Aphantasia discussion

[unkempt veldt]

Since it's a fun topic figured I'd add a thread for it in case people just now found out they have Aphantasia - or didn't know that there's a spectrum

[rocky timber]

Being able to live in another world just like reality without it's interference is a gift I'll always appreciate.

[floral grove]

My mind is blown

I never taught people were seing stuff

[severe peak]

Time for all the ND's to come out. This is common with some types.

[floral grove]

Nd ?

[severe peak]

Neuro divergent. As opposed to neuro typical, a.k.a. "normal people" who don't have things that end in syndrome or disorder.

[floral grove]

Taht make it sound like it’s a bad thing

It just an other way of thinking

It’s not a bad thing

[unkempt veldt]

As long as people don't turn it into an argument where they try and shove Aphantasia into a category to claim it as "their" groups thing instead of just talking about it lol

Fun little topic

[arctic horizon]

sometimes it's a curse because if I'm bored enough trying to do something important my brain will automatically try to daydream rather vividly and pull me out of the boring reality

[rocky timber]

That's relatable lol

[arctic horizon]

and it's a constant uphill battle trying not to do that

[rocky timber]

The procrastination can be endless

[severe peak]

I'll I meant was it's common with certain types of people. Since I belong in a few of those groups myself, I see this topic fairly regularly.

I didn't know I had aphantasia until I started learning more about those things.

[heady burrow]

isn't vividly daydreaming the exact opposite of aphantasia

[severe peak]

I drew a lot when I was younger. Pretty good at it too. But I could only copy things, I couldn't draw anything from my own mind. I thought it was because I wasn't creative. It was two decades later I found out it was this.

[paper quarry]

I learned something useful today.

[summer slate]

what if we are all aphantasistic but we just think we arent and the ones with aphantasia are just more aware of it 🧐

[quiet torrent]

has to be. I tend to zone out and daydream a lot but I cannot for the life of me picture things like an apple and "see" it so to speak.

Interesting that there are scifi writers and animators with aphantasia

[empty forge]

Its weird for me I can imagine it clearly and not clearly at the same time :(

[open relic]

I can imagine anything in full 3D 28K video, EXCEPT red apples. Green apples work fine.

[worldly egret]

Respectfully. Why is this poll in the Star Citizen Information category?

[unkempt veldt]

On topic polls are boring usually and safe, curveball questions are fun

[severe peak]

Scrim couldn't properly visualize an appropriate channel for it.

[unkempt veldt]

Couple unhinged ones sometimes, we’ll see

[sharp spade]

Disorder doesn't mean bad either.

It does usually mean that whatever is different is making it more difficult or painful to function in neurotypical society

Some things can become a lot less disorderly if society changes a bit of its expectations or the way it handles things

[severe peak]

Yep, that's a big thing. Some of these disorders do interrupt living a normal live regardless of society's rules, but a lot of them are disorders simply because humans decided to do and accept things that are in opposition to how we function.

I find the form of aphantasia where a person has no inner voice/monologue very interesting and alien. I couldn't imagine what it's like having that kind of silence in your head, mine is a mad house 24/7.

[sacred forum]

Lol yeah…

[smoky mesa]

just imagine you are working on making an apple in a game engine then it's easy to visualise

[spark mirage]

i am unable to visualize things in my head, i tried imagine this apple but nada nix, i just know i was thinking of an apple, but then again, i'm not really built like most either

[heady burrow]

That’s not how this works

Thats like telling a blind person to open their eyes to see

Lmao

[signal willow]

i can definitely remember vividly what an apple is like but the moment i try to close my eyes and visualize it I blank

[severe peak]

I can get apple-ish, but it comes in fleeting bits. Like I can't grasp the whole image at once.

[spark mirage]

yeah. i cant get a picture at all,however, despite i cant see it in my head i still know what it looks like, tho i do remember before, many years ago when i was younge ri was able to imagine stuff and had an active imagination

[lapis lintel]

not only can i picture objects in my mind i can rotate them and alter them. so if i'm trying to make something i can sit there and think about it and figure out problems before i even start to do anything .. is that weird?

[unkempt veldt]

Only about 2% of people have aphantasia (just aphantasia alone, percentage doesn't include it being a result from something else), so you're in the 98%ish camp of people that can picture something

[rain bobcat]

I imagine entire conversations, especially ones that keep recurring over and over again, as a series of colors and shapes

[golden fiber]

wtf

Majority of people see stuff in their head vividly?

[unkempt veldt]

If you don't have aphantasia: if you've seen it, you can more than likely picture it 1:1 in your head

Like I can picture my apartment and everything outside, what cars are parked on the street, the color and model for each one, and how much pollen was caked on some SUV that fucked up and parked under the tree lol

The people with hyperphantasia are on another level

[severe peak]

Hyperphantasia sounds almost like eidetic memory.

[heady burrow]

I can only see flashes of vivid imagery

when I was younger I could hold it for longer idk

[unkempt veldt]

I get the hyper part after meditating for more than like, 20min

[heady burrow]

A weird one that I have is i can imagine sounds

Like i can hear it in my head, not my ears

[unkempt veldt]

Yeah that's "normal" lol

At least I think it is

[heady burrow]

oh thats a relief I thought I was insane or something

[unkempt veldt]

Same thing as an inner voice, being able to play back music in your head

Instruments and all

[heady burrow]

Yeah its kind of a curse with my ADHD, I'm pretty deep on the spectrum of ADHD and without my meds I can get songs stuck on repeat all day

Oddly enough I cant recite lyrics at all

My girlfriend has hyperphantasia though and can vividly picture anything and paint / draw it

[severe peak]

Now that I can do, to an annoying degree. I have no control over it, there's always something playing in my head. Non stop, every day, from the instant I wake up until I go to bed. It's a common ASD thing.

[rocky timber]

I have songs stuck on repeat in my head for a good chunk of the day

[heady burrow]

yea its really rough if its quiet

im almost always listening to a podcast or music or non-weird ASMR like tapping on wood or something idk

or a loud fan

I had crazy frog stuck in my head for about 2 months last year

[rocky timber]

No noise is the loudest thing around

[heady burrow]

And it was just the beginning

[rocky timber]

At least it's not the metal pipe meme

[heady burrow]

the intro dun dun dunn dunn dun dun dun and then "lets do the crazy frog!!"

[jovial bough]

I can see the average apple stock photo in my head

Is that like actually that rare?

[rocky timber]

Apparently aphantasia is on the lower end (single digit %) of the general population. Not sure for the level of detail that you see tho

Me personally tho, when I was young I struggled to visualize anything beyond a 2D image, which was mostly just numbers. I just ended up day dreaming everyday to try and improve it, and now many years later I can feel the fine grains of sand run between my hands, the taste and feel of an apple as I bite into it. All the while this is playing out just like what you'd see in perhaps a very realistic looking video game, but in my head. Should I wish I could imagine what that'd look like on a microscopic level, or zoom out all the way into a galaxy, while still being able to be there.
I honestly feel like hyperphantasia is a skill, which for me was born out of boredom.

[jovial bough]

I can see like a 4k rotating apple in my head

I can turn it like I want

Or make it green or yellow

Blue Apple looks funny

I can see like the grains on it, the small dots where the color is slightly darker

And when I add a light source in my head too I can see the not fully clean surface with slight dents

My head seems to be blender lol

[severe peak]

I can see the concept of that in my head, but not actually see it.

[jovial bough]

Interesting, I can try to move that image to real life one sec

Kinda hard and I can barely make it out but I have a blue Apple in my hand

I can probably do that from all the day dreaming I've been doing in school the past 11 years

[severe peak]

It's weird for me, like I can see the stem and where that comes out, or I can see the little booty on the bottom, or I can see a bite taken out, but I can't see the whole thing at once.

[jovial bough]

Interesting, I have it like a 3D model just there

But for the actual high quality stuff I need my eyes closed

[humble vector]

It kind of flashes a bit in front of me in vivid detail but it never stays for long

It works better if I look at my desk and imagine an apple on it. It seems like it's easier if I can see it in the context of other real objects

[drifting sluice]

I think of the composition of the image but i cant look at it

[narrow moss]

I see we have a thread here for tihs topic

hello my fellow non image users

[narrow moss]

idk how it fits but at least for me there is an inner monologue just no accompanying imagined sound

I cant imagine any sensory input of any type though

whether it be imagery, audio, feel, smell, etc

but at the same time I do think internally so idk how that goes

[severe peak]

There are several types of aphantasia.

[narrow moss]

I have known about it for ages at this point though

I just dont know how it works

but nobody does so its fine

[thick spoke]

Oh yeah I'm on that hyper train baby

I had a brain injury when I was young that maybe why im a little crazy

[fleet yarrow]

I don't know if I have aphantasia or not

like how do you "see" the apple

is it like you close your eyes and can imagine and literally see the object or is it something mental that is hard to measure

Never mind I think I got it

[gilded fjord]

I suspect most people at some point find this can change at times, for various reasons, sometimes more, sometimes less.
For myself, it feels like the ability to dream/daydream itself doesn't really care what level it is, like the brain wants to use whatever is available to make daydreams, dreams, nightmares, waking dreams, even if they're just vague associations rather than strong impressions, images, and/or sounds. So it seems to change depending on how I'm doing.

But default seems to rest around hypophantasia.

Sounds are far easier for some reason.

I can envision an apple with color, the skin, the seeds, the juice, turn it wireframe, rotate it, move it, but it's just a vague impression that's not really there at all. Imagining the sound and taste of biting into it is so much easier and clearer.

For those, it might as well be right in front of me.

[sacred forum]

Yummy Apple