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BBC News has an article about a newly described condition called "aphantasia", where people can't visualize an imaginary scene:
Adam Zeman, a professor of cognitive and behavioural neurology, wants to compare the lives and experiences of people with aphantasia and its polar-opposite hyperphantasia. His team, based at the University of Exeter, coined the term aphantasia this year in a study in the journal Cortex [paywalled].
Prof Zeman tells the BBC: "People who have contacted us say they are really delighted that this has been recognised and has been given a name, because they have been trying to explain to people for years that there is this oddity that they find hard to convey to others."
How we imagine is clearly very subjective - one person's vivid scene could be another's grainy picture. But Prof Zeman is certain that aphantasia is real. People often report being able to dream in pictures, and there have been reported cases of people losing the ability to think in images after a brain injury. He is adamant that aphantasia is "not a disorder" and says it may affect up to one in 50 people. But he adds: "I think it makes quite an important difference to their experience of life because many of us spend our lives with imagery hovering somewhere in the mind's eye which we inspect from time to time, it's a variability of human experience."
If you think you have aphantasia or hyperphantasia and would like to be involved in Prof Zeman's research he is happy to be contacted at a.zeman@exeter.ac.uk
If this is true, isn't it fascinating that we have apparently always had two groups of people: those (majority) who could "count sheep" in order to fall asleep, and assumed that everybody could, and those (minority) who thought that "counting sheep" was just some weird expression, surely not something actual people could actually do.
Personally, my mum once advised me to count sheep; I could visualize them jumping over the fence, but it didn't help much in getting me to sleep. Clearly the genes for this "aphantasia" are not linked to those for insomnia.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:14AM
This is interesting to me because although I was an avid reader growing up frequently I didn't see images with what I was reading. I always thought maybe I wasn't reading well enough. I did see images at times (usually variations on my house and my own environment), but most of the time what I saw in my mind's eye wasn't visual - it was more like the impression of being inside the main character's head. I wonder if I have a mild variant of this.
As far as counting sheep, I always found that took some effort to visualize them, and that always seemed strange. It was easier for me to just count. If I had to imagine 100 sheep that was mentally exhausting (and not conducive to drowsiness, I'm afraid).
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:42AM
Don't look at me. The closest I can come to visualizing things I can only describe as "kind of like having a memory of having visualized something without the step of actually visualizing it".
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by danmars on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:10PM
I suspect I fall in this same boat. I have never "pictured" something when reading, and thus have had a lot of issues dealing with people who think I'm just being difficult. I had a head injury from a fall at age 5 which needed stitches (top of bunk bed onto thin-carpet-covered concrete floor while sleeping), which seems to somewhat match up with their potential cause.
In line with what someone else asked, my vision still works as vision, including hallucinations (especially when extremely tired). I can navigate pretty well for a period of time on a flash of light at night, but it's more of a visual ghost image I'm using and I can't form a new image if I try to navigate in the dark. I can form mental representations of some 3-d systems, such as figuring out proper perspective for a view out a window, but it doesn't come as a 2-d picture. This makes me pretty capable of forming technical drawings of objects, including proportion and proper placement of shadows, but not of inventing visual scenes (or especially people) in my mind as most people seem to do when drawing. I can't draw people unless I can constantly look at them.
Notably, I don't tend to see patterns that aren't there. I am not superstitious in the slightest, I've never seen ghosts or monsters even when very young, and I don't see patterns in clouds, ink blots, stains, or toast unless I specifically try to. I guess that means the ink blot test probably doesn't work as intended on me.
I guess I should probably contact the guy.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday August 27 2015, @03:29PM
Interesting. Now that you mention it, I had a couple head injuries in about 4th or 5th grade, although I can remember having this problem with books before then. For that matter I took a pretty sharp blow to the head last year as well.
I don't have any problems at all with spatial awareness reasoning, reasoning about abstract 3D figures and coming to conclusions or solving puzzles with them. But I don't really "see" the figures - I'm just doing logic. No problems with navigation, either.
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings