The fact that people don’t think alike has only in recent years become known to me. And by “think alike” I’m not referring to content, I’m referring to style, manner, system.
I think in words, sentences, including the sound of my voice as well as the sound of other people’s voices when I’m thinking about other people as well.I have multiple tracks running at all times. Two or three in front, an unknown number in the back. I see made up images. I see images from memory.
It is never quiet, never peaceful. I am never free of thoughts, of active verbal thoughts composed of words.
Please describe if you can the way it works inside your head, especially if it is very different from the way it does in mine. I am particularly fascinated and puzzled by the people who say they never think in words, even before they speak! I don’t comprehend that… How do you speak? How do you write? How do you do the next thing unless you have thought of it? Please try to make that clear. I know it’s the only thing you know… but I would love to understand.
Kind of all of the above, the voice I hear isn’t the same voice I speak with, it’s more neutral sounding. When I’m deep in thought, I’m not aware of any dialogue, I just am kind of thinking.
Mostly this. I’m not sure if I’m never quiet, I haven’t considered that, but I think in words, in images, and in memories, both detailed and vague. I am fascinated by aphantasia, the inability to visualise images, as it seems like a very recent discovery and revelatory to those who experience it.
I mostly have just an inner monologue, and I don’t “hear” anything when I’m thinking, nor “see” any images. I can call up voices and images to some degree, if I make a conscious effort, but it doesn’t happen by itself.
Typing the above paragraph (and this one) my inner monologue is giving me the words, as if I were taking dictation. If I am having trouble with wording, that process stops and there is some mental fumbling until it seems right, and then I continue. There is also some just-in-time editing of that content before I actually type. If I make a typo, the monologue stops while I correct it, and then resumes.
I am mostly a fact-based thinker, not a creative one, which may account for this sort of monochromatic processing.
I thing the OP is referring to Hyperphantasia. The opposite of aphantasia.
When reading “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” most readers visualize the queen’s croquet game play out in their heads. A few might see the scene in vivid detail. However, a small fraction of readers have a drastically different experience: within their heads, they “see” absolutely nothing. Why do some people have an inability to visualize images? Adam Zeman explores the science of Aphantasia.
My experience is similar to Stoid’s, plus music, sometimes rhythmic sounds, and images. I had to draw it once for a college assignment, and I could tell my instructor thought I was exaggerating, but it’s a madhouse in here!
I think in words, almost exclusively. I don’t think I quite have aphantasia, but I can’t really look at images in my mind. I can think about a green apple, and there’s sort of an awareness of colour & shape, as well as the words “green apple” in a mental non-voice. I can’t really see it as a crisp image—I can only seem to do that while dreaming. I can, however, replay sounds in my head.
I recently learned that other people can think of smells and tastes. I cannot do this. Just sound (words, music), and emotions.
This also seems to have a real effect on memory. I can often remember the specifics of where I first heard a word, or what someone said, but visual things are very difficult to access. When someone else jogs my memory sufficiently, I can usually recall them, but a lot of the past isn’t accessible to me unless it’s tied to language.
Aphantasia is a condition where a person is unable to form mental images or visualize scenes in their mind. It is a neurological phenomenon that affects approximately 1-4% of the population.
Symptoms:
Inability to visualize objects, faces, or scenes
Difficulty recalling visual memories
Lack of vivid dreams
May experience difficulty with spatial reasoning and navigation
I have an always on internal monologue, unless I’ve actively doing something else that overrides it. Like @Dr.Drake I don’t think I have aphantasia, since I have extremely vivid dreams and very good navigation. But I can’t visualize anything except in the sense that I can rationally put together an image of a green apple or the furniture in my living room. Certainly not smells or tastes or feels either.
Incidentally, as the video explains, this condition is a spectrum, only a minority has complete Aphantasia or Hyperphantasia, many fall in different places of that spectrum.
Abstract
The aim of this research was to establish prevalence estimates for aphantasia, hypophantasia, typical imagery ability, and hyperphantasia in a large multi-national cohort. In Study 1, the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire was completed by 3,049 participants. Results indicated prevalence estimates of 1.2% for aphantasia, 3% for hypophantasia, 89.9% for typical imagery ability, and 5.9% for hyperphantasia. In Study 2, to replicate these findings in a larger sample, the Study 1 data were combined with openly available data from previous prevalence studies to create a total sample of 9,063 participants. Re-analysis of this data confirmed prevalence estimates of 0.9% for aphantasia, 3.3% for hypophantasia, 89.7% for typical imagery ability, and 6.1% for hyperphantasia. These robust and up-to-date estimates provide enhanced clarity to researchers regarding the prevalence of differing visual imagery abilities and provide a platform for future studies exploring the role of visual imagery in various cognitive and behavioral tasks.
(Hypophantasia is having very weak or vague visualization.
Was there a Hippopotamus like character in The Never Ending History’s Fantasia? )
You have hypophantasia, which means you experience some visual imagery, but it’s less vivid or detailed than average. When you try to picture something, you might see faint or fleeting images.
I think I may have some degree of aphantasia but it’s hard to be sure, since there’s no way for me to know what other people experience when they say they are “visualizing” a scene. I mean, if I try to visualize a scene, I don’t literally see anything. I can sort of slowly construct a mental “picture” by thinking about the various parts and remembering what they look like, but there is no actual image that appears to my eyes. I’d describe it more as a memory than an image. I have assumed that was true for everyone, but when I read about aphantasia I wonder if other people do actually see literal images when they visualize things.
I think in full sentences. When I’m planning how to get somewhere that I’ve already been, I can visualize the area. When I am trying to remember something I read, I also remember where the content was in the book, such as close to the beginning, uppper right of the page.
This sounds like a Granny Smith apple, and I can almost taste it.
It is easier for me to recall something which I’ve already experienced. It is more difficult for me to build up a picture of my mind of an imaginery place.
The first time I’ve ever heard of anybody actually thinking or not thinking in the way, I’m accustomed to was Temple Grandin, the animal husbandry professor with autism. She emphatically describes how the only things that she’s capable of visualizing are the specific things that she has actually seen in her life. She can’t make things up in her mind. If you tell her to think of a door or an apple or a dress or a tree or a house or building, she can think of all these things, but only by pulling one from the mental catalog of what she has seen in the past, she can’t construct one from nothing in her mind.
Although, interestingly, I just thought of this: she’s more than capable of visualizing and then building new types of equipment to handle farm animals. So that’s interesting….
Smell is a very peculiar sense in that it’s not well represented in memory in terms of recall, but the encoding lurks there forever, and when it’s recognized many years later, like the smell of a fresh Christmas tree brought into the house, it can trigger powerful memories and emotions like no other sense.
I’m with you on the monologue bit. My means of thinking can be all over the map, depending on the subject matter. I can certainly think in images, like when deciding on the placement of furniture, but when I have a difficult decision to make my brain appears to convene a sort of committee where the different options are argued in what could almost be a scripted dialogue. Usually I’ll go with the most persuasive argument, but sometimes I’ll exercise my prerogative to do what I wanted to do all along and fire them all!
The older I get, the more attractive this option becomes. But I need to be able to retain the ability to exert my will on the world, including the ability to post my opinions on message boards and online news sites.
I don’t know how severe my Aphantasia is. I can think that I’m “sort of viewing” a vague image, but with eyes closed all I actually “see” is a dark “screen.”
I often talk to myself, sometimes even moving my lips! Julian Jaynes considers such narratization – which depends on language and does not occur in other animals – a major feature of consciousness. But much “thinking”, including creative insights and skills like piano playing, occurs unconsciously.
Internal narrative, continuous, silent, but with a sense of what the words would sound like if they weren’t silent. No images; but sometimes a sort of sense of what something looks like or of spatial relations— I can’t really describe it.
ETA: and I don’t know how to respond on tests, because I don’t know whether that counts, or whether they’re asking only about something that seems to be in my eyes — does that sense count as ‘vague and flat’, or as something else, or are they only asking about something looking like what I might see with my glasses off? Because it’s not like that.
The online test says I have hypophantasic, which I’ve known for quite a while.
I get vague images or I know that I’m thinking about something without seeing it in my mind. I cannot imagine something I’ve never seen.
However, I can design things by drawing them. I’m remodeling a house now and I can draw the design without seeing it in my mind’s eye.
I had a friend who was having a house renovated the same time I was having a house built. While he could see what he wanted, he wasn’t able to explain it well, and said he wished he could draw his vision like I could.
I do have vivid, quite realistic dreams, so my brain has the power to create images. I guess it just somehow chooses not to cooperate.
)