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I don't have Aphantasia, but I am fascinated about how every mind and the process of thinking can be so difference between humans. Even though I have very vivd dreams (which I will think means I have strong mental imagery) I cant see any colour in the middle of the Neon images. Also fascinating hearing about the "inner voices" I hear my inner voice, but there are no images or words attached to it. Its just a thought - I dont know how I could describe the colour Red without an association to something physical - maybe Red - its like when you feel really hot and angry.

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I have total aphantasia, but I was able to see a faint light pink circle in the first neon illusion, and a very faint light blue in the second, but since I have vivid dreams I was aware that my inability to visualize only applied to my conscious mind.

I am starting to realize something else about how very different minds work. I would have said until very recently that I have an inner voice. In fact it is only in the last few years that I realized that many people can think without words. But very recently, having heard and read people describe their inner voices in terms of the way they sound, and I realized their experience of an inner voice is not the same as mine. The words in my mind exist without any sound or form. I think in english sentences, but the sentences are not represented in any form or voice or any other way that can be described outside of anything but thoughts, so I am not really sure if I have an ‘inner voice’ at least not in the same way as others

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You seem to experience worded thinking. An attempt to categorize and explain different variations of inner voice is here: https://hurlburt.faculty.unlv.edu/codebook.html.

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I recently had a conversation with someone who was explaining how they did not have an inner voice and I told them I cannot think of images. It was an interesting conversation, and I cannot process not having an inner voice to "debate" with.

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My experience of my brain sounds very similar to yours.

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I have aphantasia and I work in design. I improved my color recognition and ability to differentiate hues by playing this game I found called I Love Hue. It’s meditative and I really noticed a big improvement in my ability to intuitively understanding the relationship between color transition in tint, tone, and shade. It might be interesting to use this type of puzzle in future color experiments.

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I have Aphantasia, and I only recently made this discovery - I had no idea others could literally picture things in their mind! That really staggered me, I wish I could experience it.

I followed the instructions on the first illusion image to the letter. 'Stare directly at the plus symbol (+) in the centre of the image below, you will notice that the purple discs will slowly disappear. Keep staring and wait for a different colour to appear'. The purple discs never really disappeared, they remained on the screen for me - but each disc would briefly change colour to green, then flash back to purple whilst the next disc in a clockwise order turned green. So I guess a green dot was moving around the circle in a clockwise way? But the purple discs didn't get lighter or darker, only changed to green when it was their turn.

Within the two involuntary colour images, I couldn't see any colour in the center at all. I could see the text asking 'Do you see any pink here?', but it was simply black text on a white background. Same for the black and blue circles, there wasn't any colour I could see in the middle at all.

I am much the same as another commenter here, Norma Jean McSpadden, in that I have a very active inner dialogue, but it doesn't have a voice, nor vision. My memories and my imagination are all the same - there is no visual element to it, other than the briefest of flashes (less than a millisecond) of a faded almost black image. If you asked me to picture my children - I can't do it, I cannot recall their faces. My memory for information is good, I can recall numbers, places, and people - but I have no concept of time and cannot ever recall anything on a timeline (always forget birthdays, anniversaries etc.).

I can also have a stream of chatter in my head, but rather than 'hearing' it as such, the words are just... there. Hard to explain, but there isn't any voice with it, just mental clutter/thoughts that exist without any noise or sight. Not sure if there is any relationship, but I have recently been diagnosed with ADHD, and I have visual snow. I wonder if any of these are related?

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I'm an aphant and fiber artist. I also teach people how to work with color.

I have the same experience of color as with other voluntary images - I don't see anything, but I do KNOW what I'm thinking about. When looking at or thinking about color, I name the color as fully as I can. Never just "red" or "blue" but "saturated medium teal blue". I often have an idea where on a color wheel I would put it, and how much chroma and luminosity. Kind of like a constant HSL color grid.

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The questions made me realize I don't think I had ever tried to explain colour. I thought about it and didn't get too far lol. I thinkni will go ask a visualizer to do it and see what they say, I can't think of anything that isn't a reference to something that is an example of the color.

When I looked at the first image with the plus sign in the middle it looked like the circles were changing color in sequence like the green spot was moving clockwise. Is that what you meant by the dots changing color?

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- For people with aphantasia, what do you experience when you recall a colour?

I just know.

- Can you try an explain the colour “Red” to someone without making associations like “Red is like an apple”?

No. And if someone would try to explain it to me, without making such associations or saying "One of the primary colors, but not yellow or blue" I guess I wouldn't know that they tried to speak of red.

- What do you see right in the centre of the Neon Colour illusion?

No, right in the center it stays white, but sometimes it seems to be a warmer white (the one with the red rings) and a colder white (the one with the blue rings).

I am a multisensory Aphantast, with the exeption of hearing my inner voice, a weak sense of motion and a sense of spatial imagination.

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Extraordinary. In the first Neon Colour Illusion I see a clear pink circle in the centre. But in the second, I see both a pale yellow circle and an electric blue one: I can switch between colours and see them both simultaneously. When seen simultaneously, the blue one appears as a ring on top of the yellow.

As a side note, in the first one, the concentric circles appear a static black and red. But in the second, the concentric circles appear black when I view them with the pale yellow wash behind, but black and electric blue when I see the blue ring. I can hold both or switch between them.

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i didnt see anything in the "pink" illusion, but the blue "illusion" was quite evident. (using a chromebook, fwiw, so not a particularly high quality screen).

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Reading you Future Minds newsletter gets me thinking.

Lying in bed this morning I can’t help wondering what it’d be like to not have aphantasia.

So this morning I close my eyes and I just see dark, but eventually I get a few moving grey smoky cloud like images in my vision.

Maybe if I practice, I could get good at seeing these cloud visions and help them develop into more?

I think thought experiments, for what it’s like for other people who do see images in their mind.

Nattering away in my talking mind, I wonder these people who see images, do they need to concentrate to consciously make them appear?

Or are the images always automatically there?

As they talk in their mind, are the words accompanied with images always?

Maybe when they think, they don’t really need to talk at all? Maybe their thinking is a continuous flow of images playing out for them.

A thought of going to the cafe, might start out as a sensation of hunger with an image of a delicious looking coffee and biscuits, then followed by images of what the shop might look like and images of the process of buying and enjoying them.

When I drive, I'm usually thinking of a myriad thoughts, but I wonder, when the visual mind wonders, do spontaneous images arise? Are images floating around a distraction for driving? Does this require more concentration and an effort to try and not think at all?

I really wonder what is normal and that my normal is not everyone’s normal. Maybe people with aphantasia really enjoy living in the moment.

So when you ask: about colour, I would say, I don’t seem to be able to recall colour at all.

To explain Red. From a hot to cold spectrum, the glowing red is at the lower end of the scale. This red glow is dim and not intensive. Red is not the blazing of high energy particles. It is the gentle heat before or after the white hot. Red glow can diminish to black. The reflective red absorbs a lot from the visible spectrum and fades easily from this damage. But, is the red I see the same as yours? I don’t know.

And yes, I think I can just see the Neon Colour illusion.

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I have Aphantasia, plus ADHD, Dyslexia, Amusia, Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM) and didn't see any colours in the centre of the Neon Colour spreading illusion, just white.

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Also when I try to recall a colour, there is nothing, it is just a word, but obviously when I see something I know what colour it is.

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Feb 22·edited Feb 22

I have Multi-Sensory Aphantasia.

When you recall a colour do you use your mental imagery at all? For people with aphantasia, what do you experience when you recall a colour?

I generally don't think much about colours. But I do mix milk in my coffe, multiple times a day and I base the ratios of the color... Having said that, it doesn't seem different compared to thinking about anything else.

Can you try an explain the colour “Red” to someone without making associations like “Red is like an apple”?

No. I have no idea of how to do that, without comparing it to something.

What do you see right in the centre of the Neon Colour illusion?

Having done quite a few different illusion tests, I might be a little unusual (at least when I have compared me to people that I know) because I can often switch between multiple views at will. I have somehow learned what is needed to alter my focus and it usually only takes me 2-5 seconds to find the different alternatives in the pictures.

In this illusion I don't specifically see the colour where the text is, I see it as a circle that starts where the color begins and cover all of the white space between the four multi colored circles. I wouldn't describe it as spreading. For me it has a uniform colour.

If I continue to stare at it, I will se faint white versions of the multicolored circles, that move as my eyes moves. Sometimes I will also see faint black horizontal lines (More like thick bands. Around five of them.), that are more static.

Regarding training your abilities. I believe that holds true for anything, not just colours. I studied carpentry (furniture and cabinet making) as an adult and it changed how I see those types of products. Before it was something I didn't think much about. They filled a function and could be pretty or not. But now I look at them and see how things could be done better, how they have cut corners to save time and money. A whole new world opened up for me, that I didn't know existed, and like I said, I believe that is the same for any profession or for people that are going past a certain level of education in a field, even if it is just an interest.

I have never worked as a carpenter even if I studied it in school. For me it is more of a type of meditation. Some go out into their backyard and pull weeds other go fishing... whatever works for you.

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I am a 4-senses aphant. I have auditory imagery.

I don't experience anything when I "recall a colour." As I have no visual memories, I do not recall colours.

Describing a colour without attributing it to an object is hard. I'd describe the colour red as a warm, dark, bold colour. Understandably, this can be interpreted is a myriad of different ways. My husband (a hyperphant) described red as bright, shiny, stands out.

I saw only white in the centres of both of the Neon Colour spreading illusions. My husband saw pink and grey.

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I have aphantasia.

Color recall - I just know abstractly I'm thinking about a certain color, I don't see anything.

Color explaining - the only way I could think of is mapping it to sounds, since they are both waves.

Neon illusion - I see the cross hair in the center. Nothing appears to disappears in the center. I do see the moving circle change to green.

You mentioned that some animals are color blind. This brings up an interesting question - do animals have visualization?

Is it something that all animals have and some of them have aphantasia like humans? Or maybe animals don't have visualization, and it's something humans evolved because visualization was helpful to early humans in some way?

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I have Aphantasia. I am colour blind and can’t tell greens from blues unless they are side by side.

I don’t recall thinking I was colour blind when I was younger. I did not see any colour in the

Neon Colour illusion, only a light shade of gray.

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I have total aphantasia, to describe red to someone without saying red as an apple I would probably say one of the 3 primary colours not blue or yellow.

In your other tests I saw the green dot going round the circle, the pink and blue hue but no colour in the centre of the mass of colour spectrum only a pure white centre.

I can't hear music in my head nor remember tastes or smells.

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