> They reported actually seeing an apple, some vividly and some faintly, floating like a hologram in front of them.
This is the line in the article that gets confusing for me. Like, are some people actually seeing an actual image of an apple, as if they were wearing VR goggles or something?
I thought everyone did. I mean I can just picture whatever I want. A big purple monster with 20 arms? Done. You want him running towards me or away? Now he is upside down. It's as natural as any other thought, to the point I'm sure others either just never taught themselves how to do it or they just interpret their thoughts in a different way from me, or are lying in order to be quirky and "not neurotypical" which is trendy.
Another fun thing is imagining things but not fully. The brain will fill in the spots but not throw you all the info at once. For example I didn't really think of the monsters nose, but now that I did, it has a huge nose piercing like a cow ring. This is great for creation because instead of creating with your foreground brain, you can create for free with your background brain. I'm pretty sure every person can do this (barring <0.01% population health issues).
I'm like this too, and if I want to consider variations I can instantly see rows and columns of whatever I'm considering with variances left, right, up, down, back and in.
I use this extensively when I code too. I can see the lines of code, to the degree I can read them, and I've not found a limit to how much code I can have in my head and visualize at a reading level. I can do this with every single line of code from an animated ray tracer I wrote in C back in '85. Any code that I personally felt proud to have created, given about 5 minutes to recall the details, I can write the code out from memory.
Beyond seeing the lines of code, I see functions and objects and data structures as geometric shapes, and their interactions vary between images of little machines, like airplanes, traveling between them to complex bridge structures like freeways with lot's of traffic.
I'm also a lucid dreamer. I can tell when I'm dreaming with a test: if I say "apple" with my hand held on front of me, palms up and an apple appears which I can then grasp and hold, then I'm dreaming. I'll often wake at that moment, but when I don't I start taking advantage and fly like Neo. Often I'll fly into something, and the jolt wakes me. I wake laughing too.
You had me until the sweeping generalisation. I can picture things clearly but only deep inside my head. I never (awake) see anything in front of my eyes that isn’t physically there.
In normal mode I also do this all in my head, dark background, nothing around it, but if I'm looking at something and want to picture it in a sort of augmented reality you can can just use what you see as the background, but it's still in my mind. I don't think anyone is inducing actual visual hallucinations if they are sober.
that's the point many are making. in your first comment you described exactly a visual hallucination and now you clarify it's nothing like it. it's too subjective that self-reporting becomes useless
You have fallen into the trap of believing that everyone's brain works the same, in that if you have an ability, everyone else must have it or they're lying.
It's funny for me, because I can "visualize" something in a non-visual way. I can transform it and imagine it fitting together with another object, or whatever. However, this is entirely non-visual. I see zero of this in my visual field, it's purely a sensation of seeing it without actually seeing it.
I also have nearly zero dream recall. I know I do dream, because occasionally I will wake up in the right part of my sleep cycle to literally feel the dream dissipating. Sometimes I can remember parts of it as it dissipates, but most of the time I have no clue what I dream after the fact.
The imaginary apple doesn't seem fully comparable to a real apple unless I'm in a very focused and compelling daydream, and even then real but not real at the same time, if that makes sense. But even now if I was to conjure an image of a faint, ethereal apple in front of this computer screen, I can do it easily.
The major difference is VR goggles are fully vivid, and remain so when I'm not willing them to be, and tangible in some sense I'm sure is indefinable with people to aphantasia. The VR goggles are real in the same way things that aren't dreams are real.
Does the imaginary apple block you from seeing the comouter screen behind it? If you can honestly say it blocks your vision, like a real tangible apple, I'd give some credence to the idea (and also suggest that you not be permitted to drive, as it would be incredibly dangerous if simple thoughts could block you from seeing an actual car or stoplight in front of you).
It's perhaps a little like holding your hand up in front of one of your eyes but not the other. It "blocks" your vision, but you can still see behind it.
I don't personally have such a vivid visual imagination, but there are moments when it can feel like that — I won't know what I was physically looking at because I was so concentrated on a visual(-ish) mental image that obscured my awareness of the real world, to a degree.
Yes - because these are the same symptoms as someone who drives drunk and kills someone - "didn't see anybody walking there" (= unable to tell what you're looking at) "just a little buzzed" (= obscured awareness of reality) "I don't know what happened" (same)
You seem to have left out "because I was so concentrated on a visual(-ish) mental image" which is very convenient for your strawman argument. As noted, it takes a lot of concentration to maintain these visuals and it's not something you can do while multitasking. Imagine you are day dreaming and a friend waves at you but you didn't notice because you were lost in the dream. Maybe you don't get it because you are incapable of visualization but saying it's like being drunk is incredibly stupid and ignorant.
He doesn't say anything about it being voluntary or not. Day-dreaming isn't voluntary, that's why your friend can awkwardly interrupt you with a wave (as opposed to turning out the lights and closing the door which would be indicative of purposely napping/sleeping). In any case, people often get into heavy conversations while driving, especially on cell phones. Work-related, family-related (also, audiobooks), whether or not you choose to acknowledge it, people do get into "deep concentration" mode while driving, the difference is that most of us don't claim to actually see images in front of us while thinking of them.
Just to clear some things up, in case anyone cares:
(1) It is largely voluntary, what I tried to describe. Just like choosing to focus on your phone or the kids in the back seat while driving is voluntary. All of those are, of course, bad things to do. A good driver controls themselves — imagination included.
I wouldn't especially trust a driver's reaction time in "deep concentration" mode whether or not they were making pictures in their head, so I guess I don't see (ha) a big distinction.
Though actually, for me I find it harder to do mental visualization when there's a lot of real eyball visuals going on, as when driving. I have an easier time with a static background. Perhaps other people are different.
(2) I find that day-dreaming is somewhat voluntary, too. It can happen on its own, but it can also be a choice, like choosing to meditate. I don't understand your point about how someone else's ability to interrupt you makes it non-voluntary.
(3) I didn't mean to say I "see images in front of me." They are actually distinctly not in front of me — not outside my body. They live in a different space, if you will.
No, because it doesn't happen randomly, it requires concentration and focus. Having random hallucinations is called schizophrenia. Mental visualization is not like that at all.
Where you fall on the imagination spectrum depends on how clear the object you are asked to visualize is in your mind.
For example if asked to visualize a green banana, and you can only see vague, unclear, faint outlines of a banana, that's hypophantasia. If you cannot see an image at all, it's aphantasia. Some might see vivid details of the banana, like the matte skin and subtle green gradient, they fall under hyperphantasia. Others who lack the details but are still clear considered phantasia.
This also applies to all other senses, like being able to imagine a sound or smell.
I've done a meditation where you sit open eyed and visualize something within the space.
It was cool. Sort of like a hazy projection over the visual field. Normally when I visualize something with my minds eye it is on a black background. When the visualization ends my visual field snaps back to reality.
Visual hallucinations due to mental illness are uncommon but not unknown. I'd be reluctant to dismiss the idea that someone on earth can and does do that. I'm pretty far down the visualization direction myself.
This is the line in the article that gets confusing for me. Like, are some people actually seeing an actual image of an apple, as if they were wearing VR goggles or something?