How do hyperphantasics experience their internal imagery? Second screen? Flipping context? Inquiring aphantasics want to know.
1 min readByRich Malina
There are a lot of videos of aphantasics describing their experience of no visual imagery, but I want to know how hyperphantasics experience visual imagery.
Does it appear on another virtual screen?
Can it be seen at the same time as the normal visual perception?
Can they move attention and focus back and forth, or can they superimpose the images?
Is visual imagery accompanied by an eye movement or a thought process?
Inquiring aphantasics want to know.
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Ernie Burga•recently
From my personal experience:
1- It appears as a whole world inside my head, I feel it located behind my eyes a little to the top like a screen, the edges are dark but the middle is clear
2- Yes, i can see things in the real world and in my mind at the same time.
3- yes i can move attention back and forth. I cannot superimpose images seeing with my eyes but in my mind I can, like lets say im watching a sunset, with my eyes im seeing as it is but in my mind i can see the sunset and i can add things to it like an alien spaceship if i wanted to and i experience both things at the same time only in my minds eye with a slight delay, when i was younger i would watch like the power rangers and imagine myself inside the show as it was happening.
4-I believe my eyes stayed fixed whilst im focused on my mind, I experience my thought process mayorly as a voice inside my head like a constant narrator.
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Russell La Claire•recently
Not really sure if this will help, but
1) when i close my eyes there are pictures
2) the pictures will appear as a montage, but moving
3) by the time i open my mouth to describe one of them, it morfs in to something else
4) whatever i choose to see never appears, only the morfing montage
5) there is no sound or smell
6) if i open my eyes, then immediately close them, a completely different picture has taken it's place, entirely unrelated to the one just prior
Happy hunting
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Jennifer McDougall•recently
Hello Rich, this is a very good question.
You may find this article Visualizing the Invisible by Melanie Scheer, a hyperphantasic designer helpful. It shows a new way to depict the visual imagination spectrum with useful visuals showing the wide spectrum of visual imagery abilities. The study was conducted with a group of designers.
While it doesn't answer all your questions related to the experience of hyperphantasia, it's a good place to start! Hyperphantasia is even less studied/understood than aphantaisa at this point, but with greater awareness, we hope this changes.
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