For me, I'm probably a 3.5 when asked to think of a general object ("a top hat") but a 1.5 when asked to think of an object that I've seen before ("Magritte's bowler hat"). It's also much easier for me to visualize a specific photograph I've seen of a person's face than it is for me to generate their face in my mind -- even with people I see every day.

I've never thought about it, but I think I'm probably somewhere around a 3-4. I don't think I see color properties in my mental images, but I can and often do imagine 3D mechanisms and work out interactions in my head. While in the midst of development projects in the past, I have spent hours working out design problems mentally, spinning shapes/plates/formed objects around in my head (often while driving.) I have no problem visualizing different room arrangements, but have often struggled to communicate about concepts (like an alternative room arrangement) with my wife, because she says she cannot mentally visualize anything. This makes me curious about where my kids are on this scale...

Fully a 1. I see directions to a place (like a hike I've done before) as a series of images, and I can tell when I've taken a wrong turn when the images in my head are no longer in sync with what my eyes are seeing. I can usually re-trace a route after a single trip- often a very long time later.
My spacial memory also works a little like Jason described- the position of information within a space is often integral to remembering what the information is. It's why handwritten notes work for me and digital notes don't seem to allow me to leverage that spacial data.

I can see everything: individual memories, exact scenes from movies and television, imaginary scenes when I read or when someone tells me a story. I can visualize mathematical problems and remember exactly where on a page I read something I can remember, like a photograph. My internal GPU is always working overtime. (My CPU is pretty robust too: I can memorize text and speech after only reading/hearing it once.)

I don’t have a comment (except to briefly mention that I can conjure pictures pretty vividly, along with certain smells—the smell of dead caterpillars is a pretty strong scent memory that I can conjure at a moment’s notice, and in a past career as a perfumer, I found out that the aromatic compounds emitted by dead caterpillars are also present in asparagus pee) but I do have a question for those with aphantasia: do you still dream vividly?

I can imagine in my head everything I try in vivid detail, but only for a flash. If I think of a snowmobile I get a slideshow of very vivid images, not a static image that will sit still for me. Same with smells, it's like a brief imaginary whiff.

One curious thing I've noticed is that I can't remember faces of people I know really well as easily as those I've only seen once or only a picture of. If I try to picture fine details about my best friend from high school whom I've know for 40 years it's more difficult than picturing Keanu Reeves, who I've never met. I think it's because I have so many memories to draw from that my friends face is a moving target. It's better to think about a photo I have of him. In that way I can recall details better than just picturing him with no context. Is that unique?

I remember seeing this when you posted it on Instagram and immediately started asking everyone what number they were. I've always been a highly visual thinker/dreamer/remember-er and am a solid 1, and I knew that some people weren't as adept at visualizing things but I guess I always assumed that everyone was at least a 2. Getting to "see" inside other people's heads was enlightening.

Along with photo-realistic imaginings, like Tim I also figure out math problems visually. Even simple addition/subtraction triggers visualizations of shapes merging or splitting and it's an almost automatic part of my mental math process. The "where did I write this on the page?" trick also helped me out with remembering notes in school.

The other night to help myself fall asleep I played a high-speed mental "video" of a 2.5 hour drive through the mountains we'd done the previous weekend. The next day for fun I looked at the map to see how well I'd done; I got a few landmarks out of order but did pretty well otherwise!

I've known that I'm unusual in not visualizing for over thirty years, having discovered this difference as a teenager. What was a revelation for me was learning recently about some of the other characteristics that often go along with 'aphantasia', things that I had thought were just my own quirks and individual insufficiencies. "A poor autobiographical memory" was a phrase that jumped out from one description; I don't remember when things happened or who said what nearly as well as others around me. I remember my life as a series of unconnected episodes rather than as a narrative.

I occasionally, but rarely, have visual dreams. They're never as vivid as the world, and often are no more than impressions with no more realism or tone than a charcoal line drawing, or embossed impressions on darkness. And when I wake I don't remember the visuals, but only remember that I had experienced them.

i’m 1000% on the opposite side of the spectrum, i see everything visually in my mind, so if my thoughts run away, i can see everything unfold like a movie. and i remember things i see as an image as well, so i can recall where a specific passage is on a page of a novel, even if it’s 100 pages prior, or taking a test in college: i used to write out a few pages of all my notes, like a cheat sheet or outline, then in an exam, i’d just close my eyes and go back and “look up” the info. though usually writing it all out was enough to burn it into my brain. now that my kids are older and i find i'm missing their younger selves, i’ll close my eyes and remember things we’ve done, i’ll replay “movies” of them and specifically work hard to not have them be images i’ve seen more recently on my phone. i work to dig up fresh memories.

it’s so powerful that i can sometimes see the mental image while my eyes are open. i notice this happens if i space out. my eyes are open and i’m taking in images of surroundings but also more vibrant “priority” images from my thoughts/brain are superimposed. those are the ones i’m really seeing and interacting with. related: it’s why i have a really hard time listening to audiobooks or podcasts while driving (or even talking on phone, or sometimes even music) because those images become the priority images, and distract me from the actual images of the road and traffic etc. it makes me feel unsafe.

it also makes it difficult to read about violence in the news, because not only do i see it as an horrific R-rated movie, it sticks, and will replay anytime anything even tangentially related is mentioned. it can be overwhelming.i really can't handle violent films because it's like a double-whammy. there's an old simpsons quote where bart says, “If you don't watch the violence, you'll never get desensitized to it.” i used to think this was my problem, but apparently it's my hyperphantasia! when i was little almost every teacher at some point told me, "you have an overactive imagination!"

@tim carmody: i love love love "My internal GPU is always working overtime" because that's exactly how i feel! maybe that's why i always feel exhausted?!?! hahaha.

I’m totally a 1. I was shocked and dismayed to find out people fall on the 4-5 side of the scale because I’m a geology professor and I’ve been asking my students to “picture groundwater flowing through pore spaces” or “imagine a volcano erupting” or whatever for years! I’m excited to change the way I teach but oh man I’ve probably had some really confused 4-5 folks in my classes. Totally paradigm shifting!

I always used to ask people about this growing up! I can't picture things, but am always talking to myself in my head. Here's a classic Feynman interview where he talks about how he and a friend had completely different mental images.

https://youtu.be/Cj4y0EUlU-Y?si=gVH3gvjVIRdWRCpB

I find this stuff so hard to know how to think about. Because for sure, when I close my eyes, I see the darkness of the inside of my eyelids. But I can also imagine something that exists in the physical world and consider its color and its shape, how it might feel to touch. It's one of those things where it seems so hard to know just how someone else sees the color blue

Wait, we all aren't ones?

I had no idea this was a thing. Thanks for sharing. As an artist and designer, I rely on mental visuals constantly. My general rule for design is if I can't visualize it, then its probably not going to work.

I am a 5 for minds eye. I had no idea this was unusual until I heard Richard Herring talking about it on a podcast last year. I know I dream and have brief memories of them occasionally but NEVER visual. I have even woke suddenly with terror of falling but could not actually visualize. I don’t think it has held me back in life. I would like to be able to visualize at will. That said, I just finished reading ToThe End of The Earth by John McManus and I am very glad I can’t visualize any of that.

I'm definitely in the 1-2 range. My memories replay back to me as a movie. I also have a hard time with real-life violence videos because they will definitely stick in my brain. I will also immediately picture something someone is describing, good or bad, and have a very strong reaction to it. (Especially when someone is describing something gross, haha).

I have a very strong photographic memory and can keep track of my things this way. I picture where things are when I need to find them again. This also helps my spouse who loses everything. ;) "I remember seeing your wallet sitting on the counter, under some papers, next to the coffee maker." or "Your glasses are lying on the floor, next to the couch on the left side."

As others mentioned in a school setting, if I wrote down my notes, I could recall exactly where something was on the page and remember it. Sometimes I would stare intensely at my notes before a test as if taking a mental photo.

I have ALOT of trouble with words though. I suspect I might be dyslexic in some way, but I've never been tested. I have heard that there is a correlation between people who are strong picture thinkers and dyslexia, like a coping mechanism. (some things about that mentioned here and here).

As someone who loves fashion, I can picture myself wearing outfits as I'm planning them. So when it comes time to wear my fabulous creation, I know the things in my closet I need to put together.

I don't typically remember my dreams though, but I think that is just because I'm a heavy sleeper and sleep-deprived. I have the most vivid dreams when I'm sick, but that's probably because I sleep more or fever-induced.

Wow, I wish I hadn’t read this, didn’t know this was a thing! I’m a 0.

I can’t even imagine actually being able to see an object with my eyes closed. I do have vivid dreams though. Sometimes I wake up from a dream by forcing myself to scream. Often times I can remember them but have a hard time describing them to someone else.

Will definitely have to read more about this after I get over feeling sad and broken.

My wife doesn't see images at all. But she does think in visual text, specifically in Courier New.

I'm the opposite and see things very visually and spacially in my mind to the point that finding words for things is difficult. I have a tough time describing what I'm thinking.

I’m a 2. I can picture things, but don’t have a photographic memory.

I help myself go to sleep by closing my eyes and picturing myself someplace and going for a walk and eventually that transitions into dreaming which leads me to my deep sleep.

My default is imagining I am getting out of bed and walking to my bedroom door and opening it. Usually I then imagine I see the hallway leading from my room but sometimes it’s a portal to a different world. If I need to keep going I go down the hall and down the stairs and see where that takes me. Sometimes I have to walk myself outside and down to our grocery store before things get interesting.

This process helps me settle my mind too from worrying about abstract things like my family or work and instead focus on “tangible” things and a journey. Discovering this visualization process has really helped with my sleep.

This reminds me of my mother telling me that when she was young, she believed she was the only one who had thoughts. I guess everyone assumed that she knew. We make a lot of assumptions about what's rattling around in everyone's head and the variation is astonishing.

I find this question so hard to think and talk about. I can't tell where I am on the spectrum, except I guess not a full-out 5.

If I close my eyes, I don't literally "see" anything (and I contend no one literally sees anything). But I can imagine things (and it probably involves the visual part of my brain when I do so). If it's something I was just looking at, I can imagine its appearance in detail. If it's something I know well (my bedroom), I can imagine its appearance in detail. If it's not a specific object, but just a kind of object ("picture a top hat"), I can imagine what a top hat looks like and its basic features. And what I'm imagining has whatever level of detail I need at the time. Like, if I imagine a top hat, I don't really know if it has a grosgrain hatband or not. But if I think about whether it does, I can imagine with a hatband, or without.

So, if I try, I can imagine a very detailed apple like #1. But I don't call up that image in my head every time I think about apples. Then it's more like 2, 3, or 4. And sometimes it's 5; I don't picture a physical apple every time I think about apples. Or at least, I don't think I do?

I rate a solid 0. When the NYTimes covered aphantasia a couple of years ago, the story rocked me—until that point, I assumed everyone was using phrases like "I see it clear as day" figuratively (as it were). Not only don't I imagine in actual images, I can't really imagine imagining them—it seems like it would be a confounding experience, akin to hallucination.

My wife reports vivid visualizations—based on what she's reported, I'd call her a 1—and she has a hard time imagining what my back-of-the-eyelids experience might be like. I tell her that when asked to "visualize" something, I sort of sense it as if it were in the dark: I have an intuitive sense of size and shape, without imagery. It's like trying to cross the bedroom in the dark, I tell her—only then I wonder, what's that like for her?

I do have vivid visual dreams, and occasional bouts of visualization happen when I'm in a hypnagogic state. And I've always been pretty capable when it comes to drawing. I wonder if there is visualization happening in my brain, which my conscious mind only occasionally accesses.

A lot of Wittgenstein's philosophy plays with questions about images in the mind's eye—and often it seems like LW also "sees" grammar (e.g., when he talks about the self as "a shadow thrown by grammar").

Over on Marginal Revolution Tyler recently included this is a Sunday assorted links section: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945223002459

It's pretty readable and argues for a re-appraisal of the linear "vividness" scale as the primary rating when questioning folks about their "inner perceptual sensation". Instead the author proposes that there might be two large categories: "associators" and "projectors" who have shared characteristics of mental imagery. There's some additional speculation about different potential implications for where imagery arises in the brain, but it resonated that there is more nuance to explore and lines up with my (and it seems Jason's) experience of strong mental imagery - I can "imagine" and even investigate and manipulate a mental projection of a fire extinguisher - but if I "close my eyes and try to see it" I don't have the experience of a bright, red fire extinguisher floating before my eyes.

This is fascinating. I'm trying to figure out the distinctions, because I'm not sure I "see" something when I imagine it, vs having a grasp of its shape and colors and details and spatial relationships as a cohesive image. I feel like it's more in the center of my brain, but it's there.

How are you with navigating and directions? I feel like I walk around with snapshots of maps in my brain that I can call up when I need, to know right where I am.

I am generally in the middle of the Apple scale. My brother self-reports complete aphantasia.

If the situation is right, I seem to get my full phantasia(?) back!

If I get a lot of sleep, and it’s the weekend morning, and I’m very relaxed and haven’t left bed yet, I can sometimes close my eyes and get a very vivid picture in my mind’s eye. It’s fleeting, lasting only about a split second, and leaves behind some persistence of vision. The effect can last tens of minutes. It is correlated with very light sleep and lots of dreams.

It’s enough to make it very clear that I don’t have it normally. The first time I noticed it happening was in my late thirties.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since Jason shared it on Instagram.

I’m a solid 4 with what sound like some classic symptoms — I can’t visualize how something will look in a room, I talk to myself a *ton*, I think in sentences, etc. (Weirdly, I have an *exceedingly* good memory for faces and names, to the point that it’s kind of embarrassing 🫣 but it really only works one direction: if I see their face, I instantly recall their name and how I know them.)

My wife has an extraordinary gift for arrangement: she’s a gifted florist and she decorates a room like nobody’s business. I asked her where she fell; no surprise, 1 — full color, 3D, the works.

This got me to thinking… for folks down the 5 end of the scale, do you consider yourselves creative in any visual medium? 🎨 (I am not, in part I think because I feel like I’m inventing the image as I go each time I put pen or pencil or paint to paper, rather than drawing something from reference)

I fell into a deep research-hole after reading How Should We Think About Our Different Styles of Thinking? in the New Yorker earlier this year -- just as there's a scale of mind's-eye visual representation, there's a similar scale of 'hearing' one's thoughts inside one's own head. Apparently most people hear a continuous monologue!? (I had no idea.) Some people even hear their inner voice as someone else's voice!

I'm a little shook. Reading this post I was sure I was a 1. But when I tried there were no images, only words? Not that I see words, but what exists there are the thoughts of descriptors that make up the apple or other object. But I also wonder if reading this first and then trying the visualization gave me some performance anxiety? I need someone to sneak up on me while my eyes are closed and ask me to think of a fire hydrant.

I really don’t know where I fit in. I know what things look like but if I close my eyes I’m not sure I see them, but I’m not sure I don’t. Maybe I’m a 3? But I feel like I could convince myself I’m a 1 or a 5 too. I guess maybe if you’re a 1 you know you’re a 1. I wonder if there’s some more objective measure.

Pretty sure I am a solid 5. I can't visualize anything at all — I know what things look like, obviously, and I can describe things I've seen a lot, but no mental imagery at all. And I don't dream in color, more like black and white and shades of grey. And my memory is terrible, even for things that happened to me and were fairly important. I think that's why I take so many pictures all the time, because that's the only way I can remind myself of where I've been and what I did. And like you, I never realized I was different in any way until about six years ago. I thought "picture it in your mind's eye" was just a turn of phrase!

My visuals are usually pretty vague, but I find it really easy to audiate, playing back sounds mentally with decent accuracy. Once, when I was bored, I transcribed the first twenty minutes of my then-favorite movie from memory. When I checked it later it had only one minor mistake. The auditory memories degrade over time, but the rhythms of dialogue do tend to stick in a way that makes actually watching movies that I once knew well kind of uncomfortable, like having deja-vu the whole time.

It's also useful when my attention wanders in conversation, since I can play back the last five or ten seconds of what was said when it's my turn to talk. This might be a distinct phenomenon though, honed through use as an ADHD coping mechanism.

Can other people do this? I know my husband can, but I've never heard people talk about it.

Yes! I figured out I was a 5 in about 2018 and suddenly SO MANY THINGS made sense. What’s funny to me is I am firmly a 5 when it comes to TRYING to visualize, but every once in awhile I will just randomly have a 3-4 level vision of something if someone says a word that triggers it. Super random, totally involuntary, but like the tool exists in my brain somewhere. Anyone else?

I wonder if this is related to why some people look at photos of people they know.
I've noticed this while sitting on planes: A person will thumb through photos on their phone of friends and family. I'm a 1 on the apple scale and can pull up images of places and people without looking at the photos.
I always figured the look at photos people were just more people oriented than me, but now I wonder if it's something else.

I'm with Jason, a 4-5. I used to get into arguments with my ex when he'd want to describe something he wanted to do with our house or property and I couldn't picture it. he was sure I was just being lazy or didn't care and that's why I couldn't understand what he was talking about - he's a 1 for sure.