this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2024
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This is more of me trying to understand how people imagine things, as I almost certainly have Aphantasia and didn't realize until recently... If this is against community rules, please do let me know.

The original thought experiment was from the Aphantasia subreddit. Link: https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/g1e6bl/ball_on_a_table_visualization_experiment_2/

Thought experiment begins below.


Try this: Visualise (picture, imagine, whatever you want to call it) a ball on a table. Now imagine someone walks up to the table, and gives the ball a push. What happens to the ball?

Once you're done with the above, click to review the test questions:

  • What color was the ball?
  • What gender was the person that pushed the ball?
  • What did they look like?
  • What size is the ball? Like a marble, or a baseball, or a basketball, or something else?
  • What about the table, what shape was it? What is it made of?

And now the important question: Did you already know, or did you have to choose a color/gender/size, etc. after being asked these questions?


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[–] merc@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago

I have songs stuck in my head all the time and I ‘know’ what they sound like, and my brain keeps the beat with the song, but I’m not hearing it.

That's just weird. You're aware there's a song stuck in your head, but you can't actually hear it? I wonder if that's more or less frustrating than a song stuck in your head that you can hear.

Can you taste or smell things that aren’t around?

Yes, but if normal experience of a taste or smell is a 10/10 in sensation, imagining a taste or smell is like a 1/10. Like, imagining smelling salts which are just overwhelming in reality barely rate a tickle in imagination. Same idea with taste. I can imagine biting into a lime, which in reality would be an almost painful experience in reality, but in the imagination it's barely noticeable. I imagine that when I'm imagining a situation, all the body sensations are there: sight, sound, taste, smell, touch, even proprioception. But, I think everything is muted compared to reality, sight might be at a 3/10 compared to reality, sound maybe at a 2/10, and the others are lower, probably even below 1/10. I can only manage a 1/10 for something that would be an overwhelming sensation in reality.