my head, not in front of my eyes. I have very good spatial reasoning when it comes to things smaller than my head (rotating cubes, that kind of thing) but very bad when it comes to big things (directions, comparing the size of a car to the gap in front of me that I'm about to drive through). So when I am imagining anything, I always have to shrink it to fit into my head, so it's always dolls' house-sized. If you ask me to imagine an elephant and then ask me how big it is, I'd say about three inches tall, because that's how big an elephant I can fit into my head.

[shelivesthedream]

You'd think I'd know what my husband looks like but he's been away for a few days and now I cannot picture him at all. I could describe his appearance in factual terms (brown hair, glasses, etc) but I cannot summon up a mental picture at all. And when I dream, I don't dream faces. I might be dreaming about being at work with some colleagues but it's like my dream focus is about a foot below their heads so while I know they have faces, all I really get a proper sense of are their bodies and clothes.

Whoa, that's hard for me to imagine (haha). I was aware of antaphasia and prosopagnosia, but it seems bizarre to be able to form mental images at will, and to be able to recognize people by their faces, but to be unable to form mental images of familiar people's faces. I can form a mental image of practically any acquaintance without any effort. Even people from the arbitrarily distant past. Like first-grade classmates that I haven't seen or spoken to since. It's hard for me to even think of someone as an acquaintance without having a mental image of their face to go with it. It's a bit unsettling to imagine what it might be like to be suddenly placed into someone else's mind.

I decided not to write this originally, because I don't want to pathologise everything, but I do also find it hard to recognise people. It gets easier as I get to know them, but I think that's because I can remember more facts about what they look like (dark hair, shoulder length, wears eyeliner...) and I start to remember their clothes so I can look for "that scarf" or if I'm choosing between two people who both have blonde hair and beards I can remember that I also need to look for someone who dresses really casually. I have a friend who normally has a beard but has shaved it off and grown it back a few times in the past few months and every single time he switches I have trouble recognising him again. It's not that I CAN'T recognise people, I'm just hesitant about it. I'm never totally sure that I've got the right person until they confirm it by approaching me. I wonder if it's because I don't see faces in enough detail somehow. I am constantly thinking that random people in the street look like people I know, and sometimes I'll mention it to my husband and he'll say, "What?? That guy looks nothing like him!" And I'll say, "But they both have dark hair and glasses and are both tall and slim!" Because that's the minimal level of detail I require to decide that two people look alike.

[tthree]

As a former competitive athlete I would use "visualization" as a tool but this wouldn't involve vivid images.  My rational being, you don't actually see yourself completing a skill, you feel yourself doing it.  So when I would visualize it would be how fast, how many steps, what does the body position feel like, twist how many time, arms open when, landing feels like what.

This same visualization applies to my current life.  i.e. if someone asked me to visualize a beach I would feel texture of the sand, the warmth of the sun, and the sound of the waves.  If there was any visual component it would not be an image I formed in my mind, but a projection of an image (hope that makes sense).

[PFHC]

But if I do turn on the radio, my mind will remain relatively blank as I focus on the music. I can also actively keep my mind blank without tv/radio, it's just more difficult.

What a fun topic.

I have not ever, at any point, been able to keep my mind blank. Even after 5 years of fairly consistent meditation practice, I still can't make my mind empty. I am able to dismiss the thoughts as they come, but I have not ever had a millisecond of a completely empty mind.

I can generate music in my head if I want to and actually 'hear' it, but often only a few parts. The more instruments/voices I try and add in my head the harder it gets. And the voices and instruments actually sound like themselves, not just doots; the timbre is correct, trumpets sound different than strings which sound different than voices. A single word, phrase, or sound can trigger a song to start playing in my head. Once they arrive, songs are VERY difficult to get out of my head and I usually just let them play until something else takes over.

Fascinating. So, you can "visualize" the music. How cool!

[gooki]

I... might have this? Is it one of those you-have-it-or-you-don't things, or is there a spectrum of severity?

I visualize... but I don't see it in front of my eyes. Does that make sense? Like when I close my eyes, all I see is dark. When somebody says blue triangle, I don't actually see the blue triangle, but I think OF how it would look if it existed. This sounds dumb. I can't even describe it. It's more like an afterimage, like when you've been looking at something for a long time and close your eyes... or like having a second monitor you never really look at? And I feel like I have to recall individual details to bring them into "focus"? I'm not even sure if "see" is the right verb... it's really more somewhere between see and feel. This is so hard to describe.

Sounds normal to me as this is exactly how I would describe what my visualization is like.

[lifejoy]

I... might have this? Is it one of those you-have-it-or-you-don't things, or is there a spectrum of severity?

I visualize... but I don't see it in front of my eyes. Does that make sense? Like when I close my eyes, all I see is dark. When somebody says blue triangle, I don't actually see the blue triangle, but I think OF how it would look if it existed. This sounds dumb. I can't even describe it. It's more like an afterimage, like when you've been looking at something for a long time and close your eyes... or like having a second monitor you never really look at? And I feel like I have to recall individual details to bring them into "focus"? I'm not even sure if "see" is the right verb... it's really more somewhere between see and feel. This is so hard to describe.

Sounds normal to me as this is exactly how I would describe what my visualization is like.

Same here. I think this is the norm. I can see a picture in my mind, but if I look at it too closely... well, my brain is not good at looking at things closely. Often, just a flash of an image will suffice. Details can be a bit hazy. But if you can close your eyes and "see" an image in your mind's eye... I think that counts.

[teen persuasion]

Love this discussion!

I'm also going back and forth on whether or not I have this - I definitely do not "see" images, and I rarely dream (and no images then, just feelings/memories maybe?).  But when I try to visualize something, like a description in a book, I have some sense of it - somewhere back in the back of my head, behind my eyes (not in front, like normal sight), but there is no visual component at all.  It is a frustrating thing to describe - it iS there, I can access the info (like color, shape, etc.), but it is not visible.

I need to draw diagrams to work thru math problems well.  I need to write down a word if asked to spell it.  I want to see things to figure out how they work.  I can't draw, but I can copy - what I mean is that I can do simple diagrams, or cartoon level figures, but I have no idea how to make shadows and depth, for example.  And I can't get a sketch right on the first try - I have to try something, see how it looks, adjust it, look again.  So overall, it seems I need to attempt to create some physical, visual image from whatever is in my brain, and then use or manipulate that physical image.

Regarding running inner dialog: mine goes non-stop.  As someone else said, I live inside my head.  Books I read create characters I want to have discussions with.  Math problems beg to be solved, or explored.  Music lyrics meander, with softer background music.  My train of thought follows rabbit trails every which way - sometimes I've been surprised at how I started on one topic and reached another (like ARS's wife) and tried to follow it back thru the steps.  Five minutes of seemingly logical individual leaps led me thru 15 topics, it seemed like.  My DH says I am the worst at relating a tale - I can't work thru it in a straight line, I have so many side details to add that are part of the story, and wander off exploring those, too.  MY mind thinks those are all important parts of the "interesting story", so I have to include them for him, too.

I wake up in the morning with thoughts already running thru my head.  I find they are often answers to a former day's issues.  Seems to be a version of the old adage to "sleep on it".  Some completely new viewpoint will be there, or an option I hadn't thought of before.

[Anatidae V]

Interesting topic. My husband informed me that not everyone has a really voice in their head when they read words a few weeks ago. He thoroughly enjoyed my reaction. Mind. Blown. He had a pretty good idea that I did it before he told me. It makes me a slower reader, I have to take more time than he does if I want to be thorough, because I can either read each word aloud in my head, or I can read a sentence/paragraph at a time and will miss information. Books become movies and I can't remember the seeing the words, terrible at quoting, but I can remember what happened in the movie. It does mean I miss detail that can make for entertaining re-reading.

I can imagine all the sensations of something (look feel smell etc) if I take the time for it, and build something complex, but often I miss information that I'm not "focusing" on.

I sometimes have a highly distracted monologue, but it's not constant. The worse my anxiety disorder at the time, the worse it is, but I can also have a pleasant wandering mind.

It's lovely to read about how others minds think. I can't access the original article now but will later.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

I... might have this? Is it one of those you-have-it-or-you-don't things, or is there a spectrum of severity?

I visualize... but I don't see it in front of my eyes. Does that make sense? Like when I close my eyes, all I see is dark. When somebody says blue triangle, I don't actually see the blue triangle, but I think OF how it would look if it existed. This sounds dumb. I can't even describe it. It's more like an afterimage, like when you've been looking at something for a long time and close your eyes... or like having a second monitor you never really look at? And I feel like I have to recall individual details to bring them into "focus"? I'm not even sure if "see" is the right verb... it's really more somewhere between see and feel. This is so hard to describe.

Sounds normal to me as this is exactly how I would describe what my visualization is like.

Same here. I think this is the norm. I can see a picture in my mind, but if I look at it too closely... well, my brain is not good at looking at things closely. Often, just a flash of an image will suffice. Details can be a bit hazy. But if you can close your eyes and "see" an image in your mind's eye... I think that counts.

Yes, I'll also chime in and say that this is normal. I would characterize my ability to visualize things as above average, based on conversations with other people - probably well above average. But it still doesn't look like a picture from real life, and if I'm focusing too hard on trying to see things in my mind, rather than just being lost in thought - well, the image disappears. My mental imagery is far more vivid when I'm not consciously aware of it.

[jambongris]

I... might have this? Is it one of those you-have-it-or-you-don't things, or is there a spectrum of severity?

I visualize... but I don't see it in front of my eyes. Does that make sense? Like when I close my eyes, all I see is dark. When somebody says blue triangle, I don't actually see the blue triangle, but I think OF how it would look if it existed. This sounds dumb. I can't even describe it. It's more like an afterimage, like when you've been looking at something for a long time and close your eyes... or like having a second monitor you never really look at? And I feel like I have to recall individual details to bring them into "focus"? I'm not even sure if "see" is the right verb... it's really more somewhere between see and feel. This is so hard to describe.

Sounds normal to me as this is exactly how I would describe what my visualization is like.

Same here. I think this is the norm. I can see a picture in my mind, but if I look at it too closely... well, my brain is not good at looking at things closely. Often, just a flash of an image will suffice. Details can be a bit hazy. But if you can close your eyes and "see" an image in your mind's eye... I think that counts.

Yes, I'll also chime in and say that this is normal. I would characterize my ability to visualize things as above average, based on conversations with other people - probably well above average. But it still doesn't look like a picture from real life, and if I'm focusing too hard on trying to see things in my mind, rather than just being lost in thought - well, the image disappears. My mental imagery is far more vivid when I'm not consciously aware of it.

This is how I visualize as well. It's very hard to describe the sense of visualizing something to someone who can't do it. At least for me it's nothing like looking at a picture, it's much more fluid.

[Sibley]

Interesting discussion. Well, in addition to not "seeing" images in my mind, I also do not have an inner monologue. I can "speak" in my mind, but it is a conscious effort to do so. I also don't have a "movie" or a "voice" in my mind while reading, nor do I "see" the characters.

My memory isn't great either - I'll know something happened, but it's like I read a fact out of a book, not I actually experienced it. I think it's partially why I don't care much about travelling - I won't "remember" it anyway, so why bother?

Sorry, I totally lost the quote about the two people, one who says whatever's in their mind and other who thinks first. I don't think this is the same realm. To me, it really sounds like the person who blurts out whatever is in their head just never learned to pause before speaking, a skill that is not easy to learn, but one which is very valuable to have. It can be learned - I did! Though I still manage to put my foot in my mouth regularly, as you'll sometimes see on the forum.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

My memory isn't great either - I'll know something happened, but it's like I read a fact out of a book, not I actually experienced it. I think it's partially why I don't care much about travelling - I won't "remember" it anyway, so why bother?

I wonder how much connection the ability to visualize has with experiential memory. My wife has always been incredulous that I can remember things from the very distant past. I have a few clear memories from when I was two years old, and many from when I was three. (It's easy for me to ascertain my age in early memories based on what house we were living in). I remember a family trip to Colorado when I was five in such vivid detail, it feels like it was last week.

My wife has no real memories from before elementary school. She says she only remembers photographs when she thinks of her early childhood, not actual memories. She has a grandfather who died when she was six, and they were apparently very close - but she doesn't have a single memory of him, aside from photographs. But I've come to realize that my wife has far more trouble visualizing than I do. Last night, she even admitted that she has trouble picturing my face when we're apart. She can picture her parents, but the mental images are - again - of photographs, not real-life memories. Bizarre, but it would explain why I'm able to hang on to first-person memories better than she does. I don't mean that she has a poor memory though: appointments, birthdays, anniversaries, grocery lists, etc.: she's ten times better at that kind of stuff than I am.

[Philociraptor]

My memory isn't great either - I'll know something happened, but it's like I read a fact out of a book, not I actually experienced it. I think it's partially why I don't care much about travelling - I won't "remember" it anyway, so why bother?

I wonder how much connection the ability to visualize has with experiential memory. My wife has always been incredulous that I can remember things from the very distant past. I have a few clear memories from when I was two years old, and many from when I was three. (It's easy for me to ascertain my age in early memories based on what house we were living in). I remember a family trip to Colorado when I was five in such vivid detail, it feels like it was last week.

My wife has no real memories from before elementary school. She says she only remembers photographs when she thinks of her early childhood, not actual memories. She has a grandfather who died when she was six, and they were apparently very close - but she doesn't have a single memory of him, aside from photographs. But I've come to realize that my wife has far more trouble visualizing than I do. Last night, she even admitted that she has trouble picturing my face when we're apart. She can picture her parents, but the mental images are - again - of photographs, not real-life memories. Bizarre, but it would explain why I'm able to hang on to first-person memories better than she does. I don't mean that she has a poor memory though: appointments, birthdays, anniversaries, grocery lists, etc.: she's ten times better at that kind of stuff than I am.

Whoa, I have this too. Very few memories of childhood, most vivid ones are old photographs or stories that someone has told me happened to me, which aren't actually real since I'm not remembering them myself.

[allerious]

This is a really interesting topic that finally gave me a reason to stop lurking and actually register for the forum.

I haven't had any direct exposure to this term in the past, so I was reading through the original article and the replies here very much like the article author.  Just wanted to add my own thinking experiences into the pool here since the huge variety in how we think is fascinating.

First off to catch up on things people have brought up already: I can visualize things in my mind, I have an internal voice both when thinking and reading, I do not dream (Or at least haven't remembered a dream ever), and I cannot "visualize" senses other than sight in my mind.  But some of those characteristics have caveats. 

I visualize memories in my mind very similarly to a friend that was mentioned in the original article, like a Google Image search sorted by most engaging.  But while I can "see" my visual memories, I can't create new images and mentally "see" those.  "Picture a red triangle" pulls up an actual red triangle (A d4) from my past but "picture a purple elephant" gets nothing.  I could mentally walk through the visual memories of my college campus and create a fairly accurate map but I couldn't do the same for my high school, as I was very engaged during my college experience but not at all during high school.

In terms of music I can't "hear" anything but I do very strongly experience the emotions of the song I'm thinking about.  But since I can't imagine the song itself, most memories of songs are associated with visual memories.  To go back to my college campus example, there's a dirt path that I took from my apartment to campus during my final semester that I associate with Time Stops by Explosions in the Sky.  I don't know why that dirt path is associated with that song, as I had heard the song long before I first walked the path.  But to this day I can picture that dirt path and feel my way through the uplifting melodic intro and the clashing discord of the middle of the song without actually "hearing" anything.

[Cassie]

I picture things the same way that R...guy does. I thought that is what everyone does. I have terrible spatial ability and I know from my profession that spatial ability is one of the few things that can't be learned. You either have it or you don't. I can not do puzzles, etc.  When my oldest was 2 I dumped a 25 piece kids puzzle that interlocked and could not put it together for the life of me. I can't read a map at all or look at a blue print and visualize what a house will look like, etc.  Interesting stuff.  We once went thru a house where the walls were not up and the realtor was saying here is your kitchen, etc. My DH could see it but I could not.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

I picture things the same way that R...guy does. I thought that is what everyone does. I have terrible spatial ability and I know from my profession that spatial ability is one of the few things that can't be learned. You either have it or you don't. I can not do puzzles, etc.  When my oldest was 2 I dumped a 25 piece kids puzzle that interlocked and could not put it together for the life of me. I can't read a map at all or look at a blue print and visualize what a house will look like, etc.  Interesting stuff.  We once went thru a house where the walls were not up and the realtor was saying here is your kitchen, etc. My DH could see it but I could not.

Sounds very, very familiar. When we do renovations, my wife's favorite phrase is "I can't picture that", whereas mine is "Trust me, it'll look good". She's always pleased with the outcome, but she can never see what I'm envisioning until it's complete :)

[allerious]

Question for those of you who can't picture things or rate yourself low on the spatial awareness scale.
How do you drive?
I don't mean that to sound incredulous, it's just the most common task I can think of that is mentally accomplished in an overwhelmingly spacial fashion.

If I'm driving on the highway, I've got a mental picture of where all the cars are around me such that I don't need to check my blind spots before shifting lanes unless there's a fuzziness to that mental image that represents uncertainty of a cars position because it's been a while since I saw them in my mirrors.  It's not a conscious thought process, but I remember describing it that way when I was learning how to drive and I definitely still notice myself doing it.
Likewise when parking in a crowded parking lot, I'd best describe it as having a third-person mental image of my car (Think racing game perspective) that lets me "see" where my vehicle is in relation to the lines and other cars.

My assumption is that some other mental process takes over for the spatial awareness that I use.  I just can't imagine what that other process is.

[Cassie]

WEll depth perception helps people to drive I think more then spatial. I am not the world's best driver either but I don't like to drive. I do need to check to change lanes, etc. I have known people without depth perception that can drive.

[renata ricotta]

Question for those of you who can't picture things or rate yourself low on the spatial awareness scale.
How do you drive?
I don't mean that to sound incredulous, it's just the most common task I can think of that is mentally accomplished in an overwhelmingly spacial fashion.

If I'm driving on the highway, I've got a mental picture of where all the cars are around me such that I don't need to check my blind spots before shifting lanes unless there's a fuzziness to that mental image that represents uncertainty of a cars position because it's been a while since I saw them in my mirrors.  It's not a conscious thought process, but I remember describing it that way when I was learning how to drive and I definitely still notice myself doing it.
Likewise when parking in a crowded parking lot, I'd best describe it as having a third-person mental image of my car (Think racing game perspective) that lets me "see" where my vehicle is in relation to the lines and other cars.

My assumption is that some other mental process takes over for the spatial awareness that I use.  I just can't imagine what that other process is.

I feel this way about directions; I have a good sense of direction and can usually suss out where I am and how to get where I'm going, even in an unfamiliar environment, because I have a visual map in my head that I'm always examining and fleshing out. I'd guess that when the original author said he was bad at directions, it was because he lacks this handy map.

Sometimes I think I overvisualize, mapping or giving a picture to concepts that didn't originally come with one. For instance, I realized a few years ago that every time I think about the date or time, I visualize a year as an oval game board, which each day of the year has a little square you move your avatar along. January is at the far right point of the oval, and I move counter-clockwise through time. I have another picture to visualize years/decades/centuries (also like a game board, but a ladder-like line in one direction, to the right.).

[shelivesthedream]

Question for those of you who can't picture things or rate yourself low on the spatial awareness scale.
How do you drive?
I don't mean that to sound incredulous, it's just the most common task I can think of that is mentally accomplished in an overwhelmingly spacial fashion.

If I'm driving on the highway, I've got a mental picture of where all the cars are around me such that I don't need to check my blind spots before shifting lanes unless there's a fuzziness to that mental image that represents uncertainty of a cars position because it's been a while since I saw them in my mirrors.  It's not a conscious thought process, but I remember describing it that way when I was learning how to drive and I definitely still notice myself doing it.
Likewise when parking in a crowded parking lot, I'd best describe it as having a third-person mental image of my car (Think racing game perspective) that lets me "see" where my vehicle is in relation to the lines and other cars.

My assumption is that some other mental process takes over for the spatial awareness that I use.  I just can't imagine what that other process is.

Extremely cautiously!

When I was learning to drive (passed my test this April) I really struggled with changing lanes. It's interesting to read you talking about your mental image of the cars around you, because I have just realised that is exactly what I did not and could not have. I would look in each mirror but as soon as I wasn't actually looking in any given mirror I couldn't keep in my head what I had seen there. All that was in my head was what I was actually looking at. My instructor worked with me on memorising a sequence of mirror checking and "if...then" steps, like a flow chart. If there is a car in your side mirror, wait five seconds and check again, that kind of thing. I internalised it enough that I could speed through it quickly enough to do it at 50mph, but it was never an 'intuitive' sense of where other cars were, it was always repeatedly running through the sequence.

Parking was hard, especially parallel parking because I would instantly lose any reference point I had as soon as I turned to look at something else. But you can go slowly enough to consciously ask yourself "Where is my back wheel? Which way is the steering wheel? (I had such problems with remembering this...) How close am I to the pavement? Am I straight with the car in front?" Worst comes to worst you can just pause and sort your brain out a bit. Not speeding towards a roundabout at 50mph...

Speaking of roundabouts, I used to get so disoriented on big ones. I totally lacked any sense of a third-person view of my car, so I would forget how far I had got round the roundabout and miss my exit. Everything was happening as I was seeing it. My instructor helped me to stop trying to focus on the big picture of the roundabout and instead to "read the road" - to look at road markings, signs and the behaviour of other cars as I got to them and take it step by step. I imagine people who have good large-scale spatial awareness do that automatically and plug it in to some overview map they have in their head. I have no such map, but my instructor helped me break down and become consciously aware of all the little signals that I imagine you must absorb without thinking. I have all the little data points, but no actual map to plot them onto.

My mother always knows which way is north, and it seemed like magic to me until I asked her one day how she knew. She thought about it and then said that if it was sunny then the time of day and directions of shadows told her without her needing to think about it. If it was cloudy, she knew which of the major streets in our city ran north-south and where she was in relation to them. After she had actually explained it to me, I can now point to north most of the time if needed, but I need to stop and go through the process consciously that my mother did without even noticing.

[Inaya]

Question for those of you who can't picture things or rate yourself low on the spatial awareness scale.
How do you drive?
I don't mean that to sound incredulous, it's just the most common task I can think of that is mentally accomplished in an overwhelmingly spacial fashion.

If I'm driving on the highway, I've got a mental picture of where all the cars are around me such that I don't need to check my blind spots before shifting lanes unless there's a fuzziness to that mental image that represents uncertainty of a cars position because it's been a while since I saw them in my mirrors.  It's not a conscious thought process, but I remember describing it that way when I was learning how to drive and I definitely still notice myself doing it.
Likewise when parking in a crowded parking lot, I'd best describe it as having a third-person mental image of my car (Think racing game perspective) that lets me "see" where my vehicle is in relation to the lines and other cars.

My assumption is that some other mental process takes over for the spatial awareness that I use.  I just can't imagine what that other process is.

I have very good peripheral vision--or at least I'm more aware of my peripheral vision than I think most people are (both consciously and subconsciously). Rather than building a spacial representation of the traffic around me, I'm constantly reassessing everything in my peripheral vision and revising my knowledge of where other cars are. Lane changes do make me nervous. I can't park straight (except in a diagonal space), and parallel parking is absolutely out of the question. My depth perception is awful as well, but I don't think that's related to spatial awareness.


I can also look at my phone while walking and be fairly confident that I won't walk into anything. Not saying it doesn't happen, but it's pretty rare.

[allerious]

...My instructor worked with me on memorising a sequence of mirror checking and "if...then" steps, like a flow chart. If there is a car in your side mirror, wait five seconds and check again, that kind of thing...

I have very good peripheral vision...

WEll depth perception helps people to drive I think more then spatial...

I love this topic.  Thank you all for answering that tangent.

Looking at the three different answers from three different people I can think to myself "Oh yeah, those make sense."  But I was wondering about how non-spatial people perform what in my head is a spatial task for 30 minutes while at work today and came up blank.

We all saw and interpreted and reproduced the world around us so differently it struck me as astonishing that we manage to communicate with each other at all.

+1

[lifejoy]

I remember being in kindergarten and wishing that I could hook a colour printer up to my brain so I could print out the cool images I was able to imagine. I can't draw worth a darn, but I can sure think up some neat pictures! I wonder if very artistic people are ever aphantasiacs? (Sp?)

[Metric Mouse]

I remember being in kindergarten and wishing that I could hook a colour printer up to my brain so I could print out the cool images I was able to imagine. I can't draw worth a darn, but I can sure think up some neat pictures! I wonder if very artistic people are ever aphantasiacs? (Sp?)

Gah - I'm so much the same. Great mental images; very dumb hands.

[arebelspy]

Question for those of you who can't picture things or rate yourself low on the spatial awareness scale.
How do you drive?
I don't mean that to sound incredulous, it's just the most common task I can think of that is mentally accomplished in an overwhelmingly spacial fashion.

I have not yet found something that I  cannot do because I can't picture it.


People often say "But how do you do X without being able to picture it?"  But I don't know why you'd have to picture anything to do it.

If I'm driving on the highway, I've got a mental picture of where all the cars are around me

I have a mental list of where the cars are around me, and it updates very quickly.


There's no picture, but I could tell you where they are, factually (i.e. distance based, on which side, etc.).  I can describe it, without being able to picture it.


Does that make sense?

[pbkmaine]

My memory is mostly visual, although certain scents are also evocative for me. I had a terrible time learning French in elementary school, because the language model in vogue at the time was to hear and repeat. I could not untangle the words. I was told, very emphatically, that I was unable to learn a spoken language, so I studied Latin in high school and college. Then I spent a semester in Vienna, studying German with the Goethe Institut, and picked up the language immediately, because everything they taught was reinforced by the printed page. I went on to become comfortably conversational in German, and have enjoyed some wonderful authors like Thomas Mann. I am still pissed that someone put me in a "can't learn spoken language" box all those years ago. People learn in such different ways.

Another note on the visuals: I can remember names when I have seen them written out, and I actually see the writing as I recall them.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

Question for those of you who can't picture things or rate yourself low on the spatial awareness scale.
How do you drive?
I don't mean that to sound incredulous, it's just the most common task I can think of that is mentally accomplished in an overwhelmingly spacial fashion.

If I'm driving on the highway, I've got a mental picture of where all the cars are around me such that I don't need to check my blind spots before shifting lanes unless there's a fuzziness to that mental image that represents uncertainty of a cars position because it's been a while since I saw them in my mirrors.  It's not a conscious thought process, but I remember describing it that way when I was learning how to drive and I definitely still notice myself doing it.
Likewise when parking in a crowded parking lot, I'd best describe it as having a third-person mental image of my car (Think racing game perspective) that lets me "see" where my vehicle is in relation to the lines and other cars.

My assumption is that some other mental process takes over for the spatial awareness that I use.  I just can't imagine what that other process is.

Well, this question wasn't technically for me, since I fall into neither of the groups that you specified, but I can say that I don't form a third person mental image of the car or my surroundings for changing lanes, parking, or for any other reason. My mind is always firmly in the driver's seat.

I think the biggest takeaway from this conversation is that people are able to leverage their minds to complete the same tasks, regardless of how their mind is "wired". I sort of think of it like writing computer code for performing a specific task. You can give the same task to 10 engineers, and they'll each come up with a different solution based their strengths and preferences. Some of the solutions will be more efficient, some will be more elegant, some of them might be crude and ugly, but they'll all get the job done.

Interestingly, we're only tackling one single aspect of our minds in this discussion: the ability to form mental images. How many other differences do our minds have that we don't even have the words to discuss? We just implicitly assume that most people's minds work similarly to our own, but I imagine the differences could be startling if we could actually step into each other's minds.

[Metric Mouse]

I can't imagine taking the mental energy to form a 3'rd person view of the traffic around me while I'm driving. I'm far too busy texting or playing Pokemon Go....

[golden1]

This is seriously blowing my mind.  I honestly can't imagine not being able to picture things in my head or hear my own voice inside my head.  It would be like losing a part of myself.  It is incomprehensible what it must be to live without those two things.  I wish I could get my inner voice to shut the hell up most of the time.   If anything, I feel that I live the majority of my life inside my brain. 

It makes you wonder what other "senses" or thought processes we take for granted that other people have and then judge actions or motivations based on that.  Crazy.  Maybe what we view as mental illness is just various levels of this type of inner monologue. 

 

[DoubleDown]

I have not yet found something that I  cannot do because I can't picture it.

What about dreaming? I recall you saying before that you don't think you dream and you definitely do not recall them. To me, this sounds closely related to being unable to visualize, since I assume for most of us dreams are made up of images and other senses (sounds, etc.) created by our minds. What do you think?

I wonder if you were observed while sleeping if we would detect REM sleep. If not, what does that mean about the various theories on the need for people to sleep or dream?

[RetiredAt63]

Double-Down: We all have REM sleep (assuming normal non-damaged brain).  I also don't make pictures in my head (well, I do get vague Sudoku ghosts ) but I definitely dream visuals - if I wake up during or right after a dream I can remember seeing the visuals like I remember seeing a movie, but they fade so fast and I can't recreate them.  But I know what they looked like, just as I can remember what critical movie scenes looked like, I just can't recreate them.  And yet in waking life in some ways I am very visual.  I can tell a word is spelled wrong because it doesn't look right, I can follow graphs and diagrams with no problems, I taught myself to crochet and master sewing techniques from books (no you-tube when I was learning them).  I can pick out dyes and create yarn colours to a plan.  I know where the cars are around me and how fast they are moving relative to me.

Sound, on the other hand - I can recreate music and noises and know what a tune should sound like based on the musical notes on a page, I definitely have an inner voice nattering at me.  When I read things written by people that I know, I hear their voices as I read.  It is as easy or easier to recognize people by voice as by face.

[arebelspy]

I also don't make pictures in my head (well, I do get vague Sudoku ghosts ) but I definitely dream visuals - if I wake up during or right after a dream I can remember seeing the visuals like I remember seeing a movie, but they fade so fast and I can't recreate them. 

This exactly.

So after I can describe, list form, like I can anything else I've noted, but I can't picture it.

[Metric Mouse]

Question for those of you who can't picture things or rate yourself low on the spatial awareness scale.
How do you drive?
I don't mean that to sound incredulous, it's just the most common task I can think of that is mentally accomplished in an overwhelmingly spacial fashion.

If I'm driving on the highway, I've got a mental picture of where all the cars are around me such that I don't need to check my blind spots before shifting lanes unless there's a fuzziness to that mental image that represents uncertainty of a cars position because it's been a while since I saw them in my mirrors.  It's not a conscious thought process, but I remember describing it that way when I was learning how to drive and I definitely still notice myself doing it.
Likewise when parking in a crowded parking lot, I'd best describe it as having a third-person mental image of my car (Think racing game perspective) that lets me "see" where my vehicle is in relation to the lines and other cars.

My assumption is that some other mental process takes over for the spatial awareness that I use.  I just can't imagine what that other process is.

Well, this question wasn't technically for me, since I fall into neither of the groups that you specified, but I can say that I don't form a third person mental image of the car or my surroundings for changing lanes, parking, or for any other reason. My mind is always firmly in the driver's seat.

I think the biggest takeaway from this conversation is that people are able to leverage their minds to complete the same tasks, regardless of how their mind is "wired". I sort of think of it like writing computer code for performing a specific task. You can give the same task to 10 engineers, and they'll each come up with a different solution based their strengths and preferences. Some of the solutions will be more efficient, some will be more elegant, some of them might be crude and ugly, but they'll all get the job done.

Interestingly, we're only tackling one single aspect of our minds in this discussion: the ability to form mental images. How many other differences do our minds have that we don't even have the words to discuss? We just implicitly assume that most people's minds work similarly to our own, but I imagine the differences could be startling if we could actually step into each other's minds.

This is an important fact to acknowledge, but it's hard to believe people don't intuitively understand this.  Of course people's minds work differently; this is what makes artists and engineers and public speakers and bungie jumpers and MMA fighters and mathematicians and every different skill set out there - sure almost anybody could perform these tasks, but some people are 'wired' to do them better.  Adding all the other ways individuals differ if what makes people so wonderful! And makes some of them complete asshats. 

[nnls]

I have not yet found something that I  cannot do because I can't picture it.

What about dreaming? I recall you saying before that you don't think you dream and you definitely do not recall them. To me, this sounds closely related to being unable to visualize, since I assume for most of us dreams are made up of images and other senses (sounds, etc.) created by our minds. What do you think?

I wonder if you were observed while sleeping if we would detect REM sleep. If not, what does that mean about the various theories on the need for people to sleep or dream?

I dont dream visual its all black. But there are sounds and i have a feeling of knowing where i am and whats happening but its almost more like someone is telling me what's happening

[GuitarStv]

So like . . . if you can't visualize anything, does that make it impossible to masturbate without porn?

[bacchi]

The above masturbation question is important but maybe someone with aphantasia can also answer:

The OP's article mentions not being able to remember anything from college. That would seem something different from aphantasia. Or is it? I can turn college memories into mental images if I want but it's not required. I can just list them out.

[DoubleDown]

I also don't make pictures in my head (well, I do get vague Sudoku ghosts ) but I definitely dream visuals - if I wake up during or right after a dream I can remember seeing the visuals like I remember seeing a movie, but they fade so fast and I can't recreate them. 

This exactly.

So after I can describe, list form, like I can anything else I've noted, but I can't picture it.

But my question is do you think your inability to visualize is related to your reported non-dreaming experience? Are all people with this condition unable to dream in images?

[arebelspy]

I also don't make pictures in my head (well, I do get vague Sudoku ghosts ) but I definitely dream visuals - if I wake up during or right after a dream I can remember seeing the visuals like I remember seeing a movie, but they fade so fast and I can't recreate them. 

This exactly.

So after I can describe, list form, like I can anything else I've noted, but I can't picture it.

But my question is do you think your inability to visualize is related to your reported non-dreaming experience? Are all people with this condition unable to dream in images?

That is the opposite of what we said.  Added bolding.

I dream visually, and know it when I wake up, but I can't picture it.

Just like I know after I watch a movie, and close my eyes, that I saw a movie, but I can't picture the movie.

The OP's article mentions not being able to remember anything from college. That would seem something different from aphantasia. Or is it? I can turn college memories into mental images if I want but it's not required. I can just list them out.

I only remember stuff I bothered to note down in memory.  So I have very few childhood memories, I have some college memories, but not much.. I just have things I've noted down. If I didn't note it down, I can't recall it later, because I have nothing to "pull up" in those cases.  I do note down a lot though.

[MrMoogle]

This is enlightening.  I had so many thoughts on this, so I started this reply as I read through other replies.

When I was younger, I thought in pictures.  I had trouble communicating, because I would see the picture, then try to describe it in words.  But I would see 100 pictures per second, so my words would always fall behind, and I would even forget what I was saying, because I was concentrating on the pictures.  Written communication has always been better for me (even though I'm not a great speller).  I always felt I was different in this regard.

I'm not exactly sure when the change happened, maybe it was in high school or maybe it was after my car wreck shortly after I graduated (no signs of head injury), but now I don't really think in pictures anymore.  I still sort of have the pictures, but I process them subconsciously, and think more about the ideas.  Still no words, but these translate better to words.  Although, I feel like it's a slower process, although maybe some of that has to do with aging. 

When I was young, given a math problem, I would just "see" the answer.  I would have troubles explaining why it was correct.  I learned algebra when I was 6 or so.  When I actually took the course, I struggled a lot, because even though I had the correct answer, I had troubles showing my work.  When I learned to do this, I feel like my brain was rewired, and I could no longer just see the answer, but I could follow the path to the answer, which takes a lot longer.  So maybe this started the change with the pictures. 

So, I naturally think visually, but I totally understand aphantasia.  If you say think of the beach, I might think of sand + salt water + sun + the concept of ocean smell (I don't actually smell it) + sea shells + hammock.  I add them one at a time to a concept, but not really an image.  The longer I think about it, the more details I add.  After a point, if I have a specific memory of a beach, I might pull that out, but it's not something that comes quickly, it might take a few minutes to get to that point.  With the beach example, I lived by a beach for two years, less than two years ago, so to say it takes minutes, it seems like eternity, and I usually don't make it there unless I'm alone.  Similarly if I think of my mom.  I might feel love, but to see her takes time.  And it's usually in black and white, or really black and red, you know, what you see when you close your eyes.

When reading, I do see things, not like a movie, more like how I think with flashes of images.  I can create an image for someone, but it usually has nothing to do with how the author described that person.  I only saw the first Harry Potter before reading the books.  So while I had images for some of the characters, I completely created the others.  Ginny looked nothing like the movie Ginny, although Umbridge was pretty close.  But Rowling was pretty brief in her descriptions, and I liked that.  I attempted and failed at reading Lord of the Rings, because of all the details.  I never could put them together to create something.  Actions and talking are important to me when reading. 

I have no inner monologue.  I always thought that concept in TV shows was genius!  Evidently that's just how most people think.  I do sometimes have music going on in my head.  I can "speak" in my head.

And for the fluid vs crystal intelligence, mine is super fluid.  I'm an engineer, and in college, as a professor would start deriving a proof, I would finish before he would, sometimes dozens of steps ahead.  I was very very good at those types of image problems. 

Emotions are also a problem for me.

The "I don't know" and the "what are you thinking about - nothing" are definitely me.

I have troubles extrapolating what people look like.  Like if I haven't seen a friend since high school, it is likely I won't recognize them.  And if I've met you once, I won't remember your name at all, no matter how many times I said it in my head trying to remember it.  I'm pretty good at "I know you somehow..."

I know facts about my past, but I have few memories going back more than a few years.

I'm great at directions.  I usually have to orient North once at a new location (like if I've driven a hundred miles), but otherwise, it takes me a second to figure out where North is.  But I'm horrible at distances.  I can get the order of magnitude down, but is that car 100 feet in front of me or 500 feet?  I really have no idea.

[Moonwaves]

Have to come back and finish reading this topic when I have a bit of time. It's fascinating.

This is how I read. The words almost disappear and, as you said, a movie takes their place.

How fascinating anything else would be... Mr. arebelspy, do you just process the words for their meaning alone?

Yes.

EDIT: The wife, for example, will be disappointed in a movie if the characters don't look like she pictured them. 

I'm with her. I am still holding out on watching Game of Thrones because I have pictures in my head from the books and I really want to finish the books (if he would just get on with it!) before super-imposing someone else's idea of what it all looks like onto my own.

I've noticed this topic since it began. Finally clicked over and I'm blown away by this conversation . So much food for thought. I am a "cat-horse-motorcycle" processor, with lightning-fast speed. Sometimes when I am really tired, I come up with some really silly-sounding comments. They are completely illogical to others (poor DH!), but make total sense to me. Tired now, so I better come back later, lol.

I also have this problem, and will jump between topics too quickly for other people. Or if I am writting things down my brain works quicker than I can write so I skip words which used to be an issue when I was at school writting essays. Now with typing its not so much of a problem as I can generally type quicker than I write.

My mum also has a habit of jumping between conversations and then picking up old conversations hours or days later. I having grown up with her can generally follow or pick up what she is talking about but other people not so much.

This is me. And funnily (or maybe not) enough my siblings are the only ones I can do this with without getting strange looks. We can have conversations that go off on tangents and an hour or a day later pick up the thread of the original conversation and to anyone else it seems like a totally random comment but we know exactly what we're on about. We all do it. I suspect in part it comes from being part of a big family - you have to cling tenaciously to what you want to say so that you still remember it after everyone else has finished having their say. :) 

I sometimes enjoy following my thought process backwards to figure out why I, to use ARS' example, want to clean the closet all of a sudden. Sometimes it happens so quickly it's not quite conscious.

[Metric Mouse]

I sometimes enjoy following my thought process backwards to figure out why I, to use ARS' example, want to clean the closet all of a sudden. Sometimes it happens to quickly it's not quite conscious.

Reminds me of the opening scene in "Murders of the Rue Morgue". Ratiocination, i believe is the term.