I'm finally realizing that this is why I HATE guided meditation because often you are encouraged to visualize things such as a calming forest but I could never see anything and got frustrated.
hmmm… ive come to the opposite conclusion. but i guess i dont listen to meditations that make me visualize. usually they just point out whuch parts of the body you should guide your awareness to. so you can just be aware of the sensation and nothing else. in this type of guided meditation, i find aphantasia perfect.
It’s not that hard to accept if you think about. When your eyes are open your brain takes light hitting your eyes and then a signal goes to the part of the brain that process that visual signal. In most people there is also signal going from the prefrontal cortex to the visual processing area projecting the image into self awareness. Now only a small percentage are vivid visualizers. And there connections and brain activity between sections of the brain are stronger than most. So it’s like most people have a vhs replay, some have crystal clear high def mental dvr, and 3% can only see the live broadcast.
I talk in my head the same way I talk in real life, inflection and emotion. I’m always talking in my head. Like constantly. If I find myself not talking, I’ll hear music. If I get a song stuck in my head I can hear the actual song, not just my voice.
Wait I thought everyone could do that ? Like I hear my voice in my head, and when I read something that someone else wrote (like a comment), I imagine the voice of the person that wrote it based on what words the person uses. When I read a book, I also imagine a different voice for every character. I also constantly hear songs, but not with my voice. Like people imagine songs with their own voice, not with the singer's voice ? I didn't know that.
I have hyperphantasia and it means I can scare myself very easily. If I imagine a wolf around the corner, I know there isn't one but it's so vivid that I am frozen in fear for a second. Sometimes the thing I imagine are too intense but at least I never get bored
Me too! I couldn’t sleep for a week after I watched IT because I kept imagining Pennywise lurking in my bedroom lol. I’m so glad that I have hyperphantasia though because I think the positives outweigh the negatives
Reading a book I feel is the biggest loss for aphantasia. I was never into books but after hearing how others actually picture the scenes in their heads it blew my mind. Like I'm 100% missing out on an experience there but hey at least we have movies :)
I don't read a lot of books, but the ones I have read, is books from movies, so it was really easy to imagine the environments and characters from the movies when reading the books, but you kind of make me want to read a random book just to use my visual imagination in a more creative way when reading books.
Weirdly I am a massive book nerd even with aphantasia, but that's because I get engrossed in the characters' personalities and world building. But yes, its a completely different experience when watching it adapted and actually seeing it happen and know what everything actually looks like.
Something I've noticed with visualisation of rooms is that it's usually a room I've spent much time in, e.g. lived in or schooled in, just decorated to how its described in the book. And most the time I don't even register that it's the same room. It also happens in dreams. Sometimes as I'm falling asleep I just disappear to a homely location and survey it. And there is a lucid dreaming technique where you this purposefully (traverse and indoor landscape you know well) until you fall asleep. I've also heard that we can't visualise/dream about faces that we haven't seen before in real life. So I'm like that with rooms. I can read a book years later and remember the exact way I visualised a room and realise it's because it was one of my childhood homes 😮
has anyone seen the squirmy worm like things when looking at the sky... its like they're inside the eye and they're completely translucent....saw them as a child first..they still there at 40...weird
@@senselessDesires666 “Eye floaters are dots or specks in a person's vision that seem to float away when the person tries to look directly at them. They are made up of the vitreous of the eye, and in most cases, they are completely normal. The vitreous is the clear, gel-like substance that fills out most of the eye.”
So people can actually see something with their eyes closed like when they have their eyes open when they visualise something??? I feel like that’s not possible
Yea that doesn’t ... like people can see something completely with there eyes closed ?? Like I feel like I know it’s there , and sometimes I can “see it” but it’s not like I feel like I can see it
We can do it with our eyes open, too. When you're talking to someone, watch their eyes. Occasionally you might catch them flitting about at nothing at all. They're probably very actively visualising something at that time.
I don't know if I have full on Aphantasia because I still get weak "flashes" of memory every now and again. But If you ask me to visualise something it's just not happening. Audio-wise, I'm like Luke, there's literally like 3 songs playing in my head right now - along with my inner monologue/subvocalisation - which is literally just as if I was talking/reading outloud
6:00 I SEE IN BETWEEN RED AND GREEN ALL THE TIME!!! I also have synesthesia and can see music and stuff and some concepts have noises or a place in front of me or a personality it’s really weird
WAIT omg me too! I don't have synesthesia but I see the between red and green color all the time! Also I thought it was crazy that I do the same thing Luke does where I can hear the sounds in my head perfectly but I can't see anything.
So recently i‘ve read an article about aphantasia. There was a group of scientists in 2015 who figured out two main types of aphantasia. First type: complete blindness (I think it was sth as “absolute Aphantasie” -was a German article) Second type: only able to “see” sth if someone is relaxed and doesn’t force their mind to create an image (willentliche Aphantasie)
01:50 Whenever I picture something because I'm told to, I vizualize things in an animation and for some reason the colors and material of the things I'm told to see are always changing XD. When I vizualized the ball I was arguing with myself about whether I wanted it to be red or blue and then it spiralled out of control and it basically was switching beetween every color of the rainbow. The table also changed but it was dark wood and then white plastic.
Wait i actually know exactly what Luke is talking about, i have an inner monologue and visual, smelling, touch and tasting aphantasia and i get the colour thing. i can only really do it when i’m in a dark room or after i’ve looked into a light but i see colours that i haven’t seen in real life before
I get that too. It's like little dots that are changing shape. But I always felt like they were alternating between red and green instead of being both at the same time, but also kinda not, which is also something that doesn't show up on real life, so yeah
Loads of people in the comments seem really confused about the idea of “seeing” with your eyes closed. But it’s exactly the same as “hearing” music or an internal monologue in your head.
It's only recently that I've been aware of my thoughts that are not in words because I was aware that I had those thoughts but I was never able to observe them or stop them and now I can sometimes which is how I've realised that they are the main cause of my anxiety
My mind is blown. *How can you not?!* The ball is consistently falling off the short side of a rectangular mahogany table, is green or w/e. All of the details are subject to imagination. Aphantasia is not the lack or dearth of imagination, but I don't understand why they cannot Invision it...male here, the fact that women can perceive colors in higher depth is neat, but like everything, prolly varies person to person.
A few things that felt interesting to me, but I'm not sure if are just super common. Closing eyes made it harder to visualise. I was doing the test from video info links and was trying to visualise someone very close to me I just saw yesterday. Had trouble thinking of her head poses and anything close range as if having mental lack of closeup. Saw her walk and posture well visualising a view of her from a balcony to ground, about second floor. Like someone in your vid interview episode, I can remember feelings better than actual images. I could visualize a local store better than family members. The table was real experience, ball imaginary. And my landscape was painted rather than photorealistic until weather changes. Imagined things were much more vivid than memory based. Only listing these because I seem to jump around between levels of phantasia. Images are half opacity and my bar was a mix of Cheers type layout but shiny black dark space with Jessica Jones mood. I'm wondering whether others are as varied. I'm most motivated by imaginary visuals and empathy, mood and anything like numbers just won't stick.
I've always had some degree of aphantasia, but it went from difficulty picturing things to absolutely no mental images after I had brain surgery. That's been almost 15 years ago, so I've pretty much forgotten what it was like being able to visualize anything at all.
I just recently found out that I have aphantasia and also no inner monolog. It's weird to explain, but seemingly all processing of information happens in the dark, and I just eventually say something or know something after a moment of nothingness in which I look like I'm thinking, but in actuality I'm just staring into blank space waiting for my brain to be done processing. Honestly very weird now that I know it's not like this for everyone
The test I've done since 1980 with a lot of people is close your eyes, picture a yellow cat on a green lawn in front of a brick house with trees behind, a blue sky with puffy white clouds. Then have a car drive by in front and listen to the engine and the tires on the road. Also get the feel of a balmy summer day with the smell of roses in the air. With all the people I've asked only one (not including myself) had nothing but blackness and no other sensory perceptions. You have to grill the people and ask can you actually see and sense these things or are they simply concepts in a field of blackness. Interesting talking to people who read fantasy fiction that they can visualize the entire world in their mind as they are reading. For me reading a book by the time I get to the end even though concepts might be interesting, if asked specifics about it I will barely remember anything the next day. There are different levels of this condition going from 100% down to pitch black.
I imagined the ball. It was a brick red rubber ball about the size of a baseball. And that was before the rest of the instructions. Once they mentioned a table, my mind's eye had to "drop" the red ball, and generated a dark red-brown wooden table with a glossy finish. The ball bounced and rolled off the table before they even asked me to push it off in the verbal instructions. My vision also had the guys in the background, kinda blurry, looking on. I also have a VERY verbose internal narrator and a little music streaming service in there too playing songs I haven't heard in years, randomly. Hyperphantasia can be SUPER distracting...
Yeah I definitely got hyperphantasia. And I guide through guided meditations. Since I’ve learned more about aphantasia I’ve started to think of ways to do that that doesn’t demand people to be able to visualise things. It’s hard, but I shall crack it. Usually when I work one on one with people I ask if they can see, feel or hear things the best (within themselves) and choose a way that they are susceptible to. I’m trying to figure out how to do it with groups. I’ll probably talk about that on my own channel soon enough.
I've been wondering if everyone experiences all 5 senses on a level of 1-5 in their mind. Like when I try to imagine my child, I can't picture him in my head at all (level 1 visual), I can sort of hear his voice and bring up his scent (level 3 sound and smell), but I can viscerally feel him physically like a warm weight on my body (level 5 touch). I can't relive something I've only experienced visually but not physically (ie watching porn vs having sex) as I need to relive the physical sensations in order to remember something. My co-worker is very audio driven in that he can hear entire symphonies in his head, breaking down individual instruments, but he is only about a level 2 or 3 visually. My husband can relive the taste of the best pizza he's ever had very clearly but can't imagine a warm hug and actually feel it on his skin. It's so fascinating to me that we all experience memory so differently.
For anyone interested in the green/red thing I used nail polish to mix them and it came out kinda bronze. 2 parts Red (#A40000) + 1 part Green (#A4C639) = Bronze (#EFDECD is the closest I could get. You can see both the red and the green, it is kinda neat)
for anyone interested in seeing a color like this, look up the philodendron micans, or "velvet leaf philodendron", especially if you can see it in person. it genuinely looks simultaneously red and green, it often looks brownish on camera or at certain angles
Have hyperphantasia but pretty sure I had like a temporary aphantasia when my CPTSD repressed emotions and memories for me. I would try to imagine things and it was like hitting a wall of pure void when I closed my eyes.
I have an easy time imagining or remembering sounds, smells, touch and emotions, but it gets really difficult with visuals. No matter if somebody tells me to imagine something or if I try to remember someone, the image is super blurry and constantly morphing at a breakneck pace. If I try to imagine a horse in a meadow for example, the horse might grow and shrink, get turned upside down, turn into a zebra or a mule, lose it's head, explode and become neon green within half a second. The trees in the meadow will change or dissapear, the floor will be replaced with lava or the endless void. It's really as if my brain is showing me a million blurry fiche images of all the possible ways a horse in a meadow could exist. This makes me pretty great at word association games, pictionary and really anything where you have to be creative, but it also means that I never really know what somebody or something looks like and over time I've just stopped caring, so now I barely even look at people since visuals are useless to me..
So can anyone imagine with their eyes open? I can imagine a ball rolling off a table and bouncing on the ground in front of me, and if I walk around the table, I can imagine that. I can also twist, turn the table inside out, upside down, shrink, grow, literally anything. I can imagine literally anything. It's like the pink elephant thing. I can walk through a house in my head from a bunch of different angles. I can tip the house on its side and see everything fall. Can anyone else do stuff like that?
I can also do things like that, do you ever make yourself taste/smell/feel/see something you don’t want to? Like if I hear the word sand, sometimes I’ll accidentally imagine the texture of it in my mouth and feel sick
I get a similar effect, almost like seeing something in your peripheral vision, but when you try to focus on it it is gone. I can't recall faces at all in my head and when I try to picture things in my brain it is like I see it out the window of a fast moving car. Gone as soon as I see it.
I do the same thing my colors are yellow and orange and it comes out to like a brown color and when I close my eyes it’s like the scene from ratatouille when he was eating and the colors exploded
It's so insane to think that people actually see stuff clearly in their minds like ?????? I mean, I *can* see bits and pieces of things (like one leg of the table or the part of the ball which the light is directly hitting) but it's always either blurry, colourless, or like a child's drawing (or a combination of all of this things at once) and it always goes away really fast. I can also fill in the details later on, but it's less in image form than it is in concept form. But I can imagine feelings really well. Like, for example, when I'm reading something that's describing a calming and tranquil forest or whatever, instead of picturing the forest, I *feel* calm and tranquil and then build the image (again,either more conceptually than imagetically, or in that fleeting blurry-b&w-child's drawing way) from there. Thoughts are just so weird, man, idk
The only time I can see thing in my minds eye in a visual sense but conceptually I see very well I can even turn objects pretty well in my mind. I actually can visualize these concepts with my eyes open. I drift off in conversations because my mind is always conceptualizing something. I can be having a coherent conversation and create a visual concept in my mind I never realized I had Aphantasia until a few days ago. I used to be into meditation and I would hate it and get anxious because all I could see was black. Like I can conceptualize things but when I have my eyes closed too long I see scary shit in my mind because in my physical life I hate pitch black darkness. But in response to the sun comment he made I feel him when I used to meditate because I wouldn’t see things I would face the sun with my eyes closed so the sun would reflect on my eyelids and I would see pulsating colors and shapes. It helped me visualize things I could conceptualize kind of but not really but very cool if you have this give it a try but don’t look at the sun directly make sure you have your eyes closed. I don’t think it effects your eyes if your eye lids are covering them
question about internal monologue, i think in full comprehensive sentences but can stop at any point, it’s like i’m speaking but it’s not out load, anyone else?
That's what confuses me... I can't see literally, I just see the absolute void of my eyes closed. But with my eyes open and a actually reasonable amount of time, I can "create" in my mind the thing being asked out of its concept or remember a specific memory that includes the thing. It is really hard to move it tho, specially if it's a movement I never saw the thing do irl (like a specific body shape doing a flight move I've only seen in other body types in movies per example)
All the suggested videos after this are meant to shock people who can picture things and teach them about those who cant. Ugh, i need a video that explains how people CAN picture things like what.
i'm thinking i have hyperphantasia coz everyone i've spoken to can't visualise shit as much as i do. i can literally teleport myself to anywhere in the world and feel everything that's there, with all 5 senses
@@Llopside Well I can see it as an image, but like a second layer, the primary visual image is projected from the light rays so it doesn't really have any mental rendering needed, the secondary imaginary layer needs some concentration and can switch back to the primary layer based on that concentration, which is why it is easier for some people to imagine things with their eyes closed, or in a dark environment, where nothing is intervening with your concentration of what you are trying to see/imagine driving your focus away from imagination and back to reality, I think, for me it is pretty close to physical sense with both my eyes open and closed, And I think that is how it is for most people. When I imagine an apple I can see the apple and what is behind the apple at the same time, but I am guessing some people can see the apple so clearly that they can't even see what's behind the apple.
For me its like I know I have a memory of the object place or thing youre asking me to think about and its just frustrating me bc I KNOW I KNOW but I cant see it so then it doesnt conceptualize properly, like if you wanted me to draw you the image it would be very cartoon like unless you gave me an image to copy
Like people that design such detailed mystical creatures... how does your mind even ??? How can you mix completely different animals/beings in such an effortless way??? No way I can create something more than a cartoon without reference, or tons and tons of erasing, redoing, and eventually frustration that leads to me just not completing most projects
"Everyone else's left leg is always sore, right?" Me: *Spent their entire life believing that everyone was in some level of constant pain but everyone else could cope with it and therefore didn't talk about it* I have fibromyalgia...
i can imagine without close ir eyes thats too easy for me to open my eyes and think a things in ur mind but its not hard also to imagine with close ur eyes...;)
It was being on mushrooms that made me realize I had aphantasia actually. I was trying to Astral project and couldn't understand visualizing anything because I can't do it. Thats when I started looking into it lol
Yes back when LSD was the thing in the 60's I thought hallucinating meant I would be able to see things and not that things that people see become distorted. I think even back then I knew something was different.
This is all very strange. Does anyone experience everything all at once all the time? Kind of like looking at a DVD disk and watching the whole movie but instantaneously? If you dont then how are you determining what you are going to think about?
Yes most of my day to day thoughts are like that Only time I think I words is if I'm recalling or practicing a conversation otherwise it's just a movie in my mind Sometimes my thoughts are so vivid and distracting I can walk somewhere and have no recollection of my journey as I was so immersed in my own thoughts
damn I'd be interested to try out that test with the dots/stripes shown to different eyes, because one of my eyes has significantly worse vision than the other, so my brain is always in that mode of shutting down half of my vision because it is just constant blur. but I do have a pretty vivid minds eye so like, if I visualise the pattern thats then shown to my bad eye.. I wonder which I would see? 🤔
this is so fascinating, i think i have hyper ultra super duper fantasia, i speak 5 language and in my head each one have their own personality and way of thinking and also wildly different accent, and i constantly having discussion with all of them all the time, even when im dreaming, and i always remember all my dream vividly, and most of them are insanely wild scifi and ultra fantasy type of dream i can easily construct anything in my mind, picture, sound, taste, touch sensation, smell, pain and pleasure, well just about anything, in my diet i just reconstruct my memory of eating steak and that's enough to stave off my craving, i can see it clearly the shape of the steak, its texture, its smell and obviously its taste i cant imagine living without being able to imagine things, that is so dreadful, no offense but i rather die a thousand death than having a constant black wall in my mind. I thought everyone was like me, every human have their own imaginary construct and constant inner monologue, aphantasia is blowing my mind
Ya bruh what, i cant see anything. Colours and sparkles. In school if the teacher asked me to close my eyes visualize something, i would keep my eyes open because i found it easier than closing my eyes
i found i think that i have aphantasia. so i exercised feeling and merged it with something i see when in real life for 3 hours now and that ball exercise I FINALY SEE A STUPID FOOT BALL that fell off nothing and now I'm happy but honestly it had darkness as a color and had grey lining thingy and a really faint outline yay now i sleep.
What do you do when in a room alone? Maby you should force boredom on your mind and try to force it to do something creative to entertain you aha, usually after a while people start to hallucinate
@@Heuwelman I just think. I can talk very under my breath to have monologue. That in turn means thinking is different when speaking or underwater. I am a game designer on the art side. So creativity can be done. I can't imagine personality for anything though. Personality feels like an illusive concept. That last part may just be me.
AVID reader until they took away pictures. Then clueless. Extra words that meant nothing to me adjectives and adverbs. Just bored me so stopped reading after college. I was always the weird one. I saw the first video and started to cry cause I knew the answer before she asked. I am not crazy. It affected relationships. Neither of us knew.
I feel like if i asked my friends if they can picture stuff they will be on the same page as me and say no but yall are saying that im the minority??? Guess i wont believe it until i test…
Imagine being a pioneer and studying something and really contributing to something, and your name is completely mispronounced and laughed about. Cool cool cool.
I'm finally realizing that this is why I HATE guided meditation because often you are encouraged to visualize things such as a calming forest but I could never see anything and got frustrated.
Bro same, I also hate the breathing stuff because they tell me to “breathe in, breathe out” and all of a sudden I forget how tf to breathe.
I realized I had it because of guided meditation on mushrooms it tripped me right out people can see things lol
hmmm… ive come to the opposite conclusion. but i guess i dont listen to meditations that make me visualize. usually they just point out whuch parts of the body you should guide your awareness to. so you can just be aware of the sensation and nothing else. in this type of guided meditation, i find aphantasia perfect.
yeah i felt this
When I found out people could "see" things with their eyes closed I was baffled. I just can't understand how you can see something without seeing it
it's crazy to me how ppl can't, i can literally teleport myself to anywhere in the world and see/feel everything that's there (even w my eyes open)
It’s not that hard to accept if you think about. When your eyes are open your brain takes light hitting your eyes and then a signal goes to the part of the brain that process that visual signal. In most people there is also signal going from the prefrontal cortex to the visual processing area projecting the image into self awareness. Now only a small percentage are vivid visualizers. And there connections and brain activity between sections of the brain are stronger than most.
So it’s like most people have a vhs replay, some have crystal clear high def mental dvr, and 3% can only see the live broadcast.
I talk in my head the same way I talk in real life, inflection and emotion. I’m always talking in my head. Like constantly. If I find myself not talking, I’ll hear music. If I get a song stuck in my head I can hear the actual song, not just my voice.
This is me. I’ve got bpd though so I figured it’s that. I have this too.
Wait I thought everyone could do that ? Like I hear my voice in my head, and when I read something that someone else wrote (like a comment), I imagine the voice of the person that wrote it based on what words the person uses. When I read a book, I also imagine a different voice for every character. I also constantly hear songs, but not with my voice. Like people imagine songs with their own voice, not with the singer's voice ? I didn't know that.
I have hyperphantasia and it means I can scare myself very easily. If I imagine a wolf around the corner, I know there isn't one but it's so vivid that I am frozen in fear for a second. Sometimes the thing I imagine are too intense but at least I never get bored
Me too! I couldn’t sleep for a week after I watched IT because I kept imagining Pennywise lurking in my bedroom lol. I’m so glad that I have hyperphantasia though because I think the positives outweigh the negatives
@@yoinksscoob4889 yeah same!
Me too!
🤝
Jealous. I used to fantasise that this was something I could achieve through power of will. To me you have superpowers
I can picture stuff that I've seen before, but I can't imagine anything new and be able to see it
hi, that is exactly how it works for me too
Reading a book I feel is the biggest loss for aphantasia. I was never into books but after hearing how others actually picture the scenes in their heads it blew my mind. Like I'm 100% missing out on an experience there but hey at least we have movies :)
I don't read a lot of books, but the ones I have read, is books from movies, so it was really easy to imagine the environments and characters from the movies when reading the books, but you kind of make me want to read a random book just to use my visual imagination in a more creative way when reading books.
Weirdly I am a massive book nerd even with aphantasia, but that's because I get engrossed in the characters' personalities and world building. But yes, its a completely different experience when watching it adapted and actually seeing it happen and know what everything actually looks like.
Something I've noticed with visualisation of rooms is that it's usually a room I've spent much time in, e.g. lived in or schooled in, just decorated to how its described in the book. And most the time I don't even register that it's the same room. It also happens in dreams. Sometimes as I'm falling asleep I just disappear to a homely location and survey it. And there is a lucid dreaming technique where you this purposefully (traverse and indoor landscape you know well) until you fall asleep. I've also heard that we can't visualise/dream about faces that we haven't seen before in real life. So I'm like that with rooms. I can read a book years later and remember the exact way I visualised a room and realise it's because it was one of my childhood homes 😮
For me my mental picture blocks the view of the book so I can’t read then 😂
i visualise a lot better with my eyes open, like imagining a set up of whatever i’m creating or imagining in terms of building creative stuff
I'm the Biomed student lol
you are greatly appreciated
Like ATM said, u are v much appreciated. Also thanks for talking in this, I liked ur input :)
You go gurl
has anyone seen the squirmy worm like things when looking at the sky... its like they're inside the eye and they're completely translucent....saw them as a child first..they still there at 40...weird
@@senselessDesires666 “Eye floaters are dots or specks in a person's vision that seem to float away when the person tries to look directly at them. They are made up of the vitreous of the eye, and in most cases, they are completely normal. The vitreous is the clear, gel-like substance that fills out most of the eye.”
I'm 69 years old. Last year after a conversation with my daughter I realized I have aphantasia and no internal dialogue. It explains a lot!
So people can actually see something with their eyes closed like when they have their eyes open when they visualise something??? I feel like that’s not possible
Same me and my sister both have aphantasia
Yea that doesn’t ... like people can see something completely with there eyes closed ?? Like I feel like I know it’s there , and sometimes I can “see it” but it’s not like I feel like I can see it
We can do it with our eyes open, too. When you're talking to someone, watch their eyes. Occasionally you might catch them flitting about at nothing at all. They're probably very actively visualising something at that time.
The idea of seeing things in my mind scares me because when I try to see people especially they look scary af
ikr
I don't know if I have full on Aphantasia because I still get weak "flashes" of memory every now and again. But If you ask me to visualise something it's just not happening.
Audio-wise, I'm like Luke, there's literally like 3 songs playing in my head right now - along with my inner monologue/subvocalisation - which is literally just as if I was talking/reading outloud
Same!
6:00 I SEE IN BETWEEN RED AND GREEN ALL THE TIME!!! I also have synesthesia and can see music and stuff and some concepts have noises or a place in front of me or a personality it’s really weird
WAIT omg me too! I don't have synesthesia but I see the between red and green color all the time! Also I thought it was crazy that I do the same thing Luke does where I can hear the sounds in my head perfectly but I can't see anything.
S Rolfe that’s so cool brains are awesome
@@smeliotstinky ikr they are so cool and so complicated
Reend
lmao I think this red and green thing is just what we call an “after image” 😂😂
OH MY GOD I just realized that not everyone has a constant obnoxious internal monologue!!!
So recently i‘ve read an article about aphantasia. There was a group of scientists in 2015 who figured out two main types of aphantasia.
First type: complete blindness (I think it was sth as “absolute Aphantasie” -was a German article)
Second type: only able to “see” sth if someone is relaxed and doesn’t force their mind to create an image (willentliche Aphantasie)
01:50 Whenever I picture something because I'm told to, I vizualize things in an animation and for some reason the colors and material of the things I'm told to see are always changing XD. When I vizualized the ball I was arguing with myself about whether I wanted it to be red or blue and then it spiralled out of control and it basically was switching beetween every color of the rainbow. The table also changed but it was dark wood and then white plastic.
Aphant gang 😤👌 rise up
Wait i actually know exactly what Luke is talking about, i have an inner monologue and visual, smelling, touch and tasting aphantasia and i get the colour thing. i can only really do it when i’m in a dark room or after i’ve looked into a light but i see colours that i haven’t seen in real life before
I get that too. It's like little dots that are changing shape. But I always felt like they were alternating between red and green instead of being both at the same time, but also kinda not, which is also something that doesn't show up on real life, so yeah
Loads of people in the comments seem really confused about the idea of “seeing” with your eyes closed.
But it’s exactly the same as “hearing” music or an internal monologue in your head.
Don't have them either unfortunately
It's only recently that I've been aware of my thoughts that are not in words because I was aware that I had those thoughts but I was never able to observe them or stop them and now I can sometimes which is how I've realised that they are the main cause of my anxiety
I can’t visualise ANYTHING. Like I can’t imagine taste, sounds, texture etc.
It's really weird to think other people can do that
My mind is blown. *How can you not?!* The ball is consistently falling off the short side of a rectangular mahogany table, is green or w/e. All of the details are subject to imagination. Aphantasia is not the lack or dearth of imagination, but I don't understand why they cannot Invision it...male here, the fact that women can perceive colors in higher depth is neat, but like everything, prolly varies person to person.
i can do sound but that's about it hahaha
i use the feelings around me while i sit like a blanket warming you're back then you picture a place
@@z_ed Nope, there are a small percentage of people who have absolute blackness when trying to visualize for their entire lives. Zero.
seeing all these people with aphantasia make me feel a hellva lot less alone :)
A few things that felt interesting to me, but I'm not sure if are just super common. Closing eyes made it harder to visualise. I was doing the test from video info links and was trying to visualise someone very close to me I just saw yesterday. Had trouble thinking of her head poses and anything close range as if having mental lack of closeup. Saw her walk and posture well visualising a view of her from a balcony to ground, about second floor. Like someone in your vid interview episode, I can remember feelings better than actual images. I could visualize a local store better than family members. The table was real experience, ball imaginary. And my landscape was painted rather than photorealistic until weather changes. Imagined things were much more vivid than memory based. Only listing these because I seem to jump around between levels of phantasia. Images are half opacity and my bar was a mix of Cheers type layout but shiny black dark space with Jessica Jones mood. I'm wondering whether others are as varied. I'm most motivated by imaginary visuals and empathy, mood and anything like numbers just won't stick.
26:16
This was me realizing that not everybody is asexual
I imagined a 3D model of a table and a ball in Blender, all grey xD
I've always had some degree of aphantasia, but it went from difficulty picturing things to absolutely no mental images after I had brain surgery. That's been almost 15 years ago, so I've pretty much forgotten what it was like being able to visualize anything at all.
I just recently found out that I have aphantasia and also no inner monolog. It's weird to explain, but seemingly all processing of information happens in the dark, and I just eventually say something or know something after a moment of nothingness in which I look like I'm thinking, but in actuality I'm just staring into blank space waiting for my brain to be done processing. Honestly very weird now that I know it's not like this for everyone
Same😂
The test I've done since 1980 with a lot of people is close your eyes, picture a yellow cat on a green lawn in front of a brick house with trees behind, a blue sky with puffy white clouds. Then have a car drive by in front and listen to the engine and the tires on the road. Also get the feel of a balmy summer day with the smell of roses in the air. With all the people I've asked only one (not including myself) had nothing but blackness and no other sensory perceptions. You have to grill the people and ask can you actually see and sense these things or are they simply concepts in a field of blackness. Interesting talking to people who read fantasy fiction that they can visualize the entire world in their mind as they are reading. For me reading a book by the time I get to the end even though concepts might be interesting, if asked specifics about it I will barely remember anything the next day. There are different levels of this condition going from 100% down to pitch black.
I think I see images based on memories and have a pretty intense internal dialogue too. It’s pretty loud in my brain 🙃
I imagined the ball. It was a brick red rubber ball about the size of a baseball. And that was before the rest of the instructions. Once they mentioned a table, my mind's eye had to "drop" the red ball, and generated a dark red-brown wooden table with a glossy finish. The ball bounced and rolled off the table before they even asked me to push it off in the verbal instructions. My vision also had the guys in the background, kinda blurry, looking on. I also have a VERY verbose internal narrator and a little music streaming service in there too playing songs I haven't heard in years, randomly. Hyperphantasia can be SUPER distracting...
as someone who has Aphantasi and done phycidalecs I do see colors and patterns when I close my eyes
...noted
I just figured out that I don't have aphantasia after all! I'm just really good at meditating, emptying my mind, and stopping my thoughts.
my ball was red and my table was light brown wood lol
When I close my eyes I do the same thing as luke where I've got weird swirlid colours
Same I thought he was crazy but then closed my eyes and saw the exact same thing 😂
Yeah I definitely got hyperphantasia. And I guide through guided meditations. Since I’ve learned more about aphantasia I’ve started to think of ways to do that that doesn’t demand people to be able to visualise things. It’s hard, but I shall crack it. Usually when I work one on one with people I ask if they can see, feel or hear things the best (within themselves) and choose a way that they are susceptible to. I’m trying to figure out how to do it with groups. I’ll probably talk about that on my own channel soon enough.
I've been wondering if everyone experiences all 5 senses on a level of 1-5 in their mind. Like when I try to imagine my child, I can't picture him in my head at all (level 1 visual), I can sort of hear his voice and bring up his scent (level 3 sound and smell), but I can viscerally feel him physically like a warm weight on my body (level 5 touch). I can't relive something I've only experienced visually but not physically (ie watching porn vs having sex) as I need to relive the physical sensations in order to remember something. My co-worker is very audio driven in that he can hear entire symphonies in his head, breaking down individual instruments, but he is only about a level 2 or 3 visually. My husband can relive the taste of the best pizza he's ever had very clearly but can't imagine a warm hug and actually feel it on his skin. It's so fascinating to me that we all experience memory so differently.
For anyone interested in the green/red thing I used nail polish to mix them and it came out kinda bronze. 2 parts Red (#A40000) + 1 part Green (#A4C639) = Bronze (#EFDECD is the closest I could get. You can see both the red and the green, it is kinda neat)
for anyone interested in seeing a color like this, look up the philodendron micans, or "velvet leaf philodendron", especially if you can see it in person. it genuinely looks simultaneously red and green, it often looks brownish on camera or at certain angles
Have hyperphantasia but pretty sure I had like a temporary aphantasia when my CPTSD repressed emotions and memories for me. I would try to imagine things and it was like hitting a wall of pure void when I closed my eyes.
I have an easy time imagining or remembering sounds, smells, touch and emotions, but it gets really difficult with visuals.
No matter if somebody tells me to imagine something or if I try to remember someone, the image is super blurry and constantly morphing at a breakneck pace.
If I try to imagine a horse in a meadow for example, the horse might grow and shrink, get turned upside down, turn into a zebra or a mule, lose it's head, explode and become neon green within half a second.
The trees in the meadow will change or dissapear, the floor will be replaced with lava or the endless void.
It's really as if my brain is showing me a million blurry fiche images of all the possible ways a horse in a meadow could exist.
This makes me pretty great at word association games, pictionary and really anything where you have to be creative, but it also means that I never really know what somebody or something looks like and over time I've just stopped caring, so now I barely even look at people since visuals are useless to me..
Yes...that...in a variety of greys. Never colors
So can anyone imagine with their eyes open? I can imagine a ball rolling off a table and bouncing on the ground in front of me, and if I walk around the table, I can imagine that. I can also twist, turn the table inside out, upside down, shrink, grow, literally anything. I can imagine literally anything. It's like the pink elephant thing. I can walk through a house in my head from a bunch of different angles. I can tip the house on its side and see everything fall. Can anyone else do stuff like that?
I can do stuff like that but if I'm tired then it's difficult to have control over it, like the table will turn one way but not the other
I can also do things like that, do you ever make yourself taste/smell/feel/see something you don’t want to? Like if I hear the word sand, sometimes I’ll accidentally imagine the texture of it in my mouth and feel sick
can you lend some imagination please
Isn’t that hyperphantasia?
@@helenapues700 indeed
Wow! 54 years of having no idea I have Aphantasia.
The BL thing was so cool and funny at the same time
This is weird but I had a crystal ball on the shadow of a table but I couldn't keep the image in my head for more than a split second.
But I couldn't properly see it but I also can if that makes sense??
I get a similar effect, almost like seeing something in your peripheral vision, but when you try to focus on it it is gone. I can't recall faces at all in my head and when I try to picture things in my brain it is like I see it out the window of a fast moving car. Gone as soon as I see it.
Same but I think it's because I have ADHD. It's easier to hold on to the image with meds.
I had three different colors for my ball overlapping on a nice tan stained table
I do the same thing my colors are yellow and orange and it comes out to like a brown color and when I close my eyes it’s like the scene from ratatouille when he was eating and the colors exploded
My subconscious is like yes we know but my brain is like ...no💔
It's so insane to think that people actually see stuff clearly in their minds like ?????? I mean, I *can* see bits and pieces of things (like one leg of the table or the part of the ball which the light is directly hitting) but it's always either blurry, colourless, or like a child's drawing (or a combination of all of this things at once) and it always goes away really fast. I can also fill in the details later on, but it's less in image form than it is in concept form. But I can imagine feelings really well. Like, for example, when I'm reading something that's describing a calming and tranquil forest or whatever, instead of picturing the forest, I *feel* calm and tranquil and then build the image (again,either more conceptually than imagetically, or in that fleeting blurry-b&w-child's drawing way) from there. Thoughts are just so weird, man, idk
The only time I can see thing in my minds eye in a visual sense but conceptually I see very well I can even turn objects pretty well in my mind. I actually can visualize these concepts with my eyes open. I drift off in conversations because my mind is always conceptualizing something. I can be having a coherent conversation and create a visual concept in my mind I never realized I had Aphantasia until a few days ago. I used to be into meditation and I would hate it and get anxious because all I could see was black. Like I can conceptualize things but when I have my eyes closed too long I see scary shit in my mind because in my physical life I hate pitch black darkness. But in response to the sun comment he made I feel him when I used to meditate because I wouldn’t see things I would face the sun with my eyes closed so the sun would reflect on my eyelids and I would see pulsating colors and shapes. It helped me visualize things I could conceptualize kind of but not really but very cool if you have this give it a try but don’t look at the sun directly make sure you have your eyes closed. I don’t think it effects your eyes if your eye lids are covering them
question about internal monologue, i think in full comprehensive sentences but can stop at any point, it’s like i’m speaking but it’s not out load, anyone else?
That's what confuses me... I can't see literally, I just see the absolute void of my eyes closed. But with my eyes open and a actually reasonable amount of time, I can "create" in my mind the thing being asked out of its concept or remember a specific memory that includes the thing. It is really hard to move it tho, specially if it's a movement I never saw the thing do irl (like a specific body shape doing a flight move I've only seen in other body types in movies per example)
I am a woman who has Aphantasia. It’s not a mostly male issue.
All the suggested videos after this are meant to shock people who can picture things and teach them about those who cant. Ugh, i need a video that explains how people CAN picture things like what.
OH MY GOD. I LOST MY INTERNAL MONOLOGUE WHEN I GOT MENTALLY BETTER TOO?
i'm thinking i have hyperphantasia coz everyone i've spoken to can't visualise shit as much as i do. i can literally teleport myself to anywhere in the world and feel everything that's there, with all 5 senses
Yes I see colors that don't exist in my minds eye too
I also went psychotic but I'm back again :)
at 2:54 I call this invisible mapping
I can imagine and think about it but can't see it in a physical sense.
@@Llopside Well I can see it as an image, but like a second layer, the primary visual image is projected from the light rays so it doesn't really have any mental rendering needed, the secondary imaginary layer needs some concentration and can switch back to the primary layer based on that concentration, which is why it is easier for some people to imagine things with their eyes closed, or in a dark environment, where nothing is intervening with your concentration of what you are trying to see/imagine driving your focus away from imagination and back to reality, I think, for me it is pretty close to physical sense with both my eyes open and closed, And I think that is how it is for most people. When I imagine an apple I can see the apple and what is behind the apple at the same time, but I am guessing some people can see the apple so clearly that they can't even see what's behind the apple.
For me its like I know I have a memory of the object place or thing youre asking me to think about and its just frustrating me bc I KNOW I KNOW but I cant see it so then it doesnt conceptualize properly, like if you wanted me to draw you the image it would be very cartoon like unless you gave me an image to copy
Like people that design such detailed mystical creatures... how does your mind even ??? How can you mix completely different animals/beings in such an effortless way??? No way I can create something more than a cartoon without reference, or tons and tons of erasing, redoing, and eventually frustration that leads to me just not completing most projects
Luke ❤
"Everyone else's left leg is always sore, right?"
Me: *Spent their entire life believing that everyone was in some level of constant pain but everyone else could cope with it and therefore didn't talk about it*
I have fibromyalgia...
You don’t need to have your eyes closed to see it
Can people imagine how something tastes or smells ?
i can imagine without close ir eyes thats too easy for me to open my eyes and think a things in ur mind but its not hard also to imagine with close ur eyes...;)
I have hypophantasia apparantly
Tbf i thought everyone had like 3 types of synesthesia until a few months ago
Mason's over here tasting numbers, the mad lad.
"The mad lad" 😂. British expressions are everything.
@@theespers5263 I love this phrase out of context
omg I have aphantasia aswell and can see colours that aren't in this world 😂 sometimes.
It was being on mushrooms that made me realize I had aphantasia actually. I was trying to Astral project and couldn't understand visualizing anything because I can't do it. Thats when I started looking into it lol
Fascinating.. Maybe you should try DMT, that activates and stimulates your subconscious vision
Yes back when LSD was the thing in the 60's I thought hallucinating meant I would be able to see things and not that things that people see become distorted. I think even back then I knew something was different.
@@Welsh_Veteran_420_Z Mushrooms are a DMT drug so straight DMT is not going to affect visualization with people with this condition.
@@tomsanger5548 maybe not but if you have a break though experience thats something much more than hallucinations
@@Welsh_Veteran_420_Z Yup and I have. Do envy the people who have the incredible cosmic visions though.
This is all very strange. Does anyone experience everything all at once all the time? Kind of like looking at a DVD disk and watching the whole movie but instantaneously? If you dont then how are you determining what you are going to think about?
Yes most of my day to day thoughts are like that
Only time I think I words is if I'm recalling or practicing a conversation otherwise it's just a movie in my mind
Sometimes my thoughts are so vivid and distracting I can walk somewhere and have no recollection of my journey as I was so immersed in my own thoughts
before Luke.. I like it ;)
damn I'd be interested to try out that test with the dots/stripes shown to different eyes, because one of my eyes has significantly worse vision than the other, so my brain is always in that mode of shutting down half of my vision because it is just constant blur. but I do have a pretty vivid minds eye so like, if I visualise the pattern thats then shown to my bad eye.. I wonder which I would see? 🤔
this is so fascinating, i think i have hyper ultra super duper fantasia, i speak 5 language and in my head each one have their own personality and way of thinking and also wildly different accent, and i constantly having discussion with all of them all the time, even when im dreaming, and i always remember all my dream vividly, and most of them are insanely wild scifi and ultra fantasy type of dream
i can easily construct anything in my mind, picture, sound, taste, touch sensation, smell, pain and pleasure, well just about anything, in my diet i just reconstruct my memory of eating steak and that's enough to stave off my craving, i can see it clearly the shape of the steak, its texture, its smell and obviously its taste
i cant imagine living without being able to imagine things, that is so dreadful, no offense but i rather die a thousand death than having a constant black wall in my mind. I thought everyone was like me, every human have their own imaginary construct and constant inner monologue, aphantasia is blowing my mind
13:38 I can do the same as Cory but with doctor who
Ya bruh what, i cant see anything. Colours and sparkles. In school if the teacher asked me to close my eyes visualize something, i would keep my eyes open because i found it easier than closing my eyes
It has nothing to do with closing your eyes.
For some people reality can interfere with your imagination, so a dark room or closing your eyes helps you focus on what you are trying to imagine.
yeah i see nothing with my eyes closed but on shrooms i could when I was listening to music see colors with the instruments
i found i think that i have aphantasia. so i exercised feeling and merged it with something i see when in real life for 3 hours now and that ball exercise I FINALY SEE A STUPID FOOT BALL that fell off nothing and now I'm happy but honestly it had darkness as a color and had grey lining thingy and a really faint outline yay now i sleep.
I don't have any images or any internal monologue
What do you do when in a room alone? Maby you should force boredom on your mind and try to force it to do something creative to entertain you aha, usually after a while people start to hallucinate
@@Heuwelman I just think. I can talk very under my breath to have monologue. That in turn means thinking is different when speaking or underwater. I am a game designer on the art side. So creativity can be done. I can't imagine personality for anything though. Personality feels like an illusive concept. That last part may just be me.
AVID reader until they took away pictures. Then clueless. Extra words that meant nothing to me adjectives and adverbs. Just bored me so stopped reading after college. I was always the weird one. I saw the first video and started to cry cause I knew the answer before she asked. I am not crazy. It affected relationships. Neither of us knew.
I cant see anything. Im good with sound and words. Ball my inner monolog says ball
I feel like if i asked my friends if they can picture stuff they will be on the same page as me and say no but yall are saying that im the minority??? Guess i wont believe it until i test…
Having both aphantasia and no inner monologue my mind is really boring
Imagine being a pioneer and studying something and really contributing to something, and your name is completely mispronounced and laughed about. Cool cool cool.
Don’t be zettman
Twitter trolling again... By makin up fake stuff
Aphantasia is fake- what?
To you I guess I don’t exist~
“i dont think its real because it doesnt affect me”
@@blouiaie can't wait to hear what they think of racism 😂