I think I suffer from

When on nofap for extended periods I can visualize female curves in incredible detail, dunno if that counts.

It seems the ability to visualize is sort of a spectrum from none/barely any to very vivid. Neither group has any real problems, not even in spatial problem solving or whatever, personally I think the non-visualizers have exactly the same going on in their heads as the visualizers, except without having conscious access to it.
I remember a blog post by some non-visualizing facebook engineer (anecdote has it that people in the exact sciences/engineering are more often non-visualizers) who discovered that most people actually see stuff in their heads, it was pretty funny.
Some links:
lesswrong.com/lw/gq6/visual_mental_imagery_training/
Survey from 1880 about this subject:
psychclassics.yorku.ca/Galton/imagery.htm

lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/
forgot this one
Also plato.stanford has a relevant article, though it starts with the assumption that almost everyone has mental imagery.
plato.stanford.edu/entries/mental-imagery/

>lesswrong
ugh

Some of the articles are okay even if you're not aspiring to be a super-rationalist.

Wait, what? When you guys read books you don't visualize the scenario and characters in your head? If you're asked to visualize a 3x3 chess board you can't do it? I don't think it makes you any less smart but I never knew that other people couldn't do it.

I read words and I just knows what it means. If I try to think about what I'm reading then it's significantly slower.

obviously they can, they're just memeing
this disorder is very rare, there's no way they dont

You get better at it from doing nothing, just aging and shit.
It's a useless ability anyway.

But you can visualize, therefore you don't have aphantasia.

>Aphantasia is the suggested name for a condition where one does not possess a functioning mind's eye and cannot visualize imagery.[1]

Like said, you can visualize, therefore you don't have aphantasia. You just have women-tier spatial intelligence. Now that you know that, you can either go full verbal or train your spatial reasoning to a more adequate level.

I don't. My mind is constantly blank, if I visualize something it's not really visualizing, the best way to describe it is that I know what I'm thinking about and I see it behind a black "shroud." I can bring more vivid images to my mind if I'm really focusing on it or in dreams but mostly I live through my external senses.

If I read something I don't visualize anything. Basically what said. There's an emotional effect but it's more from associating the words with those emotions than visualizing anything in my head. I feel like this is how female brains must be. I still do pretty well in university but it feels like most of it comes subliminally.

Being impulsive and offending people is a huge problem too. I say things impulsively and it often leads to noticing that I don't even agree with what I said. It's acting based on impulsive feelings instead of rationalizing.

I was actually shocked to find out that people can actually clearly "see" something if they close their eyes, like imagining a beach. It's all black for me.

The same for me. I'm still unsure if other people are just exaggerating their experiences and ascribing it as cartoonish imagination. Or they geuinely have basically a small television in their head.

>obviously they can, they're just memeing
>this disorder is very rare, there's no way they dont
How can you possibly claim know what goes on inside other peoples heads?

Spatial intelligence is not related to mental visualization ability at all.

What about your memories? Do you recollect past events in images or words? How does that work?

>Do you recollect past events in images or words?
Neither, just thoughts.

work with yourself.

picture an apple, them attach a tree to the apple. spin them both.

presto

>I was actually shocked to find out that people can actually clearly "see" something if they close their eyes, like imagining a beach.

I don't think this is actually the case for most people. Otherwise there would be a lot more people able to draw well. Yet when most people will draw something from their mind they will draw in symbols.

By your logic everyone should draw an object well when looking directly at it.

Once I know what a word means, I stop visualizing it. I know what a lot of words means so I tend to have a blank mind a lot. I only visualize when I do not know what something means. This has never bothered me and I always assumed it was more efficient since visualizing takes more effort and reconstructing things I already know in intricate detail all day would be exhausting.

This is close to what I experience with a couple exceptions. When I go to the gym the impulsivity and emotional sensitivity vanishes though, and I tend to start involuntarily visualizing combinations of concepts I knew separately before but hadn't made any interesting connection between. Same when I go running or am driving, thinking becomes mostly involuntary and visual/combinatorial.

I feel I'm an exceptional visualizer.
I can recreate buildings or machines, down to the wires rather quickly.

Mechatronic engineer

Like said, it's just thoughts. It isn't in any specific form. I just know.

Thank you for the infographic fellow mechatronic maestro.

But people do generally draw a lot better from life than from imagination.

Sexagesimal is based on mesopotamians, not brainlet greeks.

that's pretty weird to me op. personally if i focus hard enough i can think of images and scenes with movie-tier graphics. but i have to use existing visual 'templates' or recombine them. which makes sense i suppose, its a lot harder to create an image from scratch

out of curiosity, can you guys even jerk-off without porn. How are you supposed to jerk off without porn if you can't imagine a woman bouncing on your benis?

>tfw tesla-tier hallucinations
ama

I would expect that it came out of India through mesopotamia into Greece

Sexigesimal 60 Base
In modern studies of ancient mathematics and astronomy

Notable Cultures or People

Europe
The sexagesimal number system continued to be frequently used by European astronomers for performing calculations as late as 1671.
In medieval Latin texts

Greek
Pythagoras of Samos
Pythagorean Cults
Hellenistic Greek astronomical texts
Ptolemy
Ptolemy's Almagest
Book VIII of Plato's Republic involves an allegory of marriage centered on the number 604 = 12960000 and its divisors. This number has the particularly simple sexagesimal representation 1,0,0,0,0. Later scholars have invoked both Babylonian mathematics and music theory in an attempt to explain this passage.
the Greek alphabetic numerals

Asia
The Chinese calendar, a sexagenary cycle is commonly used, in which days or years are named by positions in a sequence of ten stems and in another sequence of 12 branches. The same stem and branch repeat every 60 steps through this cycle.
Hindu-Arabic numeral
Sri Lanka
In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Tamil astronomers were found to make astronomical calculations, reckoning with shells using a mixture of decimal and sexagesimal notations developed by Hellenistic astronomers.

Australasia
the Ekari people of Western New Guinea.

Possibly Henry Briggs, used multiplication tables based on the sexagesimal system in the late 16th Century, to calculate sines.
John Wallis, in his Mathesis universalis
minuta secunda, minuta tertia

RH
5
Calculator
*
LH
12
Total Value
60

Actually, I agree with you. India probably got it from the same source.

Who is that source?

this is good point, kinda the proof that everyone know how to visualize at some level

When I get an idea for a new machine, I'm able to "set it up" in my mind and leave it running to see how it would work. My capacity for this was so developed that the results that I got in my mind were incredibly accurate. This was verified when it came to building prototypes for the new machine. I would already know exactly how it would perform because of my "Mind Lab" experiments.I can even run machines backwards in my head see where it would potentially fail etc.

Where do mechatronics people hang out? its so lonely

How did you know I'm a mechatronic, seriously it's my first post on this thread

Your accent gave it away

Stop

have you invented anything

do LSD, close eyes tell us if you see anything, you should absolutely see something

If you can visualize a triangle, square, circle and rectangle youre set.

Yes.
It's mostly complex software. But I'm pretty good with mechanics and used to build stuff all the time when I was in school. I've recently started sculpturing, advancing from figure drawing which I started a few years ago.

That's not the main application. I have very vivid visualizations, to the extent where I don't have to close my eyes to see them.
Something I can do easily - Take a small scale, look at it, then "stack" it in my mind over an object to see how tall/wide it is. It's almost always accurate.
I'm good enough with time to not wear a watch and still be correct around a minute.
I can "scan" faces of other people and sometimes when I visualise conversations I can see their disembodied faces talking in front of me
I was infatuated with my partner for a couple of months before we actually started. I could see her sitting on the edge of my bed when I felt deep longing, or naked when I was horny.
It's hard to describe, but I can see a program's structure when I'm planning it- it's like a three-dimensional hazy map of the thing.
I've also been told that I have crazy recall-I apparently remember stuff from when I was a year old and I can place most of it chronologically.
I ca also "record" entire conversations and revisit them later.
My memory is partially photographic-it takes me some effort but I can achieve a respectable degree of photographic recall.
The majority of this only works when I like what I'm trying to do. Trivial memory(no facts), short-term recall and recording is exempt from this, though.

I just have sexy thoughts if that makes sense>? It's possible that we're experiencing the same thing and that I'm just expressing it differently??

It might not be completely clear there, but "recording" involves everything, not just sound. It Even includes what I'm thinking at that point.

I got something like this but it's only for letters. I can make a graph with all sorts of weird things, visualize complex shapes and interactions etc. etc. etc. When it comes to trying to think what a letter looks like my mind just can't seem to make it. I try to see the letter A but instead it's like every A I have seen in my life is overlaying and rapidly shifting. It kinda hurts to think about.

I got dysgraphia though so maybe that's why

>picture an apple
everything screeches to a hault. I cant do that

I used to have an exceptionally visual memory and mental images, all open eye. I started taking mushrooms in college and after that I couldn't imagine things anymore, even if I closed my eyes. A lot of people say that mushrooms and lsd gave them a better imagination but it only took mine away from me.

I can visualize clearly but not like this user . The main problem/difference is nothing stays fixed. If I imagine three dogs, it is less than a second before two of them start dancing and one turns into a zebra (or whatever). If I really focus I can hold simple things stable for a short while.

Perhaps more interesting, and I don’t tell anyone but anonymously, if I close my eyes or look at any random pattern I will start seeing things. Not just shapes, but after a minute or so moving images quite like cartoons. They never talk to me or tell me to do bad things, or anything like that, but it still seems like a thing I should keep secret.

I'm This is why I'll never take drugs. Too great a risk for too little.
That doesn't happen to me, but sometimes when I'm anxious, horny or excited my mental clock goes out of sync. It used to be really difficult to get back into that "mindset" again to reset the clock, but here's what I did-
Make sure you can visualize the color spectrum in your mond. Take two colors, like dark yellow and light yellow, and progressively lighten/darken them until you reach the threshold after which differentiating between them would be impossible. If you can remember these colors, that's good. If you can't, increase their difference in saturation and pick the minimum of what you can remember. Then, whenever you are in a "stable" state, associate a color with that state. When your "state" changes significantly, associate another color with a saturation of your choice but with a vividly different hue to it. Then when you can see those projections when yu're in a "state", change the colors to enter another "state".

For you, this would entail selecting a color for the stable state and another hue for the unstable state and then transitioning from unstable to stable.

I forgot to mention- I use Hue/Saturation as State/Intensity. You can use the opposite but this feels easier for me personally.

I don't think drugs have f'ed me up. Too much.

I like to drink cough syrup with dxm every once in awhile and play super imagination.

Actual, you're probs right, don't do drugs. Whatever. :)

Do you count alcohol in drugs?

I don't even drink coffee

Plants were first feared and then worshiped because of the intoxicating liquors which were derived therefrom. Primitive man believed that intoxication rendered one divine. There was supposed to be something unusual and sacred about such an experience. Even in modern times alcohol is known as "spirits."

I can also sometimes very vividly see my imaginary girlfriend with me in my bed, and i also remember stuff from when I was like 2

I prefer not to masturbate without porn, as it takes real effort to visualize for me. I just end up trying to focus on small details like penetration/kissing/etc one at a time to get a somewhat clear image without too much mental strain.

mine wasn't imaginary, I had a real template to work off off.
>also remember stuff from when I was like 2
nice. Try writing down everything you can remember and read it a couple of years later - you'll be surprised at how much you associate certain aspects if that writing process with the way you currently feel.
>something divine
That's just the caveman not being able to explain uninhibited and irrational behavior because of a lack of a proper base to evaluate actions on.
>called "spirits"
"spirits" is also used to signify mood, what do you think about that?
Honestly, if it didn't have side effects I would try it but it just feels too scary to me. I don't trust myself not to do something dangerous and stupid while intoxicated.

omg, i feel sorry for people living in darkness like this, its like you are all blind

I just cant imagine how other minds work. Surely you dont actually see things when you close your eyes?
actually now that I think about it I'm not fully convinced I even dream visually, that or my recollections of dreams are only words based.

Alcohol is the most dangerous noninjected drug. It is crazy it is the legal one. I’ve tried pretty much all street drugs, hardly any have positive utility. Quite a few weren’t even fun. Cocaine was like a cup of coffee that made my face numb, I’m paying $100 for this?

I think I follow, and you’re suggesting with practice I could hold the images stable? Interesting, I’ve never tried to improve because it only seemed like it would be useful for drawing or art projects.

This is such a difficult for me to grasp. You have seen an apple before, can't you just remeber what it looks like? If I tell you to think of your mom's face, nothing comes up? You don't remember what she looks like?

Not the same user, I would get thoughts of my mom. But no, I wouldn't get a movie of my mom playing in my head. Would you get that?

Not him either, but I don't think being able to visualize faces is even that common, you just need to recognize them when they show up in real life which is a totally different ability.

>Surely you dont actually see things when you close your eyes?
Closing my eyes is not a requirement for that.
>Would you get that?
Not the user you're replying to.
yes, if I wanted it.
>Alcohol is the most dangerous noninjected drug. It is crazy it is the legal one. I’ve tried pretty much all street drugs, hardly any have positive utility. Quite a few weren’t even fun. Cocaine was like a cup of coffee that made my face numb, I’m paying $100 for this?
But I've read all these xperiences on the internet where they say that it shows the " a new reality" and stuff like that. Is that bs?
Is this correct? Alcohol >Smoking >Weed
>I think I follow, and you’re suggesting with practice I could hold the images stable?
yes. You could also move them around the way you want to.
>Interesting, I’ve never tried to improve because it only seemed like it would be useful for drawing or art projects
Getting creative with it once you've acquired it to a respectable degree is fun in itself. It's like a personal projector running at the speed of thought.

>Closing my eyes is not a requirement for that.
surely you dont see the things you imagine in front of your eyes. What do you actually count as visualization? I do know what my mothers face looks like and can imagine objects, bus as some have said when I do so with closed eyes its like im "seeing" them through a black haze.

Yeah I would. If I close my eyes I can play a made-up scene in vivid detail for as long as I can. I think if we were to switch brains we would both feel very freaked out.

As long as I want*. And like the other user said, I don't need to close my eyes either, but it becomes more intense if I do.

>surely you dont see the things you imagine in front of your eyes.
I do, in complete detail.
>What do you actually count as visualization
Anything I make up is visualization.
>black haze
It's not like that for me. Maybe it's just an effect of closing your eyes? Similar to how you can see red if you close your eyes facing the sun (because of blood)

>but it becomes more intense if I do.
It's different for me. I find it easier to continue in the state I've achieved than switching because then I have to "render" everything inconsequential to fill in the gaps and that derails my train of thought.

Are you a very verbal person?
Are you two less verbal than average?

are you unironically telling me that your visulization works like this gif?
I can imagine things, but its almost like theyre invisible, like I only know of them, but dont see it.

I don't do well at parties, if thats what you're asking. I think I come off as too strange to have around. I'm a nice guy, just don't have your interests.

not that guy, but i can visualize things without my eyes closed, but the image is much fainter, slightly transparent, than if were to imagine with my eyes closed. i'd be impressed if somebody could create images with that kind of solidity, with their eyes open. it would basically be like real life VR

>if I close my eyes or look at any random pattern I will start seeing things. Not just shapes, but after a minute or so moving images quite like cartoons. They never talk to me or tell me to do bad things, or anything like that, but it still seems like a thing I should keep secret.
this actually happens to me too, but mostly at night , if i just sit in the dark i'll start to see random geometric shapes dancing around, changing colors. there'll also be times i can see millions of little dots around me. the dot-field is single-colored though.

im not even good at math though desu, although i used to be into drawing when i was younger

Yeah fits my theory pretty much exactly, us visual thinkers aren't as social as the people that think more with words and less with pictures, I'm same as you, actually also a fellow mechatronic

I have pretty bad visual intuition and I'm antisocial as fuck. Your "theory" is crap, son.

Different guy here, I can visualize in my mind any scenes of a particularly vivid memory, including whole films/cartoons/shows with sound/music/voices. I can do that instantaneously but obviously not at full details, just based on memory, even with my eyes open, it's essentially like ignoring what your seeing and having an opaque frame of whatever the memory is. I use the same thing when reading, it just randomly generates what's being described, be it scenery, voices or character looks.

do you not read out loud in your head? do you have subverbal thoughts in your head? like a monologue? i have trouble thinking outside of visuals and mental verbalization. i can’t into instinctive problem solving without an interior theater type process underlying it. i wonder if we have opposite problems

What are you good at?

Yeah that's not the case, I can picture things in my head vividly but somewhere between my mind and my pen, shit gets lost.

How it isn't. It might not be entirely defined by it, but it's definitely related.

Not that guy too. I can visualize stuff like that gif. Not as vividly as it's portrayed, but pretty vividly. Strangely enough, I'm more verbal than spatial.

there are a lot more faculties used for drawing than just sight and visualization, good visualization ability will help you with proportion but not hand-eye coordination or manual dexterity

Smoking large amounts of DMT is trip to a different reality, but not a pleasant one. Nor is it some lasting Buddha enlightenment, more like you spend 10 minutes standing stock still because “I’m a fence post.” I never talked or saw the DMT fairies.

LSD, shrooms, peyote are more body trips and weird distortions; no seeing an apple that isn’t there. Except for one time when ‘time slowed down and broke’, honestly even when fun those were all kind of disappointing.

XTC, if pure, is quality fun, but the possible long term effects make me nervous. Alcohol is quality dangerous fun, but I’ve decided the hangovers aren’t worth it. (Not to mention possible death or prison from doing something stupid.) Tobacco is just dumb and doesn’t do anything but make you smell awful. Weed gives me auditory hallucinations where I can hear what other people are thinking. However instead of starting my new life over on /x/, I just don’t smoke weed because that’s crazy. (Most people don’t have the same reaction to weed obviously.)

Anyhow, I have speed of thought, what I need is speed of molasses. But thanks I’ll work on it.

Only in one color? Weird, do you dream in b&w?

If you practice speed reading you can probably learn to read without sub-vocalizations, but it makes reading less fun, personally.

this is where im getting confused. Yes I know what an apple looks like, I know what my moms face looks like. Is that what it means to "picture" something? I think theres a chance everyone here is the same but we're just describing the same thing different. Or not, idk. But there's no "picture"

nah i dream in color.

Yes, but it's in 3D. I can't do 2D.
It's like having a projector in my head.
>less verbal than average?
I'm above average verbally.
Thanks for the descriptions!
>‘time slowed down and broke’,
What does that mean?
can you "see" a visual representation of your thought inside your head??

user you're overthinking this. It's not like anyone has a picture of an apple overlaid over their normal vision coming through their eyes. It's an imaginary sort of "I can't put my finger on it" bit of visual stimuli that you kind of "see" but don't actually see, in flashes and clouds of sensory intensity so to speak.

Have you ever played a recording back at a slower speed? The voices get deep and everything moves slowly. Except in this case the playback kept getting slower and slower until nothing was moving. Then everything would shatter like a pane of glass breaking and I’d be back up to normal speed. After a bit everything would start slowing down again. Happened six times in a row.

Only one other hallucination has been so all-encompassing, I ate a strawberry and for a short while everything everywhere was strawberry. Which was annoying because just before that I was trying to have a sraight conversation my friend’s mom.

Actually the other time I was trying to talk to a ten year old while listening to my friends band. So I guess maybe if you want overwhelming, obtrusive hallucinations, try to have an intense sensory experience while talking to someone you’d rather not have find out you’re high.

>straight conversation with my friend’s mom

Mushrooms changed my life for the better. I'm quite possibly smarter because of mushrooms, they made me understand myself and tear down my ego which created a whole bunch of mental barriers within my head.

>Have you ever played a recording back at a slower speed? The voices get deep and everything moves slowly. Except in this case the playback kept getting slower and slower until nothing was moving. Then everything would shatter like a pane of glass breaking and I’d be back up to normal speed. After a bit everything would start slowing down again. Happened six times in a row.
Holy shit user this describes my experiences exactly and they were beyond horrifying

I thought that everything abstract, symbolic, and mythological, and I didn't take LSD I instead had opened pandora's box and just realized that I have always had it opened my entire "life" which is itself the only thing that actually exists, my consciousness, and I am just a God who tried to create a delusion so I wouldn't feel alone for a while, and this one was convincing but I'd realized my true nature and could never forget and time slowed down until absolute nothingness

The horror is only half the fun