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[Grim Portent]

I find myself wondering what it's like to be able to picture things in your mind. It's something I can't do, never could, and it's apparently unusual to be unable to imagine what things look like in your head. Called aphantasia, and it's one of those things that makes me wonder what it's like to have someone elses brain, if that makes sense.

[Loud Whispers]

I find myself wondering what it's like to be able to picture things in your mind. It's something I can't do, never could, and it's apparently unusual to be unable to imagine what things look like in your head. Called aphantasia, and it's one of those things that makes me wonder what it's like to have someone elses brain, if that makes sense.

I have only ever met two people with total aphantasia before - not even having an internal monologue, and it always struck me that I took it for granted that I am always thinking or picturing something in my head. Can't even turn it off, so to speak. I wonder if this is something which is "fixed" or something that can be "learned"? Can someone learn to picture things, or learn to turn this off?

I wonder if this is also related to language. I have memories for example, of thinking concepts but not yet having the words to define them, when I was very young

[Il Palazzo]

Is inability to imagine aphantasia a case of aphantasia?
 
@GP, I'm having a hard time picturing how this works. Like, can you draw a cone, and shade it correctly? You'd need to imagine in your head how to represent a 3D object on a 2D plane, and where the light is coming from. Or general geometric manipulations, like putting two cubes on top of one another or slicing a sphere with a plane. Is this something you can't visualise?

[Grim Portent]

I have only ever met two people with total aphantasia before - not even having an internal monologue, and it always struck me that I took it for granted that I am always thinking or picturing something in my head. Can't even turn it off, so to speak. I wonder if this is something which is "fixed" or something that can be "learned"? Can someone learn to picture things, or learn to turn this off?

I wonder if this is also related to language. I have memories for example, of thinking concepts but not yet having the words to define them, when I was very young

I have an internal monologue, damn thing rarely stops. Thing is that no matter how hard I try or what I think about I can't bring any image into conscious thought, it's like I have no sensory component to my mind's eye. If I close my eyes and try to think of how something looks all I get is the vague sense that I'm staring at my own eyelids and a headache.

I read about someone who had a minor operation and woke up with aphantasia when before they didn't have it and went to a doctor about it, which is why it's become a more known of thing despite being described as far back as the 1800s.

Is inability to imagine aphantasia a case of aphantasia?
 
@GP, I'm having a hard time picturing how this works. Like, can you draw a cone, and shade it correctly? You'd need to imagine in your head how to represent a 3D object on a 2D plane, and where the light is coming from. Or general geometric manipulations, like putting two cubes on top of one another or slicing a sphere with a plane. Is this something you can't visualise?

I can draw things fine, well badly, but I can draw and shade and so on. I can describe things and understand how they're supposed to look. I just can't see them in my mind unless I'm asleep and dreaming.

Like I can describe what an apple looks like, but I can't mentally envision one. I know and recognise the person I had my first kiss with, but I can't bring their face into my mind without looking at a picture.

Also can't bring scents, textures or tastes into my active memory. Like I can't remember the taste of say, pizza. I know what it tastes like and how it makes me feel, but I can't imagine the taste itself if that makes sense.

EDIT: Another thing occurred to me, I can't read things in people's voices. You know how some people say that they can read lines from a character and say they hear the character's voice in their head? I don't get that, all I get is my internal monologue, which just sounds like my own idea of my voice at a neutral tone.

[Loud Whispers]

I have an internal monologue, damn thing rarely stops. Thing is that no matter how hard I try or what I think about I can't bring any image into conscious thought, it's like I have no sensory component to my mind's eye. If I close my eyes and try to think of how something looks all I get is the vague sense that I'm staring at my own eyelids and a headache.

I read about someone who had a minor operation and woke up with aphantasia when before they didn't have it and went to a doctor about it, which is why it's become a more known of thing despite being described as far back as the 1800s.

I remember there was that apple test a while back going around on social medias, where people were asked to envision an apple and then rate the clarity with which they could picture it. Loadsa people came out saying they were 0 out of 10 for no apple so I wonder how common it is, it certainly seems to not be rare at the very least

EDIT: Another thing occurred to me, I can't read things in people's voices. You know how some people say that they can read lines from a character and say they hear the character's voice in their head? I don't get that, all I get is my internal monologue, which just sounds like my own idea of my voice at a neutral tone.

So you can't read "titty sprinkles" in the voice of David Attenborough? :[

[TD1]

Morgan Freeman: look at dat fine ass.

I was talking to my housemate today about how we read. I get absorbed. It's like a movie in my head, I see, feel, hear it all. He can force that for short periods, but mostly it's just the words in his head.

It struck me as a strange difference.

Edit: as for the apple test, I can picture a 10/10 apple. But I figure that's subjective, and most people would say theirs is 10/10.

I'd have trouble imagining its taste, mind.

[Grim Portent]

So you can't read "titty sprinkles" in the voice of David Attenborough? :[

Nope. Have to say it out loud in a terrible impression when I want to giggle.

[Rolan7]

Huh, I can do audio fairly well.  I'm awful at impressions but I can imagine Morgan Freeman saying arbitrary things just fine.

Completely helpless at the visual, though.  I try to remember my first home, or an image I studied a minute ago, and it's the same deal: it sort of flashes by, but it's not really an *image* even.  It's a shadowy collection of concepts. 
Driveway, porch, siding (was brown, nowadays white)
Red eyes, grinning, big scarf

It's more dreamlike than my dreams!  I'll have vivid dreams where I see very crisp visual data, and I'll remember it clearly for several minutes after waking up.  Writing it down cements the *events* of the dream (putting it in long-term memory even if I never read what I wrote).  But the visual part always floats away.  It *was* there, *is* there each morning as I jot them down, but I can't hold on to it.  Then I'm fully awake and I can't truly picture *anything*.

So like - a normal person can visualize an apple, then be asked what color it was, and there's an answer?  That's still flipping wild to me.  All I can do is know what a cartoonish profile of an apple is shaped like, and that they're typically green or red.  Does the stalk point left or right?  For me the only answer is "no".

Also, when feverish I'm pretty sure my dreams lose that visual segment and go full concept.  It's about as fun as it sounds- it's a very mixed bag and very interesting, but not what I'd call fun.  But it's hard to rate that against the dreams where I imagine a beautiful vista, or a version of myself, and all I can remember is... trivia!!  I'll never see it again, but I can remember how it felt. 
How it felt to remember how it looked, for those few waking minutes before it slipped away.
YetAnotherEdit:  I'm trying to figure out how I recognize faces.  I obviously have trouble picturing them.  How exactly do I recognize my family?  I'm keyed extremely well to their tics and voices, such that their emotions are sometimes awkwardly obvious, so I'd recognize a doppelganger easily.  But how much would their faces have to change before I noticed?

For years I've noticed being unsure which of my friends and my family wear glasses.  Even this moment, I'm recalling events years ago where their eyewear came up - not when I saw them last week.
Lastedit I swear about 20 minutes after the last: My dad went clean-shaven once for a few months.  It was right after college to me and it was deeply disturbing, as if he had a completely different face.  I think that I had to figure who he was.  It was extremely distracting.
Pretty ironic when I change my look all the dang time.  I wonder what I look like to normal people.

[scriver]

I wonder what I look like to normal people.

[Iduno]

So how common is it to try to pay a bill, give up after 5+ minutes (Each. Word. And. Syllable. Needed. A. 2. Second. Pause) because the robot wants you to agree that you were agreeing to pay the amount with the credit card when you agreed to pay the amount, and agreed to use a credit card, and agreed that it was the correct information, and then the robot hears you breathing and you need to restart because it thought you were talking?

This is after wasting an hour going to the company's store to see if there's a problem with my bill because it arrives about half of the time. There's not, so I assume it's a scam to charge late fees, because we're a very anti-regulation state, so everything is a scam.

[Scoops Novel]

What's the difeerence between understanging and getting? It's not just percieving. I believe no thing is like any other thing, so it's got to have something unique to it.

[Frumple]

One's just less formal. Meaning's identical, situational usage is different.

[Rolan7]

And then there's grokking, which is mostly the same but you're well hydrated and over-sexed.

[Il Palazzo]

And then there's grokking, which is mostly the same but you're well hydrated and over-sexed.

Lol. That's the best definition I've seen.

[Rolan7]

I'll say that Stranger In a Strange Land has cultural value, but it's flipping weird (even by MY standards!).
For the curious, I think this Overly Sarcastic video tells you everything you need to know.
I personally may be a bit less judgemental.  It was a period piece, and the sex-cult stuff was... kinda common at the time.  Culture is a strange phenomenon.

I wonder what I look like to normal people.

Edit: I shouldn't even be saying this because there's no way I come out looking good, and it kinda means mentioning my sex, but: I do not look like Gimli.  It is metaphorical.