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?
Dang, interesting! I have no text in mine.
It’s a clear vision of a red ball you’d play dodgeball with, on a stark, small, circular table with a wide white top and a single metal leg with a ring bottom.
The person is a fully black, like, men’s room door sign person fur me, and the ball falls off and bounces with realistic dodgeball physics and I can hear the THONK… THONK… THONK. THONK THONK THONKTHONKTHONK rollllllllll sounds as it falls. When I imagine this scenario I can also smell the ball and feel the texture of the ball and the table. The person is the only thing that isn’t realistic.
I had a wildly vivid imagination as a kid… and I’ve always had synesthesia.