Aphantasia Beginner's Guide: Can You Picture a Red Apple?

What is it called when you can vividly see the silhouette of your hands with your eyes closed -- and particularly if your fingers are brushing against your skull. I didn't discover this 'transparent skull' skill until I was in my 50s -- much like those with aphantasia don't know they perceive things differently than many others.

Totally useless of course -- but it was a weird discovery nonetheless.

I've known about aphantasia for a long time, but there is one question I keep coming back to: Is it a skill issue?

When I was in second grade, our teacher asked us to close our eyes and imagine a pretzel. I closed my eyes and tried to will a pretzel to appear as an image, and I failed miserably. All I saw was darkness and faint squiggles. I didn't understand why so many of my classmates said they could "see" the pretzel with their eyes closed.

Later on, I realized that my mind's eye doesn't actually work like that. It's not like turning on a projector screen against one's closed eyelids and magically seeing things that aren't there. The imagery exists on another plane, such that I can visualize an apple with my eyes open or closed, because what I am "seeing" has nothing to do with my eyes themselves.

Which makes me wonder whether people who think they have aphantasia might not be missing a mind's eye, but rather are unaware of how to active it.

It would take a lot to convince me that aphantasia or phantasia actually exist.

Let's talk very specifically about the afterimage test here. Can anyone confirm that they have this ability, which specifically is to superimpose imagined objects inside your actual field of vision? If the answer to this is yes, then okay, I guess I have aphantasia. But none of the other criteria seems to apply.

I can imagine a song, and "hear" it in my "mind's ear", but I am not confused about whether it is occurring through my ears or just in my brain. I can easily imagine the tones and voices and tell you what the bass line sounds like, etc.

My visual imagination works the same way -- I can't make the object appear in my field of vision any more than I can make sounds appear in my field of hearing, but I can definitely imagine the visual aspects of it. If you tell me to imaging an equilateral triangle, I can put it there in my mind's eye, and if you tell me to attach another equilateral triangle to it I can see the resulting parallelogram. But I can't actually *see* it.

It would take a lot to convince me that phantasia or aphantasia actually exist, and nothing I see on this webpage convinces me.

I have aphantasia in both visual and audio forms. And I can tell you audio aphantasia is wild.

I cannot hear a song in my head if my life depended on it but then there are triggers that extract it music it.

Examples: "who let the dogs out" (I remember rhythm but not the music). I play piano for almost 2 years but I have no idea what's the each sound is. It gets even better. Even though I play and record [0] I can't remember my own compositions. They usually come back to me as a play on hands and not on audio.

I thought I was music deaf for the most of my life. My music teachers mocked me in my youth showing me as an example of someone with zero hearing.

My latest music teacher discovered that I actually have absolute hearing skill but... can't recall sound in my head. So I sense even slight shift in toning (e.g. given few variations of same melody I can tell which one is the original tuning) but I can't reproduce it.

[0]: https://on.soundcloud.com/Rv6t1jXzyAH8E2jEaY

For folks that are thinking this is just semantics or qualia, the site mentions this:

"We can also see activation in the visual cortex during fMRI studies, the area in the brain that processes images from the eyes, further suggesting actual visualization."

(edited to add)

Also, Aphants lack pupil response when asked to imagine dark/bright scenes: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/04/220420092150.h...

I realized I have aphantasia after reading an HN thread about it a few years ago. I talked to my daughter about it and I realized she has it too.

I've tried to explain it to people and they get confused. Just as I get confused about their perception; their imagination sounds to me rather like a psychotic hallucination, to exaggerate slightly. I've had some funny discussions about it.

In the end there doesn't seem to me to be any reason to get hung up on these topics. Everybody's inner world and perception can be different from others. That's fine and not a big deal.

When people talk about seeing something in your mind's eye, do they mean a virtual image actually appears _as if_ you are seeing it in place of the real world or the blackness of your eyelids? Like do they somehow replace the picture from the eyes to the brain with whatever they are trying to visualize in a sort of hallucination? Or do they still 'see' the blacks of their eyelids or the world around them while visualizing the apple but not _really_ seeing it?

I found out that people DO visualise about 10 years ago when that interview with Pixar's animation head came out. I had a bit of a shock at first, then disappointment, then a deeper understanding of why I am like I am. A few metaphorical minutes later I got on with life. I'm not sure how to take this "club" for the "mentally blind". On one hand, I applaud humanity's ability to monentise pretty much everything, and on the other hand, I'm not sure I want to talk about how I can't see in my mind with other people who can't see in their mind. It's a neat conversation piece when in a group of people or friends, but a club?... Jury's out... I did sign up though.... Took the "test"...

One thing I'd like to learn is how to effectively meditate as someone with aphantasia. I took a course in college and all of the exercises involved some variation of tuning out your internal monologue going to your happy place in your minds eye. I'd love to get the benefits of meditation, but I can't visualize anything so none of the meditation tools that are taught in these kinds of courses work for me at all.