Aphantasic reporting in

>You weren't able to conceptualize abstractly your entire life?

Now, I understand why you think this. It's really hard to explain what this particular kind of imagination entails, since it isn't the copy of an experience you've otherwise have produced from your external senses.

But I have actually been able to "conceptualize abstractly" my whole life, but I've realized that there's an additional kind of metaphoric imagination that is possible on top of this that is more 'vivid', despite not properly being an extension of any given sense. It's hard to explain if you either don't have this, or otherwise have had it for your whole life and don't know what it's like to not have it by contrast. But it allows you to directly imagine 'poetic' and metaphoric ideas as specific abstract objects without directly relying on any other sense, which is otherwise not possible even if you can think other abstract thoughts.

What you're saying sounds like something I've always been able to do and never thought to be particularly special. What is the differences between before and now?

What you're talking about doesn't exist. There's nothing wrong with you. See

oh god more special snowflakes with a made up disease

>What is the differences between before and now?

Now I can appreciate proper poetry, while before I could not.

>What you're saying sounds like something I've always been able to do and never thought to be particularly special.

Then that's probably the case for you.

I understand the concept, but I just don't get it.

When I read, I see words and interpret those words in meaningful ways. The idea of instead seeing vivid hallucinations when I look at words is incredibly foreign to me.

>The idea of instead seeing vivid hallucinations when I look at words is incredibly foreign to me.

Then you have aphantasia, to at least a certain extent.

I don't think you've got aphantasia, you're probably just stupid. Stupid people can't appreciate art on a meaningful level.

>tfw strong visual imagination
>tfw can make characters walk around the room or bend over you and speak

When I read, the reading is kind of a passive process that I don't conscioisly manage in a substantial way, and I my field of vision is almost entirely occupied by visual imagery. Usually the faces look like fragments or alterations of strangers I've seen the rooms and scenery usually take the form of something I have seen before but can't put my finger on. If that makes and sense, OP

An entire paragraph of meaningless dribble, well done.

Fuck you guys.

Amazing. You're that kid I always knew growing up, who watched Naruto and DBZ and began to relate what he could from cartoons into his life. He'd try and convince people that he'd unlocked a way to talk to animals or that he found that he could run faster with his arms trailing behind him like streamers (like an ebin ninja man).

I'm skeptical about whatever the fuck you're saying you have. But if I were to give you the benefit of the doubt I'd say that reading, for me, is an unconcious effort if the book is engaging and a slightly more concious one if it isn't.
A 'good book' will have me naturally playing the frames of a scene in my head, the better the atmosphere and general tone (not necessarily the descriptiveness of the writing) the smoother and more engaging this frame by frame movie reel in my head will be. However I've seen posts on Veeky Forums proclaiming that this way of reading is pleb or whatever, but I don't really know of any other way - you might as well tell me that I've been seeing the colour blue wrong all my life.
My uneducated and completely unfounded advise to you OP, is to read books that are highly popular and engaging and conciously imagine whole paragraphs while you read them. Maybe even watch the Harry potter movies and then read it afterwards, retain a mental image of the castle and the characters and place them within the scenes you're reading. Maybe if you do that for long enough your brain will begin to do it unconciously. Or not, I don't know shit.

>Maybe even watch the Harry potter movies and then read it afterwards, retain a mental image of the castle and the characters and place them within the scenes you're reading.

I simply can't do it. If I close my eyes I will just see pure black. I can't abstractly thing about material things, for example I can rotate a solid in my head, but I just can't see it, I only know what it looks like after you've done that.

Reading descriptions will usually do nothing for me. Often I'll just skip them and try to remember the most important thing (where is the scene set? what time of the day it is? Who's there?).

Also to be fair I've started reading only recently and I really don't know what am I supposed to experience.

>for example I can rotate a solid in my head

Wow, that's super interesting. Because while that's recognized as a separate form of imagination, as most woman literally can't do that unless they've received higher than usual doses of androgens, most reports of it relate it to visual imagination.

>Also to be fair I've started reading only recently and I really don't know what am I supposed to experience.

So by this I assume you mean reading serious literature, as opposed to anything at all?

>most woman literally can't do that unless they've received higher than usual doses of androgens
Really? I can rotate images in my head, albeit it might take me more effort than a man.

"aphantasia" means mimesis-free mind. it's not uncommon, I think...means you're on a more logical posture. reading being more grammatical, if not mathematical, than imagistic or whatever.

But if you really want to experience the other, you probably would do best with poetry. Starting with Shelley, Blake. Memorize a few verses, maybe, close your eyes and start reciting them, wear them as if they were a mask. It may start with pretending you're "in it", and then you actually are

not sure why all of you are being so dark and bitter about someones claim. regardless of whether he can imagine or not, isn't this a pretty interesting thing to think abt?

i always ask ppl ~how~ they read. how do you visualize and imagine things? how in-depth do you get? how immersed are u?

not many people actually understand, which is quite strange to me

i love my imagination and my ideas. its nuts to think that we can all make feelings and ideas manifest in real life, just by working on the translation and allowing things to form in a tangible sense.

what if your favourite writer never wrote? what if your favourite painter never painted and acted on those creative urges? they would still be them. but nobody could ever possibly understand them nearly as well.

this thought keeps me going, i think

d33p man

>this thought keeps me going, i think

Im a man i doubt it has much to do with gender. I was practically crazy before i started meditating and improving my mind. You can accomplish just about anything you want just using your will power. I have had a lot of lucid dreams and cool regular dreams since i started willing it to happen. Im not a very visual person but in lucid dreams you basically imagine a whole vivid experience for yourself without even trying.

>So by this I assume you mean reading serious literature, as opposed to anything at all?

Yeah, I've sticked to movies, videogames (wich I've dropped 2 year ago) and random informations for my whole life. I've never really felt compelled to read, I guess it wasn't stimolant enough when compared to junk food and videogames.

>I can rotate images in my head

If you're a woman and can intuitively rotate 3D objects, then you're probably one of the exceptions, since it's quite well documented that this ability is much more common in men and since you're on Veeky Forums that also says quite a lot about you.

What did Beethoven look like in his performance? Was he making odd faces when he was playing his sonatas? Did he look like a madman when conducting?

So when you guys close your eyes and try to imagine something, you actually see it in colour?

sounds like some fippy dippy faggotry. all this is is the way your imagination works. visual thinkers more easily interpret sensory details. some people construct images, other people look for meaning in the words, others put themselves in the shoes of the characters and relate to them on a personal level. its all dependent upon the reader. quit this special snowflake bullshit.

alright, when I say
>red ball
can you think about the last time you saw one, and think about what it looked like (not conceptually)?

it sounds like you're making this difficulty of yours worse by overthinking the shit out of it

wewie, truly stimulated my nerve endings

Not him, but whatever. My dog has a red kong ball and I remember seeing it a few hours ago. I know what it looks like. But if I close my eyes I CANNOT see the ball. All I see is black and some colours from light residue.

No, my imagination is monochrome, like my soul.

It's not literally seeing with your eyes, no one is actually hallucinating with their imagination.

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head? If you have it's like that. If you literally can't simulate music in your head you might actually just be incapable though.

>honestly trying to understand what people are capable of thinking, what the limits of this are for a given person and how this affects individual experience is "special snowflake fippy dippy faggotry"

Yeah, I'm sure profound thoughts echos throughout your mind every day.

There's a fair amount of people that can actually simulate music in their head in a way that trascends the usual mental voice imitation of a single melodic line. It's actually quite common.

Same for mental visualization. People do actually hallucinate when reading books, for most people it's not conceptual at all.

I can simulate music very well actually, I'm better than visualizing actually. But when you simulate music it's clear that the music is inside your head and not coming from outer sensory input. In the same way you can vividly see an image but you aren't seeing it as literally existing in the outside world. The character's aren't standing next to your mom. It's in your "mind's eye".

You may be aphantasic.

It is common to simply assume that your perception of the world is similar to everyone's else.
If I'm reading a description I'll actualy hallucinate everything, and I'm not the only one in the thread. It will get to a point where reading is mechanical and imaginations just flows, without me having to actualy focus on it.

Same for music. My mother can at most imitate an instrument with her inner voice, a few friends of mine can actually hear a guitar but it will be messy. I can hear music with crystal clear quality.

Imagination is wildly different for everybody, and knowing what some people are actually able to do will just blow your mind.

What's this obsession with vision metaphors and image worship? That's pretty ridiculous. Apparently user didn't learn anything from Rimbaud, for example.

Jesus Christ, it was just a legit question made by an user that doens't know how relevant mental visualization is in reading.
And to be fair, how the fuck is he supposed to know that?

You explained it exactly, You see it but you don't. You're going to see black when you close your eyes, it has nothing to do with sight.

Spotted another clueless aphantasic.

>seeing spots

No, seriously. You're aphantasic, you just don't know it yet. You're the minority in there, most people can close their eyes and actually see things.

They're not hallucinations, mental imagery is not overlaid over your normal vision.

It is for me and for a few other anons in the thread.

Are you saying that your imagination is an hallucination, like other user's?

Yes, for the majority of population.
I've even met people who when they want to remember quotes they don't just pick them out of their brain, they actually hallucinate themselves reading the page and remember what was written on it.

Also if you can ask questions to local mathematicians involved in high math. They will tell you some sketchy stuff about how do they think about math.

>Yes, for the majority of population

lmao, no

As far as we know only 2% of the population is unable to do it.
As I said, if you're aphantasic it will be just mindblowing , almost unbelievable to you. Research it.

you're not funny

+1 for changing mi perspektive an 3tuff

When normal people imagine something it doesn't obscure their vision.

I rarely form any mental images when reading and i think thats the norm

holy shit you're stupid. read the post again because something is not getting through your skull. either that or you have no idea what the word "hallucinate" means

I don't even see images when I close my eyes its on another plane/dimesion

Stop being delusional, that's literally what happens for most people, me included, when we read.
When I say we hallucinate I mean it literally. As soon as you stop focusing on it all the visuals disappear.

You're probably aphantasic. I know it feels bonker but this is the norm for most people.

And here's another aphantasic.

>tfw at least 5 people in this thread discovered in teh last 24 hours that they actually have no imagination

but I can make any image in my head and do simultaneously while I read

>You're that kid I always knew
What an odd turn of phrase.

Anyhow, Eric Liddell ran like a total idiot and it did him no harm.

I went totally aphantasic for a while from an illness. I've found gradually going back to imagining shit to be a bit like learning to type, like there's a point where you just don't think about what you're doing but at the same time you're also not fucking up somehow (so in the case of reading just skimming).

One thing I've found quite useful is audio books, you can just lie back and gradually try to imagine shit. Also for some reason speeding up audio books helps. Reading is taking longer, but it's gradually happening.

even though im probably more creative imaginative with more words or speech than I am visually maybe theirs something to that desu

I dont hallucinate, it is more like mind pictures

When I remember a scene in my head, I can see the characters and the scenery

I get sort of general images in a darkish abyss. Nothing like a movie image, where the whole scene is "present" even though the focus of it is more like "2 guys in a room talking." My brain just pictures the two vaguely humanoid things, the fact that they're talking, and the fact that they're in a room. It's not really detailed in any of them.

I never understood detailed descriptions of scenery. If you tell me there are these kinds of flowers on the sill, I will get a general image of flowers on a sill, fine, but I won't "add" it to an original "image" of the whole room.

Same with facial descriptions. I find it very hard to imagine a face statically, and then alter it based on the ongoing description. ("He has a long nose. He has small eyes. He has a high brow.") I just speed through it and hope something vaguely fitting the character gels together.

If other people really do have a vivid moving picture, that'd be pretty neat.

Get a dictionary and learn what it means to hallucinate. If you were actually vividly hallucinating the images would block the words and you wouldn't be able to read retard.

If you are hallucinating you need to see a doctor

Same here

It's not your actual field of vision though. Your eyes are still reading the words on the page. It's just that your mind is giving primary focus to internal visuals and minimal attention to your visual surroundings.

I hope this is a subtle troll because its actually kind of funny

>what? you mean you don't hear literal voices speaking into your ear and breathing down your neck when you read? haha. what a brainlet. that's totally normal, i'm sorry you have no imagination. my imagination is so normal that sometimes the voices tell me things even when I'm not reading.

>subtle
It's pretty obvious.