r/science • u/unsw UNSW Sydney • Jan 11 '25

Health People with aphantasia still activate their visual cortex when trying to conjure an image in their mind’s eye, but the images produced are too weak or distorted to become conscious to the individual

https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2025/01/mind-blindness-decoded-people-who-cant-see-with-their-minds-eye-still-activate-their-visual-cortex-study-finds?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social
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u/Dramatic_Explosion Jan 11 '25

This is where I am. Vivid imagination, can absolutely picture things and put stuff together, but it's not like looking at a photo. It's softer, less fine detail.

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u/lannister80 Jan 11 '25

For me it's more like the "impression" of a brain movie than it is anything that I am actually seeing.

For example, I can very easily imagine walking through my house, but I don't actually "see" anything like a hallucination. It's like seeing but not seeing, it's extremely hard to describe. Maybe I have sort of kind of aphantasia for a weak mind's eye.

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u/commanderjarak Jan 11 '25

Mental spatial senses and visual senses aren't linked. Sound like you've got a good spatial sense, but no visual component. I'm in the same boat and have had a hard time explaining it to people. Best example I can come up with is that it is similar to your sense of proprioception, since you don't have to visually see (or mentally see) where your body parts are to know where they are in 3D space.

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u/Prophet_60091 Jan 11 '25

Same but I'm also missing color and maybe shading to an extent. Its like not black and white, bland is a good description of it. Vivid color is a concept and a knowing but not something i see in my minds eye.