If I ask you to picture an Apple...
what do you see?
 |
Before you scroll any further, entertain my query if you will.
It’s a weird question, I am aware of that, but I am asking for a reason. If I ask you to visualize an apple, what do you see?
Can you see the full image of an apple? The color, skin texture, can you rotate it, take an imaginary bite out of it, can you smell it? Basically does it look completely real to you, or is it something else.
Does it look like a cartoon, or drawn apple to you?
Can you see it, but it’s lacking in detail, black and white perhaps, something else?
Do you see sort of a greyed out outline of an apple?
Or is there nothing there at all? What number do you see?
This image made the rounds on Twitter recently, and the responses were quite interesting, especially the ones that said things like;
“If you claim to see anything other than number five, you’re lying.”
That really surprised me, because I see number one. The way people perceive the world fascinates me, and the notion that people cannot visualize things is new to me. If you wouldn’t mind humoring me, where on the scale do you fall?
I also see number 1. I met a man, a long time ago, with no ability to visualize, or hear music in his head, or imagine other sensory data. He said never saw anything in his head, except on rare occasions when he was stroking the trouser serpent. I thought this was interesting because in Kundalini yoga there is a connection between the Mulhadara chakra (at the base of the spine governing sexual activity) and the Ajna chakra (or third eye).
Oh, the Aphantasia debate.
I get a flickering of all the possibilities above and I simultaneously experience a conceptual flickering of what "apple" means.
It's neither words nor pictures, but something like code that can be easily converted into either those things, or both. If you asked me to think of the apple I held earlier today - or simply draw a specific apple - only then I would be able to lock into 1 single possibility.
This seems to be relatively common in people who identify as aphantasic. I also don't usually have inner monologues, it's a similar principle I suppose.