Somewhat related to my comment - I'm sure that, as with most things in the human experience, there's a wide spectrum.

What's the difference between imagining something and seeing a picture? That's kind of rhetorical, and kind of not. The article that this page links to from 2005 says:

"Asked to imagine a familiar item or recall a recent event, most people can call to mind an image that is less vivid than the original but has a visual ‘feel’. This expresses our capacity to experience visual mental imagery."

Which is still super vague as to what people do when they "call to mind" something, or what a visual feel is...

> Which is still super vague as to what people do when they "call to mind" something, or what a visual feel is...

I think it's pretty easy to explain relatively unambiguously though.

When you're looking at an object, let's say an orange, you are experiencing a unique, particular sensation which usually only happens when you're looking at an orange. Being able to visualize things is to be able to create the same sensation wilfully even when you're not looking at an orange (albeit of perhaps a lesser intensity).

Most people who suffer from this could be shown a 3d modeling or CAD tool. I would explain it as having access to this when you close your eyes, except its hazy and comes in and out of focus.

It can also be used to conjure a short movie like sequence or animation as well. I most frequently use it to plan routes in my mind whether its in the car or how I'm going to move through a particular space it helps orient you and improves reaction speed and can be tied to muscle memory. It takes some focus and is rarely used simultaneously with other activities. It's more like a planning or focusing activity for brief bursts before you take action.

Its actually quite like those slow motion 360 sequences in the matrix. I think that's probably why that film technique gained such traction, as its a slowed down version of what our brains do when we use our visual memory to navigate our movement.

That's a good description, and seems to align with what I think I feel - a sensation, I tried to think of examples that weren't images for me, but just a sensation, but I think, at least in my 30 second brainstorm, I always got an image, but it was always a very simplified one, and the more complex the idea, the shorter the sensation. This was not done scientifically at all, but what I'm trying to say is thanks: that's a pretty succinct description that I can get behind.

A useful analogy is that 'call to mind visually' is to seeing as thinking something is to hearing yourself say something. The calling to mind is necessarily less intense as seeing because while you are calling to mind your visual system is preoccupied with other visual stimuli.

It's not terribly surprising it's vague as it's an entirely internal mental experience that has no hard external effect like other mental differences (I hesitate to say issue or problem since) and the description in both directions is hard.

I have aphantasia and I found out three years ago when I heard the research on radio, that others do see images in their mind.

So far, it has been very problematic to explain to others what it is like to not see images in your mind, I guess because it is fundamentally a process of understanding.

There is a reddit community /r/aphantasia if anyone want to know how it is from their point of view.

I was literally just reading the wiki article before I clicked on HN. Kind of interesting we’re all thinking about this at once.

Personally, I suspect an analogy along the lines of... if my brain has a GPU to process what I actually see with my eyes, then the conjured images in my minds-eye are just my brain leveraging that GPU for processing other thoughts or memories. As a consequence, I get a sensation similar to "seeing" when I think. Perhaps people with aphantasia can't input their own thoughts into their GPU?

If we're going to go along those lines, my GPU is not installed. Everything is coming out via the line printer.

My visualisation of images rates as 0/10 - power cut in a basement. I can't even create a colour (except the inside of my eyelids on a sunny day). Not even aware of a visual component in dreams.

But I can mentally 3D model. I can sort-of "just know" how things interrelate that is more an unconscious time and distance journey around the thing. It works well enough to plan a model, something I want to build from wood, or redesign the kitchen with an idea of where the possible clashes are, before I hit paper. So the spatial sense is there - somehow.

Explaining it without a lot of hand-waving "I just sort-of know" is a challenge I also fail at. It's more like asking you to visualise something non-visual like honesty I suspect.

I think that's a good analogy. From my hobby neuroscience studies I'd say that what we see in life is more or less a selective hallucination (we filter out, for instance, electromagnetic fields which bees can actually see) -- so it's almost more literal than merely it being similar to seeing. It likely is equivalent to seeing or very close. Dreaming, for instance, creates life-like imagery despite being technically disconnected from incoming light/inputs. Our brains are wild little nodes.

> I wonder if I'm really picturing things at all or if I'm just imagining them.

Anything you're picturing in your mind's eye would require the use of your imagination no? What is the significant difference between imagining and picturing something in your mind?

By my comment above I'm trying to determine whether or not I have Aphantasia. Before I found out that some people couldn't do it, I would've described myself as someone who could visualize things. Now that I know some people can't, how do I know that I can? Is it more vivid for others? Perhaps it's a continuum, with synesthetes at the other extreme?

EDIT: someone in this thread linked to a quiz that makes me think I'm likely somewhere in the 'normal' realm.