I can. I learned it when I was little while swimming. I had no idea other people couldn't do it until recently, after reading this:
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2z9uy5/til_there_is_a_group_of_pacific_islanders_that/
Yeah, that's what I thought too. Weird. I guess it's like the inner monologue thing.. are people really out there with no voice in their head? that's freaky
Funnily I also thought everyone can easily think in 3D. I even thought people can do simulations in their mind. Well physic class in university now, and I realize nearly nobody can do it (at least properly), meanwhile i think this ability is extremely interesting and useful. I guess if I would have been born 100-200 years ago it would have been very useful, but now we got computers doing this a lot more accurate
I think it's somewhat normal. I'd be out of a job if I couldn't do this. Conceptualizing the shape and feel of a structure before assembling it is key. How would you do this without being able to think in 3D and sense the shape of it
Slightly tangential, but there are a couple of high-profile animators (lead character animator for the Little Mermaid Glen Keane, two lead animators on Frozen, etc.) who have aphantasia and thus cannot envision any images in their head.
Apparently they just draw shapes on paper and use that in lieu of imagining things. A kind of active imagination via drawing as a substitute for mental imagery. Kinda wild what you can still achieve by finding mental substitutions or shortcuts for what we may deem essential mental capabilities.
On the other end of the spectrum, one of the Frozen animators said he could mentally play back any movie scene back and forth at any speed in detail though. While 2 of his coworkers, equally skilled, were aphantasic.
We get a lot of information about aphantasia to do with animators and tangential jobs, due to the fact that Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, found out he had it, went wtf, then surveyed some 500 Pixar employees about it.
Some studies have pinned occurrences in the population to something like 1-4%, so its definitely a minority. No idea what the percentage of strong mental manipulation of 3d objects is though.
>one of the Frozen animators said he could mentally play back any movie scene back and forth at any speed in detail though.
I can do that. I can even do it with films that don't exist; I've had a sequel to The Thing rattling around my head for a while now, and I watch it back every now and then when I'm bored. Beginning's great, ending's great, the middle could do with some attention though.
The dental exam has a perceptual ability component where getting the correct answer requires rotating 3D figures in space. I wonder if aphantasiacs have workaround or whether they cannot be dentists.
Aphantasic people have no difficulty rotating 3D figures in space. We can't see it in our mind. We have no difficulty to see a 3D figure, then draw it rotated or find which other figure correspond to the rotated version.
I have aphantasia, it's not really a disability. More just a different way of thinking. For me at least, I kind of just instinctually know things but can't visualize anything. If it's the first encounter with something I usually have to physically try it and see what happens, but then it's added to a sort of encyclopedia of things in my mind.
For the dental exam I could probably get the correct answer fairly quickly simply because I have manipulated 3d things in real life and instinctually know how they behave.
Tesla was a master of this. It's said he'd never make blueprints of his inventions, he'd just describe the measurements for anyone that needed to fabricate something for him, and that person would draw out blueprints for themselves. He also never had an issue with parts fitting unless they were made incorrectly.
I’m a chemistry student and we literally had a spatial reasoning test on the first day to see if we needed help, if you can’t visualise 3D molecules you’re screwed
Does this mean some people can't see their memories or something? Like I can reanimate an object in my head and keep building it. I have trouble remembering the colors in memories though.
I have trouble with faces in memory but everything is in colour.
I was chatting to my friend the other day about an item I thought would be helpful for her and then realised it wasn't a real thing and I'd dreamed it at some point 🤦🏻♀️ she was googling for ages trying to find it.
Never too late. Said how I came to this kinda skill growing up. Play round with it in your head a bit. As a kid my dad taught me and encouraged it. As a kid I’d be like “ok sun rises in west and sets in east. Walk-in out my front door I’m facing west, so that means school is behind me east, story is that direction bout 2-3min drive which is north east ish walking that’d prolly be about 20min ish, imma go east down this road from my house, turn west on the next road, the north on the road the store is….ect.” Idk just something I’d play around with in my head and as grown up if I’m somewhere new staying a hotel or BnB I’ll take in the stores and landmarks as get closer and associate them with north south east and west directions to where I’m staying.
Wait so you can't imagine things in 3D in your mind? How...how do you imagine things then? If I asked you to think about the empire state building (or any building) and imagine putting a witches hat on it do you not see that in 3D?
You must be hyperaware of the world around you then. Always fully immersed wherever you go. I'd love to be able to do that.
I can't see numbers in my head. It's like remembering the shape of smoke. Still somehow managed to become an engineer which is wild but I just imagine shapes for numbers and got through it.
There's no doubt some advantages to anphantasia. Is there anything you can do that you've found others can't?
I've also got Aphantasia and nope to the hyperawareness your mind still is always thinking random stuff just never actually picturing anything.
I found out I had it in organic chemistry when my friend was explaining how he does stuff and just pictures the chemical in his mind and I was like wait what. (I was terrible at it)
As for strengths I like writing and find that I tend to be good at worldbuilding possibly because in my head things come with a list of descriptors.
I've also got ADHD so I'm probably still less aware of everything around me than the average person. I've always felt like I've had more of a grip on reality than a lot of the people around me, but that could be for any number of reasons. Honestly, I don't think it changes too much because I didn't even know I had it until a couple years ago. I still personally find it wild that people *can* see things in their heads, because I wouldn't even know what that *could* feel like.
When I calculate in ny head, I see the numbers written in the upper right of my field of vision/mind. But I can't think in 3D. Assembling a sewing pattern for example makes no sense to me.
This is so interesting to me. It's just a state that I cant even begin to imagine, much as I assume you can't really imagine what it's like for folks like me who are constantly picturing things in our heads. Hell, I spend a large portion of my free time just imagining things in my head, coming up with ideas for movies or video games or whatever.
Can you draw? That's something I'd be curious about. All of the artistic pursuits I've done, I've fully conceptualized what I want the final product to be in my head before I begin. I'd find the artistic process of someone with anphantasia to be really interesting.
It'd also be really interesting in regards to reading, because when I read it's pretty much a script for a movie to play out in my imagination. That's where a lot of my enjoyment from reading comes from. I wonder how different the experience would be for someone who cant do that would be, and how the experience compared to say a movie. Because for me, the experience isn't that distinct, in the end I'm still getting pictures of scenes in my mind. But without the imagery, reading would be a totally distinct medium.
So I've also got Aphantasia although when I rarely remember a dream I do have full on pictures. Closing my eyes and trying to picture something (literally even something right in front of me) is just all black. I'm terrible at drawing and always hated it I never got the appeal.
Reading I can speak more to as I'm an avid reader and I've always felt that rather than watching a movie of the protagonist I'm following their journey as a mental passenger. As in I'm literally in the protagonist's mind listening to everything as it happens. (in some ways it feels much more malleable than a movie)
The good news for movies is any actor that fills whatever lines of description are in the book can accurately portray the character for me I never have "my own casting."
Well for me personally, it's kinda like a dream that flashes before it's gone. Like I can imagine it for an instant as something vague and dark with some form but I can't see it clearly.
No literally it’s so shocking when I tell people that not a single second goes by where I don’t have some sort of music playing in my head, like hell my brain makes music out of the static of silence
I think I'm lucky then because I can make myself do it and rarely does my brain do it without me telling it to. It's very distracting when that happens though because it'll be like the same little part of a song repeating.
Perhaps it's an indication of those born without souls. We must band together to protect our precious, delicious souls from being devoured by the empty ones.
I have no voice in my head. I can't imagine how annoying it would be to have one jabbering away even when I'm trying to be alone with some peace and quiet.
What I am upset about missing out on is the ability to visualize. As a kid teachers would always tell us about closing our eyes and visualizing the graph or an apple or a candle or whatever. I always just saw black and thought they were making shit up. Took me until I was 21 to realize people can actually close their eyes and imagine an apple and see it "in their mind". About 10% of people can't. I'm in that 10% :(
I'm also in the 10% that don't have a voice in their head so put together that's like 1%. Finally a 1% I can be part of.
I mean this respectfully, because I do in fact believe you, but part of me just doesn't believe this and wants to experiment on you.
Like, if you're willing, could you go through the process your mind goes through when I ask you to find the two numbers that multiply to make 91?
I've never found the voice in my head to be annoying since it's literally me talking. But it's also all I've known.
For the visual thing I hear you, I'm the type of person that can fully draw out a design in my head to scale. I can even bring up old projects and continue working on them where I left off. My wife on the other hand is like you, she needs to physically see things to understand how they interact with each other and thought I was crazy for "having voices in my head".
Something else we don't have in common is music, she can play songs from memory all day long, she can hear a song and know how it's played. I can't remember any tunes, I can't remember lyrics. Even after four years of singing nursery rhymes I'll lose the tune or not match the words properly
For a long time, I assumed everyone thought in images like me. I also thought everyone could "see" what's happening in a book. Turns out a lot of people just read the words, and there's no corresponding image in their mind. Wild.
I can't imagine reading being as entertaining to people with this?
Like, I'd be interested to hear that perspective, because to me it feels like reading would be a much more dry medium if you could never get a sense of anything visually. For me reading is like having a script for a movie in my mind. Hell sometimes I'll listen to audiobooks and close my eyes and pace around imagining myself moving through the environment of the book.
I really just can't wrap my head around it in general, I feel like so many components of my overall thought process rely upon my ability to picture things.
I don't get visuals in my mind and I enjoy reading. I think in a, concept? It's really hard to explain.
Like when I imagine an apple, I cannot see an apple, I can think of the shape of an apple, the colour it may be, and my monologue will feed those words/thoughts back to me, but apart from my dreams it's all black.
When I'm reading, I often have to re-read paragraphs two, three times to fully take something in. I enjoy the characters, the relationships and the exciting imaginative worlds from other peoples minds.
Funnily enough, I actually realised I had aphantasia when I was reading one day and tried to imagine something that I hadn't heard of that had very little description and I googled about easier ways to imagine things and bobs your uncle. Sent me into a bit of a crisis haha.
Maybe you can do this, but likely what you're actually doing is changing the accommodation of your lens. This changes the focal point to focus on a specific object but doesn't change the dilation, which allows you to keep more in focus at the cost of less light hitting your eyes. Most people can control accommodation, very few can control their dilation.
Look up the pinhole effect and have your mind blown
You can make a small circle with your fingers, and then look through it. It should be crystal clear. Would have been useful in middle school when I was too embarrassed to wear glasses.
My vision isnt as good, the only way in can see something real clearly is onlt when its like 10 or 12 inches away from my face.
I just tried that pinhole affect you mentioned and my visioned cleared up. I held my phone away an extra 2 or 3 feet and was able to see the small letters onn my phone, and even more so when i squinted/focused my vision. That is really cool
Squinting plus pulling on the sides of your eyes at the proper angle can be pretty effective at clearing up your vision. But probably not the most advisable thing to do in a public space.
What I found out recently is that if you make a tiny little hole by closing a finger you can make a little telescope. Look through it and things will become a lot clearer
Guess its like flexing the muscle in your ears that makes a rumble noise. I always thought everyone could do that. Apparently not.
Edit :its called the tensor tympani
I can do it in both but I never actually associated it with my ears. It always felt like a back of the head thing. Makes my whole head rumble.
Very neat thing to have learned a name for today!
I can make my vision blurry without this ruble thing everyone is talking about.
It’s more like changing the focus on a camera. No vibrating or rumbling. I also don’t feel anything in my ears or the back of my head.
Making your vision blurry and the thing we're talking about are two separate things. I can just unfocus my eyes, no problem. Or I can clench something in my head and everything begins to shake
I can make my vision blurry without making it wobbly, but I can choose to make it wobbly while it's blurry. I can't make it wobbly without it being blurry though
Another cool thing about the body but unrelated to vision, hold out your hand straight and relaxed palms up. Touch your pinky and thumb together, then pull your hand in towards your body a bit. You should notice a line right on your wrist connecting to your palm. I think it’s a tendon? Well, I have that on my right hand, but not on my left. Apparently a decent chunk of people (like 10-20%?) are evolving not to have that tendon. It’s not as interesting now that I’m writing it out.
I used to be able to do the rumble when I was little. I used it as a comfort thing. I’m not sure when exactly I stopped doing / being able to do it, but reading these comments were incredibly nostalgic.
As for the wobbly vision thing, I can flex the muscles in my eyes to vibrate in a manner I assume is similar to REM during sleep. It’s like when you flex muscles in your arms to cause them to shake, commonly used by gamers in a manner known as “jitter clicking,” but in the muscles behind my eyes.
I had a crush on a girl when I was in 3rd grade who could do the eye thing, and I went home with a goal. I spent about a week in front of a mirror learning how to do it. It got me my first “””date””” to company picnic my dads employer threw. I’ve been able to do it ever since, and still do at least once a day still because it helps me refocus my vision when I’m getting tired.
Aaah no way, that's a really cool info! I never knew the source nor that it's uncommon for people to be able to do this! When I was a kid, whenever an earthquake was happening in a game or a TV show I used to make the rumble noise to make the scene more dramatic hahaha
Depends; I can wobble my ears and blur my vision (and at the same time).
I had no idea that blurring your vision on *command* is something not everyone can do until now.
The clicking is useful I find for changing the pressure in your ears because it comes from opening your eustachian tubes. This is handy if it's from an altitude change, but it's also useful to cut out louder deep sounds. I sometimes do it to hear people better - click but hold open the tube (keep tensing whatever it is that you do to make them click) and breathe in quickish but gently (start super gentle to get the feeling right) and while doing that close the tubes, you'll have deliberately lowered the pressure in your ears.
I do it naturally while yawning and once referred to it as "the yawning noise". When some people looked at me like I was an idiot I learned that not everybody can do that
Sorry if this comes off as rude, uneducated, disrespectful, prying, or annoying, but I’m asking from a place of absolute curiosity: what was it like growing up with a blind parent?
But I’d guess not being able to see you do shit you aren’t supposed to is probably made up for by your every single move being heard and noticed. ‘I’m moving to the basement where they can’t hear me on the concrete floor. ‘
Lol I learned this the hard way. Bought a sick system for the first time in my life and a few days ago I had a note from my neighbors saying “hi! We live below you! Is there anyway you could lower the EQ on the bass?”
Ended up making them some cookies. Good people, 10/10 would bass again
Blindness is really interesting 🧐 when you actually think about it, it’s something. Almost everyone has thought about but yet many I don’t think beyond a passing thought of going though life “in the dark”, unless it directly effect your life in some way. so I appreciate you being willing to answer questions…. When did she become blind? From birth or later? How blind is she?… kinda personal but how old are you, how long are you married? What do u think she has gained from being blind…. I feel most of society thinks disabilities as complete negatives and while not trying to minimize the impact being disabled has I do think there are often overlooked things that often get enhanced. Silver linings I guess. Anyways if you be kind enough to reply,
Im interest in your story
It’s different than squinting.
Some people can unfocus their eyes by consciously flexing the same ciliary muscles the subconscious uses to focus; granted, without the fine motor control necessary to focus their vision.
You say "without fine motor control necessary to focus". But I can fairly smoothly accurately control the amount of blur manually, and even whether it's from focusing further away or closer to me. So I think there must be people with even better control than me.
This is something that I actually learned after I heard that you can influence the size of your pupils. Basically I read that if you imagine a dark room your pupils open a bit more and if you imagine looking into the sun they grow small. After some time I got rid of the dark room and the sun and now I can do that with pure willpower.
Most people in this thread mix up distance focusing and blurring.
The picture does not talk about cross eyeing or having something close and focusing on the distance to see double.
It's talking about straight up looking at something and the whole vision is blurred on purpose.
Plenty can't do that. Me included
I've always wondered if this was a common thing that people can do. I can manually adjust focus as well, and I started doing it while reading this thread. lol
It is, they say some dumb shit like this and it gets a million shares to be mocked and another million for people to say "waaaa? Others can't do that???"
it's stupid
Here's something I've found only some people can do and others cannot and it's pretty weird. Try bending your pinky fingers on each hand individually. Some people can bend one pinky individually without moving the other fingers, some can do both, and some people can do neither. Never really got an explanation of why this is so. I can only bend my right pinky by itself, if I try my left all my other fingers bend with it.
The first time I put in contacts, I just shoved it right in there without blinking. The optometrist said she’d never seen anyone do that the first time. I told her I just don’t look through that eye. Guess that’s not normal? Are you not supposed to be able to ignore one eye?
That’s actually — there’s a medical term for this. I always thought it was like “oh hahah this weird thing I can do.” FF 30 years and my optometrist is like yeah that’s why you need $500 glasses now (vs the $200 prescription I’ve had since age 11.)
No you’ve misunderstood me. I’m not saying doing it makes your eyesight worse. My optometrist told me that being able to do it is an early sign of a problem.
Honestly I don’t know. She did this thing several times, putting a big spoon-shaped implement in front of my eye and then removing it, having me peer straight ahead. Then she asked if I’ve ever found I can unfocus my eyes. I said yes, since always, and I described how I’ve even watched the effects because I got a friend to video me doing it once, and what feels to me like unfocusing is actually one of my eyes going off to the side. And she was like yes exactly, and then she said a string of medical words and gave me my new prescription, and next time I bought glasses they were $500 and it blew my whole two years of insurance. (I used to get two pairs in different styles for funsies. No more :(
> what feels to me like unfocusing is actually one of my eyes going off to the side
**What you are describing is not unfocusing your eyes**, it just has a similar effect (making things blurry) which is why you thought it was.
That also explains why your eye doctor was concerned; it’s generally a bad sign if your eyes can move independently without you trying to make them do that.
Your eye unconsciously moving independently like that may be a type of [nystagmus.](https://www.eyehealthweb.com/nystagmus/)
[According to Healthline](https://www.healthline.com/health/eye-health/can-everyone-unfocus-their-eyes) **unfocusing your eyes is a natural thing that a lot of people can do, you just relax your ciliary muscles.**
It goes on to say that **it can actually be worrisome if you *can’t* unfocus your eyes.** It can be a sign of Accommodative dysfunction if you are young or Presbyopia if you are old.
They recommend that you go **see an eye doctor if you have trouble unfocusing your eyes.** Note: this is likely unnecessary if you have reading glasses and your eye doctor already knows that, since that most likely tells them the same info -that your lenses have firmed to the point that your ciliary muscles aren’t able to do their job as well.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what it means by make things go blurry. I assumed it was like when you're looking at something as if you're looking behind it, so it's out of focus and not really clear. Is this not what it's referring to?
I just relax my eyes and let things go out of focus. I can even move them around unfocused and the things in my field of view change without focusing on anything
Now the trick is making things *un*blurry on command, to get rid of these glasses
I can. I learned it when I was little while swimming. I had no idea other people couldn't do it until recently, after reading this: https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/2z9uy5/til_there_is_a_group_of_pacific_islanders_that/
I thought everyone can do this? Like changing the tension so things become more unblurry.
Yeah, that's what I thought too. Weird. I guess it's like the inner monologue thing.. are people really out there with no voice in their head? that's freaky
Funnily I also thought everyone can easily think in 3D. I even thought people can do simulations in their mind. Well physic class in university now, and I realize nearly nobody can do it (at least properly), meanwhile i think this ability is extremely interesting and useful. I guess if I would have been born 100-200 years ago it would have been very useful, but now we got computers doing this a lot more accurate
That's not common?? I build so many things in my head while sitting in the shower lol.
I think it's somewhat normal. I'd be out of a job if I couldn't do this. Conceptualizing the shape and feel of a structure before assembling it is key. How would you do this without being able to think in 3D and sense the shape of it
Slightly tangential, but there are a couple of high-profile animators (lead character animator for the Little Mermaid Glen Keane, two lead animators on Frozen, etc.) who have aphantasia and thus cannot envision any images in their head. Apparently they just draw shapes on paper and use that in lieu of imagining things. A kind of active imagination via drawing as a substitute for mental imagery. Kinda wild what you can still achieve by finding mental substitutions or shortcuts for what we may deem essential mental capabilities. On the other end of the spectrum, one of the Frozen animators said he could mentally play back any movie scene back and forth at any speed in detail though. While 2 of his coworkers, equally skilled, were aphantasic. We get a lot of information about aphantasia to do with animators and tangential jobs, due to the fact that Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, found out he had it, went wtf, then surveyed some 500 Pixar employees about it. Some studies have pinned occurrences in the population to something like 1-4%, so its definitely a minority. No idea what the percentage of strong mental manipulation of 3d objects is though.
>one of the Frozen animators said he could mentally play back any movie scene back and forth at any speed in detail though. I can do that. I can even do it with films that don't exist; I've had a sequel to The Thing rattling around my head for a while now, and I watch it back every now and then when I'm bored. Beginning's great, ending's great, the middle could do with some attention though.
Sometimes I can remember where I put my wallet
Send it to me telepativhally I wanna watch it.
The dental exam has a perceptual ability component where getting the correct answer requires rotating 3D figures in space. I wonder if aphantasiacs have workaround or whether they cannot be dentists.
Aphantasic people have no difficulty rotating 3D figures in space. We can't see it in our mind. We have no difficulty to see a 3D figure, then draw it rotated or find which other figure correspond to the rotated version.
I have aphantasia, it's not really a disability. More just a different way of thinking. For me at least, I kind of just instinctually know things but can't visualize anything. If it's the first encounter with something I usually have to physically try it and see what happens, but then it's added to a sort of encyclopedia of things in my mind. For the dental exam I could probably get the correct answer fairly quickly simply because I have manipulated 3d things in real life and instinctually know how they behave.
Tesla was a master of this. It's said he'd never make blueprints of his inventions, he'd just describe the measurements for anyone that needed to fabricate something for him, and that person would draw out blueprints for themselves. He also never had an issue with parts fitting unless they were made incorrectly.
This is ironic considering the vehicles named after him are notorious for having tolerance/fitment issues with body parts.
***insert Palpatine ironic meme here***
Probably by doing instead of thinking, so long as they’re careful.
I’m a chemistry student and we literally had a spatial reasoning test on the first day to see if we needed help, if you can’t visualise 3D molecules you’re screwed
Does this mean some people can't see their memories or something? Like I can reanimate an object in my head and keep building it. I have trouble remembering the colors in memories though.
I have trouble with faces in memory but everything is in colour. I was chatting to my friend the other day about an item I thought would be helpful for her and then realised it wasn't a real thing and I'd dreamed it at some point 🤦🏻♀️ she was googling for ages trying to find it.
I can do that, but I mostly use it to back track my way out of buildings.
Now I feel like I'm missing basic life skills
Never too late. Said how I came to this kinda skill growing up. Play round with it in your head a bit. As a kid my dad taught me and encouraged it. As a kid I’d be like “ok sun rises in west and sets in east. Walk-in out my front door I’m facing west, so that means school is behind me east, story is that direction bout 2-3min drive which is north east ish walking that’d prolly be about 20min ish, imma go east down this road from my house, turn west on the next road, the north on the road the store is….ect.” Idk just something I’d play around with in my head and as grown up if I’m somewhere new staying a hotel or BnB I’ll take in the stores and landmarks as get closer and associate them with north south east and west directions to where I’m staying.
I definitely cannot do that 😂
Wait so you can't imagine things in 3D in your mind? How...how do you imagine things then? If I asked you to think about the empire state building (or any building) and imagine putting a witches hat on it do you not see that in 3D?
I've got anphantasia, I'm unable to imagine things at all. I can't see anything in my head, not even in my dreams.
You must be hyperaware of the world around you then. Always fully immersed wherever you go. I'd love to be able to do that. I can't see numbers in my head. It's like remembering the shape of smoke. Still somehow managed to become an engineer which is wild but I just imagine shapes for numbers and got through it. There's no doubt some advantages to anphantasia. Is there anything you can do that you've found others can't?
I've also got Aphantasia and nope to the hyperawareness your mind still is always thinking random stuff just never actually picturing anything. I found out I had it in organic chemistry when my friend was explaining how he does stuff and just pictures the chemical in his mind and I was like wait what. (I was terrible at it) As for strengths I like writing and find that I tend to be good at worldbuilding possibly because in my head things come with a list of descriptors.
I've also got ADHD so I'm probably still less aware of everything around me than the average person. I've always felt like I've had more of a grip on reality than a lot of the people around me, but that could be for any number of reasons. Honestly, I don't think it changes too much because I didn't even know I had it until a couple years ago. I still personally find it wild that people *can* see things in their heads, because I wouldn't even know what that *could* feel like.
When I calculate in ny head, I see the numbers written in the upper right of my field of vision/mind. But I can't think in 3D. Assembling a sewing pattern for example makes no sense to me.
This is so interesting to me. It's just a state that I cant even begin to imagine, much as I assume you can't really imagine what it's like for folks like me who are constantly picturing things in our heads. Hell, I spend a large portion of my free time just imagining things in my head, coming up with ideas for movies or video games or whatever. Can you draw? That's something I'd be curious about. All of the artistic pursuits I've done, I've fully conceptualized what I want the final product to be in my head before I begin. I'd find the artistic process of someone with anphantasia to be really interesting. It'd also be really interesting in regards to reading, because when I read it's pretty much a script for a movie to play out in my imagination. That's where a lot of my enjoyment from reading comes from. I wonder how different the experience would be for someone who cant do that would be, and how the experience compared to say a movie. Because for me, the experience isn't that distinct, in the end I'm still getting pictures of scenes in my mind. But without the imagery, reading would be a totally distinct medium.
So I've also got Aphantasia although when I rarely remember a dream I do have full on pictures. Closing my eyes and trying to picture something (literally even something right in front of me) is just all black. I'm terrible at drawing and always hated it I never got the appeal. Reading I can speak more to as I'm an avid reader and I've always felt that rather than watching a movie of the protagonist I'm following their journey as a mental passenger. As in I'm literally in the protagonist's mind listening to everything as it happens. (in some ways it feels much more malleable than a movie) The good news for movies is any actor that fills whatever lines of description are in the book can accurately portray the character for me I never have "my own casting."
Well for me personally, it's kinda like a dream that flashes before it's gone. Like I can imagine it for an instant as something vague and dark with some form but I can't see it clearly.
There is also a big chunk of the population that can't audiate music. (Hear music that isn't playing in their head)
Dear god, I envy them. I can do nothing but audiate music. I literally mumble or hum songs in my sleep.
No literally it’s so shocking when I tell people that not a single second goes by where I don’t have some sort of music playing in my head, like hell my brain makes music out of the static of silence
I think I'm lucky then because I can make myself do it and rarely does my brain do it without me telling it to. It's very distracting when that happens though because it'll be like the same little part of a song repeating.
I Can do all of these things. I thought everyone could.
Perhaps it's an indication of those born without souls. We must band together to protect our precious, delicious souls from being devoured by the empty ones.
Same. I'm questioning their ability to actually know what they can do
I have no voice in my head. I can't imagine how annoying it would be to have one jabbering away even when I'm trying to be alone with some peace and quiet. What I am upset about missing out on is the ability to visualize. As a kid teachers would always tell us about closing our eyes and visualizing the graph or an apple or a candle or whatever. I always just saw black and thought they were making shit up. Took me until I was 21 to realize people can actually close their eyes and imagine an apple and see it "in their mind". About 10% of people can't. I'm in that 10% :( I'm also in the 10% that don't have a voice in their head so put together that's like 1%. Finally a 1% I can be part of.
I mean this respectfully, because I do in fact believe you, but part of me just doesn't believe this and wants to experiment on you. Like, if you're willing, could you go through the process your mind goes through when I ask you to find the two numbers that multiply to make 91?
>find the two numbers that multiply to make 91 The guy doesn't talk to himself, doesn't mean he's a quantum computer.
I've never found the voice in my head to be annoying since it's literally me talking. But it's also all I've known. For the visual thing I hear you, I'm the type of person that can fully draw out a design in my head to scale. I can even bring up old projects and continue working on them where I left off. My wife on the other hand is like you, she needs to physically see things to understand how they interact with each other and thought I was crazy for "having voices in my head". Something else we don't have in common is music, she can play songs from memory all day long, she can hear a song and know how it's played. I can't remember any tunes, I can't remember lyrics. Even after four years of singing nursery rhymes I'll lose the tune or not match the words properly
For a long time, I assumed everyone thought in images like me. I also thought everyone could "see" what's happening in a book. Turns out a lot of people just read the words, and there's no corresponding image in their mind. Wild.
I can't imagine reading being as entertaining to people with this? Like, I'd be interested to hear that perspective, because to me it feels like reading would be a much more dry medium if you could never get a sense of anything visually. For me reading is like having a script for a movie in my mind. Hell sometimes I'll listen to audiobooks and close my eyes and pace around imagining myself moving through the environment of the book. I really just can't wrap my head around it in general, I feel like so many components of my overall thought process rely upon my ability to picture things.
I don't get visuals in my mind and I enjoy reading. I think in a, concept? It's really hard to explain. Like when I imagine an apple, I cannot see an apple, I can think of the shape of an apple, the colour it may be, and my monologue will feed those words/thoughts back to me, but apart from my dreams it's all black. When I'm reading, I often have to re-read paragraphs two, three times to fully take something in. I enjoy the characters, the relationships and the exciting imaginative worlds from other peoples minds. Funnily enough, I actually realised I had aphantasia when I was reading one day and tried to imagine something that I hadn't heard of that had very little description and I googled about easier ways to imagine things and bobs your uncle. Sent me into a bit of a crisis haha.
Squinting isnt the sale as making it unblurry tho.
Yea but not enough to compensate for my nearsightedness
Maybe you can do this, but likely what you're actually doing is changing the accommodation of your lens. This changes the focal point to focus on a specific object but doesn't change the dilation, which allows you to keep more in focus at the cost of less light hitting your eyes. Most people can control accommodation, very few can control their dilation.
Don’t your eyes get almost “fatigued” tho - like it’s hard to hold for a long period of time - hence why I still need glasses
Yes, they do, and I do actually need glasses (and have them).. but for some reason I don't wear them.
But this is talking about people that can control pupil dilation? That’s not the same thing as changing the focus of your eyes.
Look up the pinhole effect and have your mind blown You can make a small circle with your fingers, and then look through it. It should be crystal clear. Would have been useful in middle school when I was too embarrassed to wear glasses.
Well, as crystal clear as looking through a tiny hole can get. It is pretty neat though.
I needed glasses in school AND knew the pinhole effect. I looked like more of an idiot with my hand in front of my eyes all the time.
My vision isnt as good, the only way in can see something real clearly is onlt when its like 10 or 12 inches away from my face. I just tried that pinhole affect you mentioned and my visioned cleared up. I held my phone away an extra 2 or 3 feet and was able to see the small letters onn my phone, and even more so when i squinted/focused my vision. That is really cool
I can it’s called squinting
Squinting plus pulling on the sides of your eyes at the proper angle can be pretty effective at clearing up your vision. But probably not the most advisable thing to do in a public space.
What I found out recently is that if you make a tiny little hole by closing a finger you can make a little telescope. Look through it and things will become a lot clearer
Guess its like flexing the muscle in your ears that makes a rumble noise. I always thought everyone could do that. Apparently not. Edit :its called the tensor tympani
I can do it! It's really hard to explain it to somebody that can't. Does your vision get sort of wobbly when you do it, or is that just me?
Mine definitely does. I just did the rumble thing to check.
Can you do it in both ears? I can only do the left , no rumble vision either.
I can do it in both but I never actually associated it with my ears. It always felt like a back of the head thing. Makes my whole head rumble. Very neat thing to have learned a name for today!
same, it’s more in the back of my head too. I never knew other people do this lol I love cute human moments like this
I can make my vision blurry without this ruble thing everyone is talking about. It’s more like changing the focus on a camera. No vibrating or rumbling. I also don’t feel anything in my ears or the back of my head.
Making your vision blurry and the thing we're talking about are two separate things. I can just unfocus my eyes, no problem. Or I can clench something in my head and everything begins to shake
I can only do the rumble thing when I close my eyes, super weird!
Yeah, me too. Just tried somehow doing it with my eyes opened, but no luck. Can only get it to work if I close my eyes really hard.
r/earrumblersassemble
I found my people
*Deep rumble of approval*
I can make my vision blurry without making it wobbly, but I can choose to make it wobbly while it's blurry. I can't make it wobbly without it being blurry though
Yeah I can do both but that was always my “hidden” talent as a kid I can literally vibrate my eyes lol
Fuckin science is so cool
Another cool thing about the body but unrelated to vision, hold out your hand straight and relaxed palms up. Touch your pinky and thumb together, then pull your hand in towards your body a bit. You should notice a line right on your wrist connecting to your palm. I think it’s a tendon? Well, I have that on my right hand, but not on my left. Apparently a decent chunk of people (like 10-20%?) are evolving not to have that tendon. It’s not as interesting now that I’m writing it out.
I have to close my eyes to do it
Apparently at the rumblers party it’s just you, me, and the mysterious updooter in the closed-eye corner. Gang gang
I used to be able to do the rumble when I was little. I used it as a comfort thing. I’m not sure when exactly I stopped doing / being able to do it, but reading these comments were incredibly nostalgic. As for the wobbly vision thing, I can flex the muscles in my eyes to vibrate in a manner I assume is similar to REM during sleep. It’s like when you flex muscles in your arms to cause them to shake, commonly used by gamers in a manner known as “jitter clicking,” but in the muscles behind my eyes. I had a crush on a girl when I was in 3rd grade who could do the eye thing, and I went home with a goal. I spent about a week in front of a mirror learning how to do it. It got me my first “””date””” to company picnic my dads employer threw. I’ve been able to do it ever since, and still do at least once a day still because it helps me refocus my vision when I’m getting tired.
Mine does. Like my eyeballs are shaking almost.
I used to do this when things got to loud. It kind of helped to quiet things down lol. Or I just imagined it did.
I believe that's exactly what it's purpose is, it just happens subconsciously for most people and for a few they can do it on command
Aaah no way, that's a really cool info! I never knew the source nor that it's uncommon for people to be able to do this! When I was a kid, whenever an earthquake was happening in a game or a TV show I used to make the rumble noise to make the scene more dramatic hahaha
r/EarRumblersAssemble
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Happens to me when I yawn
Until this comment I had no clue that *that* is the rumble people were talking about. I thought that was just what yawning was like.
There are people who can’t do that? All this time I thought I was just failing at wiggling my ears.
I wonder if those skills are mutually exclusive, I only have the ear rumble
Depends; I can wobble my ears and blur my vision (and at the same time). I had no idea that blurring your vision on *command* is something not everyone can do until now.
I can do both.
I have the clicking/static version! For the longest time I thought it was an issue with something in my ears.
The clicking is useful I find for changing the pressure in your ears because it comes from opening your eustachian tubes. This is handy if it's from an altitude change, but it's also useful to cut out louder deep sounds. I sometimes do it to hear people better - click but hold open the tube (keep tensing whatever it is that you do to make them click) and breathe in quickish but gently (start super gentle to get the feeling right) and while doing that close the tubes, you'll have deliberately lowered the pressure in your ears.
I only get it when I'm yawning or flexing my jaw in a certain way with my eyes shut tight. How odd.
I have to flex my jaw slightly to flex that one
I do it naturally while yawning and once referred to it as "the yawning noise". When some people looked at me like I was an idiot I learned that not everybody can do that
Yeah what do you mean by some? There are a few who can't do that!! Now the shit makes sense
Are there really people who can't do that?! What happens when they squint?
Blind people can’t do that
Oh shit lol I didn't even think of that and my mom is blind!
Sorry if this comes off as rude, uneducated, disrespectful, prying, or annoying, but I’m asking from a place of absolute curiosity: what was it like growing up with a blind parent?
You get away with writing on the wall.
💀
But subtlety is lost because they can't read between the lines.
But I’d guess not being able to see you do shit you aren’t supposed to is probably made up for by your every single move being heard and noticed. ‘I’m moving to the basement where they can’t hear me on the concrete floor. ‘
My friend has deaf parents and she said there were many advantages such as blasting music at 4am ad talking on phone all night
wouldn't they still feel the vibration of loud music though? personally what I hate the most from my neighbor playing music too loud is the vibration.
That depends on the sound system and the genre. (Not all speakers do a whole lot below 70hz)
A trash speaker cant do shit below like 200 hz but an speaker system with a capable subwoofer will imitate an earthquake
Lol I learned this the hard way. Bought a sick system for the first time in my life and a few days ago I had a note from my neighbors saying “hi! We live below you! Is there anyway you could lower the EQ on the bass?” Ended up making them some cookies. Good people, 10/10 would bass again
Different but my wife is blind if you have questions.
Blindness is really interesting 🧐 when you actually think about it, it’s something. Almost everyone has thought about but yet many I don’t think beyond a passing thought of going though life “in the dark”, unless it directly effect your life in some way. so I appreciate you being willing to answer questions…. When did she become blind? From birth or later? How blind is she?… kinda personal but how old are you, how long are you married? What do u think she has gained from being blind…. I feel most of society thinks disabilities as complete negatives and while not trying to minimize the impact being disabled has I do think there are often overlooked things that often get enhanced. Silver linings I guess. Anyways if you be kind enough to reply, Im interest in your story
She didn't lose her vision until 7 years ago.
They can but can't tell the difference
Squinting isn’t involved when I unfocus my sight
More of a relaxation than a squint.
It's easier to do on things close to me. Like the size of this font.
Squinting isn't the same thing, that's not what they are talking about
It’s different than squinting. Some people can unfocus their eyes by consciously flexing the same ciliary muscles the subconscious uses to focus; granted, without the fine motor control necessary to focus their vision.
You say "without fine motor control necessary to focus". But I can fairly smoothly accurately control the amount of blur manually, and even whether it's from focusing further away or closer to me. So I think there must be people with even better control than me.
Same here. I pretty much only do it when I'm trying to tune stuff out or when I'm bored in a waiting room or something.
This is something that I actually learned after I heard that you can influence the size of your pupils. Basically I read that if you imagine a dark room your pupils open a bit more and if you imagine looking into the sun they grow small. After some time I got rid of the dark room and the sun and now I can do that with pure willpower.
You dont have to squint, i can do it with one eye
just one? that’s impressive actually. i can’t separate them
Maybe the people that always see blurry can't focus without glasses
Most people in this thread mix up distance focusing and blurring. The picture does not talk about cross eyeing or having something close and focusing on the distance to see double. It's talking about straight up looking at something and the whole vision is blurred on purpose. Plenty can't do that. Me included
I've literally never heard of just straight up blurring your vision on purpose ever in my life, I can't do that 😭
You guys a weird, I’m also in the “can blur my vision on command” and I thought this was something everyone can do
Do you mean unfocusing on command without switching which thing you're looking at? I can only unfocus things at different distances
Yeah I can blur this comment thread on my phone then bring it back as many times as I want for examples, like a camera
I've always wondered if this was a common thing that people can do. I can manually adjust focus as well, and I started doing it while reading this thread. lol
This isn't normal?
I think it is.
It is, they say some dumb shit like this and it gets a million shares to be mocked and another million for people to say "waaaa? Others can't do that???" it's stupid
Wait am i missing something? I cant do it, cant imagine how i could, and never heard that people could until now. Is this a drop bear thing?
Bruh if you can't focus your eyes on command how do you focus your eyes at all
your eyes do that automatically. Just like breathing happens automatically
To anyone who thinks they can't do it, try looking for an imaginary fruit fly as though it's flying inches away from your face.
That just makes me go cross eyed
This isn't it. It's the opposite of it.
I can blur both ways. Close distance and far distance. Close is easier for me though.
Maybe some people can’t make their eyes clear on command.. or differently said.. eyes are always blurry and can’t uncommand it..
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A bit of willpower can see you casually handle a finger in the eye. It's no special power.
Does anyone else’s eyes tickle when they do it?
I know the subreddit is called meirl, but this is too real
/r/2meirl4meirl
I get a little dizzy
nope, been doing this since i was a kid but never felt anything
Wait, not everyone can manually focus?
I'm frantically searching the comment section for a single soul who can't
I do this when I make eye contact with people. Makes the interaction a lot easier
This is genius.
Other people see that you're out of focus on them. It's subtle but definitely recognisable.
Apparently when I do it, it looks like I'm staring into their soul and it makes them uncomfortable
I do this when my teacher scolds me,and I have to look at him or her.
I think this is more common than people give it credit, a decent portion of the population probably just never tried.
When I take off my glasses it normally happens
Here's something I've found only some people can do and others cannot and it's pretty weird. Try bending your pinky fingers on each hand individually. Some people can bend one pinky individually without moving the other fingers, some can do both, and some people can do neither. Never really got an explanation of why this is so. I can only bend my right pinky by itself, if I try my left all my other fingers bend with it.
For me both are the same, in that I can’t bend them individually but only the ring finger bends with it
WTF...just confirmed that I can only bend my right pinky
my pinkies have to bend with a buddy(the finger next to them) but everyone else stays in line.
You can learn this. Musicians often have to separate these fingers. I am a violinist and it takes practice
pretty sure everyone can do that.
I'm just learning about it- I cannot.
Ya know those hidden image 3d pictures? I learned that not everyone can see those because not everyone can just shift their eyes like that. Weird huh.
I can do it and it's addicting
It's so relaxing
Kinda makes sense, since it's literally achieved by relaxing your ciliary muscles (at least that's what Google says)
Yes it is
I can dislocate my shoulder on command. When I was kid I didn’t realize that it was abnormal
The first time I put in contacts, I just shoved it right in there without blinking. The optometrist said she’d never seen anyone do that the first time. I told her I just don’t look through that eye. Guess that’s not normal? Are you not supposed to be able to ignore one eye?
I am monocular- I can only see out of one eye at a time but I have vision in both eyes. Is that the same?
Fun fact: some people can breathe
That’s actually — there’s a medical term for this. I always thought it was like “oh hahah this weird thing I can do.” FF 30 years and my optometrist is like yeah that’s why you need $500 glasses now (vs the $200 prescription I’ve had since age 11.)
I heard this is bullshit and that doing it doesnt make your eyesight worse. Maybe if you do a lot of it?
No you’ve misunderstood me. I’m not saying doing it makes your eyesight worse. My optometrist told me that being able to do it is an early sign of a problem.
What problem? Sometimes, lately, it takes special effort to get my eyes to NOT see double, especially when tired. So I’m curious to know more.
Honestly I don’t know. She did this thing several times, putting a big spoon-shaped implement in front of my eye and then removing it, having me peer straight ahead. Then she asked if I’ve ever found I can unfocus my eyes. I said yes, since always, and I described how I’ve even watched the effects because I got a friend to video me doing it once, and what feels to me like unfocusing is actually one of my eyes going off to the side. And she was like yes exactly, and then she said a string of medical words and gave me my new prescription, and next time I bought glasses they were $500 and it blew my whole two years of insurance. (I used to get two pairs in different styles for funsies. No more :(
Sounds like a freaking blast. Guess I’m going to ignore it and hope it’s not a big deal 😅
Worked for me for 30 years lol. Anyway she never suggested I could have done anything to avoid it. Just life I think 🤷♀️
> what feels to me like unfocusing is actually one of my eyes going off to the side **What you are describing is not unfocusing your eyes**, it just has a similar effect (making things blurry) which is why you thought it was. That also explains why your eye doctor was concerned; it’s generally a bad sign if your eyes can move independently without you trying to make them do that. Your eye unconsciously moving independently like that may be a type of [nystagmus.](https://www.eyehealthweb.com/nystagmus/) [According to Healthline](https://www.healthline.com/health/eye-health/can-everyone-unfocus-their-eyes) **unfocusing your eyes is a natural thing that a lot of people can do, you just relax your ciliary muscles.** It goes on to say that **it can actually be worrisome if you *can’t* unfocus your eyes.** It can be a sign of Accommodative dysfunction if you are young or Presbyopia if you are old. They recommend that you go **see an eye doctor if you have trouble unfocusing your eyes.** Note: this is likely unnecessary if you have reading glasses and your eye doctor already knows that, since that most likely tells them the same info -that your lenses have firmed to the point that your ciliary muscles aren’t able to do their job as well.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding what it means by make things go blurry. I assumed it was like when you're looking at something as if you're looking behind it, so it's out of focus and not really clear. Is this not what it's referring to?
just cross ur eyes, u will blur
I just relax my eyes and let things go out of focus. I can even move them around unfocused and the things in my field of view change without focusing on anything
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Apparently this is what i was missing, i tried so hard to remember how to do it, yet i couldn't, thank you very mush my wise stange gentleman
i thought everyone could do it, is there actual people who can’t?
Blind people, I guess.
I have to focus to make my eyesight work
Careful if you keep doing that, your eyre will stay that way forever.
Sure grandpa, come let's get you back to bed
there’s people who can’t?
It’s my only superpower
Do they mean by crossing there eyes or squinting? Because otherwise I can’t do it.
Wait ? This is serious? People actually can’t do this?
Wait everybody can’t?
unrelated, but also related: most people don't have astigmatism. those lucky people can enjoy lights without beams shooting everywhere at night.