Intellectual Visions

Intellectual visions: a comparison of aphantasia and mystical experience When I read Theresa of Avila's Interior Castle, one thing that struck me was her description of what she called "intellectual visions". This refers to the experience of pure conceptual knowing without words or images. Teresa began to have such experiences while practicing a form of meditation called contemplative prayer. In her words: We see nothing, either interiorly or exteriorly. . . But without seeing anything the soul conceives the object and feels whence it is more clearly than if it saw it, save that nothing in particular is shown to it. It is like feeling someone near one in a dark place" (first letter to Father Rodrigo Alvarez). This mode of cognition was so unfamiliar to her that, at first, she found it confusing and even frightening. She was unable to produce such experiences voluntarily and believed that they could be obtained only through supernatural infusion. When ...

Investigating hypophantasia: some suggestions I have hypophantasia: very low mental imagery. I've been following the Aphantasia Network and the aphantasia communities on Reddit, Twitter and Quora. I've noticed that these groups tend to attract many people with total aphantasia, but very few people with hypophantasia. I think the reason for this is the type of testing that is used. Here you can see two tests that are used by the Aphantasia Network: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFFv2-7W4AMsur9?format=jpg&name=900x900 https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/aioyga/simple_aphantasia_test/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share In both of these, a person can get a high score even if he or she can visualize only simple, abstract drawings. I myself can easily imagine simple figures like red stars and stick-figure horses. What I can't create are complete, three-dimensional scenes, or images that are literal, concrete and realistic. My images also seem to be ...

Built for civilization: a very brief theory of aphantasia, hypophantasia and low hypnotizability My theory: the genes for aphantasia and related conditions are among the newer genes that developed after the Neolithic revolution during the age of civilization. The aphantastic neurotype evolved to fit a very specialized niche within civilized society. The aphantastic brain is highly specialized for abstract, conceptual thought, with a corresponding diminution in sensory, somatic, and social responses. In the ancient world, aphantastics would have been among the scholars, scribes, mathematicians and philosophers. In the modern world, they occupy similar roles in areas such as academia and information technology. There is abundant anecdotal evidence that many aphantastics are specialized as knowledge workers; you can find it easily simply by doing a Google search. However, there is currently a debate as to whether the statistics support this trend. I think this is due to the fact that ...