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So I was reading the most recent painting thread, and I noticed this post (emphasis mine):

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
Also, I'm a huge book fan. I've started a group for a series to talk to people about it. I cannot visualize. I can only read the text on paper, yet I enjoy reading. If I were to meet someone who only listened to podcasts about the book series, I'd love talking to them, and discussing what they think as someone who never read the series.

I'm also incapable of visualising, and have been for as long as I can remember. Honestly I didn't even realise that it was a thing until a few months ago - I just assumed that any time people talked about seeing something in their mind's eye or asked me to picture something, it was a metaphor, same as when people talked about feeling the way the (socioeconomic) wind's blowing or smelling a rat when something's suspicious.

The condition of being unable to visualise is called aphantasia, and it's something which has only recently started to be broadly discussed - probaboy in the last 20 years or so. Seeing the quoted post got me to wondering whether anyone else here had a similar experience or, on the other end of the scale, finds it extremely easy to picture things in a way which is almost more vivid than reality.

I think it's an interesting question to ask here because "the hobby" (in its broader sense) includes aesthetic elements (building, converting, painting), narrative elements (the backstory, ongoing campaigns), and spatial reasoning (the wargame itself, planning ahead). All three of those are things which you might expect to require the ability to visualise to a greater or lesser degree, and yet I find that my aphantasia hasn't diminished my enjoyment of any of these pillars.

The poll is more out of interest than anything else. I'd be very interested to see whether there are more people here with a similar experience.

This is like when I found out some people don't have a voice in their head when they think.

 Sim-Life wrote:
This is like when I found out some people don't have a voice in their head when they think.

Its actually the same thing, Aphantasia can be visual, audio, smell, taste, and many things that someone does not have in the mind.

The opposite is called hyperphantasia. But only like 1% has Aphantasia

EDIT: I got my numbers wrong, I miss remembered, looked up to make sure, corrected.

 Sim-Life wrote:
This is like when I found out some people don't have a voice in their head when they think.

Yeah, I don't have that either. When I think, it's more like... I have the knowledge of the words and ideas, but there's no sensory element. In the same way, I can tell you how my minis look, but all I have in my mind is a cloud of concepts and adjectives - nothing actually visual.

Interesting topic. For me it's mostly a clear yes. But some things are easier visualized than others. And my thoughts are a clear distinctive "Voice"

 Sim-Life wrote:
This is like when I found out some people don't have a voice in their head when they think.

Huh. Having a hard time picturing that. Not sure what they'd think with, if not their own voice. Or text (text from books or typing, not lol!speak)

On the other hand, visualization is a blank for me... unless I've seen art, or photos, or movies.
Characters who are on the cover of the book? I know what they look like. Everyone else is just text. If there is a movie or live adaption, the characters look like their actors, even if they're 'supposed to' look different.
But descriptive text alone gets me nowhere, at this point I often just skim it.

Wait, I always thought the voice in the head was a metaphor.

I don't hear anything when I think (i.e. I don't have a sensory experience of hearing). Do people literally hear as if they were talking to themselves? (Without making sounds of course).

As for visualization, I think I can. I mean, I can imagine a Guardsman lying down in a trench instead of standing up straight when discussing terrain abstractions.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Wait, I always thought the voice in the head was a metaphor.

I don't hear anything when I think (i.e. I don't have a sensory experience of hearing). Do people literally hear as if they were talking to themselves? (Without making sounds of course).

As for visualization, I think I can. I mean, I can imagine a Guardsman lying down in a trench instead of standing up straight when discussing terrain abstractions.

For 99% of the world people actually hear voices in their heads, see pictures, can talk with themselves or others, can play videos with graphics and sounds. For 1% of people they can not for some or all of that.

I'm much the same as Voss. I can visualize something I've seen before, but even then it's still very faint. It's also very ephemeral, and will vanish as soon as I stop concentrating on it. I couldn't describe my own parents if I tried.

On a sidenote, I also can't carry a tune, but I can replay music within my head just fine.

No problem visualizing things. It's not quite as real as real things because real things have all those subtle details that you wouldn't think about consciously, but I don't think very many people mean that literally their imagination is indistinguishable from reality. It does make it hilarious though, to see the argument from the anti-painting side that people who highly value painting must be suffering from aphantasia because they can't imagine a battle scene without having the paint to help.

 Shas'O Ky'husa wrote:
No problem visualizing things. It's not quite as real as real things because real things have all those subtle details that you wouldn't think about consciously, but I don't think very many people mean that literally their imagination is indistinguishable from reality. It does make it hilarious though, to see the argument from the anti-painting side that people who highly value painting must be suffering from aphantasia because they can't imagine a battle scene without having the paint to help.

This thread may have been started as a result of the painting thread, but this is not a thread about that. Please don't bring that argument here as well.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I'm much the same as Voss. I can visualize something I've seen before, but even then it's still very faint. It's also very ephemeral, and will vanish as soon as I stop concentrating on it. I couldn't describe my own parents if I tried.

On a sidenote, I also can't carry a tune, but I can replay music within my head just fine.

Ah, music. Music gets super complicated. I can't remember lyrics for crap (aside from when a whole song gets stuck in my head), but I can sing along word for word.
I'm also completely tone deaf. I was... 22? when someone finally explained that I was supposed to dance to the beat, not the words. Still never really got it.
Poetry is much the same. Its just prose to me, just oddly formatted and laid out on the page.

My partner (whom I play against) has aphantasia, too.

Voss wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I'm much the same as Voss. I can visualize something I've seen before, but even then it's still very faint. It's also very ephemeral, and will vanish as soon as I stop concentrating on it. I couldn't describe my own parents if I tried.

On a sidenote, I also can't carry a tune, but I can replay music within my head just fine.

Ah, music. Music gets super complicated. I can't remember lyrics for crap (aside from when a whole song gets stuck in my head), but I can sing along word for word.
I'm also completely tone deaf. I was... 22? when someone finally explained that I was supposed to dance to the beat, not the words. Still never really got it.

How would you even dance to the words? (I mean other than very badly) I'm having trouble visualizing that.....
And didn't you ever wonder how people danced to stuff without words?

No problems visualising.

 Shas'O Ky'husa wrote:
... the anti-painting side...

There is no "anti-painting side".

No problems visualizing, and I hear myself when I think.

 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:
No problems visualizing, and I hear myself when I think.

No kids then?

Interesting discussion as it teases out how radically different each of us perceives and interacts with the world. Great stuff

Personally I can visualise stuff, and sometimes it really gets in the way when my brain decides at 3am that the best thing in the world is to visualise a whole new project of some kind, including specifically how each bit will fit into each other bit!

 Flinty wrote:
Interesting discussion as it teases out how radically different each of us perceives and interacts with the world. Great stuff

I'd never even considered the idea that people can't hear their own thoughts in their head.

Although if you're hearing other people's thoughts, that's probably worse.

Aelyn wrote:

 Shas'O Ky'husa wrote:
No problem visualizing things. It's not quite as real as real things because real things have all those subtle details that you wouldn't think about consciously, but I don't think very many people mean that literally their imagination is indistinguishable from reality. It does make it hilarious though, to see the argument from the anti-painting side that people who highly value painting must be suffering from aphantasia because they can't imagine a battle scene without having the paint to help.

This thread may have been started as a result of the painting thread, but this is not a thread about that. Please don't bring that argument here as well.

Not trying to spread the argument, but afaik, the only person to mention aphantasia in the painting threads was me, and I wasn't claiming that people who value painting "must" have aphantasia. I do genuinely wonder how aphantasia impacts the hobby/gaming experiences of those who have it though. If you show me a squad of gray rubric marines, my mind kind of automatically paints them blue and gold and adds little glowing spell effects to them. So I'm curious as to the differences in experience between myself and someone who just sees grey plastic. Does my ability to mentally add paint to the minis make me more tolerant of gray minis?

Sincerely not trying to promote more arguing. It's a genuinely interesting question to me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Flinty wrote:
Interesting discussion as it teases out how radically different each of us perceives and interacts with the world. Great stuff

I'd never even considered the idea that people can't hear their own thoughts in their head.

Although if you're hearing other people's thoughts, that's probably worse.

Sometimes when I'm trying to talk myself through something (problem solving, talking through an emotional issue, playing devil's advocate, etc.), I'll sort of "split myself up" into a couple of different voices. Basically creating characters in my mind who hold one position or another and then let them talk to each other and/or to myself. Kind of like cartoon characters talking to their shoulder angels/demons, but without the ethical connotations. Is that a thing other people do?

Also, not all my thoughts involve voices. Sometimes my thoughts are more like a flash of images, impressions, etc. Kind of a mental shorthand rather than spelling out the thoughts in detail. And full on fantasies (little movies in my head) can have sound to go with the pictures, but not necessarily narration.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
If you show me a squad of gray rubric marines, my mind kind of automatically paints them blue and gold and adds little glowing spell effects to them.

Do you mean that you unconsciously edit what your eyes are seeing, or that you hold a separate mental picture of a cool battle scene while your eyes still see the gray plastic?

 Shas'O Ky'husa wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
If you show me a squad of gray rubric marines, my mind kind of automatically paints them blue and gold and adds little glowing spell effects to them.

Do you mean that you unconsciously edit what your eyes are seeing, or that you hold a separate mental picture of a cool battle scene while your eyes still see the gray plastic?

Kind of both. I look at the minis, and that calls to mind lots of rapid-fire flashes of Thousand Sons art and/or fantasies of rubricae advancing through a battlefield. And then my mind kind of "overlays" the actual realworld image of the gray plastic with paint schemes or other impressions in spired by the rapid-fire flashes.

I can make the overlay more vivid if I intentionally pay attention to it (this is basically what I do when I'm squinting at a model and mentally trying out different paint schemes), but at that point it's more of an active thing than a passive one.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Shas'O Ky'husa wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
If you show me a squad of gray rubric marines, my mind kind of automatically paints them blue and gold and adds little glowing spell effects to them.

Do you mean that you unconsciously edit what your eyes are seeing, or that you hold a separate mental picture of a cool battle scene while your eyes still see the gray plastic?

Kind of both. I look at the minis, and that calls to mind lots of rapid-fire flashes of Thousand Sons art and/or fantasies of rubricae advancing through a battlefield. And then my mind kind of "overlays" the actual realworld image of the gray plastic with paint schemes or other impressions in spired by the rapid-fire flashes.

I can make the overlay more vivid if I intentionally pay attention to it (this is basically what I do when I'm squinting at a model and mentally trying out different paint schemes), but at that point it's more of an active thing than a passive one.

This is pretty much what I do except I choose the more first person viewpoint rather than the 3rd. I really love Knights & Dread kits as they give a ton of ROM to get the posing just right to convey motion/stoicness/etc...which in turn makes my tabletop view that much more interesting.

ccs wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
I'm much the same as Voss. I can visualize something I've seen before, but even then it's still very faint. It's also very ephemeral, and will vanish as soon as I stop concentrating on it. I couldn't describe my own parents if I tried.

On a sidenote, I also can't carry a tune, but I can replay music within my head just fine.

Ah, music. Music gets super complicated. I can't remember lyrics for crap (aside from when a whole song gets stuck in my head), but I can sing along word for word.
I'm also completely tone deaf. I was... 22? when someone finally explained that I was supposed to dance to the beat, not the words. Still never really got it.

How would you even dance to the words? (I mean other than very badly) I'm having trouble visualizing that.....

Very badly. But yeah, my 'rhythm' was based on knowing the song, which words were important and the end of a line.
Or just an odd sequence of movements that were out of sync with basically everything. But given what a lot of modern* (er, modern in the 80s and 90s) dancing involved, it wasn't entirely atrocious, just bad. And slow dancing was obviously a bit different, as that involved mostly swaying and shuffling with a partner- neither the music nor lyrics really mattered.

*My few glimpses of 2010 music clubs involved not wanting to deal with 'dancing' as 'public groping and grinding with clothes on,' especially not with strangers.

And didn't you ever wonder how people danced to stuff without words?

I didn't, actually. I took the idea that older dances had steps and set sequences to mean that the dance was entirely separate from the music. That people would 'step through' the various stages of a waltz or whatever and the music was a pleasant, but unrelated, accompaniment.

I had some creative explanations and interpretations about the world as a kid. The first time I flew in a plane (about 6 years old), I was convinced we didn't actually fly anywhere. Just that it was an elaborate distraction while people outside re-arranged the scenery, and opened the path from 'home' to 'grandparent's house.'

Wyldhunt wrote:Sometimes when I'm trying to talk myself through something (problem solving, talking through an emotional issue, playing devil's advocate, etc.), I'll sort of "split myself up" into a couple of different voices. Basically creating characters in my mind who hold one position or another and then let them talk to each other and/or to myself. Kind of like cartoon characters talking to their shoulder angels/demons, but without the ethical connotations. Is that a thing other people do?

I more or less do. Sometimes its just practicing conversations to have with other people (and how I think they'll respond), other times its playing out a conversation (problem solving, or talking over issues) with fictional people. I blame RPGs for that.
When I was a teenager, I hated losing these proxy arguments with myself. These days, I find it helpful to find mistakes.

This has been an interesting read.
I'd heard recently about people with no inner voice, inner monolog.
I didn't know so much about people not being able to visualize. I can. I can see structures I plan to build in the planning phase when I describe those to my wife see give me a blank look. She just has to have those ideas on paper to understand them. But I know she can visualize ideas. I figure we just see things differently. Growing up We'd play tic tack toe with out paper while on long car trips. It's easy enough. 1,2,3 are the top row 4,5,6 the center rwo7,8,9 the bottom row.
So I'm wondering now if that would be very difficult for a person who cannot visualize.

Since ancient times, the vocalization of ideas is associated with communicating how to structure ideas for understanding from the point of view of another, or an audience. The Greeks had a special word for it, alongside scientific formal reasoning and familiar bodily enactment. To excel in this form of knowledge is associated with e.g. statesmanship, leadership, and so on (Aristotle is for example interested in what makes for a good leader). There is evidence that the systems neurology is preserved from e.g. vocalizing birds communicating the conditions and sightings from different POVs as the flock surveys the forest, as a unit. So, again, the politic body and holding it together re leadership. So, basically, we see a spectrum, with autistic (often injured by environmental toxins and chemical traumas during critical developmental periods) seemingly blind to this potential, for example. Given that autism is diagnosed now in up to 1 in 50 (and increasing to 1 in 30, iirc) children, as exposures to chemical toxins (many mandatory and not at all accidental) during critical developmental periods have increased dramatically especially in Western nations (no such increase in regions that do not mandate exposures to certain toxins during critical dev periods, for instance) it is likely that this condition increases in commonality, and deserves more attention. Thanks for the interesting thread.

 jeff white wrote:
Given that autism is diagnosed now in up to 1 in 50 (and increasing to 1 in 30, iirc) children, as exposures to chemical toxins (many mandatory and not at all accidental) during critical developmental periods have increased... Thanks for the interesting thread.

Um, the anti-vax conspiracy theory linking vaccinations to autism is both thoroughly debunked and irrelevant to this thread. There may be a link between aphantasia and autism - they are both kinds of neurodiversity, after all, and it's not uncommon for multiple types of neurodiversity to manifest in a given individual - but blaming either on "mandatory toxins" is actively harmful when the vast majority of scientific opinion basically boils down to "some people's brains are wired a bit differently, and that's just how they are" (obviously that's heavily pared down). And I'm not sure what point you're trying to make when talking about the ancient Greeks and flocks of birds...

Hey, I'm in the OP, sweet!

I am unsure if aphantasia is something that negatively impacts my hobbying. I know that one thing I wish I could do was picture paint schemes, so it would be easier to pick, but I tend to just look online until I find one I like, modify as I paint, and then hope it turns out well. Sometimes it doesn't, but I tend to be happy with the results most of the time, especially with my Combined Army for Infinity. Other than the painting aspect, I did always think visualizing was a metaphor until someone was talking about "being able to rotate the cow," so I guess I might be missing out on picturing what cool things my minis might be doing, but I got along just well enough reading plain text on paper for my whole life, so it's not a huge deal.

As for if it impacts unpainted models on the table, I'm not sure. I like all of my models to be painted, because it makes my enjoyment much higher, but I never really care if the enemy models are painted, unless they're Infinity models, which look off to me.

I've never noticed it impacting my reading, but I didn't even know it was a thing until like half a year ago.

I might be autistic, though. I used to see a psychiatrist, and she diagnosed me, but I'd been tested throughout most my life, and it came back negative until recently. I do have depression, so I'm not sure if that's linked.

One of my friends has the same thing, but for hearing, and that confuses me a lot. I'm not sure how someone thinks without words in their head, but animals and early humans worked it out, so it's probably not vital.

In addition, my girlfriend has an overactive imagination, and I think she sees all the cool stuff I don't, and that's good enough for me.

Aphantasia, interesting. Had never heard of it till today, and honestly it never occurred to me that there were people that could not visualize things in their head. I knew about the 'no voice in your head' thing, and I suppose visualization is a natural extension of that, I imagine there may also be people that can't hear music in their head as well, or recall smells, or textures - and yet are still fully functioning human beings. It truly is a bizarre world.

I myself can visualize very well, almost enough to cloud out actual reality; this was more pronounced when I was younger, takes a bit more effort now. I'm fairly good at seeing how pieces fit together to make something, even if they are all separate when I see them - helps when sorting out the closet at least! - even if my measurements are sometimes a bit off when I come to try it in practice.


One possibly related thing that I also only recently discovered is that many people rarely if ever have lucid dreams; something I experience several times a year. Though I almost never remember any other types of dreams (assuming I have them, I don't know), any night without a lucid dream is just a blank space in my head - I fall asleep, and I wake again having missed the intervening time.

From some discussions on the topic I also find interesting that the ability to visualize different things seem to vary depending on topic. For some reason I find it very hard to visualize written skript in my head. I can "see" a sheet of paper and "know" that there is script on it, but it takes a lot of concentration to see and "read" the actual letters instead of hearing my inner voice telling me what they mean.


On the other hand I can usually visualize low to mid complexety chemistry 3D structures in my head and rotate them or parts of them which obviously came in pretty handy during school and university

TheBestBucketHead wrote:Other than the painting aspect, I did always think visualizing was a metaphor until someone was talking about "being able to rotate the cow,"

Slight tangent, but that's an interesting turn of phrase, one that (at least to me) suggests that whoever said it grew up with computers and particularly, later software where that was an option.

Its been interesting over the years how much the 'brain as computer' metaphor has expanded. It was very rare when I was really young, but now even specific aspects of the mind are referred to in computing terms.
It'd be interesting to know if people who grew up without computers could even conceptualize 'visualized' objects this way.

(brought to the thread by my latent interest in technological determinism, a social theory most people really a hate. Nutshell version is our technology reshapes society far more than we consciously shape tech. From simply stuff like heavy plows in Europe lead to long but narrow fields (farmers need to turn less) to railroads and transmission wires shaping western american towns- the rats nest of twisting streets are gone, instead they were stretched out along the tracks and telegraph poles. The less said about cellphones the better).