Aphantasia, can you see mental images?

I'm the same as you OP, can't picture things or people in my head. It's very hard to describe really

Thanks sleeper. Another thing wrong with me.

Wait . What . So other people see things when they think about it. Like having a picture in front of them

Wow ,I never knew

never heard of it.. wow - hands up who googled this upon reading? me!

I am the opposite..

i have such a photographic memory..

@Sleeper12 Did this affect your learning ability when younger?

Like, when I was doing exams, I could mentally picture my notes (although for the info to go into my head, I would have to understand it)..

In any event, it felt like a magical power lol

I found out about a year ago when a meme was going around that other people saw pictures and had full-blown conversations with themselves. Like Sonics2k I thought that when they had people talking to themselves in movies it was just to progress the scene but not that people did that in real life.

It made me wonder if it is an extroverted thing, as I am an extrovert and rely on a lot of outside simulation. Sitting in silence is just boring.

I can safely say that i dont know anymore. Never really thought about it untill the last week or so. I think its more a memory and not an image. Dont really have/ remember visual dreams either.

I've never been able to see mental images, but just thought it was normal. Heard about aphantasia a couple of years back, and it's made things make more sense.

When people would say "picture a tree", I thought they just meant to think about a tree, and what it looks like. I didn't realise they could actually see it.

I can 'see' pretty photo-realistic images but the colours are quite muted, not quite black and white but not exactly technicolour. Also I don't really see the whole picture but rather a scan of the parts of the image. It's weird. But on a side note I can hear music perfectly. Note for note. And not only that I can compose in my head, if I don't like a part of a composition I can 'play' a different instrument over it. It's a killer though if I have to hear a song I don't like and it sticks in my head. When I worked a panto years ago it nearly mentally destroyed me. Those songs are still stuck in my head. Along with Dustin the bollix Turkey.

I find that fascinating, I mean, how do you recall people's faces? Or if you think back to a film you saw, how does your brain process that? Does it simply categorise things? Like in your example of a tree, is your brain thinking 'tree... goes with nature' etc. but no image? Do you hear a voice rather than 'see' an image?

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I cant see any pictures but i can remember things ive seen before and use them if that makes sense. If u asked me to close my eyes n picture my dad i couldnt like imagine him it is just pure black but i can think of the last time i looked at photo of him n what he looks like or think back to a recent time i saw him, try remember what he was doing\wearing n try to remember in more detail and build it.

my mind has a good recall facility but little to creative ability.

I see vivid, full colour mental pictures. If someone askes me where something is, I literally pull up a picture of the room or place in my mind, see where the item is, and describe it to them. It's not quite Hannibal Lecter drawing the Florence skyline, but it's usually a pretty accurate picture, and I hardly ever lose things because I have a visual mental catalogue of where everything is (obviously unless someone else moves it unbeknown to me). I've a very good sense of direction, and can retrace my steps based on visual waypoints. I can "see" a map in my mind of the journey I've taken, even if I've never seen an actual map of it.

I can also play music and sounds vividly in my mind.

I have an absolutely awful memory for names. Appallingly, embarrassingly bad. If someone tells me their name, no matter how hard I try, I can't remember it. Even a few minutes after, I can play the conversation back in my mind, and the words leading up to them saying their name will be vividly clear, but then there'll be a gap when they say their actual name, and then I'll be able to vividly remember the words after it. I have to use mnemonics to remember names. It helps a bit if I already know someone else with the same name. When I'm trying to remember the new person's name, I'll associate them with the other person I already know, and then when recalling their name, I have to go through the process of recalling that association. I'm pretty bad at remembering numbers and dates too. I only know 3 phone numbers (including my own, and the now disconnected numbers of the house I grew up in), and I can't remember my wedding date. Even my children's birthdates, I have to think hard about.

But if I see a name written down, I can recall it by pulling up the picture and reading it in my mind.

I can design things in my mind too. I studied fine art painting and worked as a web designer for years, and I can fully visualise anything I want to create before I've begun making it. I can look at an empty room and accurately imagine what it will look like furnished or painted, or I can move exiting furniture or fittings around in my mind to rearrange a room. I also have a very active and vivid inner monologue. I can even change its accent.

That's a photographic memory. That is definitely not the norm. I'd assume you have a MENSA level IQ.

Annoys me that the poll is randomly distributed rather than going from "Nothing at all" to "Vivid, photographic memory". :D

I'd probably be in the "I see colour mental pictures" group. I can formulate images in my mind, when I'm working through a problem, I can visualise it in moving parts and work through it. I can bring up memories; static and "moving" and see the people in them and the colours. But I can't really "examine" any of it. It's more like looking at a photo or a video that someone is holding 2 feet away. I can see all the major elements, I can put myself in the moment. But the only fine details I can see are the general colour scheme, and the looks on people's faces.

No way in hell I can tell you what someone was wearing, or what items were on the shelf behind them. But that doesn't surprise me. I can literally walk away from a conversation with someone and I can't tell you what they were wearing. These are details I just do not see, even in real-time, unless they really stand out.

+1

I can recall music in very fine detail. After a good few listens of course, but I can replay the entire song, every instrument, every nuance and squeak, inside my head nearly as loud as if it was playing from a speaker beside me.

If I was suddenly not able to do this, would feel like a huge loss, like losing sight or hearing.

Help? Why would I want to see/hear things in my head? That sounds awful.

I'm fully aphantasic - I have no internal senses at all. No visual/audio/taste/tactile (I'm told people can remember what hugs feel like!?😲).

I have an internal monologue, but's a single monotone voice. I've never heard a song in my head or another voice (I find those memes where you're expected to read in Morgan Freeman's voice, or whoever, bizarre). Even for my favourite songs I'd struggle to remember more than a line or two of the lyrics, and rarely remember the tune.

My memories are a list of facts, nothing more.

I voted no mental images because I definitely don't see a photo of something. I can list out everything in the image in my head, which outlines the form of the horse and the background etc. But it's not a stock photo.

Id like a stock photo, that would be pretty cool. A song can take me back to moments in my life. Give me goose bumbs and bring emotions to the forefront. But it would never transport me back to the exaxt moment like that film 'The butterfly effect'. Again though I think that would be an awesome ability to have.

It's possible. My mother didn't have me tested.

I also might have SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory), in that I have no emotional connection to my memories. They're just things that happened (that I have a list of facts about). I feel as connected to them as if they were as story someone else told me.

Oh, and I don't get the idea of things like sights/sounds/smells triggering memories. That's just weird to me.