A recurring thing for me is if I close my eyes, relax, blank my mind, and think of nothing, but look into the darkness behind my eye lids, I start to see small little red (like laser red) circles just bouncing around off each other. I have seen them all my life, since I was very young. When I was young I fantasized that they were molecules I could see somehow (because maybe I'm a superhero?). As I got older, I figured they were probably an optical illusion created by the retina when there's no light to stimulate it, and I guess I was right:

All About Closed-Eye Hallucinations
https://www.healthline.com/health/closed-eye-hallucination#about

Mine are always the same. Small, incredibly ruby laser red, bright little circles, bouncing around like molecules.

Now if I stare into the black for a lot longer, trying hard to relax, I do often experience something else: I will see what looks like a bright blue light peaking through a brief opening in dark clouds. As a child (and even to this day) I have tried to fly towards that opening in the cloud and it always gets covered up before I get there. It's very spiritual when it happens. I have some control of over it (I can fly towards it), and I can make it change shape, and make it brighter, so I think this is a mental manifestation, not some eye hallucination.

I'm with Warpig that I don't think this phenomenon is akin to a translucent "Photoshop filter", over the darkness of closed eyes, though there might be correlation if you see vague moving shapes while drifting to sleep.

There's levels to it for me anyway. I can quickly "rough out" colorful shapes/scenes, but these tend to fade quickly, kind of like a polaroid in reverse. New visual ideas can appear that way, without having been willed forth or anything. Spatially, they tend to place themselves out and in front of me, or gravitate towards where there's activity in the nearby environment (only imagined distance, like when you make the call on how hard to throw a crumpled ball of paper to land it in a nearby trashbin).

A more laborious and precise mental visualisation, like playing with exact geometrical shapes take on a narrower field of view for me, with less color involved and typically the first traced shapes will start fading out if I elaborate too much on the object, though they can be "re-lit", which takes away focus from the previous "new bits". Don't use those much and they're probably colored by my years of working with 3D suites, though my first willed-forth "major introspective" was similar, when I was considering architecture as a career and an architect asked me to try and visualise structures in my head (glassy corridors, incidentally tinted a light blue).

Finally there's that closed eyes correlation - some days its a real lively soup back there, weaving slowly around without any efforts made on my part. Unpleasant images can pretty reliably be "cloudburst" if they get annoying, or swiped away by eye movement if not. To some degree those dark colors (mine sort of barely shimmer out of black between gossamers of gold or a shared red/green vibration) are sculptable, but most of the time its like poking a table full of thick, hot, bubbly glue with a fountain pen - can't do very elaborate constructs with those.

Approaching sleep I'll frequently see silhouettes, like shapes of people moving in close vicinity, like at an airport (travelling by), or a ballpark (fending, vying). Random facial expressions fade in and out at times, from people I don't know that I've met. They're kinda interesting most of the time, gives goosebump shivers at their worst, but at the end of the day has nothing on proper dreams.

This comment was edited on Aug 6, 2024, 18:08.

Boeing is a joke and so is starliner. Wasted billions that could have been spent elsewhere. We had better capsules back in 1969. What a complete cluster mess.

When I told my wife this, she said in a very loud voice: "HOW can you spell?" While she knew I had aphantasia, it had apparently never occurred to her I couldn't see words in my head, as it never occurred to me that anyone could actually see words in their mind.

That's a very interesting point. I've never been very good at spelling words out loud - I can do it, but it takes more concentration than it seems to take other people. I still don't think I have full-blown aphantasia, but I'm pretty sure I can't picture things in my mind as well as others.

I too have aphantasia, as do some of my closest friends. It seems to be more common in certain occupations. I only learned of this a couple of years ago.

Believe it or not, there are advantages to aphantasia, such as not having intrusive images or vivid nightmares. My wife has hyperphantasia (mental images are "real" with sound and smells). She has suffered her whole life with bad memories and dreams which feel entirely real.

A doctor I know also has aphantasia and he said he was envious of his classmates who could see words spelled out in their minds. When I told my wife this, she said in a very loud voice: "HOW can you spell?" While she knew I had aphantasia, it had apparently never occurred to her I couldn't see words in my head, as it never occurred to me that anyone could actually see words in their mind.

I don't think I have hyperphantasia, but my "head visions" are pretty cool.

If I saw you and can remember, I can recreate your body in my mind, modify it, twist it, make it do dance moves and all kinds of funny/neat stuff.

I'll let you imagine what I used to do when I had a crush when I was teenager... So many sins to confess.

I bet quite a few visual artists have that too and probably even more vivid than mine.

1badmf wrote on Aug 5, 2024, 22:56:
very curious how this affects your spatial reasoning. i've always tested very high in spatial reasoning, but that's because i can very strongly see images in my mind and manipulate them like a 3D editor.

I once thought everyone could do this... Mine is a bit glitchy sometimes tho, it can happen that I have to double/triple check it, especially when taking IQ tests and stuff.

very curious how this affects your spatial reasoning. i've always tested very high in spatial reasoning, but that's because i can very strongly see images in my mind and manipulate them like a 3D editor.

But when I close my eyes I see black with residual smears of white from the light, and I have nothing at all like the ability to conjure images.

Blue, forgive me if this isn't what you're getting at here, but I'm not sure if being able to see pictures or play movies against the dark of your eyelids is even what it means to not have a "mind's eye". I could be 100% wrong here, and if I am, I must also have aphantasia. To me though, your minds eye is the ability to imagine what something looks like without looking at it, and for me, it almost works better when my eyes are open. For example, can you imagine what your car's dashboard looks like, your wife's face, or any of your dogs? If not, at least it's obvious that it hasn't been any kind of handicap as far as living life.

I'm sure there are levels to how well some can do this. I was always pretty decent at drawing, but I could never draw, say, a horse from memory - even though I can picture one. I'd be absolute shit at describing someones face for a police artist.

Huh, I don't believe I've heard of aphantasia, or if I have it's been decades and I simply forgot. I too cannot visualize objects in my mind. I can remember what they look like (my old house, etc.) but I don't see it in my head at all. Now I'm curious to look into this more as well. Sometimes I have fairly detailed dreams (I think?) but usually it looks more fuzzy or blurry and lacking any real detail. I remember people in my dream but not really any details about them at all from imagery.

sauron wrote on Aug 5, 2024, 20:27:

Verzor wrote on Aug 5, 2024, 16:49:
To Sauron: I agree with Prez that roasting Hobbits is a disgusting evil practice. Have you considered sous vide instead? It really brings out the subtle earthy flavors in Hobbit meat.

We did try Hobbit Tartare, but chasing the little blighters around the dinner table was just too tiring...

Prez wrote on Aug 5, 2024, 15:49:
EDIT: And Sauron, I know you have been labeled as the horrible villain who just wants to take control of the world, cause untold suffering, yadda yadda yadda, but I think that maybe you were just misunderstood as a child. Maybe a hug would make you feel less like roasting Hobbits? Could you maybe try being less evil? Just a thought...

Hugs are good! A perfect excuse to drain the life force of an unsuspecting human.

Umm... well, we'll call that progress. As my psychiatrist has been saying, "progress not perfection"....

Verzor wrote on Aug 5, 2024, 16:49:
To Sauron: I agree with Prez that roasting Hobbits is a disgusting evil practice. Have you considered sous vide instead? It really brings out the subtle earthy flavors in Hobbit meat.

We did try Hobbit Tartare, but chasing the little blighters around the dinner table was just too tiring...

Prez wrote on Aug 5, 2024, 15:49:
EDIT: And Sauron, I know you have been labeled as the horrible villain who just wants to take control of the world, cause untold suffering, yadda yadda yadda, but I think that maybe you were just misunderstood as a child. Maybe a hug would make you feel less like roasting Hobbits? Could you maybe try being less evil? Just a thought...

Hugs are good! A perfect excuse to drain the life force of an unsuspecting human.

I have aphantasia and all the other mental imagination deficiencies as well. I can't visualize, imagine tastes, smells or sounds. I can't imagine the sound of voices or music. I don't have an inner monologue and I can't remember faces. I also have object permeance issues related to ADHD. Coping skills are the name of the game.

I've always thought in very visual terms. I conceptualize everything in 3D. Physics came easier to me than maths because I could visualize things where the flat, 2D abstraction of maths just didn't work for me. Same with my dreams. I dream in very vivid detail. Really fantastic - in the very meaning of that word - dreams. Sometimes it's interesting, other times its just annoying. I rarely ever sleep without having dreams, that I can't at least recall. I have a hard time clearing my mind of everything unless I'm doing something physical and repetitious like house painting. That's the only way I can get really Zen.

Imagining sounds (like songs) is probably easy, visualizations is going to be a lot harder.
The hardest will be smells or taste. Now that can be a challenge.

Verzor wrote on Aug 5, 2024, 16:49:
To Sauron: I agree with Prez that roasting Hobbits is a disgusting evil practice. Have you considered sous vide instead? It really brings out the subtle earthy flavors in Hobbit meat.

Sauron one of your evil minions got loose from Mordor. Did you accidentally leave the gate open again?

Blue: That's interesting. I probably have WAY too active an ability to conjure mental images. As a very young child, around 7 or 8, I started fantasizing elaborate science fiction 'movies' in my head, very detailed, very real to me. I would spend hours in a living novel that I slowly created in my head, until it reached some ending, and then started another. These could go on for weeks. I'd paint elaborate vistas across my vision. Even when not thinking about anything at all, my mind would conjure up all kinds of magical worlds. I was obsessed with Fantastic 4 comics, and eventually, young science fiction books at the time.

I think it has also lead to my having very vivid, elaborate and detailed dreams. I dream every night. I can't imagine what it's like to sleep without dreaming - I suppose it's like being under anesthesia.

I almost never have nightmares, although I do sometimes have uncomfortable dreams. I am generally a lucid dreamer and enjoy a dream in a detached manner, as if I'm watching a movie. I am often aware I'm dreaming, and if a dream starts going in a direction I don't like, I can usually change it's course. I have had a couple of strange 'lived an entire lifetime as someone else' type dreams, like that episode of STTNG where Picard lives an entire lifetime on another world, in his head, during the 30 minutes a probe connected with his mind.

Amazing how complex the human mind is, and that we all didn't get the same starting parameters.

"Study Finds Faces Evolve to Match Names Over Time - Neuroscience News"

Can I be the first to call BS?

Let's see someone else reproduce this study.

To Sauron: I agree with Prez that roasting Hobbits is a disgusting evil practice. Have you considered sous vide instead? It really brings out the subtle earthy flavors in Hobbit meat.

The two astronauts are currently stranded despite whatever corporate bullshit we are told, but the ISS is built for long-term habitation from what I understand. If they were thirsting or starving to death they would be taking their chances on Boeing's spacecraft. As it is, the only thing suffering is Boeing's pride (and hopefully their future as a company). I couldn't care less about that vile company's pride. What's important to me is that the astronauts get home safe.

EDIT: And Sauron, I know you have been labeled as the horrible villain who just wants to take control of the world, cause untold suffering, yadda yadda yadda, but I think that maybe you were just misunderstood as a child. Maybe a hug would make you feel less like roasting Hobbits? Could you maybe try being less evil? Just a thought...

This comment was edited on Aug 5, 2024, 16:07.

RedEye9 wrote on Aug 5, 2024, 12:47:
Starliner
10 to 1 it burns up in the atmosphere.

I was surprised that they even made it to the ISS. Didn't their first unmanned flight to ISS just drift off into space?