Wow thank you so much for bringing this up because I used to get SO mad as a kid that I couldn't "visualize" things that my mother would give me exercises where I would close my eyes and try to visualize something but I just had. Vague shapes in front of my eyes that I tried to pretend were blurry outlines but deep down I knew it just wasn't, I can't visualize for shit!! So at some point I just figured that everyone was like this and we were just describing our experience differently but now 1/2
But now you're telling me that's not the case and some people actually DO see something? I'm going to be so sad if that's the case. I used to try to explain to people that of course I knew exactly what something/someone looked like and I could draw it from memory but that didn't mean I could actually 'see' it in front of me.. i can't believe it wasn't a scam and the whole time people have been seeing and hearing things? I'm still not convinced? What is the truth
I didn’t know about any of this at all until this year, it’s interesting that you had exposure to the concept sooner! I wonder if you remember how you found out that what you were doing wasn’t “visualising” according to other people?
I understand & do feel some scepticism because it seems on some level possible that we’re describing the same experiences differently (as I can conceptualise visual objects, I know and remember on some level what they look like, & I can call up a song in real time in my head) but then people actually start describing their experiences with this and it just seems utterly foreign. the idea that anyone could consider these experiences even remotely akin to “seeing” or “hearing” or that they feel there’s a spatial dimension that visualisation occurs on makes me think that something actually different is going on than a difference in terminology or a difference in the conceptualisation of experience--& the claim that a man developed aphantasia after minor surgery, if true, would kind of clinch that imo (if one person can experience both and note a difference between these two modes of visualisation / conceptualisation). [note as a warning that the link describes aphantasia as a “problem,” which is annoying]
the linked article, though, also notes “people wondering whether the same thing applied to sound - and Mr Ross said that while he can imagine some voices, it is difficult to ‘hear’ songs and he had never had one stuck in his head”--& I definitely do get songs stuck in my head. so who knows. I’d be interested to see if this receives further study in the future
I also get feeling sadness--it feels strange to realise that other people apparently have a more vivid internal world than I do, that people can visualise the faces of those they love, &c-- but on the other hand I’m annoyed at people acting like this is innately a “problem” or “failing” or whatever. why and how can I possibly miss something I’ve never experienced? outside of just how trippy this revelation is, I don’t care too much. obviously my ability to feel love for people isn’t affected by whether or not I can call a picture of their faces to mind.
putting this in the same post to avoid spamming people--a man with aphantasia in that article says “I also find it difficult to jump from abstract thought to concrete examples, although I think a positive consequence is that I am perhaps better at thinking abstractly than many other people.” I do experience this & am habitually very annoyed by metaphors being used as explanatory or pedagogical tools and confusing me or muddying the waters when I had understood the abstract point just fine. but at this point I think we risk veering into false pattern-finding / mapping ill-fitting post-hoc explanations onto potentially unrelated phenomena
