A friend of mine has that condition where she can't visualize things. I wonder how she would like this comic. My guess is she'd crack a joke about it being a good thing she can't do this.

I've got aphantasia and honestly the comic kinda reminds me of how I feel 'left out' but I also spent most of my life trying to draw and only found out about the term a few years ago making me realize I spent so much time following a dead end. that's just a me thing tho

I should preface this by saying that this is just my opinion and that I may be completely wrong.

I'm convinced that for 99% of people thinking they have aphantasia, it's just a miscommunication about what it means to "see" something in your mind. When people picture something in their mind, they can't literally see it in the way that they would see something with their eyes. Seeing something in your mind is just having an understanding of what it would look like.

People will say that they can "see" whatever you're asking them to "picture" but they only ever hold an understanding of what the thing would look like. This understanding can be elaborate but there is not actually an experience that could be perhaps better described as a visual hallucination.

If you visualize a cube in your mind, you don't actually see it. You just understand where all the lines, faces, and vertices would be. If you rotate it in your mind, you understand how those angles and the appearance would change at each moment as it rotates. You can even superimpose where these lines would go onto something you're looking at, but still you don't actually see it there, you just understand how you would perceive it, where the edges would go, what it would obstruct.

The reason that I'm convinced that people only hold concepts and visual understanding in their minds and not actual images is that most people are pretty bad at drawing. When people do start drawing, they create a representation of the sparse landmarks that actually made up their visual idea and then they have to start filling in the details using reasoning and logic. Artists and people who practice drawing get better at this, are more attentive to detail and learn techniques to make more convincing images. If people actually saw complete images in their minds, they'd be far easier to recreate and I think everyone would be more artistically inclined.

Furthermore, unlike "seeing" when you picture something while conscious, I think dreams actually do include visual hallucinations that can seem similar to actual visual perception.

I have aphantasia. I definitely cannot rotate a cube in my mind. I can with great effort and concentration kind of do what you describe, follow where individual edges and vertices would be in space relative to each other, but normally it would just be the idea in my head "there's a cube and it's rotating".

My go to test for aphantasia goes like this:

• "Imagine a circle"
• "OK"
• "What color is it?"

People always answer with color and many times with a more detailed visual description, like texture, material, the surrounding scene, etc. I personally would very stumped by that question because when asked to imagine a circle, I just imagine the concept of a circle. It has no color, no texture, no substance.

when asked to imagine a circle, I just imagine the concept of a circle. It has no color, no texture, no substance.

Huh.

Is the association with the word circle? Like, what does the concept of a circle involve?

How do you even know you can visualise things? Like, I think I can imagine an apple rotating, but it's not like you actually see it the way you'd see an actual apple in front of your eyes, right?

apples are uniquely hard to rotate in your head because apples are bland and uninteresting and nobody's favorite fruit. try rotating a cow instead. it's free and the cops can't stop you

Like, I think I can imagine an apple rotating, but it’s not like you actually see it the way you’d see an actual apple in front of your eyes, right?

That highly depends on your specific definition of that. But personally I can do things like think of a place I've been, and basically walk around like I'm controlling a video game character. "Seeing" the place as if I was there.

I have a friend at work who openly confessed to not being able to mentally create images when discussing why he wasn't into reading books.

I was like "Wow, I can't really imagine your reality for myself, that sounds strange."

he said, "Now you're getting it, as I can't imagine it, either."

Video games and film though? 1000X more entertaining for him via his testimony. He can't conjure those images so seeing someone else's interpretation is often thrilling.

I can't really do that either and I read books.

I also do have an inner monologue which might be a part of it.

Wait are there people without inner monologue?

What the fuck did apples do to you to deserve such a scathing review. Are you a doctor?

I can only rotate the apple in my head vertically

I don't think I have an inner monologue. Also I have full Aphantasia. I can't visually imagine an apple let alone rotate it in my mind.

I often find myself getting distracted from whatever I'm watching because my brain takes over and starts making up alternative scenarios.

Do you have dreams?

I do! I visualize when I dream. But I can't do it on command. This is how I realized I probably have aphantasia. I can never consciously visualize. I can think and conceptualize, but not 'see'.

I also have aphantasia. I only learnt about it a year or so ago. It was eye opening when I realised. People used to say "picture this or that" and I thought it was a figure of speech! Turns out there are people who can picture shit.

I don't know how a cow looks like directly from the front though. How would you even imagine that??