WTF is this even
How do you picture objects in your minds eye
Nah, I don’t use apple devices for watching porn
Wtf are you asking?
It’s about ability to visualise things mentally.
I don’t think there’s a lot of research on it, but it’s a way to measure aphantasia, the inability to picture something in your mind. I’m a 4 and didn’t actually know anything higher existed until I started talking to other artists.
I’m a 1. I was today years old when I learned that there are people who can only visualize the outline of an apple, nothing at all, or anything other than a fully 3D rendered apple like in a computer generated image. To answer your question, no I don’t!
I remember when I learned people weren’t just being metaphorical when they talked about “picturing” something in their mind.
Do you have an internal dialogue? Or is it all visual? Cuz my internal world is basically a lightly illustrated book, 95% dialogue and occasionally I can imagine a vague image.
I remember when I learned people weren’t just being metaphorical when they talked about “picturing” something in their mind.
I had that same reaction. “You mean you can see it? No like, really see it, not just think about seeing it? What the fuck?”
When i zone out, i can have full conversations with people ive never met in my mind while walking to work.
Basically flying blind through traffic, unless something relevant registers on my “conscious” mind.
It’s funny, really, because aphantasia is supposed to be fairly rare, but every time a thread like this comes up, folks come out of the woodwork saying “Oh, yeah, that’s me.” Makes me wonder if it isn’t a lot more common than believed, but people just don’t realize they have it. There don’t seem to have been any real studies done on it.
I can have conversations in my mind, but there’s no visuals associated with it. It’s like a radio broadcast vs. a TV program. I can think about the description of an object, and recite back its physical qualities, but I can’t visualize that object at all.
These conversations that never happened don’t always go well, so I whish I could have less of them.
Same same, i try to be aware of it and ground myself when i do catch it drift into just verbalising anxiety with no real benefit.
Especially when i should be enjoying reality instead, like during a movie, concert or hike
I can see it, separate it into parts, rotate it around, put it back together, etc etc. I design things entirely in my head visually before actually building them. I assume that’s how most engineers/artists operate.
Yeah, I’ve always been a shit artist for I assume the opposite reason; I can think of a thing in a macro sense, like "I want to draw [thing], it has these features’, but when it comes time to actually draw those features, I can’t pinpoint exactly what they look like. It’s like reading a few sentence description of a tree, and then trying to draw one purely based on that description - you can get a general sense for what it looks like, but not the fine detail needed to accurately represent one visually.
Incidentally, I have a difficult time commissioning art as a result, because I have an idea of what I want, but I have a hard time communicating the finer details. AI generated art has actually been really helpful for me in this regard; I can see something and know if it’s what I want or not, so being able to give an AI art generator a broad description and get back 100 images from which I can pick a few and tell an artist which parts of each one I want has made it much easier.
Both internal dialogue which sounds the same as my spoken voice alongside images or videos, similar to when there’s a montage being narrated in a movie is the best way I can explain it. This is all fascinating to me now! Do you dream very often?
I only seem to dream if I’m not sleeping well. I can pretty reliably make myself dream by having coffee before bed. Otherwise, nope, there’s just a vague sense that time has passed when I wake up. If I do dream it’s highly visual, though.
You only remember your dreams when sleeping lightly. You most likely still dream.
I can create images, sounds, smells, etc the whole gaumut experience OF an apple in my mind. I almost always go for visual it made up in my mind. Just depends.
Not the person you were asking, but seems like you’re curious.
Damn that’s wild, all I can do is verbally describe sounds and smells to myself in my internal dialogue.
For me when I’m daydreaming it’s like watching a movie, my eyes might be open but I don’t see shit, my brain’s doing other things. Or when I’m visualizing something it’s like free and organic AR. But yeah, no dialogue necessary, it’s like a hallucination that I control.
Not my experience at all! If I’m day dreaming it’s 100% narrative. Brains are weird.
How do you think quickly if you need to say everything in your mind? Is the voice very quick?
It’s also unfathomable to me how people can think of what they need to do tomorrow and not see it.
I just think we don’t understand our own internal processes very well. The conscious part may come long after we had the thought and if you say it or see it doesn’t matter.
How do you think quickly if you need to say everything in your mind? Is the voice very quick?
Pretty quick, yeah. It’s basically my voice, but also, I don’t need to breathe or move my mouth or anything. Ever heard the term “stream of consciousness”? Also, grammar and punctuation aren’t necessary, I can just talktalktalktalktalk and I understand myself because I always know what I’m saying.
I’m sure if you could listen to my thoughts it would sound like a fucking mess tho lol
But also, there’s a difference between when I’m just thinking about stuff to myself and when I’m busy doing something. If I’m in a flow state or “in the zone”, I don’t necessarily monologue everything I’m doing. I just do it, y’know? It’s only when I slow down to think that my thoughts actually become dialogue again.
It’s also unfathomable to me how people can think of what they need to do tomorrow and not see it.
I can’t imagine why you need to see it! I know I need to lay some mulch on my garden tomorrow, I don’t need to visualize that? I can just make a mental note of it and keep that thought stored away as part of a to-do list. What would I even use pictures for when I can just tell myself “I need to do X, Y, and Z”?
I just think we don’t understand our own internal processes very well. The conscious part may come long after we had the thought and if you say it or see it doesn’t matter.
Well yeah, consciousness is an illusion. I think they’ve demonstrated with active brain scans that our conscious thoughts come after we’ve already made subconscious decisions. We make up our minds before we know it, consciousness is more like a way we convince ourselves to do the things we’ve already decided we want to do.
right, coz there’s no point if you can make better images in your head, yeah?
you don’t run into problems like awful actors, or they suddenly introduce a fetish you’re not into
is that about right?
That’s like saying there’s no point in having sex with other people because you know how best to touch yourself.
I introduce another option, as I’m much more detailed than even “1.” I can visualise entire scenes with the background and all, along with other sensory experiences such as touch, taste, and smell with complete realism. Very useful being in engineering. I do watch the referenced content, but it’s more to “enrich the dataset” so to speak, just for inspiration and to provide more details to imagine later. Sometimes I’ll just turn it off and go with the fantasy instead.
In my case, it’s not exactly like an outline, it’s just… I can’t describe it because I can’t actually focus on it, it’s like a cross between a picture and a notion. But somehow, in the lineup, the outline seems like the most accurate level of detail.
Also color is absent for me, don’t know about for others.
I’m a 1 and yes I do. I can imagine something, but it’s hard to concentrate on something super detailed and fully enjoy myself
interesting
TIL about aphantasia
Anyways, I’m between 1 - 2, and I just wanted to say that just bc I can visualize things in my head doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy seeing things with my eyes. If I was good at drawing, I definitely would draw my OCs and such
But no, I don’t watch adult videos. I just don’t really like nsfw. Maybe I’m asexual or smt, idk
I’m looking through this thread and the concept behind the picture is 100x more fascinating to me than the actual question. Is the number your maximum capability?
I’d estimate I go through the majority (90℅?) of each day at like a 4 bordering on 5, but at times I’ll move up to 2. It’s a pretty seamless transition, I don’t really have an explanation for why it only happens every so often. It’s not like it’s exclusively reserved for moments where it’s more useful.
I don’t expect people who can vividly imagine to be doing it all the time, kinda interpreted this as a cap. Still 1-2 distinction seems odd to me. Is it cartoon to realistic?
I’m between 4 and 5, and no, I don’t need to. I can conceptualize things pretty well, I just can’t do it visually.
I was a 5 before my head injury, now I think I’m a 3 if I close my eye and really focus on it.
But also? I’ve liked adult literature the entire time. “Visualization” is overrated.
you can visualise better coz of a head injury?
I couldn’t visualize even slightly before! Total aphantasia.
Now if I focus really hard I can briefly see images and memories. It still doesn’t come naturally but the difference is staggering.
Wow, care to tell more about what that was like? I’m aphantasic, and the idea of suddenly unlocking the ability to visualize is fascinating to me.
It’s like, sometimes, if I really focus on a memory then I can start to fill in 3D space and contrasts of light/dark and especially faces. I can’t visualize color or really texture, but everything else comes to me. It takes a lot of focus and doesn’t come naturally though!
I still mostly don’t visualize stuff, but sometimes a vision will strike me out-of-the-blue when I’m reminded of it. Weird.
TIL people can imagine colour.
TIL some people can visualize but it’s in black & white or devoid of color all together.
For me, I can visualize things from 2 up to entire scenes. I don’t “see” it like with my eyes, it’s like a dream, sometimes a vivid dream.
I could dream up a scene right now involving me buying 20 photorealistic apples in a store I often go to. I thought this is normal and everyone does that.
TIL color is not the default mode for everyone
I’m a 1, a woman if this weighs in your data collection, and the answer is, sometimes but not too often. It really depends on the mood.
It’s the same with movies really, I can fantasize about a million stories in my mind, heck I can be the protagonist but I still enjoy being unable to predict what’s going to happen even on just purely a visual level, not that porn has very intricate plots.
What puts me off most of the time is having to go through the search. I’m very picky and having to see the “wrong” type of content in order to find the “right” can really put me off or sometimes bore me.
:( You just made me realize I’m only a 3 and I’m missing out on color mode. This hurts.
Dude, I’m a 5 lol
That’s a legitimate nightmare for me. No offense but that feels incredibly dark and bleak, I’m sorry you don’t get to see pictures in your head buddy. 🙁
It’s one of those things where I didn’t know until I was in my 30s and figured imagining things meant thinking about them and not actually seeing them.
If you don’t know what it’s like you can’t miss something, ya know? But there are experiments that are trying to give visualisations to aphantasia folk. I’m not sure I’d try it because then I would be missing something.
But, big pro: I can see absolute horrific stuff and I’ll never be able to reimagine it. Describe a vile, nasty car wreck? Can’t see it but I know it’s bad. It has weird benefits
Just in case you’re worried that you’re locked in – you’re not. Abstain from listening to music, watching TV, and consuming media for a week or two, and watch your brain literally glitter into life to provide you with entertainment.
If you want a more short-term solution: waking up after lack of sufficient sleep, and wandering to the bathroom in half-sleep mode should put you in a state of mind where it’s easy to “hear” a desired song playing in your head.
I assume you responded to the wrong person?
no, you hinted that you were stuck as a 3, and I’m telling you that it’s not fixed.
So when I was a child and these things didn’t exist and I wasn’t watching screens, why was it exactly the same? Why has it been the exact same at every stage of my life never weaker nor stronger? I’m just trying to get at the point that you’re full of shit and probably pulled that straight out of your own ass.
This is a public discussion. I was offering my two cents on how you or others could better their position on visualisation. I don’t quite understand where the hostility is coming from, but you coming back with your own two cents on being hard-wired naturally means that my advice does not apply to you.
I can imagine an apple like in 1, maybe not with light reflections, but with colors and can rotate it around. But it takes a lot of concentration and effort and i’m never really sure if i’m just conceptualizing it.
I’d like to ask a different question. If you imagine something disgusting (like biting into a rotten, moldy apple) do you feel disgust? I always found it super weird when people feel disgusted at hearing a description of something disgusting and involuntarily imagining it. Meanwhile i have to do a concious effort and even then doesn’t evoke nearly the same response as seeing something real
I think it’s only a small percentage that do this as a norm, but I think if you have a personal connection to the thing being described it can trigger a reaction like that in a much larger group of people. As an example: if you’ve traumatically broken a specific bone you’re more likely to cringe at a story about someone else breaking that bone than a person who’s never broken any bones.
Moist.
The disgust can be triggered from memories of foul smell, taste and how their parents reacted even.
Not necessarily a reaction coming from visualing a brown apple. Hope that clear it a bit.
I do have a vivid imagination, but when I imagine doing something disgusting voluntarily I can anticipate it. Not so much when I imagine it from hearing or reading a story and in the middle of imagining things.
Anyone else with a variable place on the scale? I’m 3 normally but can go up to 1 on a limited scope in short bursts with effort.
It’s like my brain has a limited rendering throughput so it’s either a low quality version of the entire object, or a small high quality zoomed in sectionIt varies with mood.
For one: Relaxed body: better visualisation
I guess I’m 1. No, I don’t watch “adult video”.
I already have a decent amount of masturbation addiction, and I don’t want to make it worse.
Porn is easier generally