[HN Gopher] How to see bright, vivid images in your mind's eye (...
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How to see bright, vivid images in your mind's eye (2016)
Author : kalkr
Score : 131 points
Date : 2023-09-30 19:41 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (photographyinsider.info)
(TXT) w3m dump (photographyinsider.info)
| julianeon wrote:
| Could someone summarize the technique? This was a video tl;dr for
| me (though I'll watch it if the summary sounds interesting).
| [deleted]
| FriedPickles wrote:
| AKA how to train a generative image model on a biological neural
| net. Listening to him do it sounds a lot like a description of a
| diffusion model generating an image from the initial static--
| surreal.
| pizzafeelsright wrote:
| I thought I could use my mind's eye until I read similar threads.
|
| I have a vivid imagination but it turns out it's all conceptual.
| I don't see an apple. I see a mostly circle shape. It's either
| green or red. Maybe yellow.
|
| I can't draw well but I can draw anything. I know the concepts
| and can poorly draw the approximate.
| nabakin wrote:
| I find that I visualize things vaguely/abstractly by default
| but I can put a bit of effort in thinking about the detail of
| the object I'm trying to imagine and then I can see that
| detail.
|
| So I might imagine an Apple as a circle but if I need it in
| more detail, I put more effort into it, recalling the detail
| and able to see the red, the stem, peel it with a small knife,
| add a chunk taken out because it was bitten, etc.
| TikiTDO wrote:
| Ooh, this is a nice link. Totally going to add some of this stuff
| to my practice.
| pharmakom wrote:
| Don't rub your eyes for any reason (source: my optometrist)
| hosteur wrote:
| Really. Not for any reason? Please elaborate.
| 555watch wrote:
| Yeep, stopped reading after that proposal. I'm not sure OP
| should be advocating stuff like this without at least a
| warning. It's not the rubbing, the pressure is creating the
| "stars". Some people already have increased eyeball pressure,
| as well as increased blood pressure.
|
| I'm not a doctor and don't know what I'm talking about, but
| would definitely advice against eye rubbing.
| justinlloyd wrote:
| The article kind of comes off as spammy/scammy and I fully
| expected to reach a point where the author wanted to sell me a
| course for $99 on how to achieve whatever it was he was hawking.
|
| I have a propensity for staring at points in space and
| daydreaming/visualizing to the point where it thoroughly annoys
| my wife. Right now I am rotating a small grey elephant wearing
| blue boots and a red blanket with gold edging on the blanket in
| my mind's eye whilst staring at the HN web page and there is not
| a single thing anyone can do to stop me from doing it. It's also
| free which no doubt irks a number of CEOs and founders who have
| yet to figure out how to monetize it.
|
| I have a family member who describes themselves as "visual
| primary" but during conversations of what this means woefully
| admits that they need to "see things" to know what they look
| like, cannot visualize rotating an elephant nor picture what the
| underside of a soup bowl might look like if they had never looked
| under that particular soup bowl but had looked under many other
| soup bowls throughout their life. I liken the ability to
| visualize as my first encounter with NeRF "Yes, it's like that!
| Seeing things from other angles even though you'd never seen that
| particular angle."
|
| The human mind, it is quirky to say the least. Quirky in that I
| can now rest easy because the amount of HN karma I have
| accumulated has taken on a pleasant shade rather than the jarring
| visual noise it previously was when it was below 2000.
| jocaal wrote:
| > It's also free which no doubt irks a number of CEOs and
| founders who have yet to figure out how to monetize it.
|
| Just wait for Neuralink brain ads, it'l come
| yummybear wrote:
| It's amazing how little we know about how others dream and
| visualize:
|
| Do you see 3d or 2d? Is there smells? Are there color? Is there
| sound? Do people talk? Can you feel touch?
| monopoliessuck wrote:
| I literally discovered this technique myself on accident two
| times throughout my life.
|
| Once when I was in elementary school falling asleep on a desk
| during study hall (just closing my eyes and pushing into my arm)
| and concentrating on the cool color blast thing that results.
|
| Then like a year ago with my head on a pillow in an odd
| configuration. Both times I thought I had an insane dream that
| was so vivid I ended up telling people about it and they were
| confused and thought I was crazy.
|
| I've never been able to repro it and eventually I just gave up
| and forgot, thinking it was some blip. Gonna try this out again.
| I've never been able to "see" things in my mind for as long as I
| can remember. Even dreams are mostly felt, not seen.
| graphe wrote:
| I cured my aphantasia another way. I stopped believing in it. I
| was asked to visualize something and I could only do it vaguely
| when I described it. He told me I had weak visualization which
| showed me it didn't exist. Everyone who claims to have it just
| has WEAK visualization and trying harder to visualize will give
| you the same results. It'll take a while, think of it as a
| muscle. Use it or lose it.
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| So, wait, are people normally actually seeing images, with their
| eyes, when they imagine what something looks like? Like, the
| brown-blackness of the back of your eyelids gets replaced with
| something you actually see, like it's projected there?
|
| I can imagine what something looks like, and I guess I sort of
| 'see' it, but closing my eyes doesn't make it any more real. It
| doesn't seem to involve the eyes or any part of the visual system
| at all - it's somewhere else in my head.
| SanderNL wrote:
| No, that's hallucinating. Mind's eye is like what you see when
| you remember a visual scene.
| ranprieur wrote:
| In my imagination I can see images basically the same as I see
| with my eyes, but less detailed and nowhere near as persistent.
|
| Back of the eyelid visuals are a whole different thing, and
| it's good to know there's so much room to work with them.
| izoow wrote:
| I can't really "see" anything either, but I'm assuming it's
| something akin to "hearing" your inner voice. I also don't
| actually "hear" anything, but I can tell that it's going on in
| my head and it's effortless and "automatic". I don't have to
| consciously exert effort to "activate it", imagine it, and keep
| it there.
| huytersd wrote:
| I think it's a spectrum. I see really vague still images if I
| really try but yep just back of the eyelids most of the time.
| I've had a real feel for what vivid imagery looks like a few
| times right before I fall asleep. I envy people that can
| conjure up that sort of vividness when they want.
| _dain_ wrote:
| Yeah it's not a figure of speech, there's _LITERALLY_ another
| framebuffer (or whatever you want to call it) in my mind in
| addition to the ones from left eye and right eye. I don 't need
| to close my eyes to do see it (but it helps). I can draw to it,
| with some effort . Daydreams get painted on it when my mind
| drifts. It's the stage on which I experience memories.
|
| Most people are like this, with variation in the degree of
| vividness and control. Some people can make realistic detailed
| scenes, for other people it's harder and their images are often
| blotchy or lacking in detail and colour. I'm in the latter
| group.
|
| If you don't have any of this at all and you're surprised by
| the whole idea, you are probably aphantasic.
| reliablereason wrote:
| No people can't see stuff in their vision, it is just a way of
| describing the "minds eye".
|
| I was also confused when I first heard of aphantasia, so talked
| about it with a few people. Enough people to come to the
| conclusion that a loot of it comes down to some people using
| crude language for the "minds eye". But that some people use
| the minds eye more than others.
| Eupraxias wrote:
| Aphantasia?
| [deleted]
| Jiocus wrote:
| If I remember correctly, aphantasia is inability to visualise
| images, objects or memories in the mind, and this seems to be
| what the author actually refers to. The alternative, to
| actually perceive imagery with the eye that isn't there is
| usually called hallucination. The article doesn't get at this
| difference and seems to be based on Youtube videos about
| aphantasia.
|
| If you've ever had a dream with vivid first person eyesight
| (like most people during dreams) then it's easy to see that we
| should be very capable of producing high quality visuals
| without external stimuli.
|
| I've been practicing on this kind of thing as it's a technique
| for dropping into a lucid dream. In my case, I manage to find
| some kind of repeat pattern in the visual random noise of my
| closed eyes. Slowly and consciously I manage to see clouds or
| waves on an open sea, maybe add color. Then I can try something
| more advanced. If going to sleep, these images get more vivid
| and might classify for something called hypnagogic
| hallucinations[0], but then it's not quite the same level of
| conscious involvement steering what to see. In any case, it's
| nowhere near what I'd imagine as useful for an on-site photo
| session, more like a high effort meditation.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogia
| vorpalhex wrote:
| > If going to sleep, these images get more vivid and might
| classify for something called hypnagogic hallucinations
|
| Try your meditation routine while sitting in a warm shower
| with a visual focus. That for me gives me the same intensity
| as the true hypnagogic level visualizations while still
| having close to full mental faculties.
|
| Some people report being able to use audio patterns as an
| alternative to visual patterns. I've had mixed success
| personally but ymmv.
| klipt wrote:
| I think it's normal to distinguish imagined pictures from real
| ones.
|
| If you can't, that's schizophrenia.
| mistermann wrote:
| Or sometimes, critical thinking. ;
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperphantasia seems like the
| "fully visual" one is different, and possibly not good.
| davidhunter wrote:
| Yes. I am like you in that I cannot actually see anything
| visual in my minds eye but I can still 'visualise' it. For
| example, I can rotate a die in my minds eye without actually
| seeing it. It's hard to explain.
|
| It was a revelation when I found out that most people can
| actually see things visually in their minds eye.
|
| A friend of mine can actually place imagined objects into their
| field of view, like AR.
| layer8 wrote:
| I wouldn't be so sure that what they're describing isn't
| really the same as your "visualization". I can't truly see
| anything in my mind's eye, same as you and others in this
| thread, but I can abstractly visualize it, again same as you
| describe for rotating a die, and I can place that abstract
| visualization in the 3D space I see before my (open) eyes.
|
| I think it's more likely that others describe this abstract
| visualization as "seeing" although they don't really see it,
| as opposed to them really seeing it as if it were real. As
| you say, it's difficult to describe. It's like a memory of
| having seen something, and people might describe that as
| really seeing (because it's like a memory of really seeing),
| but in fact it's not.
|
| It's like hearing a song or other piece of music in your head
| that you know well, and you can hum or sing along it, but
| it's not like you're actually hearing it.
| zeehio wrote:
| When I had to study and memorize some text at school I used
| to remember the page where the text was written and then
| mentally read it. Some of those pages are still in my head
| (for instance multiplication tables).
|
| Once I was on an exam and I could not understand my own
| writing in the page I was remembering because I had written
| it too small on the corner. It was frustrating to not be able
| to answer the question. Afterwards, when I went to my real
| notes and I struggled to understand what was written there. I
| was happy that my memory image was accurate although
| frustrated for not managing the space in the page properly.
|
| I thought everyone could remember things in this way.
|
| Sometimes I have to write things down to see them and
| remember them, because mental speeches are harder (and less
| efficient) for me to remember.
|
| I guess there are many ways to learn and remember stuff we
| just have to find the one that works better for us.
|
| Being a teacher should require knowing about all this
| learning diversity I guess.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| I find reading from paper books better than digital for
| this reason. Spatial memory. Its quick for me to find a
| passage as I seem to know where to look. I don't remember
| the words or the passage I want but I know where to locate
| it. The section of the page, the bit of the chapter, the
| pattern and shape of the text (better if there's
| illustrations) the weight of the pages. I imagine it would
| be a little bit of a jump to use it to memorise the words
| themselves. I should give it a try with some bible verses
| but thinking about it all my bibles are formatted
| differently depending on translation edition etc. Different
| than most books.
|
| With digital this seems to not be active and instead I have
| to guess the likely words and jump around the search
| results.
| teekert wrote:
| Hmm I can imagine what something will look like in a position
| in a scene but I wouldn't call it AR like. This is a really
| interesting thread. I always thought people were much the
| same. But recently I also learned that my wife just sees
| words when reading a book whereas I see a "movie".
|
| Also I will project words in my mind to inspect them visually
| to see how to spell them, and if they look ok. And when
| studying I recall pages of books with the info in the place
| where it is printed, much like zeehio describes. This is
| super helpful when memorizing entire books ie when I studied
| biology.
|
| But from this thread I still get the idea there are people
| that really really see things, whereas for me it stops at
| "visualizing". Which does help when composing a picture but
| perhaps there is more? I think I'll try this exercise.
|
| One weird thing I often did (or try to do, doesn't always
| work) as a kid is stare into the blackness of my closed eyes
| until I sort of got convinced there was a massive boulder
| looming over me. It would feel quite real and I'd really feel
| the massiveness and it would make me feel very small and even
| make me feel adrift. Strange, this thread actually made me
| remember, didn't really do that for a long time now.
| norrius wrote:
| > I can rotate a die in my minds eye without actually seeing
| it. It's hard to explain.
|
| I think I'm the same. It's as if I can imagine a geometry,
| but it doesn't have any texture or colour. It's not black,
| not grey, not brown... It's a shape in its pure form, maybe
| like a wireframe, without a physical manifestation.
|
| However, I can imagine music and actually hear it. I had this
| a couple of times where I "replay" a song in a foreign
| language I've heard a long time ago, and this time I can
| parse out more lyrics than before. All inside my head.
| GolfPopper wrote:
| That sounds a lot like me as well. I have a very hard time
| getting an actual realistic picture, with color and detail,
| in my head. At most its a faint and hazy thing. And while I
| don't have face-blindness - I recognize people from their
| faces easily - picturing the faces of even close friends
| and family members in my head is very hard, and mostly
| comes down to a few half-remembered features, tied to
| words.
|
| But a geometry, or set of relations between objects
| (whether that's connections or just relative positioning,
| like a map) is pretty easy, and I can move around, rotate
| and focus on the geometry with less effort than it takes to
| imagine, say, an apple.
|
| But familiar music can be played back in my head with only
| a little effort, or a slight reminder. Not just the lyrics,
| or the melody, but the full audio as I heard it, missing
| only background parts that my mind didn't "catch". Rarely
| (a couple times a year), I'll get a partial song "stuck"
| and won't be able to get it out of my head until I track it
| down and listen to it until the end. I can't "invent" a
| tune though, just replay ones I've heard several times.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| I definitely do abstract shapes more often, but I thought
| but and I could do some lighting
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utah_teapot#/media/File:Utah_
| t... Play with the Utah teapot and then try to do the same
| thing mentally. Like imagine where the shadows are supposed
| to go and then see if you are right.
|
| For colors imagine something corny like like a laser scan
| passing over, and then try to imagine different colors or
| laser.
| LoganDark wrote:
| > A friend of mine can actually place imagined objects into
| their field of view, like AR.
|
| I'm so jealous.
| krapp wrote:
| > are people normally actually seeing images, with their eyes,
| when they imagine what something looks like? Like, the brown-
| blackness of the back of your eyelids gets replaced with
| something you actually see, like it's projected there?
|
| No.
|
| >I can imagine what something looks like, and I guess I sort of
| 'see' it, but closing my eyes doesn't make it any more real. It
| doesn't seem to involve the eyes or any part of the visual
| system at all - it's somewhere else in my head.
|
| Yes. That's all it is. Although it does seem to be indirectly
| related to the visual system, likely whatever part of it lets
| people "see" things when they dream, despite not actually
| processing visual stimuli through the eyes. It's just dreaming
| while awake.
| _dain_ wrote:
| _> No._
|
| ahem. yes we do. we really, really do.
| krapp wrote:
| Really? Like you literally see the things you imagine?
|
| How do you function? How do you manage to drive, without
| your thoughts blocking your view? How can you even tell if
| anything you see is real or a product of your imagination?
|
| I feel like if that's what is actually happening you should
| see a professional.
| _dain_ wrote:
| _> How do you manage to drive, without your thoughts
| blocking your view?_
|
| They don't block the view, in the same way that the image
| from your left eye doesn't block the image from your
| right eye, even though they're overlaid on the same
| "mental space". Hold up your finger in front of your
| eyes, and focus on a distant object. You can see two
| images of the finger, but also see straight through them
| simultaneously. It's kinda like that.
|
| And it usually doesn't manifest when I'm intensely
| concentrating on one task (unless deliberately imagining
| something is part of how I solve the task). At any rate,
| driving is mostly a system 1 activity, carried out
| autonomically. In real life, people's thoughts drift all
| the time when they drive. It's unavoidable and mostly not
| a big deal.
|
| _> How can you even tell if anything you see is real or
| a product of your imagination?_
|
| Because they're on different channels. Like stdout vs
| stderr.
|
| _> I feel like if that's what is actually happening you
| should see a professional._
|
| Again, most people are like this. You are the one who is
| unusual. You probably have aphantasia:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
|
| It's common for aphantasics to be initially completely
| incredulous at the concept of mental imagery, so you're
| not alone here. See this: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts
| /baTWMegR42PAsH9qJ/generalizi...
|
| _> Galton gave people some very detailed surveys, and
| found that some people did have mental imagery and others
| didn't. The ones who did had simply assumed everyone did,
| and the ones who didn't had simply assumed everyone
| didn't, to the point of coming up with absurd
| justifications for why they were lying or
| misunderstanding the question. There was a wide spectrum
| of imaging ability, from about five percent of people
| with perfect eidetic imagery1 to three percent of people
| completely unable to form mental images_
| krapp wrote:
| I don't profess complete incredulity at the concept of
| mental imagery. My experiences don't match those of
| people who claim to have aphantasia at all, I'm capable
| of imagining objects, events, actions, etc. in my mind. I
| just don't actually _see_ them as if they were there.
| That 's the part that seems unusual to me.
| geoelectric wrote:
| I'm fairly sure I'm aphantasic. When I try to imagine
| something I don't get any visuals, even the visual
| processing equivalent of subvocalization. Sometimes I can
| get a flicker of an outline or something but I can't hold
| the concept and it'll dissolve inside a second. I used to
| be a pretty good artist working from photos, but I can't
| compose in my head. At all.
|
| But I do also know what familiar things look like more or
| less, and I can easily imagine layouts of buildings I
| know really well. I can explain those things verbally
| fine.
|
| But it registers more in the way you might expect if you
| were encountering the object in darkness, or became blind
| after thoroughly learning the object as a sighted person.
| I imagine aspects of the object or scene in relationship
| to each other, sort of feeling over it with my mind, and
| cross-referencing with facts I remember about it. I'm
| wondering if that's what you're talking about--being able
| to conceptualize it rather than visualize it.
|
| I did manage to imagine "blue" once during meditation,
| though, and that was pretty cool. I really saw it when I
| did--my whole visual field behind my closed eyes seemed
| sky blue. Normally I just see clouds of purplish dots on
| a black field, if there's no light shining through my
| eyelids, and it's been that way all my life. That
| experience, more than anything, convinced me people who
| say they "see" stuff in their mind's eye really do see
| stuff.
|
| I'm definitely going to check out the linked technique.
| Maybe it's snake oil but doesn't seem likely to hurt to
| try. That blue experience was pretty compelling.
| _dain_ wrote:
| well where is your mental imagery? can you not do it with
| your eyes open?
| [deleted]
| coumbaya wrote:
| Well it's not like it's blocking your view, it's kind of
| a separate thing, you know it's not real and you retain
| the entierty of you eye's information.
| SirMaster wrote:
| That's not what's being described in this article though.
|
| They are saying like how you see golden dots after gently
| rubbing your eyes. They are saying they see images like that.
| Definitely seems like more than just imagining seeing
| something.
|
| When I rub my eyes I definitely see some dots that are way
| more real than not rubbing my eyes and just imagining dots.
| iseanstevens wrote:
| I don't even need to close my eyes and the images are fairly
| vivid. AR before AR.
|
| I thought for a long time that's how it was for everyone.
|
| Anyone else have that?
| nurbl wrote:
| Yes. I don't have very good conscious control of it, but if I
| start "daydreaming" the images can pretty much override what
| my eyes are seeing. I wouldn't say it's overlaying like AR,
| for me it's more like tuning in to a different channel. I
| guess somehow the things my eyes see are still registering,
| e.g. if something new comes into view I will pop back to
| reality.
| pixl97 wrote:
| I'm the same. I can pop things in and out of reality as
| needed to visualize things. Of course the counter to this
| scares me thinking about what happens if I did this without
| conscious awareness...
|
| My dreams can feel more real than reality too. Like full
| senses lucid dreams. Looking at things like clocks and books
| worked in my dreams. My dreams are just a reality inside the
| reality everyone else shares.
|
| Also, In my teens and early 20s I had dreams I could
| levitate. If you could imagine being able to follow magnetic
| fields just under your skin would be about the best way to
| describe it. It was disappointing to wake up and realize that
| I couldn't do this.
| RamRodification wrote:
| Yeah I have the same question. It's either that, which sounds
| kinda crazy, or that's just how they describe what you and I
| can already "see" when we imagine something that is visual, I
| guess? Whereas when you have aphantasia you cannot do that
| stouset wrote:
| No, not with their eyes. Hence the "mind's eye". The darkness
| of your eyelids isn't replaced, it's just that your focus is on
| a mental image of what an object feels like and not just on the
| darkness of your vision.
| SirMaster wrote:
| When I rub by eyes, the darkness of my eyelids is definitely
| replaced by yellowish dots that fade in and out and move
| around. I'm definitely seeing them even though my eyes are
| closed. I'm not just imagining them.
|
| This article is saying the effect is like that, so it seems
| to be different than just imagining something with your eyes
| closed.
|
| When I imagine something I don't "see" it at all the way I
| "see" the yellow dots after rubbing my eyes.
| gumballindie wrote:
| I can, but in my case it's not always a coherent image sequence
| like in movies. I see "episodes". Actually that's my only way
| of falling asleep. If i don't "see" images i dont fall asleep.
| And when i sleep well it's always after having a clear dream.
| Although somehow when i am about to get a cold or a health
| issue they get more vivid. Strange.
| sebtron wrote:
| Yes, it apparently most people can. I cannot, and I also found
| out relatively recently.
|
| For example, you can ask "most people" to imagine a car, and
| then follow up by asking "what color did you imagine it?". For
| me and you this question would not make any sense, but you'll
| find out that "most people" find it completely normal and
| answer it without questioning you.
| donpark wrote:
| It 'feels like' like seeing. There is sense of dimension and
| position in the space and objects. I can imagine people I know
| and places I've been to with amazing details but visual details
| like texture are limited to where I'm focusing. Rest of the
| view is filled with 'feels like they are there'. It's not
| retrieval because when I try to focus on non-memorable parts of
| a face, I can tell that details are made up on-demand using
| common variety.
|
| And what I 'see' is affected by light over closed eyelid as
| well as inner blood vessel, minor debris and micro organism
| floating over the cornea, meaning input from the eyes does play
| a role even with eyes closed.
|
| While I have very vivid imaginations, I don't think I have
| photographic memory because what I can recall is rather too
| creative.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| I have seen lines of code projected vividly like this.
|
| Several years ago a Facebook recruiter invited me to interview
| with them. It mostly went well, except I bombed the leetcode
| algorithm quiz.
|
| The next day, as I expected, they sent me a polite note
| thanking me for interviewing but they would be moving on with
| other candidates.
|
| The morning after that, I woke up and before I opened my eyes I
| saw the complete solution on the back of my eyelids, about 20
| lines of code.
|
| I stepped through the code mentally and thought, "Yes! This
| will work!"
|
| So I ran to my computer and typed the code in to test it. Other
| than one bug - this was old-school JavaScript and I'd forgotten
| one var statement, so there was an inadvertent global - it
| worked perfectly.
| Modified3019 wrote:
| If you're not already aware, there is also a phenomenon where
| a person wakes up with a solution to something they had a
| problem with. Sleep is required for memory formation and
| organization, during which new and sometimes novel
| associations can be made.
|
| I personally consider naps an essential part of studying
| because of this.
| 725686 wrote:
| I have, in more than one occasion, gone to sleep with a
| problem in mind and woke up with a solution, but it is more
| of a conceptual thing. To actually see the lines of code, if
| true, is wild.
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| I am like you. I'm guessing that the author needed to use the
| stuff seen by his eyes while closed as a springboard to seeing
| something with his mind's eye.
|
| My dad told me about monk's who meditate on imagining that
| their thoughts exist behind their belly button. As you noted,
| your mind's eye is not located in the same physical space as
| your actual eyes. Similarly, there is no reason the thoughts
| you hear couldn't be happening in your belly button.
|
| But I've found it remarkably difficult to convince my mind that
| it exist anywhere other than my head. I don't think this
| difficulty is based on biology. I think it's just conditioning.
| But damn, it's hard.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "But I've found it remarkably difficult to convince my mind
| that it exist anywhere other than my head. I don't think this
| difficulty is based on biology. I think it's just
| conditioning. But damn, it's hard."
|
| It really is hard. I just know the conscious effort of
| meditating and centering my consciousness in the center of my
| body (above the belly button) as opposed to my head, really
| helps my focus and mental abilities and general wellbeing.
| And everytime I use my mobile .. it helps me if I do it
| afterwards, to not get lost again. I wonder if the jogis
| would have advanced much, if they would have had a mobile
| close to them ..
| toombowoombo wrote:
| Try pinching yourself randomly so that you can attract your
| mind to different spots in your body. I used to do that when
| I had headpain to distract me from it (I was a minor back
| when I learned that. In my country everyone is very careful
| with any substance given to minors)
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Do blind people have this same issue?
| pavlov wrote:
| For me, it makes a difference whether I imagine my body in the
| image or not.
|
| A disembodied mental image is located somewhere else in my
| head; a first-person one moves behind my eyes. It's not like a
| projection in the sense that it would replace what I actually
| see, but like a secondary feed that overrides some processing
| in the same place just after the eyes.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Yes, a side effect of this skill is that schizophrenia runs in
| the family. Super helpful for lots of other things though.
| HellDunkel wrote:
| The whole website and all links mentioned here looks as if this
| was just a hoax but i still like to think this could work.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| There was a story about a guy who trained himself to lucid dream
| about a hundred years ago while he was riding a train, and
| letting the shadows play off of his closed eyes....anyone know
| what I'm talking about? Having a hard time googling it, but I
| wonder if that same technique could be used for improving mental
| imagery instead of eye rubbing.
| i8comments wrote:
| Is everyone here this credulous? The website even claims it
| increases your IQ, which is extremely dubious, to say the least.
|
| Rubbing your eyes doesnt make you not aphantasic, any more than
| looking at a bright lightbulb for a few seconds or unblinkingly
| staring at a single image on a bright tv for a few minutes (which
| is actually more effective if you want to clearly see colorful
| and bright shapes with _closed eyes_ -- doesnt change your minds
| eye, which is different), and whats worse is that it will damage
| your eye!
| voxl wrote:
| I think I have very good visualization skills. To the point where
| I can solve three dimensional geometry problems in my head with
| nothing external. However, I never "see" anything with my two
| eyes in the way I can see an afterglow of a candle or a window,
| as described in the video.
|
| I see with a "third-eye" or a "minds-eye." Never with me real two
| eyes. This means I can visualize at any point, eyes closed or
| open. I can transpose an additional image on the scenery around
| me, and in fact I did that very often in school, playing games on
| walls in my head. Anything to avoid the lesson.
|
| But, is that seeing images in your head, or isn't it? Must you
| see the image as you would see the afterglow of a window? I've
| never been able to tease out what people really mean when they
| say they can visualize.
| izoow wrote:
| I wonder if this has something to do with certain people's brains
| being wired more towards images and others towards sound. I
| always felt like I'm much better with sound when it comes to
| recalling things and such.
| nico wrote:
| Interesting. Another potential spectrum could be people wired
| more for concrete vs abstract
|
| Personally I mostly think and understand the world in terms of
| abstract concepts, but I know that a lot of people don't really
| have or care for the level of abstraction that I'm usually more
| comfortable with
|
| Similar I guess to the spectrum of actual vs ideal
| chatmasta wrote:
| The thing I've never understood about aphantasia is the emphasis
| on closing your eyes. Does it really matter? I can visualize an
| apple (to borrow the example from the frequently shared meme)
| whether my eyes are open or closed. It's not like my eyelids are
| some necessary visual backdrop for visualization.
| sgt wrote:
| So you can do AR, basically
| treme wrote:
| https://old.reddit.com/r/CureAphantasia/
|
| Recommended for aphantasics
| graeme wrote:
| Did it work for you? How would you sum it up?
| treme wrote:
| It's the most detailed open source community of people that
| are working together to come up with a solution.
|
| I haven't dedicated any consistent time/effort towards it,
| but I developed a much deeper understanding of stages you
| progress through as you develop your mind's eye.
|
| I'm at 3% from 0%, with 100% being able to visualize things
| with ease like a HUD of sort. 3% is going from complete
| darkness to just beginning to be able to manipulate small
| stimulus (while eyes closed) into something bigger / more
| vivid.
| tzs wrote:
| A bit OT: I'm curious what, if anything, people here see when
| their eyes are closed while falling asleep.
|
| I usually see one of the following:
|
| 1. Just the brown/black of my eyelids, with some slight
| variations in darkness.
|
| 2. A blob of white light. It looks a lot like what you'd see if
| you were in a dark room with a sink full of water that is
| draining, and there was a drop of some glowing dye in the water
| which is circling the drain and expanding.
|
| 3. Gears, pistons, linkages, pulleys, wheels, etc forming
| elaborate moving mechanisms. I have no idea what the mechanisms
| are doing or if any of the mechanisms are sensible or even
| possible. I'm very much not mechanically inclined and so this is
| the most puzzling nighttime visualization to me.
|
| 4. Plants. I seem to be flying low over land with patches of
| grass, flowers, and trees. The scene is quite detailed, with
| individual leaves and blades of grass visible, and any gaps
| between things filled with things farther behind, giving a strong
| sense of 3D.
|
| 5. Animals. Unlike the plants of #4 that I see in a full
| environment if I see animals they are just kind of there against
| the brown/black background. Sometimes they are normal animals,
| and sometimes they are weird creatures that belong in science
| fiction or mythology. The animals often morph into other animals.
| ChrisClark wrote:
| Thanks for this post. I've never been able to see anything in my
| mind's eye. When I try really hard I can get the faint
| impression, more like the image was almost there, but never
| arrived.
|
| I'll give this a try and see if anything ever changes.
| spacebacon wrote:
| I thought this was innate for decades ... I've had a clear minds
| eye for as long as I can remember. In college a couple decades
| ago I did Jose Silvas program and some of Monroe Institutes. This
| is the way to truly enhance your minds eye.
| muixoozie wrote:
| can you provide links?
| layer8 wrote:
| I would be careful with the eye rubbing, as that's an important
| risk factor for keratoconus:
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6848869/
|
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9800344/
| drewtato wrote:
| Maybe this is too obvious to spend words on, but it's really
| weird that neither actually define eye rubbing, specifically as
| being with the eyelids closed. The first one even has a section
| for the definition of eye rubbing and fully avoids defining it.
| layer8 wrote:
| I don't think many people would be able to rub their eyes
| with their eyes open ;), but yes, more precision would be
| useful.
| kylebenzle wrote:
| Great post, I wish we had more of these types of pragmatic
| techniques from zen buddhism/yoga. I've heard of this one as both
| a way to induce lucid dreaming and as just a yoga meditation but
| this post does not seem to mention that some people say the best
| results are often had right before falling asleep.
| Dwewlyo wrote:
| [flagged]
| Hnrobert42 wrote:
| The images you see just before falling asleep are called
| hypnagogic images or hypnagogic hallucinations.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Hypnagogic state is the only time I can see anything at all so
| can confirm I guess.
| Zetobal wrote:
| It's the same for lucid dreaming it works the best if you take
| a nap 20-30 mins and push caffeine and before the onset you
| fall asleep again.
| malauxyeux wrote:
| > pragmatic techniques from zen buddhism/yoga
|
| Not Zen, but there's "kasina" meditation that sounds similar to
| this. You might stare at a light source or a colored disc, then
| close your eyes and watch the afterimage. Repeat. That's it
| really - very mechanical.
|
| That can lead to wakeful closed-eye hallucinations, some of
| which are described here:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed-eye_hallucination
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