Yup, they basically can’t imagine any sensation. Not sight, not sound, nothing. Yet they’re a capable and successful person. I have no idea what the experience is like in their head
It is called aphantasia and, like many things, works as a spectrum from slightly reduced imagination of one sense to totally blank imagination of all senses.
I have totally blank imagination at least for visual and smell/taste. limited imagination for sound and, as far as I can tell as good as no limitations for imagination of touch/texture based things.
So when i want to imagine a wall height, ruffling, wet, cold, red velvet curtine that was pissed on… Well all that i can come up with is imagination of how touching the wet, cold fabric feels like.
At the same time I know that it should smell awefull and I know all the facts about the curtine like its color, length, width, that you would need to imagine it but it is like reading a technical documention without any kind of pictures or smells, but with very faint and limited sound and the full vivid range of touch based sensations.
I have no issues dreaming, conjuring vivid images while sleeping is not limited at all, but I can only remember them as a list of bullet point facts. The images themself are gone as soon as i am fully woken up.
I would say the things where it limits or complicates my live the most are:
When I try to do any kind of visual artistic expression. I can only barely do that and it is a painfully slow process, everything i draw looks like it comes from the hands of a small kid. I tried to learn the technics but just can’t perform the transformation in my head to get anything to paper. So everything has to be done in tiny iterativ steps. Arts class was always pain for me in school.
When I have to solve some kind of “transform the shape into another and compare them” puzzle in games or real life (Ikea manuals for example).
I am the worst eye witness, because i can’t relive visual memories in my head. I have no visual memories at all, only a abstract, very limited, list of facts. Like remembering scenes from a movie that you have only, in a haste, read the script for.
and many more things where visual imagination is relevant.
Visual imagination is the only thing I really miss, the other senses barely matter for my, when it comes to imagination, but not beeing able to close my eyes and picture my wife in my mind at all is often painful for me.
Most people primarily use the printed image on the pieces to look through the pile to find the correct adjacent piece of the image, and then secondarily use the shape of the piece to find the exact right spot.
For example let’s say the puzzle’s picture is a photo of a car. And say currently I’m working on a red tail light. So I’ll sort through the pile looking for pieces that are red with a plasticy-looking texture. Then after i found one I’ll look for smaller image details to find the general area within the tail light around where the piece should go. And only then do i start looking at the shape of the pieces to see where the roundy out and in bits would fit into each other.
I am sorry, there was a translation error on my side, english is not my primary language and when I read the question I translated jigsaw puzzle with the meaning of a sliding puzzle and those I can’t do.
Jigsaw puzzle are not really an issue for me, more or less because of the reasons you said. There is not really much imagination needed to solve a jigsaw puzzle.
Oh wow, aside from the slight misunderstanding of that single word, your english is flawless. I had no idea you weren’t a native english speaker. You should be proud!
Y’know how some people can’t visualize images in their head? I know someone that can’t imagine tasting things
Dang, do they have trouble imagining things in general?
Yup, they basically can’t imagine any sensation. Not sight, not sound, nothing. Yet they’re a capable and successful person. I have no idea what the experience is like in their head
It is called aphantasia and, like many things, works as a spectrum from slightly reduced imagination of one sense to totally blank imagination of all senses.
I have totally blank imagination at least for visual and smell/taste. limited imagination for sound and, as far as I can tell as good as no limitations for imagination of touch/texture based things.
So when i want to imagine a wall height, ruffling, wet, cold, red velvet curtine that was pissed on… Well all that i can come up with is imagination of how touching the wet, cold fabric feels like. At the same time I know that it should smell awefull and I know all the facts about the curtine like its color, length, width, that you would need to imagine it but it is like reading a technical documention without any kind of pictures or smells, but with very faint and limited sound and the full vivid range of touch based sensations.
I have no issues dreaming, conjuring vivid images while sleeping is not limited at all, but I can only remember them as a list of bullet point facts. The images themself are gone as soon as i am fully woken up.
I would say the things where it limits or complicates my live the most are:
Visual imagination is the only thing I really miss, the other senses barely matter for my, when it comes to imagination, but not beeing able to close my eyes and picture my wife in my mind at all is often painful for me.
How are you at doing jigsaw puzzles? The person i know is incapable of doing them
I tried them a few times and I solved one once, but that was more by brute force and not really by solving the geometric riddle.
Most people primarily use the printed image on the pieces to look through the pile to find the correct adjacent piece of the image, and then secondarily use the shape of the piece to find the exact right spot.
For example let’s say the puzzle’s picture is a photo of a car. And say currently I’m working on a red tail light. So I’ll sort through the pile looking for pieces that are red with a plasticy-looking texture. Then after i found one I’ll look for smaller image details to find the general area within the tail light around where the piece should go. And only then do i start looking at the shape of the pieces to see where the roundy out and in bits would fit into each other.
Is that not what you do?
I am sorry, there was a translation error on my side, english is not my primary language and when I read the question I translated jigsaw puzzle with the meaning of a sliding puzzle and those I can’t do.
Jigsaw puzzle are not really an issue for me, more or less because of the reasons you said. There is not really much imagination needed to solve a jigsaw puzzle.
I am sorry for the confusion caused by my error.
Oh wow, aside from the slight misunderstanding of that single word, your english is flawless. I had no idea you weren’t a native english speaker. You should be proud!
And thanks for clarifying
and on the other extreme end people can feel or smell colors or numbers.