This whole discussion is fucked, everyone is using the word "see" differently because our language is not built to talk about mental abstractions.
You know how schizophrenia can make you see things and people? Can you experience the visual effects schizophrenia at will? If you said you are a "1", is that what you mean by "1", or is it, in some way, different than that?
If it is different than that, at all, other people who have the same perception as you are imagining that you can trigger literal hallucinations.
im currently visualizing a purple apple thats rotating along alternating axes. now a worm is emerging from it and he has a gun. aphantasia havers get owned
There are people who can't visualize things mentally? Are they surprised by the brand new Vista every time they turn a corner? How would one recognize things without it being written down?
What's more interesting about this to me is... This man writes novels. I've always experienced fiction as a "Movie in my head" kind of experience. When I get really into a book, the world around me falls away, and I feel very literally in the narrative.
So how does one experience a novel, if they can't visualize the story in their mind?
I love asking people about this. Both whether they have an inner monologue or whether they're able to visualize things. It's always fascinated me. It's something we take for granted. I have an inner monologue I can't turn off, and I'm definitely a 2 or 1 depending on how tired I am. Being a 5 on this scale is called "aphantasia"
I can't imagine not being able to see something in my mind. There's plenty of times where I don't visualize, but I can scale things as needed. I can see myself interacting with an apple in the kitchen, or have it be interacted with without objects (e.g. watch it rot on a blank background, or hyperlapse of it rotting on the ground with bugs and everything), I can watch myself eat it and sense the taste internally. I can even see it in front of me in my minds eye like an overlay - my eyes don't see it, but my mind can like augmented reality.
Stands to reason that I'm very good at building and repairing things, I'm decent at art too.
My mental mindscape has everything. Narrator, mind's eye, high-level concepts conceptually connected like a mesh, everything. My mindscape is a chaotic ocean of sensory inputs, memories, raw emotions, and high-level concepts. I'm always a bit surprised when someone is missing a part.
When someone says "apple," I think about the color red, the tartness of the skin, the sweetness and sourness of an apple, the sound of the crunch, oranges-as-a-concept-not-as-a-visual (from apples and oranges), Isaac Newton, apple pie, the pixelated apple tree from Stardew Valley because I don't have good visual memory of apple trees in real life, that time I drank apple cider during Thanksgiving after eating apple pie, how "an apple" used to be "a napple" before the "n" shifted away from the word, how I don't pronounce the "l" in apple, but treat it like a vowel so "apple" sounds like "apo."
I'm a definite 5 and I completely agree with him on that. I feel like I'm missing out on so much by not being able to visualize like that.
Interesting that a popular fiction author is aphantasiac, I wonder how visually descriptive his writing is considering afaik descriptive writing like that is usually meant to elicit visualization.
I'm a three. Whenever I visualise food I see it in black and white while hearing a 1950's Atlantic accent newsreel voice talking about the words/ideas/feeling associated with that food.
Pretty sure you can train and improve this. I don't think it's a skill that you either have or do not have, I don't think the mind is a fixed thing. Much like muscles they can be exercised, trained and rewired. With the right practice drills and routine I'm fairly sure that you could change this in a person, although I'm not sure exactly what drills or routine you'd do for it. Our minds are really moldable and none of this stuff should be viewed as fixed, much like playing an instrument isn't an inherent skill you either have or do not have, it's something you can learn and improve in.
I guess I'm like a 3 or 4? When asked to visualize an apple or a cow or a campfire or something, I can kinda manage it but only for a split second. I can't just hold an image there.
Besides beiing able to "see" most people have a inner voice that says things "out loud".
Now I'll give you one better, apparently there's levels to this too. One day I surprised my partner by saying that I can "hear" my throughts in any voice I wish, even accent (provided I know such accent).
Like when I remember or imagine anthing I have full visuals and audio. I still lack skill to acually articulate any of these things, so I still suck at pretty much everything I haven't practiced a lot.
As a autistic person I always find these types of questions hard to answer and I dont know why. Like I am trying to think of an apple and I think apple but I don't know if i am making an image in my head or not.
Complete 5 for me. Also, I have an internal voice, but that voice is just me. Basically just putting thoughts into words so that I can express them, nothing different from whatever the "I" or "self" is.
For the record: I always score very high on tests of spatial memory, those tests where you are supposed to have to rotate objects to find the answer, and stuff like that. I enjoy reading fiction; I like reading more than watching movies for the most part. And in general don't feel like I'm missing out on anything, or that aphantasia gives me any problems thinking at all. I often can't tell who someone is from seeing their face, but I think that's the autism.
I remember as a kid like 8 years old struggling with this not because I couldn’t visualize “the apple” but because I could but I didnt know how it was possible to visualize something without it being actually there.
Like I could (and still can) remember the feel, shape, taste, weight and smell of “the apple” and even play around with it in my head. Like I could image the sound of it hitting the ground, how itd feel biting into it, cutting it for apple slices etc.
Like all this shit I could not only imagine but feel the speculative sensation of it. Dunno I was a weird and bored kid.
Don't know how related is this, but when I started studying maths seriously I always used Desmos to graph everything, and tried to think how the graph would look before entering the function on it, to a point when I could kinda see the curve on my mind just by looking at the function. It was extremely useful during tests, being able to visualize the curve and have it help me with the problems, and is still useful now that I work in a math intensive environment.
It's 1 for me but if I try to actively think about a thing (like someone says picture an apple in in your head, instead of me daydreaming about a platonic apple), I can't sustain it.
Like when you're trying to reach underneath a bed for something you've dropped and you can run your fingers along the whole object but trying to grasp it, it's slips away.
I can play entire movies I've made up in my head but even though I know how long an inch is if I try to imagine what an inch by inch cube would look like in my hand my brain goes fuzzy.
I'm baffled that an author, who's entire fucking job is to visualize things in their mind's eye, both doesn't comprehend this and declares himself a 1 on this scale. Man writes fiction novels, how can he not at least consider himself a 2 or 3?
I think I started around a 3 and made my way to 1 by using it all the time for depressive escapism. 3/10 experience, better than nothing - still not very effective
If someone says "think of an apple" out of the blue, I'm a 5.
If someone says "visualize an apple" I'm a 1-3 depending on how focused I am.
I've always thought this is because I have always been a big reader, and as a consequence, a bit of a speed-reader so it is like my brain is constantly set to "important information only" and I have to mentally set it back to "actually visualize it" because I tend to do the same thing when reading. I can be sitting here and read "Purple lightning split the sky and the ring of white roses was illuminated in the flash of light. I stood there, frozen, as I realized some of the roses were flecked with blood." & at normal speed, my mind will be like a strict 4-5. I can 'see' the scene but it isn't really complete or detailed.
Something like "Sekiro felt the rusted blade part the air behind him and twisted his body at the last second, moving out of the blade's path as he swung his hammer upwards into his attacker's chin" is even less likely to be visualized at all but if I read it even a bit slower - or just take a second afterwards, suddenly I become Sasuke in the Forest of Death
Not only do i see fully visualized things, when I'm alone I visualize ideas so fully I start moving sometimes. It looks really really stupid so I don't do it when others can see me. Yes I have ADHD
I have the opposite problem where I'm a 1 and it seems more real than reality. Is that a problem? I can imagine things happening with full sights and smells more clearly than things that are happening right now. Real life seems distant and confusing.
i can picture/taste/hear/smell/feel if i try, but it's more like a memory than a truly active sensory experience in high competition with others... unless i force it and am drowsy. my family tells me my recall is insane, though. i think they overestimate it, because my recall for auditory is probably my strongest relative to theirs. i experience that as a mental echo. i use it when i'm trying to remember something distinct and complex for a few minutes... i'll say it out loud to myself so i can hear it and let it echo for my recall.
i had was near sighted (uncorrected for a while) as a kid, so it makes sense to me why that one is not as potent. but my recall and general experience of colors is rich.
also, having a few calm, chill, cerebral psychedelic experiences can open up meta-cognitive functions. kind of a little journey behind the curtain to see the active work being done on the stage to create the show.
I'd say normally I'm around a 2 to 4, but if I'm focusing I can do 1. Nothing like actually seeing though, with proper seeing the stuff still has detail if I'm not concentrating.
If I'm sitting on public transport I'm usually flipping through movie or machine ideas in between hexbear browsing
i can visualize the apple or whatever and like rotate it in my brain, change the lighting, etc. or like, i dunno a spaceship or exoplanet or future hovercraft it sucks because my brain and coordination don't match so despite trying really hard i can't really art despite being able to make brain art. i wish there was a non-invasive, non-Elon brain interface device that let me bypass my "stupid fingers".
I tend to have a really high visual memory, but I also have the monologue, which means that when I read, it's kinda like a narrated movie, which allows me to speed-read fiction and non-fiction with pretty great recall, but it annihilates my ability to do abstract math that I can't visualize. Fortunately, most things I work with are within Newtonian physics and probability, but anything outside of that is a nightmare for me to memorize.
4.8 I can see the apple I gated for the chickens yesterday (it had a bum) but its like a snap shot and it is really hard too keep it there. But I can imagine biting it and feel in my mouth and hear the crunch as clear as if I was actually eating it.
As a qualia, this is very hard to communicate. I wonder if there's a genuine, measurable difference here, or if what I think of as 'visualising' is the same as them thinking of ideas and feelings. Nobody like, has a second vision they use, it's just.. remembering a sight as if you're looking at it now.
Trying to learn how to draw informed me how much caricature I keep in my mind. I'm more 2 because I lack the training in perspective and form to internalize the world in a way that actually lets me recall an apple.
I can visualize just fine, but literally cannot imagine smells. It makes adding full sensory fluff to tabletop games frustrating, and makes me get confused when authors do it to any great extent.
I can hold one image like that in my mind and focus on it for a full 3.5 minutes without interruption. By harnessing this level of concentration I have learned to see without my eyes and can read the front of the playing card while looking at the back.
This is why I'm optimistic that attempts by tech bros to create devices that can read minds will fail. Everybody created their own brain software. Deciphering it will require at least 3 new scientific disciplines.