Where do you fall on the aphantasia scale?

Follow up question.

Is it easier to imagine it with your eyes open or closed?

Imagining nothing is just as easy, eyes open or closed :)

Probably a 3.

Unless I have nightmares, then it gets hyperrealistic and off the scales like I can see the the mushroom cloud of the nuke going off.

Edit: To add to this, I hate reading books, its just not enjoyable for me, for the most part. I need visual media to understand. whats going on.

It varies based on context and how much thought I put into it. I might just think apples and not image them if its just a place holder but if Im thinking more about apples or like a scene in a book is engaging then the apple will be there in the visualization but how detailed it is is going to be based on its importance in whatever the thing is. I would have to be really trying to visualize the perfect apple to get a high detail one in my head. I used to read a lot and I feel like I visualized a lot more then but now that I am consuming media that just has the thing its like im not working out the muscle.

Can you guys actually see things? Like I can pretty clearly imagine things but theres no physical things to see things. I can imagine folding a box in my mind or spinning it but I wouldn't say I can see the box

5

same

1 or less I think. My mind also populated scenery in addition to the apple (a walnut stained table it was on outdoors).

4.5 on a very good day

It's complicated for me because it's not a specific one? It depends on my present state of mind and stuff, like when I try to visualize an apple I can kind of do it but sometimes it's a little staticky, or my mind just kind of cycles through a bunch of what feel like video feeds? Like memories of times i have seen an apple played as YouTube videos in a series? Except some of them are purely imagined?

Sometimes I can have a pretty much perfect mental visualization of what I'm thinking of though.

Full on 5. Maybe a 4 if I try really hard. But I still have a "big imagination", I just can't see it in my mind.

I’m a 5 on this scale. I was 50 years old when I discovered aphasia. When discussing this with my father I realised he has eidetic memory. This prompted me to think back and I remembered that used to see pictures in my head but it changed when I had traumatic head injury at 7 years old.

I am a 5 now and I think I used to be a 1, have had multiple head injuries as well....

1 i can make a 3d model with full detail color reflections and picture it at any angle

Saaame. It’s neat to be able to do. On the flip side though, I have ludicrously vivid dreams, and I can feel all senses (especially pain) in my dreams.
- i have very vivid dreqms to but i dont feel pain and dont need glasses etc

I can see a kind of a framework. If I imagine a wooden cottage in a mountain scenery, what I see is just metadata. I "see" the following:

The concept of a mountain scenery
The concept of wooden cottage exists within the said mountain scenery (its location is not defined, though).

Then I can take a look at the mountain scenery. I "see":

The concept of there being a valley
The concept of a river flowing in the valley

Next, let's take a look at the valley. I "see" for example:

There is a concept of another mountain beyond the valley.
There is a forest growing on the slopes of the valley

If I "look" at the forest, I "see", among others:

Many individual coniferous trees

Etc.

But, when I'm "looking" at the trees, I never see the actual tree, only a knowledge of "here's a tree". And while "looking" at the forest, I do not see the rest of the scenery, only the tree. I can of course go back to seeing the whole scenery with the cottage in it, but now I only "see" the information "there is a mountain scenery with a valley, and a cottage exists within the scenery". Okay, the valley has appeared in a more stable fashion now that I've taken a look at the image.

So, shortly put, I do get very precise instructions for how to draw the image, but I do not see the image. The only way I can actually see it is to take physical pencils or an image editing program and actually draw a picture according to the instructions. This is also how my memories work. Everything is just metadata. A very thorough metadata that can be used for drawing a very precise replica of what I have seen, but no real visual information.

I can even "paint" the abovementioned scenery more precisely:

Mountain scenery
- Valley with river
  - River: Water is streaming relatively fast
    - White "foam" visible on top of waves
    - Basically this is something between a river rapid and a wide mountain creek
  - River: Slightly bending here and there
  - River: Has waves
  - River: Going from near the lower right corner, meeting the horizon maybe 30 % from the left side of the image.
  - River: Direction of flow not clearly defined
  - Valley: A slope exists on the other side of the valley
    - Forest on the slope
      - Consists of coniferous trees
        Spruces, maybe 70 % of trees
        About as tall as a four-floor building
        The shape is uniform, beautiful
        Branches have needles on them
        Branches have subbranches
        The branches' structure seems to be recursive
        Needles are dark green
        Individual needles are visible
        For some reason, there is one squirrel among the spruces.
        The squirrel is brown.
        Its tail is fluffy
        Reaches a bit over the top of its head
        Undefined coniferous trees, remaining 30-ish %.
        Cannot be further observed
- Sky
  - Covers a bit over a quarter of the upper part of the image
  - The sun is setting or rising
    - Yellowish or orangeish colour
    - Seagulls or similar
      - Far away, not visible very clearly
      - Gliding, not flapping their wings
Cottage
- Wooden
  - Made of horizontal planks, possibly logs
    - The logs/planks have lines visible in them, as wood does.
      - Lines are somewhat winding, calmly
- Has a door
  - Wooden
  - No window
  - Planks on door are vertical
  - I am apparently unable to see a handle in the door
- Has a window
  - Made of four panes
    - Pane is transparent
    - A sofa visible through the pane.
    - A flower vase is standing behind the window
      - It is on a windowsill
      - The flowers are roses
        Red
        Petals
        Petals are more tall than wide
        Overlapping each other
        Leaves
        Two
- Chimney
  - Smoke rising from the chimney
- A person is sitting inside the cottage (okay, apparently I can "see" through the walls; hadn't really noticed this earlier that this makes very little sense)
- Male
- Old
- In a rocking chair

(Et cetera. I could "zoom" into different things in this "image" forever, and yet I cannot see it or anything it. Every time I zoom, I just get more information on what's visible – more "instructions for what to draw" if I ever wanted to make the image visible by bringing it physically to existence. I could also probably make the river flow to some specific direction or have the "undefined coniferous trees" defined more precisely, but those are not "visible" in the original image I got when I chose "a wooden cottage in a mountain scenery" as the image I'll be observing, so it means I'm kind of "painting over" the original image if I define them.)

I guess 1 and 4. When I see or hear the word apple, I don't picture anything, I just understand the word. But when I'm prompted to picture an apple in my head, I can fully see any type of apple I can remember encountering. The moving image in my head currently has the color/texture of water paint (and some oil), but I think that's more because I'm pretty stoned

5.

But actually it feels more something like:

    
class Apple {       
  public:             
    string color;  
    string shape;
    string taste;
    string recipes[];
};

I know what an apple is, I know stuff about it and what properties it has, but it produces no picture (nor code btw...) in my head.

We appear to be many. Perhaps some of us should revive the !aphantasia@lemmy.world community at some point?
Your recipes are a local string!? Are you storing duplicate recipes for apple pie in your Apple class and your sugar, flour, butter, salt, water, cinnamon, and lemon classes?
5 here. I explain it to people as a relational database.
Same here. I know what things should look like and everything but theres no actual picture there, just an abstract concept.
This is everything I haven't seen before. If I am running a table top game like D&D my monsters are literally a list of traits and regurgitated descriptions with no visual details in my own mind. This works out pretty well somehow.

I'm like a 2. I can picture an apple, it has color and texture, but when I try to rotate it the colors don't really work, like I don't know what's on the other side. Same thing with picturing a rubix cube. I can imagine seeing maybe 2 or 3 faces of the cube and I know how rotations/moves work but when I visualize it the new faces are just colorless.

If I try really really hard I might be able to visualize colors on the new face but the colors definitely wouldn't be consistent on each side of the rubix cube.

No pics in my brain at all. Also have Anendophasia (no inner voice).

I dream but it fucks me up. Same system my brain uses for reality stuff. Takes time to sort out if not fantastical. I still don’t see anything. Just remember like I do other stuff without pictures. It so disconcerting that I have smoked cannabis every night since I was 13 before bed to suppress the dreams even though they surface from time to time, at least then I know they are dreams.

how does no inner voice work? like do you have thoughts but don't feel like you can "hear" then very well? idk if this makes sense
- Not sure if I can answer that as I have never had a voice in my head ever. I have no reference unfortunately. It’s the single biggest question I have for myself. How do I have thoughts with no pictures and no inner voice but still think of stuff without hearing anything. I have no clue.
Oh wow, I'd never considered what dreaming would be like for someone with that trait. So you fall asleep, and then you get flooded with bizarre fake memories?
- Yup, not flooded though luckily. Cannabis suppresses the dreams and sometimes they burble to the surface during waking hours which makes it easier to sort them out.

Wait, there are people who aren't a 1?!?!

Kind of brings new meaning to "paint me a picture [with your words]" for you didn't it?

So I'm really not sure where I lie on the scale. I try to imagine the apple but I really can't create any kind of image.

I read a bit about this and tried to imagine faces of people I know and had a little more success. However it is like I'm recreating each part at a time and as soon as I start to imagine another part, the previous disappears. I.e. I imagine the right side of the face, eye and cheek, the go to imagine the left side and the right side fades or disappears completely, imagine the hair, and the face is vague at best etc.

But also, I can also have incredibly vivid dreams!

It's almost like imaging an apple is too trivial for my mind to bother with! I try to imagine my front garden and its there, but rather vague and monochrome, so maybe 3-4.

I'm recreating each part at a time and as soon as I start to imagine another part, the previous disappears.
Exactly the same for me, thanks for putting it in words.

Question: when you picture something in your head, do you actually see it clearly, as if it's right in front of you?

I don't. My girlfriend claims that she does. I can imagine things on a level 2 or 3, but it's just a thought in my head, not a detailed image manifesting in front of me.

I'm a 2 on this scale. I can "see" the image. But it's not like it's in the world in front of me. It's not like 3D goggles have drawn a virtual object on the table in front of me. If I'm picturing a football, I'm not just imagining the football; the picture in my mind is of the lawn, and trees, and sun, and whole environment where I am standing looking down at a football.
When I picture something, I can see it clearly, it's in my mind's eye. I see it, but it has it's own environment. It's like my eyes are outputting the actual primary PC desktop, and my mind's eye is a separate virtual desktop in a different area, but running off the same processor. For people who haven't experienced this, I would describe it like dreaming. In a dream you're seeing things, but not with your eyes. It's like a dream scene, but my eyes are open and I'm getting visual input too.
I often zone out, or miss parts of what people are saying because I can easily start concentrating on my mental imagery. I find online video meetings incredibly difficult to keep up with because I can easily end up re-living some other fun activity I did recently and concentrating on that instead. I have a bunch of fidget toys on my desk to get me through these online meetings (if I focus on the fidget toys, then my mind doesn't go to its secondary virtual desktop).
No, I see it as though it's on another "layer" entirely. Also, when I'm focussing on one layer, the other ~80% slips away from my perception.
The way I would describe this would be to make another comparison to thinking in general. Do you have an internal narrator, or have songs get stuck in your head? If you do, you are thinking with your "mind's ear," so to speak. If you are at all familiar with this concept, even if you can't imagine absolutely anything you want to hear, it's a great analog for what it's like to use your "mind's eye." In the same way you don't literally hear what you think, you don't actually see what you think either. You just use those parts of the brain to create the sensation and experience it in some way. It doesn't overtake your primary vision and literally activate photon receptors in your eyes, but it can distract you from that sensory information since you're using that area of the brain.
Really I am interested in how literal your girlfriend is there, because if that's not a miscommunication, that just sounds like on-demand hallucination. I could clearly imagine something in front of me. I could manipulate it, I could imagine any of my senses to interact with the object, but at no point does it appear to literally exist in the world as if it's a hallucination. That would be an insane ability to have, and I don't think that's what people generally mean when they use their "mind's eye."

I can rotate a cow in my mind.

are lighting and physics applied
- they are now
Call me when you can rotate a cow with your mind.
Often, a cow in my head doesn't even have legs when not necessary.... It often give me headache if I give it a head, colors and legs at the same time
So can I, but I'm not seeing the cow, it's more like thinking of the process to make it in a 3D modelling program. 🤷‍♂️
It'd be a parametric cow, too. With sliders, and dropdown lists, and probably a few checkboxes.
For free?!

Though colour is fine, I don't know why this graph removes the colour. Things I visualize appear quite faint, like I can hardly see them. But I can definitely visualize things.

I feel like “1 but faint” would be my answer too

I guess when it comes to visualizing things, the apple I'd see would be between a 1 and a 2.
But to me when I try to fully imagine an apple, I also imagine how I can feel the texture of its skin, the weight of it in my hand, the taste and sensation when taking a bite out of it, the smell of the juice, the stickiness of my fingers afterwards, etc.
Or is this also included in the scale? Because then I guess it's a 1.

Between a 4 and a 5. I also have no inner monologue, just thoughts in the form of impulses and instincts

Maybe you mean anendophasia? Aphantasia is someone who either can't or find it hard to imagine. I have anendophasia and have little or no inner monologue. Unlike those with inner monologues, I tend to imagine what I will do instead of speaking in my mind what I will do.
- Ooh yea I think I have both Aphantasia and Anendophasia (I also find it hard to imagine all distinctive visual characteristics of an object at a time)
Do you find yourself talking out loud yourself more because of that?
- Nope

I’ve always thought this was really hard to describe. I think I’m a 1. The idea of fully picturing something is such a natural thing, but I also don’t know what level of vivid people actually mean.

When I picture the apple, I could easily write a detailed paragraph about what it looks like. I could even easily picture an environment for it that just sort of comes into frame (always on an apple orchard, during the afternoon).

I can easily even put myself in that space mentally.

I’ve just never thought about this being something other people can’t naturally and quickly do that when I saw this question, I assumed people were describing actually fully fooling their senses into the thing physically appearing before them.

I picture it like another monitor or render layer that I can flip to, manipulate, and test in to work out concepts.

I'm convinced that most cases of aphantasia are just a result of the difficulty in commutating the experience of visualizing something.
To me, "seeing" something in my mind's eye isn't really similar to actual visual perception. I can imagine an apple and rotate it in my mind but I would describe this as more of an exercise in understanding what that would look like. I can "see" the stem, the striations of color, the shape, the imperfections move as the apple rotates. However, I do not actually visually perceive the apple as if it were a physical object reflecting photons into my eyes, stimulating my retina and causing the conscious perception of the apple. I think this is likely true for others.
If people could actually visually perceive or mentally project whatever they're imagining into their actual vision, then I believe people would be much better at drawing. You could just imagine this vivid image on the paper and essentially trace it.
I've heard the counter argument that this isn't the way drawing works. I still think that most people draw poorly because of the way that your mind's eye works, and not because of the way that drawing works. When they put pencil to paper, the truth about the inadequacy of their visual concept becomes apparent. Their mind was tricking them into thinking they held a complex visual idea but really, it was a vague conception.
I'm convinced that holding something in your mind's is far closer to "understanding" than it is to "seeing".
- I can "see" the stem, the striations of color, the shape, the imperfections move as the apple rotates
  I have aphantasia, and I can't do this.

I think I'm a 3-4? Its such a hard thing to gauge. I've known people who are 1s and 5s

Somewhere between 3 and 5? I don't know.

Picture a line diagram of an apple, annotated with average dimensions, weight, taste, smell, possible colours, patterns, and whatnot, all cross-referenced to lists of apple varieties, recipes, and other random information about apples.

Now remove the diagram, and leave only the information. No, not as text, or spoken words, just as raw information.

That's the one, whichever number it is.

(This doesn't mean I couldn't draw you an apple, mind, the necessary information is still all there — I mean, I can't, but because my hand eye coordination sucks, not because of the aphantasia; give me a vector drawing software I'm familiar with and I'd probably be able to draw you a pretty cromulent apple.)

I'm usually 1, sometimes 2 when I'm tired. I can imagine whole storylines as if they were movies, which made planning comic panels super easy to me. I was just imagining the whole scene in my head first and then extracting key frames 😆

A complete 5 for both me and my partner, but her daughter has 1 to the point of "watching movies in her head" when she's bored. Her uncle is the exact same way, at least as a child.

Does hyperphantasia count as 1 or 0?

So I'm a 1, except for faces. Does anyone else get this?

If its a face I know, then it's a 2. But if I'm reading or listening to fiction, faces are more like a 4. Everything else appears in vivid detail when described - clothes, surroundings, etc. - I can even conjure tastes and smells, but I really have difficulty holding onto a face in my mind. It's made me appreciate fan art.

Faces are processed differently by our visual system. There is a condition called prosopagnosia or face blindness which affects about 2.5% of the population. I wonder if there are milder forms that are not as well known or studied.
- I have dyspraxia and my facial recognition is utterly shite
- Oh I'm awful with faces. If I see someone I know outside of the context in which I know them I won't recognize them. Like running into a coworker at the grocery store I won't realize who they are unless they come speak to me and then it takes a second to click.

I always thought aphantasia was a thing you either had entirely, or not. I thought it ought to be a scale but I never heard anyone say it was until today. I'm a 4.

There was an interesting comment when this image was posted to reddit 6 years ago.

quadraspididilis

I'd call myself a 3, but I don't find the twitter illustration very accurate. The apple isn't low resolution like in the drawing, but it is insubstantial. Like hold your hand a couple of inches in front of one eye and then try to read this; you can still see your hand, but it's mostly see-through because your brain is mostly ignoring that eye. My experience of picturing the apple is like that, but the apple is in focus. Also, I have a hard time holding the image for more than a second.

This is me, but with a very faint ghost hand. I also can't hold it still. Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night I become a 5. Sometimes if I have an edible I can hold on to images longer.

I feel like i understand so much more now about myself and others. This is why I struggle to make art that isn't just copying something. This is why I struggle with role-playing games.

That's a very good explanation.
I believe mine has changed over the years, possibly from underuse, but the struggle to hold onto images is real. I can create an image in my head and it can be rather detailed even... but if it's more than a single item, I can't hold details well for more than a part of it at a time.... like having tunnel vision almost. Whatever im focusing on only... and it takes increasing focus to hold it and not lose it.

4 1/2. I can "plot" various shapes, etc. but it isn't visual, it's spacial information. It's like an un-rendered cad file. Also, the more I concentrate on a detail, the less I perceive of the whole.

Love your description, I'm like this too ! Can't have more than a detail at a time in the head: Either a color or a general shape or a specific detail; but no detail & overall view at the same time
Same here.

I can't dream either, but I used to be able to.

Solidly 5 (no visual dreams either or much of any sense memory in general) and I thought "picture this" and similar sayings or instruction was figure of speech until aphantasia as a word became popular...less than a decade ago? idk I learned of it during covid I think.

Probably somewhere between 3 and 4.

I would notice it the most during exams, where when faced with a question I'd be able to recall how the page with the lesson was laid out, only I'd see blurry squiggles instead of letters.

2 when I don’t think about it, 1 with some effort.

5.

Negative 4.

You see an apple in your mind that is more real than a real apple?
"Bro watchu chewin on?"
making cronching noises "... imaginary apple".

I have hyperphantasia, according to some crappy online test I took a few months ago.

It certainly has its advantages, like it occasionally combines with my relatively good memory for moments of photographic memory.
But it can also be somewhat depressing at times, like other people get excited to visit some castle or whatever and I'm just like "I've seen a castle before, I can just look at it in my head for the most part", which makes such trips significantly less interesting...

It is interesting to find out about aphantasia. I have anendophasia (having little or no internal monologue) so those with the condition that I have tend be on the extreme opposite end by having vivid imagination. My college classmate said she never get any dreams, but maybe because she probably has aphantasia.

I cant picture my own partners face in my head.

Can you picture other stuff? Anything that’s not human faces? Prosopagnosia is real, and I have it too.
- Having sat down and read some more, I dont think I have prosopagnosia. I can't picture her face, but I can recognise/remember people by their faces.
  It sounds pretty tough to live with, have you always had it?
- Not really, at least not as an "image". I have a concept of what an apple looks like, I just can't image it in my mind.

i literally don't know.

Both 1 and 5 at the same time. If dreams are VR, conjuring is like an 1/5 AR void thought.

Hmm. I'm not sure I can imagine in color.

Needs the giver

0 or 1

I think i might be 1 or 2 or middle of it. I can create a map in my head, then rotate the map. I used to be able to do it well but lately maybe because of old, i need to focus a bit more to do it.

But then i could be 3? Because the colour could be off.

I think I'm a 4, but I could be 5 and coping. I can't decide whether I'm imagining an apple or imagining that I'm imagining an apple.

5 :3

Probably 4. I technically have an imagination since I did pass that psy test where you interpret stories from image boards (according to my last psych eval), but my imagination is pretty weak

Probably 3 or 4. My mind's eye is blind! Lol. I see in words, not pictures, and I'm very sensitive as well but I don't truly get "visual beauty".

Depends!

If I haven't seen it before, then 5. I literally cannot picture something I haven't seen before.

Most things are a 4 if I'm lucky.

If I've seen it a lot of times, like more than 20 times, maybe a 2 or 3. If I've seen it 100+ times then probably a 2. No, I cannot deviate from what I literally saw, and it may not even be that detailed.

4-5 typically.

I can do 1 but typically like a 3/4. My brain doesn’t generally consider color important unless it’s a key feature. Like if you ask me to rotate an object in my head for maintenance then its bare bones almost could consider it a wire mesh. But if it was a perfect sphere but with colored sections then I would see the colors because it’s the main way to orient it.

1, but it's really really abstract and fuzzy.

For me it's like seeing through a small frosted window my above my right eye, muted colors and blobs. I see some fuzzy words, max 3 letters in my upper left "field of view". Other than that all black and all images fade in a second or two.