[teapot]

On Saturday evening I was doing some prep for my students on learning styles and dipped  into Tony Buzan's classic Use Your Head, and on page 24 he asked his readers to do the simple task of closing their eyes and visualising a 3D object, then perform a range of actions with that object (rotate it, change its size, change its colour), he then said that no camera (yet invented in 1980) could get close to this task. I asked Claire if she could do and she said of course! She could even see herself doing it if she wanted.

I was baffled! I close my eyes and see nothing. For 39 years and 10 months that had been what I thought was the norm.

I had always thought visualisation (sheep,  moves on a  route) was a metaphor or a means or non image review!  Until Friday night I knew no different.

It appears I am in a group of around 2% who can't visualise. I also can't hear tunes in my head, or voices, or reminis on smells! On the positive side I never have visual flash backs after terrible events.

This condition has been known about since Francis Galton wrote about it in around 1890.  It was given a name only in 2015 by a team at Exeter University and there is one digital book on it, which I speed read last night in less than 2 hours. 

It feels insane that I didn't know. I guess for me it was just my reality. Most aphants are  unaware

I do have visual dreams, but that seems to be common is aphants!

Does anyone here have this condition? Or know anyone else that does?

Here is the test! Obviously you will know if you visualise, but trust me, most people (like me) do not even know that they don't as it is simply the normal state of affairs.

Close your eyes and visualise an object- most people 98% actually see an object in their minds eye.

If you don't  then you are also probably an aphant.

I have always used my own version (thought it was the same as everyone else) of visualisation for routes or boulder problems. But in my case I don't see the rock/holds etc, I just know them (distance, size, orientation etc) and it is effectively like a journey through a pitch black room.

This condition explains why I often meet people out climbing who i struggle to recognise, but then realise I have met numerous times before and have a good memory about their personal details.

I am interested in your questions/info if anyone has any. I have already discussed this with the SEN dept at my school as I think this condition should be better known.

I am psyched to try to come up with/collate targeted  learning strategies for fellow aphants (especially young kids in primary school). My girls don't have it, but worth asking your own kids just to check.

[kelvin]

I thought this was going to be about Brexit voters.

[tomtom]

Every time I close my eyes all I can visualise is steadily shoving Nigel Farage into a wood chipper.

Actually I never visualise or see things with my eyes closed - but I do think about things in 3D

[teapot]

Every time I close my eyes all I can visualise is steadily shoving Nigel Farage into a wood chipper.

Actually I never visualise or see things with my eyes closed - but I do think about things in 3D

Were you aware that others do and that the majority can also see actual memory images with their eyes open too? They can even change the colour of the images and the size. Many/all can also super-impose one person's face on another persons body.

I think about everything in 3D I.e. my house or a boulder problem, but I see just blackness when I imagine it (like you it appears) and I dream in 3D images. But most people actually visualise the image, as well as sense the smells, hear the noises.

Not being able to imagine Farage's face is plus point.

[Luke Owens]

Teapot, very interesting post, thanks for sharing. It never occurred to me that there was such a thing. I guess like you say if you have never had it in the first place it's not likely you'll realise you don't have it.

I have a very vivid mind in that I can recall picture like memory of things. From a climbing perspective I have a very good memory for moves on routes/problems, so much so that I remember all of my friends beta just from belaying them. This seems to stick in my mind and I can recall how I've climbed almost anything. I can think back to stuff I've done when I first started and still recall in my head how I did the moves.

More recently my memory impressed me as I saw a picture of a colleagues husband for the first time and immediately recalled that I had met him briefly once 14 years ago when I was 15 on a day trip. Turns out it was him.

As much as I'm good at recalling images my mind doesn't seem that great at much else, I'm rubbish at maths for example... I have yet to find a good use for having a good image memory other than for remembering moves...

[Oldmanmatt]

My Partner, Polly, is very much the same. Not only can she not conjure up such images; but a sketch needs to be to photographic standards before she can understand it.

She is, however, extremely creative and quite artistic. Only in Abstract patterns though. She is unable to draw from life. Un-beatable at Scrabble and inconceivably fast at Word search type puzzles.

I, on the other hand, see things in totally different way. I’m an Engineer and Designer. I used to design and build Mega Yachts. Hard to describe my visualisation, but the first time I saw a Finite Element Analysis, I knew others saw what I did (mine is much less accurate, for sure, but it has served me well and once earned me a good living).

[moose]

This condition explains why I often meet people out climbing who i struggle to recognise, but then realise I have met numerous times before and have a good memory about their personal details.

Is that the same condition?  I have no difficulty visualising and manipulating objects.  During my academic days, I felt one of my marked strengths was an ability to picture molecules, and rotate, vibrate, and interact them; picture energy levels and electron orbital distributions etc. 

But, I have terrible facial recognition skills; I will fail to recognise people I have met many times before, but in the abstract, be able to give a potted biography of their holidays, routes, and choice of rock shoe for the last 5 years! 

The impression I have gained from "pop science" reading is that facial recognition (like aspects of language etc) is addressed by a dedicated "module".  There are stroke victims who have lost only their ability to recognise people (when shown famous facial images of Einstein or Monroe, they will fail to recognise them, despite still being entirely aware of their lives etc).

[bigironhorse]

Felt pretty confused reading this at first. I'm having real trouble visualising an object in my mind (like a cube or pyramid) and rotating changing colour etc but answered most of these questions as reasonably clear. http://aphant.asia/have-i-got-aphantasia

For people who answer vivid as real life for most of these is it literally like looking at a photograph in your head?

[teapot]

Felt pretty confused reading this at first. I'm having real trouble visualising an object in my mind (like a cube or pyramid) and rotating changing colour etc but answered most of these questions as reasonably clear. http://aphant.asia/have-i-got-aphantasia

For people who answer vivid as real life for most of these is it literally like looking at a photograph in your head?

To that survey I cannot progress past question 1 as I cannot see anything but black when I close my eyes.

I cannot therefore see my children's faces or an object in my mind's eye.

I assume the other questions in the survey related to details of images you can see.

There is a spectrum from zero visualisation to hyper real (or some similar term).

I have excellent memories of people, events, mannerisms etc. but I don't see them as static or moving images, just as things I know. Like facts I guess. My conscious memory seems to be a huge amount of facts, rather than visual images.

My colleague at work was baffled. His first question was how do you know all the economic models (diagrams). He sees them in his mind, I just know them, but can't see them. Like I know peoples faces after I have met them, but can't imagine them. I think lack of recall of faces in my mind's eye makes quick recall of having met someone who I don't know well tricky.

In the book I read Aphantasia (available on Amazon and only published on 6th Dec) it provided case studies, essentially anecdotal experiences of around 20 aphants, who had quite different perspectives on their reality.

Most had zero visual images, but a few had fleeting blurred images on occasions or outlines/shadows.

Many/most also had difficulty with remembering faces. This makes sense to me, but assume it needs more research to prove a direct link.

There is a condition which is called face blindness (I think), which can occur without Aphantasia.



 

[fried]

I really find this difficult. do you really visualise an object like a photo in the blackness, or imagine that object in the blackness. It's all very subjective.

[andy_e]

Fascinating topic. I just rotated and enlarged a pyramid in my head, then changed it from red to green. Can't say I've ever consciously translated anything in my mind with my eyes closed and visualised such translation. As a geologist I translate shapes all the time- maps, DEMs, grains, structures, but I've never done it with my eyes closed.

[teapot]

I really find this difficult. do you really visualise an object like a photo in the blackness, or imagine that object in the blackness. It's all very subjective.

Obviously I can't answer that question (I know its was meant for visualisers), but from my chats with my wife she see the brain induced images and can even see them with he eyes open, which sounds friggin annoying, but cool! She and my colleague can both induce smells in their minds (as in experience them after the event) and sounds.

All makes me think I need to look after my eyes as it would be a black world for me without sight. I think this new revelation might explain why I don't like long lie-ins/ or sunbathing without music or rooms alone in silence. I have an internal monologue, but having visual stimuli must be quite entertaining.

Interesting I do quite often lucid dream (know I am dreaming) and on Sunday morning I was lucid dreaming (semi-conscious-well it feels that way) and did the Buzan visual task I mentioned in my dream easily, but as I reached full consciousness it stopped (not sure how long the change took).

Still amazed that I have only just realised this about myself. Some people on a FB forum I joined last night have known for 20 years, but there was no diagnosis or name, which must have been tough.

I guess people who can visualise with images etc, will struggle to imagine the world of an aphant, and the same in reverse.

[cheque]

I can't close my eyes and make objects appear "out of the blackness" but I can visualise the sunsets, people I know, etc. in the exercises if I keep my eyes open and just ignore what I'm really seeing, if that makes sense? I can't see anything I visualise as clearly as a photo or video.

Soundwise I can hear sounds perfectly in my head, play music like I'm listening to the CD, hear people's voices like they're stood next to me talking etc. I've long known that I have a bit of an unusual skill in that regard.

I can't synthesise smells at all (seems a bit weird that anyone can do this!) and only tastes a little bit. If I try to conjure up the taste of bacon, for example, I'm almost unsure of whether I'm recalling it's taste or just saying "it tastes salty" to myself!

[Oldmanmatt]

Fascinating topic. I just rotated and enlarged a pyramid in my head, then changed it from red to green. Can't say I've ever consciously translated anything in my mind with my eyes closed and visualised such translation. As a geologist I translate shapes all the time- maps, DEMs, grains, structures, but I've never done it with my eyes closed.

If you apply a force at point x on that Pyramid, can you visualise the effects of that force? If you pass a current through it, can you visualise the propagation? Almost feel it?

I also scored highly, in some tests during my Military days, for Eidetic memory. I remember tracts from texts, but not by the words themselves. I remember the shape the words made on the page (in that edition) and attach the data to that memory. Sometimes, now, I modify my own writting to create a shape on the page (which is another reason I prefered the Tapatalk app to the standard forum reply window. I am compled to check the shape of what I wrote, in “preview”; which takes too long and a considerable effort to resist).

Oh, and I never forget a map. If I’ve studied it for a few minutes, I don’t need it again for some considerable time; even days. Similar for drawings/designs, especially when they came out of my head in the first place.

Anecdote alert:

Once had to remove a couple of pillars from an internal space of a ship I’d designed. I delegated the modification to a young Engineer, two years out of Uni.
I got the hump, when two days later, he hadn’t produce the drawing. Everything has to be “Class” approved (in that case Lloyds reg) and that can take weeks as they re-calculate the crap out of everything. So, two days for what I considered a ten minute job, makes Matt an Evil fucker.
He had four pages of calculations of the increase of the beam’s section modulus etc.
I tore it up (I might be a bit of an Ogre, here and there) grabbed a draftsman and re-drew the beam from my head, without calculating sweet FA and emailed the submission for approval. The lad was spluttering.
Came back approved six days later.
I faux confidently strutted back to my office, after the temper tantrum and did the required calcs (somewhat more complicated in a dynamically loaded structure than a static one, like a building for instance) and finnaly stopped sweating when I realised I was within tolerance.

[andy popp]

This is fascinating - I'd never heard of this condition (if that is the right word) before and am struggling to imagine what it must be like. It literally seems unimaginable. Does anyone here have synesthesia? I don't but do occasionally experience some specific music in ways that are almost as visual as well as auditory. Hüsker Dü and Mogwai are good examples - I can experience them almost as pieces of architecture composed of shapes, spaces, and volumes.

[highrepute]

Great thread

[Oldmanmatt]

This is fascinating - I'd never heard of this condition (if that is the right word) before and am struggling to imagine what it must be like. It literally seems unimaginable. Does anyone here have synesthesia? I don't but do occasionally experience some specific music in ways that are almost as visual as well as auditory. Hüsker Dü and Mogwai are good examples - I can experience them almost as pieces of architecture composed of shapes, spaces, and volumes.

No, but I read recently a (I think) New Scientist piece on getting Goose bumps, when listen to certain music and that it was a form of Synethesia. In much the same way eye twitches are a form of Epilepsy, I imagine (he said, making a somewhat breathtaking logical leap with but the faintest fantasy by way of evidence)...

Now trying to find that article.
Oh, the irony of not remembering where I frickin saw it, after the post above!

[tomtom]

Heist if only this forum have a better Nichole interface.

I tnhijk those tests are not great - as how am I supposed to visualise something when I can’t ‘visualise’ it...?

I can visualise all sorts of images and things in my head in 3D but none of it involves having an image of that thing or person floating around in front of me in some strange eyes closed world.

Which makes me think is this actually the way the questions are framed etc

Fuck this forum is screwing my eyes it’s so small....

[marcpontin]

Interesting thread indeed. I wonder if there is a misunderstanding in terminology here. picturing something 'in your minds eye' is not the same as the normal present moment visual field. I cannot see how anyone could function at all without the ability to imagine sensory experiences that were not immediately present. It would be an almost cabbage like state. Any linguistic ability would be impossible. As Saussure explained there is the sign (the written or spoken word), the referent (the actual thing itself) and the signified (the mental image brought to mind when the sign is heard or read). Without the ability to generate any signified (visualise) one could not understand a word at all. I wonder if you are discounting your mental imagery and somehow think that other people have some special sense of visualisation that you haven't got. I assume we all see just black when we close our eyes. Mental imagery has got nothing to do with that 'blackness'. After all, memory is simply the visualisation of previous sense impressions. No visualisation = no memory surely.

just a few random thoughts! 

[moose]

Does anyone here have synesthesia? I don't but do occasionally experience some specific music in ways that are almost as visual as well as auditory. Hüsker Dü and Mogwai are good examples - I can experience them almost as pieces of architecture composed of shapes, spaces, and volumes.

I have experienced similar, back in the day, at many a Mogwai and GSYBE! gig, but I didn't think it was synesthesia, rather the concussive force of the music melting my synapses! Vibrations and resonance: waves of sound stimulating neurons.... toccata and fugue being played on my medulla....aaaaaarrrrgghhhhhhh.... where are my copies of Young Team and F#A#oo......

[Steve R]

For people who answer vivid as real life for most of these is it literally like looking at a photograph in your head?

I ain't no neuroscientist but I doubt it.  I'd guess the 'real time, real world data' input from the eyes is just too dominant when the person is in a normal awake state.  So though a person might be able to conjure an image, manipulate it and picture faces and expressions of people they know well and describe what they 'see' as vivid, I'd have thought they're still only 'actually seeing' black ie. backs of their eyelids.  When this input is more subdued but you're still in a conscious state where you can choose what you want to visualise eg. whilst dropping off to sleep, under influence of certain drugs or types of meditation, I guess the purely internal rendering can approach 'photo in head' quality, much the same as vivid dreams do? 

Interestingly when doing the 3d shape imagining thing, I got a sphere spinning and changing size and colour then realised the colours were 'borrowed' from my car stereo display.  Guess they're my most recently (and regularly) used colour-recognition neural pathways (if they exist!?) and so unconsciously went to them first?   

[andy popp]

Does anyone here have synesthesia? I don't but do occasionally experience some specific music in ways that are almost as visual as well as auditory. Hüsker Dü and Mogwai are good examples - I can experience them almost as pieces of architecture composed of shapes, spaces, and volumes.

I have experienced similar, back in the day, at many a Mogwai and GSYBE! gig, but I didn't think it was synesthesia, rather the concussive force of the music melting my synapses! Vibrations and resonance: waves of sound stimulating neurons.... toccata and fugue being played on my medulla....aaaaaarrrrgghhhhhhh.... where are my copies of Young Team and F#A#oo......

Yes and no. These bands are extremely loud live, which definitely has an effect, but I also think there is more to it than that. Last time I saw Mogwai I experienced Helicon 1 as being in a vast hall, coloured hall that has shape and volume (as in empty space). But I can get weaker versions of the same effects listening on some crappy system at home. I certainly don't think its full blown synesthesia but perhaps a very diluted version?

[moose]

I am frankly too affected by my work Xmas do to give proper consideration to your post... but I am lucid enough to provide a qualified agreement: mainly because Helicon 1 is the only work that makes me weep...... every time.

[moose]

correction, Sometimes by My Bloody Valentine is the other.....

[Oldmanmatt]

I didn’t know Mogwai.

So I toddled off to YouTube. Played the first track that popped up. Just on the iPad speaker, half volume.
Coolverine.

Immediately, I’m eyes closed and happily drifting on a thermal in lazy circles, over a sunny mountain valley.
I was slightly disappointed to see the actual vid...

Remember what I said about Polly?
“Well, that’s boring as shit. What is it?”

Honestly, I fucking give up sometimes. She’s an accomplished Pianist too, recorded a few vocal tracks (never got anywhere, but she has an excellent voice).

Ta, by the by. She’s gone to bed and I’m typing whilst the album downloads... Headphones, beer and photos of shuffle through Chromecast on the big screen.

Night night.