Ok! Gonna address some comments here (also THANK YOU for sharing your stories, this is absolutely fascinating to read and discuss) 1. I'm not talking about being able to actually literally see images being played back like a film projected on your eyelids (though apparently through vigorous and consistent meditation, you can train yourself to do something akin to this). If you're seeing the black of your eyelids...that's just your eyelids. I'm referring to seeing images in your MIND. Friends who can visualize describe it as being in the back of their mind? Though, again, some of them have said it's so vivid it could be real. I wouldn't know, because I can't conceptualize it whatsoever! The image streaming example (for those that can't visualize at all) only relies on the patches blackness of your eyelids because it gives you a base to try and sculpt an image around... almost like cloud gazing! You can also try doing it with your eyes open. 2. The apple example might not be ideal here, mainly because I'm talking over it and directing it a little too quickly. The point isn't specifically imagining an apple, it's visualizing absolutely anything. It could be a plastic blue cube, a china mug, stormy skies, a magical flying cat with long wispy purple fur and bright pink stripes, the subject doesn't matter, just focus on the level of clarity when imagining anything. 3. The purpose of this video was never intended to be a 'woe is me' story (not that many people have interpreted it that way). It was primarily to open up discussion about this topic. Aphantasia is difficult to diagnose because nobody see inside your visual mind. It's highly subjective. However, I think attention needs to be brought to the variety of clarity that we individually experience. It's and ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING topic! I've been asking everyone I know how they think and see in their mind, because it's such a contrast to how I work without images. I wanted to prove to you all that you can just find other ways to problem solve rather than giving up. I wouldn't be where I am today with my career in concept art and animation if I didn't push through the barriers. 4. Thank you so much for sharing such personal responses. It's a great topic to open up to with family, friends, coworkers, classmates, teachers, anyone! So go out there and find out for yourself how you compare to others! it might help you to help yourself if you need to approach creative work...or anything that requires visualization. 5. Dropping links in the description of interesting articles to check out! There's also the Aphantasia sub reddit. (will update this with anymore info if required) :)
With the apple and the the Scala from 0-10 I was at 0 but sometimes when I concentrate really hard I can see the image I'm trying to see with not many details but it's there for a half of a second .I think I trained it because I couldn't see in my mind either. So I'm happy. 🎉
I THOUGHT TEACHERS WERE JOKING WHEN THEY SAID CLOSE YOUR EYES AND IMAGINE IT AND I COULD NEVER SEE ANYTHING I THOUGHT IT WAS NORMAL WHY HAVE I NEVER HEARD OF THIS
Brittany McKeage I’m so confused. Say the teacher told you to imagine an Apple. Are you actually supposed to SEE it??? Because all I see is darkness, but I can still picture the Apple I’m so confused rn
@@DietDrKelp-ty3fh Think the people here are confused. I think it's just imagine not actually see. So it's normal to not see it but imagine it. Edit: just to clarify, normal people can't see behind their eyelids, but can imagine stuff, so it's normal to not be able to see images with your imagination. People with Aphantasia can't imagine stuff.
I made your comment have 69 likes, unlike these fools. Also I didn't think about an apple, I thought about a soldier with a gun fighting aliens, because apples are boring.
that's literally my art process loooool, I cant see sh1t mentally because of aphantasia but I'd say my imagination is what you said, basically a descriptive imagination rather than a visual one
Yeah same! I even "act out" the sense to help imagine it. But when I do imagine it, it's like outline of the sense with my face plastered on there's doing the emotions!
My teacher got mad at me because he said "IT'S NOT THAT HARD THINK HARDER" and I was crying the whole time because I couldn't imagine the image he talked about
I can‘t see anything when I have my eyes closed and try to imagine something. But when i open my eyes then I can see it. The imagined object is right in front of me but transparent. I would say 5-7. But it’s not actual seeing. It’s so hard to explain.
U r not alone. Its probably coz of daydreaming. I always daydream with my eyes open. And besides the only time i can visualize stuff is when im either dreaming or daydreaming. But i can't for the life of me do it on demand
People watching this fall into 2 groups: Group 1: Realizes some people can't see stuff and imagine it. Group 2: Realizes some people can see stuff and imagine it.
And people like me who thinks everyone is confused about the fact that imagination comes from memories and if you’ve never seen something before then you will obviously never be able to imagine it up in your head. People are all over the place in the comment section agreeing on different definitions of what imagination means. You can’t imagine what a doufsdh is because you’ve never heard of or seen a doufsdh before. Same difference of why you can imagine only what you’ve ever seen before. Y’all are discrediting yourselves by thinking that recalling images isn’t the same thing as using your imagination.
BRO THAT DREAM AND MEMORY THING IS SP ACCURATE. ITS. ALWAYS. IN. THIRD. PERSON. AND I HAVE THE MOST VIVID DREAMS ISTG BUT THEN IT'S LIKE, I REMEMBER IT BUT I CAN'T SEE ANYTHINGGG. Also whenever I try to like imagine something in my head I just literally feel like physically uncomfortable and it doesn't work
Alica Tomešová I’m he same way. I can’t even figure out what’s happening. What I see is so subtle and mixed with darkness that I’m not really sure if it’s there. When I think about picturing things in my head I can’t do it, but I can sometimes picture things. It’s really confusing and I’m not totally sure if I’m seeing anything
It's the complete opposite for me. Instead of being unable to form images in my head, my mind is producing too many images all the time! I get lost in them!
I related to all of this once you started describing the apple analogy and I was like "but I can't have full aphantasia because I have really vivid dreams" and then BOOM you mentioned that too- maybe it's possibly a common thing because I also have third-person dreams and they're so vivid I've recounted them to my friends before, but I can never quite translate them to full images in my head once I wake up I always just was like "well, that's because I'm a writer not an artist that's why landscapes and translating drawings without reference images are hard." I do love fantasy books but it was never about picturing it it was about the story... also yep checked with a friend and my not being able to picture an apple is not normal I have aphantasia probably- Thank you so much for making a video about this, turns out I really needed to hear that someone who also struggles with visualizing things is an artist, makes me feel better about myself, thank you, really, I needed this
I actually have the polar opposite to this: hyperphantasia. I can see, hear, taste, feel, and smell anything just within my mind. A close friend of mine has aphantasia so she and I talk about the differences in our minds all the time.
LeviHasNoRespect not really. It sounds better than it is. Losing focus happens way too quickly, and falling asleep takes forever. Plus it can develop when depression levels go up fairly quickly so there’s that ://
You say but I feel that the inability to visualize is also a major learning disability. I'm in the field of engineering, and you need to visualize how you can solve problems. I have major problem on that, I just memorized and study the concepts, and I instead memorized problems similar or related to that. Can you easily learn and solve mathematical problems, or easily remember things? Do you think your hyperphantasia doesn't have any influence in your learning ability? What are your habits though? Are you an outgoing person that visualize things, and tend to daydream? Or are you also addicted to social media such as facebook, instagram, youtube, reddit, etc? I think that is one of the major factors what most people like me have aphantasia. Most of us are busy seeing images that we no longer have time to "imagine" image in our head. Did you tend to daydream when you were young or a kid? Maybe that's the reason why you can "hypervisualize"... you've max out your visualization skill in video game terms through doing it repeatedly in the past that it now became second nature or maybe not.
Emmi17 SAME, my Buddhist friend who was trying to teach me meditation would get SUPER mad at me because during meditation, I couldn’t sit still, my attention span was short, and I couldn’t visualize anything she was telling me to see. Now I know why. People tell you to focus on your breathing so I guess I just focus on the sound? Idk if other people are actually picturing in their mind the rise and fall of their breathe. But when I can no longer hear my breathing because it’s so quiet, I feel like I’m meditating wrong. Open my eyes to check if I’m actually breathing, get distracted by something else, remember I’m supposed to be meditating...so on and so forth 😂
@@Euphoryaaa It's totally fine to get distracted and then remember you're meditating and then go back to focusing. That's the very thing mindfulness meditation is training. If you want to minimize that particular distraction, you can try keeping your hand on your stomach or wherever you can feel the rise and fall of your breath. I have a vivid visual imagination, but when I do mindfulness meditating, I'm trying to focus on what's actually there through my senses. The ideal for me is to sort of lazily observe the things that go on in your mind, whatever the form, but you get distracted by them, noticing it and regaining focus. If breathing is not something you can focus on, you can also try to find some other focus point.
i knew i had some grade of aphantasia the moment i heard about it, but.. i didn't think it was that bad.. like ?? omg ??? can people actually visualize that well??? i somehow teared up watching this, im also an "artist" and this reallyy hit home, even tho im not part of the group of people that cant see anything as im around 4ish in the scale of visualization. thank you so much for this edit: i just realized this was posted on my birthday! yay
SAME! I read so much and I can make stuff so vivid (it sometimes scars me 😳) but when I shut my eyes, I see darkness and just an apple. No background...nothing...and it’s also super far away like instead of this big: O it’s this big: o
I literally found out YESTERDAY that my BF of 5 years has aphantasia, bc we’re in the process of buying our first house and while talking about paint he casually mentioned that he’d have to see swatches bc he couldn’t picture it in his head, chuckled softly, and finished with “I can’t picture anything in my head actually.” He said he knew most people weren’t like that but he had no idea there was a name for it.
I found out yesterday i had it after 19 years. In some way i thought it was the norm i thought when people said imagine something in your head it was more like a metaphor or telling you to think about it. I did not realise that most people can actually visualise in their head.
50 years of life, never knew anyone could do this because black is all I've ever seen. To me, this is a superpower. I'd give anything to be able to picture stuff in my mind, instead, I pull from memory, choices and experiences. When people said things like... picture yourself on the beach...I automatically assumed they meant think about it....not literally see it
Yeah, this is why it is very underdiagnosed. It is a difference, not a disorder, meaning it doesn't really pose substantial harm to people with aphantasia. And it is one that nobody can tell unless they talk about their own internal experiences that they would otherwise assume are the same as everyone else's.
This actually makes so much sense, I can’t visualize stuff in my head, hell i can’t even imagine any of my senses. When I imagine stuff I can only think emotions and concepts. It’s very vivid but not for my senses, it’s weird. If I imagine an apple, I feel the beauty of it, the warmth of the red, my appreciation for the juice, the hungry gut waiting for a slice of fruit, an aura of just apple, but I don’t see, taste, smell, hear, or feel anything. Surprisingly I feel it to be more of a blessing than anything. When all you can think are the abstract concepts of an object and not the concrete characteristics, the beauty of it is at the forefront, easily accessible to appreciate. Realizing that people imagine actual images would make me assume that others would also think tangible words (correct me if I’m wrong), whereas I have always thought in emotion and vibe as apposed to language, akin to how I imagine images. This disconnect between language and thoughts had greatly diminished my ability to articulate my emotions. I could easily tell what I was feeling and experiencing, but putting it to words was a whole other ordeal. My abstract thoughts had no equivalent in the English language, leaving me with having to place loose sentences that poorly communicated the truth in attempt to express my thoughts. This actually proved to be interesting when I started learning Japanese. It felt as though the language was better at communicating the specific manner I experienced emotion, still not that well but slightly better than English. This also led me to be more interested in the mathematical and artistic areas of thought and expression, as I loved combining difference methods of said expression to effectively communicate thought. Also why I had always been a theater kid through school years, it was a popular art that combined multiple methods of expression (literature, visual, and probably some more). The obsession with different methods of communicating thoughts also eventually lead me to love philosophy. Yea. I kinda feel bad for people who can imagine things. Really limits your appreciation of life, or at least I would assume so. It’s not like we can actually ever figure out if it is the case. Sry for the essay
I kinda cringed when she said "people who 'suffered from aphantasia" because I don't suffer, and I doubt a lot of people suffer. It's just something we can't do. Similar to how blind people can't see, deaf people can't hear, adhd people have a hard time focusing, but saying we suffer from these things isn't completely right. We just have these conditions.
As someone that lived life in fantasyland and being a daydreamer I had no idea that this type of condition existed and I am so fascinated! Thanks for sharing!
You can still daydream and have this condition. It can take on a different form tho such as sound, motion, story or sequence of events, basic concepts and other senses other than sight, some other form than image. You might not be able to see an image but you can role play a scenario, voice a conversation, gesture the act of throwing a weapon or fireball or shooting it. Also not seeing it =! not experiencing it. I absolutely love fantasy books and while i can't see knights and goblins in my head or any image clearly the books still elicit similar emotions and where the worldbuilding is good and succint allow me to imagine the concept of something even if i can't see the image. I can understand the concept of a line of charging knights, a mage's fireball , a nasty deamon or some other story climax and have that give me the chills without being able to imagine the image of it. I can imagine the concept of a fireball sizzling in the air it's just "invisible" ? I suppose that's a good way of explaining it. And my ability to imagine these invisible objects is limited to what i can keep in my head at any one time because you have to keep track of invisible edges, effects or features that make up a whole. Closing my eyes or not doesn't improve my ability to imagine at all but hand gestures, movements do, anything that simplifies what i need to keep track of. Imagining a voleyball is rather simple. It's a round object with a pattern of various color polygons. Doesn't mean i can see it but i can still experience the satisfaction of said volleyball hitting an unlikable imaginary character's face should that occur in a book or my head. I can imagine the throw was super fast, it's just a round volleyball with a jetstream and i can imagine it hitting the jaw area. Lets call it a comic character and have the round head deform on impact so his cheek turns into a concave plane. It's difficult and it helps if i write it down as an aide or playact it with body gestures but i can still experience it all the same even if in a diminished or alternate version.
@@KidRage visualizing isn't like doing telekenesis :O it's not a supernatural skill, it's just a mundane thing most people can do to some extent. It's useful but obviously not necessary to function properly, since so many people with aphantasia get by, even have sucessful careers in Art / design without even realizing they are "missing" something that most people can do.
@@Luculencia no where near what the fuck what Im talking about. Try again chik 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼. Where does that education come from? The public school system. Fuck with that shit. Get out learn more. Theres more to lifes than their bullshit. Im studying quantum physics. And real shit. Our thoughts and visualizations are the power house of our existance. Every step we make every shit we take all begins with a thought. So if youre using this power to think about bullshit, its gona get you mowed down by booty hole bandits. S e e k 911 immediately. -Love Nike. 😘
You need more fantasy. I see a dark black apple in front of a dark black wall. Looks like black is my happy color? 🖤 On the other hand I'm hyper creative perfectly using CAD systems. I create a lot of stuff with 3D printing. I can think in 6 dimensions. I just cannot see with closed eyes. I thought that's more than logic to see nothing when your eyes are closed. Makes sense? Huh? I would give my left hand to be able to visualize.
I have aphantasia. If I'm asked to imagine something, a list of words come to mind that describes said thing. For 'apple', words like red, juicy, shiny, round, etc. come to mind. What I find quite interesting is if you ask me to imagine something (we'll go with apple again because why not) and then ask me to draw what I imagined, I'll draw the same exact picture every time, despite not actually imagining that picture.
The fact that people can’t visualize things in their mind is crazy to me. I can literally picture myself walking through places I’ve been as if I was actually there.
I have this and I love to read , but I cant see anithing I read, Its like an audio book but I can feel things?😅 I don't know how to explain it. I have maladaptive daydreaming too, I have a lots of story in my head when Im daydreaming, but I cant visualize it. I have never thought about people can really see things in their minds. It can be soo amazing to actualy see imaginary things!
When I was in primary school I used to play imaginary games where I could shoot fire from my hands, thinking back to those memories I realise I literally saw the fire coming out of my hands. Absolutely crazy.
If you tell me "close your eyes and visualize an apple" I can't do it. But I'm a huge reader and can visualize novels really well. And I daydream all the time.
@antiami I can see a vague shape but it's not clear. Seeing things on command doesn't come naturally to me. It's almost like (excuse the pun) my mind has a mind of its own.
Same! when I close my eyes I just see black and when she said to think of "apple" I only thought of the word because I'm dyslexic and they NAILED that knowledge into me.
I think I'd be at like 4 on the scale because although occasionally I can picture some slightly transparent images in my head, most of the time it's just plain black. I am still pretty creative, I know that because I can make up ideas in my head and make them come to life on a piece of paper, but... it's different. It's kinda hard to explain, but the ideas I think about show up in my mind as words more often than pictures. Like looking at a google document. Btw, loved the video and the animations, and thank you so much for letting me know this because I had no idea that this was a thing. THANK YOU!!!
When the teacher said to "Picture/Imagine this..." I always just went along with it but the entire time thinking."No one actually sees this stuff, right?"
Yeah, that's a common thing. You'll see lots of comments almost exactly like yours. You'll see people with aphantasia coming to this realisation: "I always thought they were speaking metaphorically" or "I thought they wanted us to act and move as if we were seeing that" or things like that. Yeah in fact, they do mean form a visual image in the mind. For some it's fuzzy and just has geometry and movement, for others there's detail, texture, color. I'm more in the former group, though I can imagine two contrasting colors; I just can't really imagine a color by itself with no way to compare it.
so i have a tradition: every night when i go to sleep i came up with a story, same as a movie just adjusting the story for a third character as me, or making a new one. and i try to imagine it. I've got a situation, the story go on for a minute and puff... i fell asleep. Next night I make a little recap, maybe change something happened yesterday, and when the new part should come puff I asleep. And that's happens every time, for example: I needed a month sleep to arrive to a ball (step out from the carriage and go up on a stairs) it's fun, but sometimes annoying
I kinda do that. I struggle a lot with sleeping so to help me i start playing a story in my head the last one i did and was a zombie invasion and while i imagine it it helps me fall asleep
OMG I DO THE EXACT SAME THING! I can’t fall asleep without creating some sort of story or movie to think about. But usually when I fall asleep, I dream of something completely different. I thought I was the only one who did this!
Squirrel Puffle wow that I didn’t know people would create such epic stories like that. I usually just think about going to school or hanging out with my friends. Sometimes when I actually fall asleep, I’ll dream of some crazy things, but most of the time it’s pretty normal.
I thought i was the only one who did this. I would usually take a while for small parts of a story aswell. With a busy mind and nightmares I use my imagination to fight itself to create/add to a story to keep bad thought and images my mind likes to add in.
Everybody sees darkness. You're normal. It's just that some people can't briefly imagine something. If you're so confused, here's an example: think of your dad. No need to close your eyes. If you see him, you're making a fuss over nothing.
ALIcIA fAE …I cant. I know the day I had a professor who looked like him, I freaked the fuck out because I was terrified he had found me, but it took me pulling up his Facebook profile through my brother’s acct to visually look at his face to reassure myself he didn’t fly here just to scare me and masquerade as my ethics professor. Though that class gave me a LOT of panic attacks because of it.
@@sterlingklein5626 I'm sorry that happened to you, but again, anyone would do the same in your position. It's actually quite rare to have a spot on image of someone in your mind,and it makes sense for you to want to see your dad's account for physical reassurance.
It's not necessarily an image like you would see in a picture or on your phone. For me, it's in the back of my head and I know it's there but it's not a literal picture. I can't literally see it with my eyes.
@@faye7199 i don't think you understand. It's like the video says, if I see my dad in person or in a picture I can *recognize* him, but if you want me to *think* about him I can't think of anything apart from 'black hair' because I just know the fact he has it but I can't see it. Its so weird because it's like thinking visual things the same way we think abstract things? Like if you tell me to think about empathy I can tell you things about it but I can't *see* empathy, the same way I can't see a triangle but i can tell you it has 3 sides. Another example: when I draw I don't know how a line will look like till I've already drawn it, which makes things frustrating because you can't really visualize where you need to put the next line and you gotta just gamble that it's in the right place.
i saw this video last year, and man, this hit, i never knew this wasnt normal, and yes ive read your follow up msg, but like, i cant believe people can actually do that, but now im proud of my aphantasia, because while i may not have that visual power, it boosts other things, so instead, im quite blessed with writing instead yk, but yeah i do agree about it making you feel empty, bc it really does, knowing youre missing out on something that most people probably do have, anyway, enough babble from me, just thanks for this, i come back to this video every now and then bc it really hits for me, i love it
Now that I realize...that’s me. I cannot see it but I can picture it in my head. It’s only if I stare at something JUST something or light for too long when I look away it shows it in a transparent color or blue red or black. I think it’s because my bad eyesight tho :|
y’all have to understand that people without aphantasia still see black when they close their eyes and visualize, they see the images IN THEIR HEADS not on their eyelids
Wow, I feel so sorry for you. Edit: Come to think of it, when I was single digits old, I wasn't able to visualize anything either, when people told me to I just couldn't. But now, over a decade later, I can! It just sorta got fixed by itself! Hope this gives you hope.
I don't know whether I can visualize or not... that's so weird. I can like imagine things in my head, but I'm not sure if I really "see" them? It feels like they are far away, but still there. Idk.
Same, I have no problem whatsoever imagining and thinking about things, details as well. But I don't actually *see* them when I close my eyes. I literally just 'imagine' seeing it. I thought everyone else did the same and reading that other people actually see pictures and movies in their heads scares me....
It's not this fault he doesn't know such a condition exists. Close to if not 100% of the people who watched this video didn't! To me and others without aphantasia it's perfectly natural and taken for granted. Up until now the thought of someone not being able to see images in their mind has never gone through my head, so without this video I'd never know.
@@nathdm9 idk what hyperphantasia but from what I understand if you have this you can imagine things really well, but the thing is for me is that if I read something or am being told something I can't help but imagine it and it can get really annoying because if I just here words I will imagine the word in many different ways and it can be overwhelming a lot of the time so I listen to music to help me and I always have to have something on like music or I will start to feel like I am being watched and I will feel like something is Gunna come kill me. but I hope everyone who reads this has a good day. :)
I kind of have the same experience but its the opposite for me I dream in 1st person and when l think about the dream later I think about it in 3rd person
I never knew about this, thanks! This could be really great to tell me and others understand more communities better, and I appreciate you, your channel, the silly little animations, everything.
...are you telling me there's people who can actually *SEE* images in their mind when they think about it??? i always thought that was just like. what you call it, but that no one was *actually* able to do it. what the heck.
i thought that when we would do that at school they would just say it, but know you actually couldn't. i didn't know you could actually see things, that's pretty wack. now lowkey i wish i could. :/
Sometimes I get so lost in it I zone out and cant see my surroundings or hear them. Dont have to close my eyes though. Used to replay movies in my head as a kid to put myself to sleep.
I remember trying to draw when I was a kid. I asked my older brother how he can draw so good and he said you just close your eyes and picture what you want to draw, then open draw, close look at what you want to draw again, open draw ect. I thought he was joking.
Oh f**k. You just blew my mind mate. So this is why I've never been able to draw anything else than abstract stuff, although I enjoy drawing and painting. Damnit.
@@WaveMrNight slow down buddy, trust me when I tell you this, imagination can be helpful but it's nowhere near the crops if your art. I have the most imaginitve mind out of my family, I can make people talk, change their look and do anything and all the physics looks extremely realistic down to the movement of their hair, but I still suck measurably at drawing. Trust your instinct, you're not missing out that much
When I was younger, I used to sort of visualize stories in my head before I slept. I would do this nearly every night and these fictional stories would last for months, continuing around where I left off the previous night. Is that weird? Anybody else do this too?
I used to be able to do the same thing when I was younger. I would visualize the same story and play it in my head as if it was a movie where it would pick up wherever I left off the previous night.
I did this in middle school and early high school. I still visualize and think about a lot before bed, not stories per se but about the world or events that could possibly happen.
I used to daydream before bed a lot and all the time during school. It's called maladaptive daydreaming if it like, interferes with you're life and you feel the urge to always return and daydream for hours. It doesn't happen as often for me now, but every so often I'll find myself daydreaming in a similar way when I listen to music.
I can't just imagine one thing, if I don't think of a landscape (which is already difficult for me), it just has the background of whatever im seeing or saw
I'm like 9 on the scale and whenever i draw and try to imagine something and draw it the second i do it just disappears from my mind and never reappears while im drawing which drives me crazy. Also as a person that imagines everything, even living in my imagination from time to time i have no idea how anyone could live without it and how it even works being like that
I'm Strange. I cannot picture things with my eyes closed, my mind just goes black, i see nothing. But when my eyes are OPEN, i can visualize something perfectly fine.
RELATABLE. However, when I noticed this a few years ago I began practising trying to imagine things with my eyes closed. And now I'm kinda getting the hang of it. It is quite hard though, not gonna lie.
Wait- so you can like see it as if it was one of those weird Snapchat filters where they show you things in the real world?? And here I am not seeing shit ;-;
For me, I can vividly feel, sense, and "imagine" images, create them in my mind. And it can be incredibly detailed. But it's not through my eyes. I'm not actually "seeing" anything, it's like I'm sensing the image in great detail. Like it's not like ACTUALLY seeing something, being somewhere, but it's like this feeling of the thing I'm imagining, and the visuals are a sensation.
yes that happens to me and to everyone who doesn't have aphantasia, because nobody who doesn't have hallucinations can literally see things that doesn't exist
@@raquelvillalva1406 I am just explaining my experience, so people know they don’t have aphantasia. Because some people are misconstruing what it is and how people imagine things by claiming they can actually “see” things when they close their eyes.
Mine is definitely a ten. I don't just imagine images, either. Ever since I was little I've been able to imagine movie-like scenes to entertain myself. I still imagine these made up stories, and while I'm daydreaming, I feel like I'm really in another world. This has actually made drawing and writing more difficult for me. I can picture these beautiful images or heartfelt stories, but when I try to put it to paper it never comes out exactly the way it does in my head.
I'm assuming this is how people had imaginary friends. I remember trying as a kid, but my 'friend' never manifested and I'd get sad that I couldn't imagine a friend. I took it as being just that unlikable
Holy Effing Sheep! Your technique is what I've always done instinctively! I've never heard of anyone else realizing this is possible let alone beneficial! Wow! Mind blown!
That’s exactly what I do, unsure why. I could be because it’s a very artistic thing with a beat you can bop your head to with no visuals so you have to make them yourself
In all my 28 years I never realised that I just recall parts of an image I know to be there, in reality, instead of actually seeing the thing in my mind. I just tried to visualise an apple for a good 30 mins to no avail. This is bizarre. Thank you for opening my eyes to this.
Ok so this video made me realize I wasn't visualizing things at all. But I always thought I was. Like the apple thing, at first I was like yeah I see it perfectly clearly. Then the more you explained the more I was like "wait you mean actually see it? Like it's there in your head? People can do that? What!?". When I was trying to visualize an apple it was just descriptive words I was literally just thinking " its red, its round, its fruit, it grows on trees". So I'm now just realizing that that's not how everyone else thinks. Good to know. Also I've always been super into fiction but only super descriptive books and maybe this is why.
This shit made my art degree WAAAAAAY harder than it needed to be. Teachers are always saying to "visualise the end result" and I've always been like FUCKEN HOW???
@@henryhorne6114 I can neither see or hear stuff in my head. I can only think them. And because thinking the words isn't so effective I talk out loud ALOT if I really try to concentrate on what ever I am doing
@@henryhorne6114 I can hear stuff in my head, just not see the words in my head. I just cannot picture anything, not even a hint. I can describe things by remembering key features, but I don't see those features in my head. There was a man who lost the ability to picture things in his head after a heart surgery. They showed him a picture of an actor to study it, then took that picture away. Then, they asked him what the actor looked like. He could say key features, like the actor having blue eyes and brown hair, but couldn't picture what the actor looked like beyond that (and really wasn't picturing the blue eyes, just remember that verbal cue as it's prominent). They found the guy's visual center of the brain wasn't lighting up while describing. I have Aphantasia, and I don't really know what I miss, so it doesn't bother me much. The only annoying thing is when I can't remember what routes look like or what tools I need look like, until I can actually see them.
@@henryhorne6114 Me too. I can't believe people go through life without images in their mind. I also hear the voice of the characters or narrator when reading and "hear" or see music in my mind. I just assumed this was how everyone thought.
YEAHHH I KNEW IT!!!! Thank you, I'm so glad I'm not alone, I always hated imaginary things in school and realxing stuff that required finding a beach or something. Oh and I don't dream. I think I'm screwed :D
You know... For a long time ive always wondered why I couldnt visualize things. My dad always talked about books being a movie in his head and I so desperately wanted that. To imagine myself in such vivid places instead of where I was at. Knowing that a lot of people have it makes me feel better that I'm not alone in it, but makes me sad because I always thought that I could try harder. I still can't, but instead have a long personal story that I hope to one day visual. And when I do I know its gonna be epic.
Voice-activated AI-assisted creation tools such as Star Trek type holodecks (or at least the bare bones version displayed on computer monitors) are going to be fun.
wait.. no... wtf... why is this me too? The way you described being able to imagine without creating an image was the moment my brain understood this isnt bullshit, my life has changed, and thank you for making me aware of this. I remember vividly not to long ago in highschool writing a short story in class in which I cried because of the images I saw in my head.. but I could only achieve those images by writing the words down, and creating the scene with context. as time has gone on, I feel like my imagination has faded into black... and my heart hurts at the thought of it. I'm still creative, and I still draw the same way you do. scribbles, scratches.. they look like scitzo drawings but they are cool i think. Dungeons and dragons is my current outlet, and branch into my imaginative mind.
Um...no...some of us can actually picture it. Like, I see it, in detail, in the back of my mind. I see movies that I am a part of when I read books. I see details that aren't even in the writing.
@@artsyrhin8423 Only kidding xD I can visualize things in detail. I just feel like there's a misconception with aphantasia to where people misdiagnose themselves because they think everyone else sees some vivid "projection" of a full-color image on the back of their eyelids or something
how vivid is the images in your head because I can remember what a beach looks like I know what a beach looks like but I cant see it. I see nothing. Can you literally see a beach when you close your eyes :o
@@Mimikyu7372 Sure can! Normal, recreation of one of the cutscenes from Death Stranding, etc. When I close my eyes it's easier to see in first person, but if I'm going for third person it works just fine with eyes open. It also helps a bit to be moving around for some reason, at least for me.
I think me having aphantasia is why i bexame an artist. Whenever id try to imagine things or fo one of those visualizations id draw them out so i could see them! I only found out about aphantasia a few months ago and suddenly a lit of my childhood memories make a a lot of sense.
I finally found that this is why I cannot get hypnotized or follow guided meditations despite trying many times. We are told to picture things, and just like the video shows, I get highly stressed because I cannot do so and the meditation or hypnosis moves on leaving me struggling and feeling tons of anxiety. The video is spot on.
OMG ALL OF THIS! I even play them with a black screen on TH-cam to fall asleep, and I've never been able to do it, which does the opposite effect, making me even more stressed that I can't picture it. This is MINDBLOWING TO ME that I'm not alone! I am left-handed and musically creative, but with all the spiritual things and personality tests, the idea of being a "daydreamer" is something I thought maybe 2% of the population could do. I guess it turns out everyone can and I'm the 2% 😂
growing up teachers would be like 'close your eyes and imagine so and so' but I just couldn't see or imagine anything, I was just told i'm not trying hard enough. so this video explains so much.
I try to expand my visualization abilities by imagining impossible things, like tesseracts or the ultraviolet spectrum. I only succeeded once, getting a not-purple color. I can also perfectly see my own body in a dark room, even if I don't actually see it.
Trust me... as someone with aphantasia trying to imagine what visualizing would be like is probably just as difficult as someone who can visualize imagining the opposite...
when I'm reading, I can see the characters and how they'd look, what their voice sounds like, how it would change with emotions, the landscape around them, like a full moving animation! same with songs, I'll go through it like an animation. I find a character I feel fits the song, figure out the landscape, then listen to the song and "play" the animation in my head. the first few times it's choppy, like an animatic, but as I replay the song and video in my head, it becomes smoother, my brain making small changes, and eventually, whenever I hear that song, my brain plays the animation in my mind. honestly, I thought everyone could do that, that it was normal. guess not, but- am I the only one who can do this?
i can also have a full movie on my head as i read! its very exciting especially when the scene on the book gets intense! its like a full thriller/action film on my mind.
Oh don’t worry I do the EXACT same thing. I actually am pretty lucky in this aspect then considering I’m a huge daydreamer and a book worm. I never could’ve thought that some people can’t imagine certain scenes or details in their heads.
I do that all the time! Whether it's books, songs, fanfics, whatever! I can even change the setting or exagerate it or think of alternates and stuff! Part of the reason I'm so lazy. I'm stuck in my head most of the time
That’s so sad... I’m sorry for you... I can see visuals better than other people who can I think.. I’m a very visual learner. If I’m thinking about a part of a book on a test I see the page in the book and the words written down
Thanks so much for making this video! Up until today, I thought this was just normal. I didn't know people could 'actually see' an image in their mind's eye. When I'm trying to visualize it's more like a vague feeling (kinda hard to describe) like you're trying to squint really hard to see it. I think now that this is the reason why I love art and colors so much because it's what was missing in my mind. Thank you again!!
Lisa I can relate soooo much... I didn’t know people could actually see things cause I only saw black, I actually thought it was normal although I can only think of images and stuff
I just found out about this about a week ago. Usually people find out they have it when they finally realize other people CAN see things, versus them learning they can't.
I thought this was normal, I never knew you could see actual images in your head! When people said ‘close your eyes and imagine this’ I thought it meant the thought of the thing lol
You can smell IT tuch it shape IT ad whatever you wanna ..you can be on moon or home or im space you see it im your head not when you close eye..you can imagine things With eyes opened
I thought everyone was able to picture things in their head.. I was very confused when I heard some people couldn't.. I can make 3d stuff, spin them around, draw a very detailed drawing, keep pictures saved from awhile ago (even from my dreams).. I could even imagine it in my hand.. I thought this was completely normal. But you guys are lucky too, at least you don't get creepy visuals when reading a horror story and thinking about scary type of stuff.
At 09:32 these 'blotches' are actually dirt at the back of your eye which is why they stay if you keep your eyes still but move away if you look at them also I can see these images but only as a fake protection it's like I can see it but I can't overlay it against things I see even darkness
I am a 9 on the scale. The SERIOUSLY annoying part is that even with that clarity, it's SO tough to put it onto paper, screen or even in words with explanations.
@@peachylady Can you visually reproduce in your mind a simple yet amazing scene you've seen before? Like an impactful movie scene, be it animation or live action? Or even something that happened to you? I always find it easier to reproduce 2D scenes that impressed me. That's not imagining tho, that's reproducing. We're not creating anything new. But single objects... Or landscapes... Those things alone are quite difficult to process. Even if it's familiar. It's actually very frustrating, like trying to remember a person's face and failing. But a scene, where stuff happens, where agency is involved, where things move, or even static scenes, like an imminent checkmate on a chess board. That I can visualize fairly easily.
It's hard for both parts I guess. I can see clearly things too, but from that to making them it's difficult. It's hard to 'make without seeing it' and 'see but can't make bit'. :(
I can think of concepts and I can “see” what it’d look like but not if I close my eyes. When I close my eyes I don’t see anything. But I have some VIVID ass dreams.
Ingleserang walang pera my most vivid dream was very odd, it was about the dream team, I’d recently watched dreams video so it was in my mind, that dream was really sad and I actually cried, I don’t wanna explain it all but ye.
Best way to describe this: we use our memeory to describe things, but we can't fabricate anything new, but if we try , it's just really dark and unclear
@@krome1187 I may not have aphantasia but *god damn* is this a mood. I have these great visuals in my mind but if I were to draw it, I suddenly don't know how it goes!
I'm absolutely dumbfounded over the fact that people can actually visualise things when they close their eyes. I always thought it was a metaphor or something
@@Aoen6591 for me it is! Like I can imagine a whole cat and move it around and change its color and stuff. (As well as other ppl ive asked) had no idea that not everyone could do this!
Hey! I actually had someone just like you in my art class two years ago. After finding out the girl from my class couldn't imagine what her finished drawing would look like we grouped together and researched a bit. A week later we found out she was totally badass at creating art collages and mood boards. Apparently those who lack this fantasy skills are much better at analyzing things like composition and layout. Collabs with her were always epic.
WAIT OMG I THINK THIS IS THE VIDEO WHERE I FIRST DISCOVERED I HAVE APHANTASIA!!!! I randomly stumbled apon this video years ago when I was much younger and it's kinda crazy to find it again
I don’t think it is actually color or seeing the object more like knowing it’s there and seeing it’s details Ex I can’t see the apple but I know what It looks like and add a bunch of things but it’s not really visible but it’s like it is correct me if I’m wrong and sorry if I am
@@missildineva7455 Except I can directly imagine the object on the table next to me and visualize that. I can't directly superimpose it in front of my eyes, but my mind can come pretty close.
Ok! Gonna address some comments here (also THANK YOU for sharing your stories, this is absolutely fascinating to read and discuss)
1. I'm not talking about being able to actually literally see images being played back like a film projected on your eyelids (though apparently through vigorous and consistent meditation, you can train yourself to do something akin to this). If you're seeing the black of your eyelids...that's just your eyelids. I'm referring to seeing images in your MIND. Friends who can visualize describe it as being in the back of their mind? Though, again, some of them have said it's so vivid it could be real. I wouldn't know, because I can't conceptualize it whatsoever!
The image streaming example (for those that can't visualize at all) only relies on the patches blackness of your eyelids because it gives you a base to try and sculpt an image around... almost like cloud gazing! You can also try doing it with your eyes open.
2. The apple example might not be ideal here, mainly because I'm talking over it and directing it a little too quickly. The point isn't specifically imagining an apple, it's visualizing absolutely anything. It could be a plastic blue cube, a china mug, stormy skies, a magical flying cat with long wispy purple fur and bright pink stripes, the subject doesn't matter, just focus on the level of clarity when imagining anything.
3. The purpose of this video was never intended to be a 'woe is me' story (not that many people have interpreted it that way). It was primarily to open up discussion about this topic. Aphantasia is difficult to diagnose because nobody see inside your visual mind. It's highly subjective. However, I think attention needs to be brought to the variety of clarity that we individually experience. It's and ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING topic! I've been asking everyone I know how they think and see in their mind, because it's such a contrast to how I work without images.
I wanted to prove to you all that you can just find other ways to problem solve rather than giving up. I wouldn't be where I am today with my career in concept art and animation if I didn't push through the barriers.
4. Thank you so much for sharing such personal responses. It's a great topic to open up to with family, friends, coworkers, classmates, teachers, anyone! So go out there and find out for yourself how you compare to others! it might help you to help yourself if you need to approach creative work...or anything that requires visualization.
5. Dropping links in the description of interesting articles to check out! There's also the Aphantasia sub reddit.
(will update this with anymore info if required) :)
I think I did that image streaming thing a lot when I was a kid... On the other hand, I was bored a lot more, than I am nowadays.
Huh, I've heard of that but never really thought about it. I'm about a 4 on your scale and seem to only ever see from one eye.
Thankyou for helping people (me included) realize that they have aphantasia. You are so nice and amazing, and I fully support you!
I like raisins. Does this mean you hate me?
With the apple and the the Scala from 0-10 I was at 0 but sometimes when I concentrate really hard I can see the image I'm trying to see with not many details but it's there for a half of a second .I think I trained it because I couldn't see in my mind either. So I'm happy. 🎉
I just gave myself a headache trying to figure out whether or not I could “see”
QUEEN KINKIN’ mood
Same
Same
Exactly
Same
I THOUGHT TEACHERS WERE JOKING WHEN THEY SAID CLOSE YOUR EYES AND IMAGINE IT AND I COULD NEVER SEE ANYTHING I THOUGHT IT WAS NORMAL WHY HAVE I NEVER HEARD OF THIS
OMG THAT WAS ME
F
Brittany McKeage I’m so confused. Say the teacher told you to imagine an Apple. Are you actually supposed to SEE it??? Because all I see is darkness, but I can still picture the Apple I’m so confused rn
@@DietDrKelp-ty3fh Think the people here are confused. I think it's just imagine not actually see. So it's normal to not see it but imagine it. Edit: just to clarify, normal people can't see behind their eyelids, but can imagine stuff, so it's normal to not be able to see images with your imagination. People with Aphantasia can't imagine stuff.
They were all like, close your eyes and I was like... w h y
'imagine changing color of that apple"
me with red-green colourblind : * screams *
Just turn it blue lol
I made mine yellow lol
I made mine green, I like green apples
I made your comment have 69 likes, unlike these fools.
Also I didn't think about an apple, I thought about a soldier with a gun fighting aliens, because apples are boring.
@@alexsharkie4677 i can't see green :'))
DUDE I WAS LITERALLY LIKE, "Yeah I can see images." Those, "images," were really just descriptions.
.....me and you both. F*CK
that's literally my art process loooool, I cant see sh1t mentally because of aphantasia but I'd say my imagination is what you said, basically a descriptive imagination rather than a visual one
or i can imagine it on a logical scale, but more so pretend that i can visualize it
YESSS
here’s the thing, i can imagine things and “see” them, but i only see darkness. it’s like watching a reflection in a turned off computer/tv screen.
this
same
Omg, thisssss, someone finally put it into words
same lol
Yup
The hardest thing about this is't finding out that you can't imagine, but finding out that people can.
that's so true
Yesssss
I thought that no one could see images in there head😔
Same! i always thought everyone see black when close their eyes.
same here :(. at least there's more people in the world who can't
Here too
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I snorted.
Me too I couldn’t see anything
o my fucking god yes
😂😂😂😂
AmyRightMeow, ahh... I almost choked hahah.
I like reading books a lot, but I never registered what anything looks like, so I see a characters fanart, I'm like ohhhh, that's what they look like.
same here never knew that was a thing. you find such interesting tid bits here on the internet.
Yeah same! I even "act out" the sense to help imagine it. But when I do imagine it, it's like outline of the sense with my face plastered on there's doing the emotions!
My teacher got mad at me because he said "IT'S NOT THAT HARD THINK HARDER" and I was crying the whole time because I couldn't imagine the image he talked about
That's cruel. I'm sorry for you...
Oof dumb kid
@@televizion9962 Lmao
I’m so sorry you had to go through that.. some teachers or even parents really don’t know how to be around kids or minors. I hope you’re okay!
Tudor Vintila dumb like your fucking video
Is it weird that I can visualise clearer with my eyes open than my eyes closed? 🙂
I have the opposite of this, it is called hyperphantasia and I find it far far far easier to create worlds with my eyes open
I can‘t see anything when I have my eyes closed and try to imagine something. But when i open my eyes then I can see it. The imagined object is right in front of me but transparent. I would say 5-7. But it’s not actual seeing. It’s so hard to explain.
yo same. Eyes closed the images are kind of wispy and translucent, but having a physical world makes them have better lighting and look more real
Dang I experience exactly the same as you
U r not alone. Its probably coz of daydreaming. I always daydream with my eyes open. And besides the only time i can visualize stuff is when im either dreaming or daydreaming.
But i can't for the life of me do it on demand
People watching this fall into 2 groups:
Group 1: Realizes some people can't see stuff and imagine it.
Group 2: Realizes some people can see stuff and imagine it.
And people like me who thinks everyone is confused about the fact that imagination comes from memories and if you’ve never seen something before then you will obviously never be able to imagine it up in your head. People are all over the place in the comment section agreeing on different definitions of what imagination means. You can’t imagine what a doufsdh is because you’ve never heard of or seen a doufsdh before. Same difference of why you can imagine only what you’ve ever seen before. Y’all are discrediting yourselves by thinking that recalling images isn’t the same thing as using your imagination.
Audiocronic i dont, please enlighten me
I'm in group 2.
GROUP 2, IM IN GROUP TWO!!
Dang everyone be like: I am in group 2!
BRO THAT DREAM AND MEMORY THING IS SP ACCURATE. ITS. ALWAYS. IN. THIRD. PERSON. AND I HAVE THE MOST VIVID DREAMS ISTG BUT THEN IT'S LIKE, I REMEMBER IT BUT I CAN'T SEE ANYTHINGGG. Also whenever I try to like imagine something in my head I just literally feel like physically uncomfortable and it doesn't work
is it weird that i can’t tell if i see something or not?
Alica Tomešová I’m he same way. I can’t even figure out what’s happening. What I see is so subtle and mixed with darkness that I’m not really sure if it’s there. When I think about picturing things in my head I can’t do it, but I can sometimes picture things. It’s really confusing and I’m not totally sure if I’m seeing anything
Yeah I can't tell if I'm Iike Imagining seeing it y'know?
Same
that's exactly whats happening to me
yeah, I was questioning this the whole time as I watched this. I question what we would find if we were to use brain scans to analyze this
Wait what the hell this hurts my head I thought everyone just saw black.
Yeah
Same I think of it but then it just goes black and I lose the image
i srsly thought the same thing
Me too lol
Bruh of course you see black when you close your eyes, it’s not about seeing but imagining with your mind. We don’t just see an apple in the darkness
I started imagining what aphantasia is like and then quickly realized the irony of that and stopped
I FUCKING CANT
It's the complete opposite for me. Instead of being unable to form images in my head, my mind is producing too many images all the time! I get lost in them!
ironic, isn’t it
@@CaveyMoth same
My problem is I see a finished animation or project and I try to put it on an iPad or paper and it looks nothing like the one In my head
I related to all of this once you started describing the apple analogy and I was like "but I can't have full aphantasia because I have really vivid dreams" and then BOOM you mentioned that too- maybe it's possibly a common thing because I also have third-person dreams and they're so vivid I've recounted them to my friends before, but I can never quite translate them to full images in my head once I wake up
I always just was like "well, that's because I'm a writer not an artist that's why landscapes and translating drawings without reference images are hard." I do love fantasy books but it was never about picturing it it was about the story... also yep checked with a friend and my not being able to picture an apple is not normal I have aphantasia probably- Thank you so much for making a video about this, turns out I really needed to hear that someone who also struggles with visualizing things is an artist, makes me feel better about myself, thank you, really, I needed this
I actually have the polar opposite to this: hyperphantasia. I can see, hear, taste, feel, and smell anything just within my mind. A close friend of mine has aphantasia so she and I talk about the differences in our minds all the time.
LeviHasNoRespect not really. It sounds better than it is. Losing focus happens way too quickly, and falling asleep takes forever. Plus it can develop when depression levels go up fairly quickly so there’s that ://
𝙄 𝙘𝙖𝙣 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙧𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙄 𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙮𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙙𝙤𝙚𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩
eesh that sounds annoying but also entertaining??
@@fennetheartsyenby I would trade that for my 0 - 1 any day
You say but I feel that the inability to visualize is also a major learning disability. I'm in the field of engineering, and you need to visualize how you can solve problems. I have major problem on that, I just memorized and study the concepts, and I instead memorized problems similar or related to that.
Can you easily learn and solve mathematical problems, or easily remember things? Do you think your hyperphantasia doesn't have any influence in your learning ability?
What are your habits though? Are you an outgoing person that visualize things, and tend to daydream? Or are you also addicted to social media such as facebook, instagram, youtube, reddit, etc? I think that is one of the major factors what most people like me have aphantasia. Most of us are busy seeing images that we no longer have time to "imagine" image in our head.
Did you tend to daydream when you were young or a kid? Maybe that's the reason why you can "hypervisualize"... you've max out your visualization skill in video game terms through doing it repeatedly in the past that it now became second nature or maybe not.
I was today years old when I found out people can imagine in colors and images and not just general feelings within blackness
Kare raises hand me too 🙀
Emmi17 SAME, my Buddhist friend who was trying to teach me meditation would get SUPER mad at me because during meditation, I couldn’t sit still, my attention span was short, and I couldn’t visualize anything she was telling me to see. Now I know why.
People tell you to focus on your breathing so I guess I just focus on the sound? Idk if other people are actually picturing in their mind the rise and fall of their breathe. But when I can no longer hear my breathing because it’s so quiet, I feel like I’m meditating wrong. Open my eyes to check if I’m actually breathing, get distracted by something else, remember I’m supposed to be meditating...so on and so forth 😂
@@Euphoryaaa It's totally fine to get distracted and then remember you're meditating and then go back to focusing. That's the very thing mindfulness meditation is training. If you want to minimize that particular distraction, you can try keeping your hand on your stomach or wherever you can feel the rise and fall of your breath. I have a vivid visual imagination, but when I do mindfulness meditating, I'm trying to focus on what's actually there through my senses. The ideal for me is to sort of lazily observe the things that go on in your mind, whatever the form, but you get distracted by them, noticing it and regaining focus. If breathing is not something you can focus on, you can also try to find some other focus point.
Same
I cant imagine not being able to do this. Its just unfathomable to me.
Oh man I didn't even know this was a thing! I'm glad you've found ways to manage and figure it out. Keep on keepin on~
Yeah, it's certainly been a bit of a wild ride! Especially after chatting with people at work. I AM PROFOUNDLY MISSING OUT :(
Hi illy! Hi Amy! I didn’t know this was a thing either! I love you both!
wow that's so sad🙁
Illy! :3
Illymation i love your vids
i knew i had some grade of aphantasia the moment i heard about it, but.. i didn't think it was that bad.. like ?? omg ??? can people actually visualize that well???
i somehow teared up watching this, im also an "artist" and this reallyy hit home, even tho im not part of the group of people that cant see anything as im around 4ish in the scale of visualization. thank you so much for this
edit: i just realized this was posted on my birthday! yay
As a cartoonist, I feel sad that everyone else can just make the page up in their head, while I stare at my paper for hours:D
I cant imagine things for over 2 seconds
stretchy pants good for you, kid.
I find it hard imagining things but i can, i think. But it still prevents me from drawing well xD
S.K.A you’ll get better if you work at it!
I make a whole story in my head but I can’t write it down cause it doesn’t feel right
What's weird is when my eyes are open I can imagine perfectly anything. But when I close them I see nothing, nothing.
Same here.
SAME! I read so much and I can make stuff so vivid (it sometimes scars me 😳) but when I shut my eyes, I see darkness and just an apple. No background...nothing...and it’s also super far away like instead of this big: O it’s this big: o
Same
I can do both but sometimes it's easier with my eyes open
I know right?! Why is the brain like that?
I literally found out YESTERDAY that my BF of 5 years has aphantasia, bc we’re in the process of buying our first house and while talking about paint he casually mentioned that he’d have to see swatches bc he couldn’t picture it in his head, chuckled softly, and finished with “I can’t picture anything in my head actually.”
He said he knew most people weren’t like that but he had no idea there was a name for it.
wow! i'm glad he's found out
i have it
I found out yesterday i had it after 19 years. In some way i thought it was the norm i thought when people said imagine something in your head it was more like a metaphor or telling you to think about it. I did not realise that most people can actually visualise in their head.
50 years of life, never knew anyone could do this because black is all I've ever seen. To me, this is a superpower. I'd give anything to be able to picture stuff in my mind, instead, I pull from memory, choices and experiences. When people said things like... picture yourself on the beach...I automatically assumed they meant think about it....not literally see it
Yeah, this is why it is very underdiagnosed. It is a difference, not a disorder, meaning it doesn't really pose substantial harm to people with aphantasia. And it is one that nobody can tell unless they talk about their own internal experiences that they would otherwise assume are the same as everyone else's.
This actually makes so much sense, I can’t visualize stuff in my head, hell i can’t even imagine any of my senses. When I imagine stuff I can only think emotions and concepts. It’s very vivid but not for my senses, it’s weird. If I imagine an apple, I feel the beauty of it, the warmth of the red, my appreciation for the juice, the hungry gut waiting for a slice of fruit, an aura of just apple, but I don’t see, taste, smell, hear, or feel anything.
Surprisingly I feel it to be more of a blessing than anything. When all you can think are the abstract concepts of an object and not the concrete characteristics, the beauty of it is at the forefront, easily accessible to appreciate.
Realizing that people imagine actual images would make me assume that others would also think tangible words (correct me if I’m wrong), whereas I have always thought in emotion and vibe as apposed to language, akin to how I imagine images.
This disconnect between language and thoughts had greatly diminished my ability to articulate my emotions. I could easily tell what I was feeling and experiencing, but putting it to words was a whole other ordeal. My abstract thoughts had no equivalent in the English language, leaving me with having to place loose sentences that poorly communicated the truth in attempt to express my thoughts.
This actually proved to be interesting when I started learning Japanese. It felt as though the language was better at communicating the specific manner I experienced emotion, still not that well but slightly better than English.
This also led me to be more interested in the mathematical and artistic areas of thought and expression, as I loved combining difference methods of said expression to effectively communicate thought. Also why I had always been a theater kid through school years, it was a popular art that combined multiple methods of expression (literature, visual, and probably some more). The obsession with different methods of communicating thoughts also eventually lead me to love philosophy.
Yea. I kinda feel bad for people who can imagine things. Really limits your appreciation of life, or at least I would assume so. It’s not like we can actually ever figure out if it is the case.
Sry for the essay
I kinda cringed when she said "people who 'suffered from aphantasia" because I don't suffer, and I doubt a lot of people suffer. It's just something we can't do. Similar to how blind people can't see, deaf people can't hear, adhd people have a hard time focusing, but saying we suffer from these things isn't completely right. We just have these conditions.
When she said change the colour of the apple
My dumass brain: maGeNtA appLe
Mine: _Blue apple_
*they
Amy uses they/them
Mine: **colorless cause I have aphantasia**
mine: *v o i d*
dude i made the red apple to green then to purple 😂
As someone that lived life in fantasyland and being a daydreamer I had no idea that this type of condition existed and I am so fascinated! Thanks for sharing!
You can still daydream and have this condition. It can take on a different form tho such as sound, motion, story or sequence of events, basic concepts and other senses other than sight, some other form than image. You might not be able to see an image but you can role play a scenario, voice a conversation, gesture the act of throwing a weapon or fireball or shooting it. Also not seeing it =! not experiencing it. I absolutely love fantasy books and while i can't see knights and goblins in my head or any image clearly the books still elicit similar emotions and where the worldbuilding is good and succint allow me to imagine the concept of something even if i can't see the image.
I can understand the concept of a line of charging knights, a mage's fireball , a nasty deamon or some other story climax and have that give me the chills without being able to imagine the image of it.
I can imagine the concept of a fireball sizzling in the air it's just "invisible" ? I suppose that's a good way of explaining it. And my ability to imagine these invisible objects is limited to what i can keep in my head at any one time because you have to keep track of invisible edges, effects or features that make up a whole. Closing my eyes or not doesn't improve my ability to imagine at all but hand gestures, movements do, anything that simplifies what i need to keep track of.
Imagining a voleyball is rather simple. It's a round object with a pattern of various color polygons. Doesn't mean i can see it but i can still experience the satisfaction of said volleyball hitting an unlikable imaginary character's face should that occur in a book or my head. I can imagine the throw was super fast, it's just a round volleyball with a jetstream and i can imagine it hitting the jaw area. Lets call it a comic character and have the round head deform on impact so his cheek turns into a concave plane.
It's difficult and it helps if i write it down as an aide or playact it with body gestures but i can still experience it all the same even if in a diminished or alternate version.
Its not a condition its like if someone can do fucking telekenesis. Some people achieve it and some people dont.
I am a daydreamer but I have this condition
@@KidRage visualizing isn't like doing telekenesis :O it's not a supernatural skill, it's just a mundane thing most people can do to some extent. It's useful but obviously not necessary to function properly, since so many people with aphantasia get by, even have sucessful careers in Art / design without even realizing they are "missing" something that most people can do.
@@Luculencia no where near what the fuck what Im talking about. Try again chik 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼.
Where does that education come from? The public school system. Fuck with that shit. Get out learn more. Theres more to lifes than their bullshit. Im studying quantum physics. And real shit. Our thoughts and visualizations are the power house of our existance. Every step we make every shit we take all begins with a thought. So if youre using this power to think about bullshit, its gona get you mowed down by booty hole bandits. S e e k 911 immediately. -Love Nike. 😘
"imagine an apple, where is that apple?"
my mind: ⬛️
You're imagination is not strong.
@@7thheaven601 it's not a condition that we can control or change 😀
Is that your eyelids, or your mind's eye? Idk about her friend saying it's in the back of their mind, it's like on your forehead.
You need more fantasy. I see a dark black apple in front of a dark black wall.
Looks like black is my happy color? 🖤
On the other hand I'm hyper creative perfectly using CAD systems. I create a lot of stuff with 3D printing. I can think in 6 dimensions.
I just cannot see with closed eyes. I thought that's more than logic to see nothing when your eyes are closed. Makes sense? Huh?
I would give my left hand to be able to visualize.
@@7thheaven601 y’a we know
0:14 I just imagined it spinning on a sky blue background
HOW
Ha lucky I just see pitch black
@@Moonlight-Melody03780lol because it's what happened on screen.
My brain is telling me what the apple looks like like for example: Red,round,in a fruitbowl- but I can’t see it in my head
Mel’s Angel that’s so crazy.....:0
I have aphantasia. If I'm asked to imagine something, a list of words come to mind that describes said thing. For 'apple', words like red, juicy, shiny, round, etc. come to mind. What I find quite interesting is if you ask me to imagine something (we'll go with apple again because why not) and then ask me to draw what I imagined, I'll draw the same exact picture every time, despite not actually imagining that picture.
I can like remember what an apple looks like but I couldnt see it
Yeah same
Me as well! My brain tells me what it looks like but doesn't show images, I can see outlines but I can't see colours
The fact that people can’t visualize things in their mind is crazy to me. I can literally picture myself walking through places I’ve been as if I was actually there.
Molly S me too, I can also imagine what I'd currently look like from someone else's view of me at any moment.
it makes me feel down that i cant picture stuff ówò
Sarah Taylor I do this way too much because I'm insecure af lol
I feel like I can see it but it’s like a really light sketch, something far away
wtf how
I now understand why people like books I guess they can imagine pictures but I can't see anything while I am reading I just see words
I find that really fascinating... idk y?
tony i can see stuff, buff it all is kinda dark... Im sure Thise who can see Colours are just some lucky bitches
I can't see when i close my eyes and try but when I read its like im in their world
I have this and I love to read , but I cant see anithing I read, Its like an audio book but I can feel things?😅 I don't know how to explain it. I have maladaptive daydreaming too, I have a lots of story in my head when Im daydreaming, but I cant visualize it. I have never thought about people can really see things in their minds.
It can be soo amazing to actualy see imaginary things!
Korinna Kovács yeah same
When I was in primary school I used to play imaginary games where I could shoot fire from my hands, thinking back to those memories I realise I literally saw the fire coming out of my hands. Absolutely crazy.
If you tell me "close your eyes and visualize an apple" I can't do it. But I'm a huge reader and can visualize novels really well. And I daydream all the time.
Me too! That’s so weird
@antiami I can see a vague shape but it's not clear. Seeing things on command doesn't come naturally to me. It's almost like (excuse the pun) my mind has a mind of its own.
JONAH SPECK Welcome to the Hyperphantasia club
Me too !!!!
Same! when I close my eyes I just see black and when she said to think of "apple" I only thought of the word because I'm dyslexic and they NAILED that knowledge into me.
I don’t know how, but I can picture an apple, but I can’t see it.
Lorelei Miller studios that’s literally me i know i’m thinking of an apple i can think of what it looks like, but i can see nothing at all
That's still the same condition I think? Its like recalling a memory of it but you still can't visualize it
@@bearcce6728 same I thought it was normal but then I watched this video
I think of an apple but I can't see it.
Same
Legend has it that I’m still trying to visualize that apple
Lol
Same :(
Still trying? Wish you luck!
Penelope Wilkinson same 😂
Same
I think I'd be at like 4 on the scale because although occasionally I can picture some slightly transparent images in my head, most of the time it's just plain black. I am still pretty creative, I know that because I can make up ideas in my head and make them come to life on a piece of paper, but... it's different. It's kinda hard to explain, but the ideas I think about show up in my mind as words more often than pictures. Like looking at a google document. Btw, loved the video and the animations, and thank you so much for letting me know this because I had no idea that this was a thing. THANK YOU!!!
When the teacher said to "Picture/Imagine this..." I always just went along with it but the entire time thinking."No one actually sees this stuff, right?"
Yeah, that's a common thing. You'll see lots of comments almost exactly like yours. You'll see people with aphantasia coming to this realisation: "I always thought they were speaking metaphorically" or "I thought they wanted us to act and move as if we were seeing that" or things like that. Yeah in fact, they do mean form a visual image in the mind. For some it's fuzzy and just has geometry and movement, for others there's detail, texture, color. I'm more in the former group, though I can imagine two contrasting colors; I just can't really imagine a color by itself with no way to compare it.
so i have a tradition: every night when i go to sleep i came up with a story, same as a movie just adjusting the story for a third character as me, or making a new one. and i try to imagine it. I've got a situation, the story go on for a minute and puff... i fell asleep.
Next night I make a little recap, maybe change something happened yesterday, and when the new part should come puff I asleep.
And that's happens every time, for example: I needed a month sleep to arrive to a ball (step out from the carriage and go up on a stairs)
it's fun, but sometimes annoying
I kinda do that. I struggle a lot with sleeping so to help me i start playing a story in my head the last one i did and was a zombie invasion and while i imagine it it helps me fall asleep
I do that and mine change all the time! My last one was a story when I was an airbender and I went on cool journeys with my waterbending friend
OMG I DO THE EXACT SAME THING! I can’t fall asleep without creating some sort of story or movie to think about. But usually when I fall asleep, I dream of something completely different. I thought I was the only one who did this!
Squirrel Puffle wow that I didn’t know people would create such epic stories like that. I usually just think about going to school or hanging out with my friends. Sometimes when I actually fall asleep, I’ll dream of some crazy things, but most of the time it’s pretty normal.
I thought i was the only one who did this. I would usually take a while for small parts of a story aswell. With a busy mind and nightmares I use my imagination to fight itself to create/add to a story to keep bad thought and images my mind likes to add in.
WAIT OTHER PEOPLE SEE THINGS OTHER THAN DARKNESS WHEN TOLD TO PICTURE STUFF???
Everybody sees darkness. You're normal. It's just that some people can't briefly imagine something. If you're so confused, here's an example: think of your dad. No need to close your eyes. If you see him, you're making a fuss over nothing.
ALIcIA fAE …I cant.
I know the day I had a professor who looked like him, I freaked the fuck out because I was terrified he had found me, but it took me pulling up his Facebook profile through my brother’s acct to visually look at his face to reassure myself he didn’t fly here just to scare me and masquerade as my ethics professor. Though that class gave me a LOT of panic attacks because of it.
@@sterlingklein5626 I'm sorry that happened to you, but again, anyone would do the same in your position. It's actually quite rare to have a spot on image of someone in your mind,and it makes sense for you to want to see your dad's account for physical reassurance.
It's not necessarily an image like you would see in a picture or on your phone. For me, it's in the back of my head and I know it's there but it's not a literal picture. I can't literally see it with my eyes.
@@faye7199 i don't think you understand. It's like the video says, if I see my dad in person or in a picture I can *recognize* him, but if you want me to *think* about him I can't think of anything apart from 'black hair' because I just know the fact he has it but I can't see it. Its so weird because it's like thinking visual things the same way we think abstract things? Like if you tell me to think about empathy I can tell you things about it but I can't *see* empathy, the same way I can't see a triangle but i can tell you it has 3 sides. Another example: when I draw I don't know how a line will look like till I've already drawn it, which makes things frustrating because you can't really visualize where you need to put the next line and you gotta just gamble that it's in the right place.
i saw this video last year, and man, this hit, i never knew this wasnt normal, and yes ive read your follow up msg, but like, i cant believe people can actually do that, but now im proud of my aphantasia, because while i may not have that visual power, it boosts other things, so instead, im quite blessed with writing instead yk, but yeah i do agree about it making you feel empty, bc it really does, knowing youre missing out on something that most people probably do have, anyway, enough babble from me, just thanks for this, i come back to this video every now and then bc it really hits for me, i love it
Wait ppl can literally see stuff in they're head?! Like you can SEE it??
I have the same question, like huh?? I see a blank void but I can image it
No, SEE IT no, but I can imagine it and it seems kinda real. Like picture myself in a park walking lol
People can't?
I can see stuff sometimes
See, taste, touch, hear, and occasionally smell.
This is sad, it would be horrible if i couldn't imagine a map of a resident evil 2 speedrun.
Ikr😔
@Alex The fool thats good
@Alex The fool me too, i had a srcreenshot of all passcodes of the game. But i still remember all of it
I can't
Bru
I feel like I can PICTURE something but not SEE it.
yes
Now that I realize...that’s me. I cannot see it but I can picture it in my head. It’s only if I stare at something JUST something or light for too long when I look away it shows it in a transparent color or blue red or black. I think it’s because my bad eyesight tho :|
y’all have to understand that people without aphantasia still see black when they close their eyes and visualize, they see the images IN THEIR HEADS not on their eyelids
Thats how its supposed to be
@@bosslady69sa the blueish light you see after stareing at a light is actualy the light burning your retina if im not mistaken
Wow, I feel so sorry for you.
Edit: Come to think of it, when I was single digits old, I wasn't able to visualize anything either, when people told me to I just couldn't. But now, over a decade later, I can! It just sorta got fixed by itself! Hope this gives you hope.
I don't know whether I can visualize or not... that's so weird. I can like imagine things in my head, but I'm not sure if I really "see" them? It feels like they are far away, but still there. Idk.
Same. I see nothing but I can imagine a floor plan of a house, like where things would go easily with a lot of detail. But I still see blackness
@@jaidynp6128 Yeesh. I'm at 1 but you're at like 0.3.
Same, I have no problem whatsoever imagining and thinking about things, details as well. But I don't actually *see* them when I close my eyes. I literally just 'imagine' seeing it. I thought everyone else did the same and reading that other people actually see pictures and movies in their heads scares me....
Wait, are you supposed to see colors?
anime nerd
My dad asked me to imagine something and I said I can’t and he’s said “yes you can you’re just not trying”
It's not this fault he doesn't know such a condition exists. Close to if not 100% of the people who watched this video didn't! To me and others without aphantasia it's perfectly natural and taken for granted. Up until now the thought of someone not being able to see images in their mind has never gone through my head, so without this video I'd never know.
My dad has hyperphantasia, my mom is on sort of a 3 in the scale and I have aphantasia, my Dad always tells us that we just "don't try enough".
Lmao It happened to me a few years ago
@@nathdm9 idk what hyperphantasia but from what I understand if you have this you can imagine things really well, but the thing is for me is that if I read something or am being told something I can't help but imagine it and it can get really annoying because if I just here words I will imagine the word in many different ways and it can be overwhelming a lot of the time so I listen to music to help me and I always have to have something on like music or I will start to feel like I am being watched and I will feel like something is Gunna come kill me. but I hope everyone who reads this has a good day. :)
I can barely imagine things, things often look shitty whenever I think about them
Oddly enough I also dream in third person, but when I recall the dream, I visualize in first person.
Huh.
Same ....
I kind of have the same experience but its the opposite for me I dream in 1st person and when l think about the dream later I think about it in 3rd person
@@juliettenofziger5841 that's how I remember my memories.
Same
oml! same!
I never knew about this, thanks! This could be really great to tell me and others understand more communities better, and I appreciate you, your channel, the silly little animations, everything.
...are you telling me there's people who can actually *SEE* images in their mind when they think about it??? i always thought that was just like. what you call it, but that no one was *actually* able to do it. what the heck.
i thought that when we would do that at school they would just say it, but know you actually couldn't. i didn't know you could actually see things, that's pretty wack. now lowkey i wish i could. :/
Sometimes I get so lost in it I zone out and cant see my surroundings or hear them. Dont have to close my eyes though. Used to replay movies in my head as a kid to put myself to sleep.
R/notlikeotherppl
I do it all the time.
Wth same 0-0
I remember trying to draw when I was a kid. I asked my older brother how he can draw so good and he said you just close your eyes and picture what you want to draw, then open draw, close look at what you want to draw again, open draw ect. I thought he was joking.
Ngl I can picture stuff vividly and my drawings still look like they're in a fun house mirror so not missing out on too much for that issue
Oh f**k. You just blew my mind mate. So this is why I've never been able to draw anything else than abstract stuff, although I enjoy drawing and painting. Damnit.
@@WaveMrNight slow down buddy, trust me when I tell you this, imagination can be helpful but it's nowhere near the crops if your art. I have the most imaginitve mind out of my family, I can make people talk, change their look and do anything and all the physics looks extremely realistic down to the movement of their hair, but I still suck measurably at drawing. Trust your instinct, you're not missing out that much
Nope. I can draw without reference but am at zero on the aphantasia spectrum.
When I was younger, I used to sort of visualize stories in my head before I slept. I would do this nearly every night and these fictional stories would last for months, continuing around where I left off the previous night. Is that weird? Anybody else do this too?
Thats beautiful!
I used to be able to do the same thing when I was younger. I would visualize the same story and play it in my head as if it was a movie where it would pick up wherever I left off the previous night.
I did this in middle school and early high school. I still visualize and think about a lot before bed, not stories per se but about the world or events that could possibly happen.
omg yes. and i kind of still do it.
I used to daydream before bed a lot and all the time during school. It's called maladaptive daydreaming if it like, interferes with you're life and you feel the urge to always return and daydream for hours. It doesn't happen as often for me now, but every so often I'll find myself daydreaming in a similar way when I listen to music.
I can't just imagine one thing, if I don't think of a landscape (which is already difficult for me), it just has the background of whatever im seeing or saw
"Now imagine this in your mind..."
People with aphantasia: _h o w_
Wilbur pfp....
@@miao660 the keyboard’s like my heart
SAME
@@reverseli it shines a RGB and its full of blood
@@JumpingTuna Ikr like h o w
So when someone says “I can’t get the image out of my head” they actually meant it!?
Yes
Yep
yup
Yea
Yes..
I nearly cant imaging things when sombody tells me, but when i just think, i see the most real life looking things!
Same bro. Same.
Same it's super weird
That's a big symptom of adhd.
@@jdkaffun1196 what? For real?
@@jdkaffun1196 oh geez I was literally thinking about how I am the same way. And also recently found out my sister & dad have ADD.
I'm like 9 on the scale and whenever i draw and try to imagine something and draw it the second i do it just disappears from my mind and never reappears while im drawing which drives me crazy.
Also as a person that imagines everything, even living in my imagination from time to time i have no idea how anyone could live without it and how it even works being like that
I'm Strange. I cannot picture things with my eyes closed, my mind just goes black, i see nothing. But when my eyes are OPEN, i can visualize something perfectly fine.
Same
Same here
RELATABLE. However, when I noticed this a few years ago I began practising trying to imagine things with my eyes closed. And now I'm kinda getting the hang of it. It is quite hard though, not gonna lie.
I physically CAN, but only unintentionally. Like, I’ll close my eyes and see something random, but the second I try to focus in on it, it disappears.
Wait- so you can like see it as if it was one of those weird Snapchat filters where they show you things in the real world??
And here I am not seeing shit ;-;
For me, I can vividly feel, sense, and "imagine" images, create them in my mind. And it can be incredibly detailed. But it's not through my eyes. I'm not actually "seeing" anything, it's like I'm sensing the image in great detail. Like it's not like ACTUALLY seeing something, being somewhere, but it's like this feeling of the thing I'm imagining, and the visuals are a sensation.
THIS
same
same
yes that happens to me and to everyone who doesn't have aphantasia, because nobody who doesn't have hallucinations can literally see things that doesn't exist
@@raquelvillalva1406 I am just explaining my experience, so people know they don’t have aphantasia. Because some people are misconstruing what it is and how people imagine things by claiming they can actually “see” things when they close their eyes.
Mine is definitely a ten. I don't just imagine images, either. Ever since I was little I've been able to imagine movie-like scenes to entertain myself. I still imagine these made up stories, and while I'm daydreaming, I feel like I'm really in another world.
This has actually made drawing and writing more difficult for me. I can picture these beautiful images or heartfelt stories, but when I try to put it to paper it never comes out exactly the way it does in my head.
OmO sameeee
Huh, this is the same for me too!
i can do the exact same for me too :0!
Thats is exactly what happens to me and it's so sad that some people don't have that i just thought that everyone could do that :(
I'm assuming this is how people had imaginary friends. I remember trying as a kid, but my 'friend' never manifested and I'd get sad that I couldn't imagine a friend. I took it as being just that unlikable
Holy Effing Sheep! Your technique is what I've always done instinctively! I've never heard of anyone else realizing this is possible let alone beneficial! Wow! Mind blown!
I can’t imagine it when someone tells me to but I can listen to music and have a whole entire war in my head with my eyes open
That’s exactly how I am! I basically make up my own music videos in my head.
Do you know what it means🤨🤨🤨
Yesss.
That’s exactly what I do, unsure why. I could be because it’s a very artistic thing with a beat you can bop your head to with no visuals so you have to make them yourself
Ohhh
In all my 28 years I never realised that I just recall parts of an image I know to be there, in reality, instead of actually seeing the thing in my mind. I just tried to visualise an apple for a good 30 mins to no avail. This is bizarre.
Thank you for opening my eyes to this.
I'm just glad I can make people more aware of this!
★Sedgeie★ same- I didn’t know that this was a thing
I can’t picture the apple 😭
Same! I never realized or thought about this. I figured everyone was the same with never being able to see the objects in their mind.
dude i visualized like 10 apples accidentally while watching the video, i'm not sure if i believe you even .
Ok so this video made me realize I wasn't visualizing things at all. But I always thought I was. Like the apple thing, at first I was like yeah I see it perfectly clearly. Then the more you explained the more I was like "wait you mean actually see it? Like it's there in your head? People can do that? What!?". When I was trying to visualize an apple it was just descriptive words I was literally just thinking " its red, its round, its fruit, it grows on trees". So I'm now just realizing that that's not how everyone else thinks. Good to know. Also I've always been super into fiction but only super descriptive books and maybe this is why.
Same
Same
Ok thx for explaining it i couldnt understand it at first
Same
i felt exactly the same
When you tell me to imagine something, I can’t but I just see random stuff in my head
This shit made my art degree WAAAAAAY harder than it needed to be. Teachers are always saying to "visualise the end result" and I've always been like FUCKEN HOW???
So ... okay. You'd know what the McDonald's sign looks like if you saw it, but you can't remember it right now???
@@GlennDavey I don't know bout his side but to me
I can remember it but can't see it if that makes any sense
It's process of creating, you don't know exactly what you will end up with, exactly, but you have a vague direction.
At least what happens for me.
@@GlennDavey for me I can draw it but when I close my eyes and try to imagine it in my head it's just the black void
I thought "visualize" was a figure of speech. :(
wait wait wait wait a minute
are you telling me that not everyone is like this and people actually can visualize things on their minds?
I'm speechless
Yeah it's really cool
I thought everyone could. I have a question, do you hear words in your head when you read?
@@henryhorne6114 I can neither see or hear stuff in my head. I can only think them. And because thinking the words isn't so effective I talk out loud ALOT if I really try to concentrate on what ever I am doing
@@henryhorne6114 I can hear stuff in my head, just not see the words in my head. I just cannot picture anything, not even a hint. I can describe things by remembering key features, but I don't see those features in my head. There was a man who lost the ability to picture things in his head after a heart surgery. They showed him a picture of an actor to study it, then took that picture away. Then, they asked him what the actor looked like. He could say key features, like the actor having blue eyes and brown hair, but couldn't picture what the actor looked like beyond that (and really wasn't picturing the blue eyes, just remember that verbal cue as it's prominent). They found the guy's visual center of the brain wasn't lighting up while describing. I have Aphantasia, and I don't really know what I miss, so it doesn't bother me much. The only annoying thing is when I can't remember what routes look like or what tools I need look like, until I can actually see them.
@@henryhorne6114 Me too. I can't believe people go through life without images in their mind. I also hear the voice of the characters or narrator when reading and "hear" or see music in my mind. I just assumed this was how everyone thought.
I can imagine an apple but I also see the darkness behind my eyes. I can image the apple but also see the darkness of the underlying eyes.
Me too
Me too
Hello there Asperger or Schizoid fellows!!! Hahaha
All of us
Glasses Gru same!
YEAHHH I KNEW IT!!!! Thank you, I'm so glad I'm not alone, I always hated imaginary things in school and realxing stuff that required finding a beach or something. Oh and I don't dream. I think I'm screwed :D
"Visualize an apple"
Me: *sees golden apple from minecraft*
Lol
Omg I thought it was just me
a true gamer
Same
I saw the red apple in Light's hand from the first Death Note opening.
I actually have this and never knew and thought it was normal
can u get it diagnosed or do u just know
@@beansontoast1759 For this, I think it's safe to say people who literally see nothing when asked to imagine something can self diagnose.
when i'm really inspired i can imagine a whole scene the set and all the characters so i think it could be 10! What about you?
Emily S damn it lucky. i can’t see a damn thing :(
@@beansontoast1759 sorry for you but sometimes that's not a great think you know ?
You know... For a long time ive always wondered why I couldnt visualize things. My dad always talked about books being a movie in his head and I so desperately wanted that. To imagine myself in such vivid places instead of where I was at. Knowing that a lot of people have it makes me feel better that I'm not alone in it, but makes me sad because I always thought that I could try harder. I still can't, but instead have a long personal story that I hope to one day visual. And when I do I know its gonna be epic.
@Thought Criminal Thats a good point, I am so sensitiv, I like calm.
Books are movies to me as well. It's really nice, I need to start reading again
Voice-activated AI-assisted creation tools such as Star Trek type holodecks (or at least the bare bones version displayed on computer monitors) are going to be fun.
@Thought Criminal I've read all sorts but fantasy is probably my favorite
When there was no internet. Reading rainbow 🌈
wait.. no... wtf... why is this me too? The way you described being able to imagine without creating an image was the moment my brain understood this isnt bullshit, my life has changed, and thank you for making me aware of this. I remember vividly not to long ago in highschool writing a short story in class in which I cried because of the images I saw in my head.. but I could only achieve those images by writing the words down, and creating the scene with context. as time has gone on, I feel like my imagination has faded into black... and my heart hurts at the thought of it. I'm still creative, and I still draw the same way you do. scribbles, scratches.. they look like scitzo drawings but they are cool i think. Dungeons and dragons is my current outlet, and branch into my imaginative mind.
Amy: “Is the apple floating in space?”
My brain: Haha apple on spaceship
If I imagine things it appears in a black room and it rotates in a weird way and it mentally hearts
@@ad-skyobsidion4267 maybe u have a brain tumour
@@ad-skyobsidion4267 (jk)
My brain: haha apple cutted and the cut explodes
Idk man, I can't control my imagination. I have some sort of ADD
I just assumed when people said “picture x thing” they meant like.... metaphorically
They do
A metaphors for what? What do you think they actually meant?
Um...no...some of us can actually picture it. Like, I see it, in detail, in the back of my mind. I see movies that I am a part of when I read books. I see details that aren't even in the writing.
@@artsyrhin8423 Only kidding xD
I can visualize things in detail. I just feel like there's a misconception with aphantasia to where people misdiagnose themselves because they think everyone else sees some vivid "projection" of a full-color image on the back of their eyelids or something
@@TracksWithDax which I do in a way. Like the image fill my mind enough that I don't see the back of my eyelids anymore.
People here are shocked that others can see images in their head
But here I'm like "What?! They can't see anything?"
how vivid is the images in your head because I can remember what a beach looks like I know what a beach looks like but I cant see it. I see nothing. Can you literally see a beach when you close your eyes :o
@@Mimikyu7372 I mean I don't see anything when my eyes are closed but my head can create images.
@@Mimikyu7372
it's not that we see it with our eyes, we "see" it in our minds/brain, in the back of our head, if that helps.
@@Mimikyu7372 Sure can! Normal, recreation of one of the cutscenes from Death Stranding, etc. When I close my eyes it's easier to see in first person, but if I'm going for third person it works just fine with eyes open. It also helps a bit to be moving around for some reason, at least for me.
Lol I can’t when it’s about 3D shapes and nets when you have to fold the net into a shape
I think me having aphantasia is why i bexame an artist. Whenever id try to imagine things or fo one of those visualizations id draw them out so i could see them! I only found out about aphantasia a few months ago and suddenly a lit of my childhood memories make a a lot of sense.
I finally found that this is why I cannot get hypnotized or follow guided meditations despite trying many times. We are told to picture things, and just like the video shows, I get highly stressed because I cannot do so and the meditation or hypnosis moves on leaving me struggling and feeling tons of anxiety. The video is spot on.
OMG ALL OF THIS! I even play them with a black screen on TH-cam to fall asleep, and I've never been able to do it, which does the opposite effect, making me even more stressed that I can't picture it. This is MINDBLOWING TO ME that I'm not alone! I am left-handed and musically creative, but with all the spiritual things and personality tests, the idea of being a "daydreamer" is something I thought maybe 2% of the population could do. I guess it turns out everyone can and I'm the 2% 😂
Not to be that annoying kid but as someone with a pretty vivid imagination hypnosis doesnt work on me
@@somerandomformalman2007yeah because it’s a sham
I was closing my eyes and trying to visualize and I fell asleep
Starie Drawz take a guess
Same. I felt so damn sleepy for a moment
lol
0:25 "Are you seeing it third person ?"
No, *I AM the apple*
Hahaha
*LEVEL ELEVEN ACHIEVED*
Lmao
*i am apple the apple is in a black room*
😦🤣🤣🤣
growing up teachers would be like 'close your eyes and imagine so and so' but I just couldn't see or imagine anything, I was just told i'm not trying hard enough. so this video explains so much.
I think I’m losing brain cells trying to imagine what this would be like.
Take an object and stare at it. Then take it into a dark room and try to see it without imagining it
I try to expand my visualization abilities by imagining impossible things, like tesseracts or the ultraviolet spectrum. I only succeeded once, getting a not-purple color. I can also perfectly see my own body in a dark room, even if I don't actually see it.
Trust me... as someone with aphantasia trying to imagine what visualizing would be like is probably just as difficult as someone who can visualize imagining the opposite...
Imagine darkness and that is what’s its like for us
I cant :( lmao haha get it bc i have this
when I'm reading, I can see the characters and how they'd look, what their voice sounds like, how it would change with emotions, the landscape around them, like a full moving animation! same with songs, I'll go through it like an animation. I find a character I feel fits the song, figure out the landscape, then listen to the song and "play" the animation in my head. the first few times it's choppy, like an animatic, but as I replay the song and video in my head, it becomes smoother, my brain making small changes, and eventually, whenever I hear that song, my brain plays the animation in my mind. honestly, I thought everyone could do that, that it was normal. guess not, but- am I the only one who can do this?
i can also have a full movie on my head as i read! its very exciting especially when the scene on the book gets intense! its like a full thriller/action film on my mind.
HAHA you described it perfectly
Oh don’t worry I do the EXACT same thing. I actually am pretty lucky in this aspect then considering I’m a huge daydreamer and a book worm. I never could’ve thought that some people can’t imagine certain scenes or details in their heads.
I do that all the time! Whether it's books, songs, fanfics, whatever! I can even change the setting or exagerate it or think of alternates and stuff! Part of the reason I'm so lazy. I'm stuck in my head most of the time
I do the but with open eyes
For a minute I was like, wait people actually see their visions in there head, I just pretend I see it and I see nothing.
Uh- i actually didnt know since ive seen this video- yeah im weird-
That is what I'm like😐😅
Yeah, I thought it was like a metaphor... you know...
X2
That’s so sad... I’m sorry for you... I can see visuals better than other people who can I think.. I’m a very visual learner. If I’m thinking about a part of a book on a test I see the page in the book and the words written down
5:15 the sleeve goes black btw
Thanks so much for making this video! Up until today, I thought this was just normal. I didn't know people could 'actually see' an image in their mind's eye. When I'm trying to visualize it's more like a vague feeling (kinda hard to describe) like you're trying to squint really hard to see it. I think now that this is the reason why I love art and colors so much because it's what was missing in my mind. Thank you again!!
Lisa I can relate soooo much... I didn’t know people could actually see things cause I only saw black, I actually thought it was normal although I can only think of images and stuff
Omg I didn’t know this was a thing
I didnt even know that people CAN see something when they say they imagine.
Jenny Otaku SAME
I just found out about this about a week ago. Usually people find out they have it when they finally realize other people CAN see things, versus them learning they can't.
Some times I think of something so hard I can not only see it but smell it or taste it
I thought that people couldn't actually see stuff it just kind of remembered stuff and thought it if that makes sense
I literally just realised that the way I read i remember stuff from movies and use that.
I thought this was normal, I never knew you could see actual images in your head!
When people said ‘close your eyes and imagine this’ I thought it meant the thought of the thing lol
me too! my teachers would tell me that but i rely on memories.
samee
@Reee Flex I have an iq of 132 but I like tiktok and snap, am I a freak?
You can smell IT tuch it shape IT ad whatever you wanna ..you can be on moon or home or im space you see it im your head not when you close eye..you can imagine things With eyes opened
I thought everyone was able to picture things in their head.. I was very confused when I heard some people couldn't..
I can make 3d stuff, spin them around, draw a very detailed drawing, keep pictures saved from awhile ago (even from my dreams).. I could even imagine it in my hand.. I thought this was completely normal.
But you guys are lucky too, at least you don't get creepy visuals when reading a horror story and thinking about scary type of stuff.
At 09:32 these 'blotches' are actually dirt at the back of your eye which is why they stay if you keep your eyes still but move away if you look at them also I can see these images but only as a fake protection it's like I can see it but I can't overlay it against things I see even darkness
I am a 9 on the scale. The SERIOUSLY annoying part is that even with that clarity, it's SO tough to put it onto paper, screen or even in words with explanations.
Wow... so annoying. Try being a 0 lol. I would love to see images in my head, that would be amazing.
@@peachylady Can you visually reproduce in your mind a simple yet amazing scene you've seen before? Like an impactful movie scene, be it animation or live action? Or even something that happened to you? I always find it easier to reproduce 2D scenes that impressed me. That's not imagining tho, that's reproducing. We're not creating anything new.
But single objects... Or landscapes... Those things alone are quite difficult to process. Even if it's familiar. It's actually very frustrating, like trying to remember a person's face and failing.
But a scene, where stuff happens, where agency is involved, where things move, or even static scenes, like an imminent checkmate on a chess board. That I can visualize fairly easily.
It's hard for both parts I guess. I can see clearly things too, but from that to making them it's difficult. It's hard to 'make without seeing it' and 'see but can't make bit'. :(
me too... me too
Then I'm not missing anything haha
I can think of concepts and I can “see” what it’d look like but not if I close my eyes. When I close my eyes I don’t see anything. But I have some VIVID ass dreams.
Same same same 1000 times over!
I can kind of replay or imagine sounds and songs though... and my dreams are very visual.
Ingleserang walang pera my most vivid dream was very odd, it was about the dream team, I’d recently watched dreams video so it was in my mind, that dream was really sad and I actually cried, I don’t wanna explain it all but ye.
Ah yes, day dream.
I can't see images when closing my eyes but when I see, I SEE.
Same why does this happen
Best way to describe this: we use our memeory to describe things, but we can't fabricate anything new, but if we try , it's just really dark and unclear
So you mean it's harder to be creative if you have this?
Me(an oc creator): are you sure about that? :l
That's funny bc when I make up scenarios in my head I can actually see it vividly
I'm the complete opposite, with the apple it looked like I was in a REALLY dark room (2), but with something "new" it's aournd a 5
@@krome1187 I may not have aphantasia but *god damn* is this a mood. I have these great visuals in my mind but if I were to draw it, I suddenly don't know how it goes!
6 years ago?! Why wasn’t I recommended this sooner! I thought it was always normal!
i had a breakdown watching this. why did i cry when i realized i couldn't see anything in my head.
Abigail Westbrook I did too
Abigail Westbrook SAME
Melissa Rendall we can dream, I believe it’s separate from aphantasia, but I might be wrong
Abigail Westbrook ik it’s like I can picture what it looks like but can’t actually see it
I think we can, but it's mostly made up of memories and it's only occasional.
I'm absolutely dumbfounded over the fact that people can actually visualise things when they close their eyes. I always thought it was a metaphor or something
MY THOUGHTS EXACTLY.
I dont think its like actual fixed images. I think?
@@Aoen6591 for me it is! Like I can imagine a whole cat and move it around and change its color and stuff. (As well as other ppl ive asked) had no idea that not everyone could do this!
I'm curious. What do you see instead? Just the inside of your eyelids?
So, can you teach me how to turn mine off?
Hey! I actually had someone just like you in my art class two years ago. After finding out the girl from my class couldn't imagine what her finished drawing would look like we grouped together and researched a bit. A week later we found out she was totally badass at creating art collages and mood boards. Apparently those who lack this fantasy skills are much better at analyzing things like composition and layout. Collabs with her were always epic.
Ha, that sums me up too! It never stopped me being vice president of a national arts group...
WAIT OMG I THINK THIS IS THE VIDEO WHERE I FIRST DISCOVERED I HAVE APHANTASIA!!!! I randomly stumbled apon this video years ago when I was much younger and it's kinda crazy to find it again
Meanwhile I spend my nights awake for two hours because I'm daydreaming stories
Same. The core problem of getting no sleep.
Me 3hree
I use those to help me fall asleep.
I use to be able to day dream, it was the most common thing I use to do to help me get through the day.
Maybe you have maladaptive daydreaming
I didn't know people could see colors and images in their head.
I don’t think it is actually color or seeing the object more like knowing it’s there and seeing it’s details Ex I can’t see the apple but I know what It looks like and add a bunch of things but it’s not really visible but it’s like it is correct me if I’m wrong and sorry if I am
For me it is like an object that you can see but it’s not there like she said in the video like it’s in the back of your mind
@@missildineva7455 Except I can directly imagine the object on the table next to me and visualize that. I can't directly superimpose it in front of my eyes, but my mind can come pretty close.
That's sad, I dont know what I would do without my images
yea lol
I've never heard of someone who dreams in third person.. that's kind of cool.
I do is kinda scary tho
I cant think in first person
i almost always dream of the third person, i thought this was common :O
Michael Wolf that’s what I always do. I don’t know why. I thought everyone dreamed this way at first. I’m just learning now that it can be rare.
caly s.a same