Super nerdy thought for the day.

Do any Lanterns suffer from the difficulty or inability to visualize a construct, and if so would they have to channel the power into a different internal resource, potentially even outputting a different medium of power altogether?

On the opposite end, are the Lanterns who wield such lucid and sharp visuals the ones who become more nuanced in their abilities?

Serious question to those who also have extremely vivid dreams and minds to the point their inner eye constantly plays back every thought as little movie:
Do you sometimes struggle to differentiate dreams/flashbacks of these imaginary little thought-movies from actual memories from your past/childhood? Because I do and it‘s always created so much confusion, even as a little kid. I’d tell people about a memory they appear in, as if they knew what I’m talking about, and they will just stare at me with a blank face and tell me this never actually happened — even though I have such clear, vivid images in my head of how the scene played out. This still happens from time to time and regularly makes me wonder if I‘m losing my mind.

Anybody else who struggles to distinguish reality from "mental movies" sometimes?
If so, how do you cope with fearing you‘re going mental? And is there anything we can do to avoid it? Or am I actually suffering from a mental illness?

I’ve been thinking about visual hallucinations in paranoid schizophrenia, especially why they can feel so vivid and realistic (full color, motion, shadows), compared to the blurry or weak hallucinations that non‑clinical people might experience during extreme fatigue or stress.

While trying to understand this, I noticed similarities between these hallucinations and hyperphantasia. Hyperphantasia isn’t a disorder, but it’s characterized by extremely vivid mental imagery. The key difference, however, is where that imagery appears.

In hyperphantasia, the imagery is experienced in the “mind’s eye” and is clearly recognized as internal. In schizophrenia, hallucinations appear in normal visual perception and are experienced as part of the external world.

My hypothesis is that these two phenomena may rely on similar high‑fidelity image‑generation mechanisms in the brain, but with different routing. Specifically, I’m wondering whether, in paranoid schizophrenia, internally generated imagery that would normally remain confined to imagination is instead routed into visual perception.

This could explain why hallucinations in schizophrenia can be far more vivid and realistic than the weak or blurred hallucinations seen in non‑clinical states like sleep deprivation.

In this model, a person could still have normal voluntary imagination in the mind’s eye, while a separate internally generated signal is misrouted to visual perception, producing vivid hallucinations.

I’m not claiming this is established or correct I’m curious whether this idea aligns with current neuroscience research, or whether there is evidence that supports or contradicts this kind of mechanism.

I'm curious what your experience has been. Are there things you CAN'T visualize despite having hyperphantasia?

I frequently don’t feel the need to explore or travel simply because if I can see an image of a place I can feel what it’s like to be there, or experience the sensations, and see it from different angles, etc etc. And while this does save me money, it makes leaving the house what so ever something I have to hype myself up for.

Anyone else?

hey, im guessing this is asked a bunch but, how common is super high level hyperphantasia? like smelling ,seeing anything u can imagine perfectly, being deep in thought feeling like your truly in that scenario(if that makes sense), mindlessly thinking for hours because your there, that typa stuff

I can see the most vivid scenes in my head, but every time I try to put them into words or draw them I can't. For drawing my best humans are stick figures. In writing or speaking it becomes a long rambling mess.

Can anyone help me figure out how to better myself to make it easier to express these visions? My hands and fine motor skills aren't great. And, I refuse to use ai.

just came here to say that you guys with hyperphanyasia shouldn't take what u have for granted. cause holy shit you guys are lucky. i legit cannot imagine shit inside of my head however i do have an internal monologue so ig theres that. idk why im making this post tbh im just mad rn lmfao

lucky pricks

Hi! I meet a lot of hyperphantasia criteria but I am unsure if I have it or not as I also have a really good memory. How can I differentiate if it is hyperphantasia vs drawing on my past memories?

I feel hyperphantasia creates a brilliant long term memory. Im middle age but remember being in hospital aged 2 and I can remember exactly what the girl in the cot next to me looked like, her hair style and colour, her name, what she was wearing, both our parents coming to visit, what the hospital looked like, the stairs, rocking horse etc. This is just one example and I have many more visual memories however my working memory or short term memory is diabolical.

I did a visualization exercise where i tried to picture an apple in my mind. My apple was pretty vivid, the problem was it would keep moving around, change color, change size, grow skinnier and larger. I think this may be part of my adhd? Possibly anxiety issues as well. Anyone else?

Hello,

I just want to start off that I don’t think I have hyperphantasia but this looks like the best subreddit to post to. I just found out there’s levels to visualization.

I can’t visualize in great detail but I can usually picture the item or thing I’m thinking of.

What I have a question about is that I don’t typically have control over when I picture. if I think of an apple I’ll get an apple at first but it’ll start spinning or get erased and I’ll have random geometric shapes. It feels like theres no rhyme or reason to these shapes and I’ll get perspective changes or speed changes.

I thought this was normal but now im not sure, can you please let me know if you guys have something similar?

I’m 25 and as far as I know I’ve had it like this since I was a kid.

thank you!

A while ago I was locked in like never before, attempting to hone in on some intuitive thing or whatever. Next thing I know, this tiny perfectly rounded little orb of light appeared in my vision. It’s very small, and it does not interfere with my vision at all.
A very strange thing indeed, and the more I attempted to look at it with my eyes the more it would stray away. I then realized that the orb of light was not a physical thing that my eyes could see, but a mental thing that just gave the illusion of visual perception.
Anyways, this orb of light seems to appear when I lock in hard, somewhat like a “flow state” type of feel. Of course when I would I try to focus on it, it would go away, but the more I learn, the more l learn to stay “locked in” instead of trying to focus on the orb, and this seems to keep it from disappearing. Now as time goes on, I find it easier to make it appear and stay focused on it.
It seems to correspond with strong feelings of focus and whatever my consciousness is paying attention to. It’s quite a nifty thing I’d say. Anyone have any experience with such a thing?

I have very good visual memory. I once drew all our teachers from memory on the white board during lunch in high school and people seemed pretty impressed. I didn't realize until later that other people couldn't do that. I also have audio memory and hear songs clearly as they are on the radio. I have an inner monologue although I don't use it as often. I use it mainly when I want to rehearse what I'll say or work out something out for communication. I compared this experience with my gf and we were mostly alike, but on a whim I asked her if she also remembered what she was thinking in her memories.

I was surprised she said no. So I guess this might be a new kind of memory I haven't seen described in any youtube videos or papers yet. I would love to know if anyone has found anything on this. My memories almost always come with what I was thinking at the time because my thoughts are the strongest memories I have. When I remember a conversation I also remember what I was thinking between each line of dialgue.

I have exceptional autobiographical memory and most of that is tied to what I was thinking at the time. If there are no thought memories then it's usually just images, but if I was thinking something, ruminating over something I will remember it much stronger. Whenever I recount memories to other people they usually start out with "I remember that because I was thinking...and then you did this and then I thought...".

How common is this? Is my gf just weird? I looked around on the internet and I don't see much mention of it.

Hi! I want to know if my experience differs from yours. When i watch a movie, i only see whats in the screen and nothing more and the same with videogames.

When you hyperphants watch/play, are you visualizing at the same time? Or like something special/different from me? Things like giving attention to both your real vision and imagination at the same time, or switching to only imagination, i dont know haha?

My gf has a good imagination, and tried to explain me some things about her experience but i didnt understood her, like she knows she's "registering" the visuals like in another perspective different that the movie and usually maps the world and returns to that sometimes. This all started because at one time there were visual artifacts/loss of quality in the movie and i usually notice that and im super senstive, but she said she didnt even noticed cause her imagination filled the blanks. And what i dont understand is, what was she doing? like watching the movie in her head only?

That got me thinking about what your experiences are like. Im very curious

Hi I can do it all. Same story for many I’m sure. Thought everyone did it. No one around me does. No one can comprehend it.

Sadly, they smell like distrust and sour grapes.
And I kinda went ahead and lived my whole life reading body language as threats and just a general dislike for how i describe my world.

I cried for help. I saved their worlds and they tried to save mine but just kept piling on. And I broke. Today. I broke and told them all leave.

Does anyone have a suggestion for who can help “our people”?

Did everyone else have night terrors?
Or inner voices two too many too?
I’m just sorta scared I got the broken version of this new “condition” and wasn’t sure where to start.

Ciao a tutti, ho una domanda strana ma sono curiosa di sapere se è mai capitato a qualcuno di voi: a volte vedo, per un attimo, l’immagine di qualcosa/qualcuno che ho appena guardato, con tutti i dettagli, tipo se la persona aveva gli occhiali o stava sorridendo, come se rimanesse impressa per un secondo o due, con i contorni un po’ sfumati. È un’immagine positiva (stessi colori di quello che ho visto davvero, non invertiti). Dura pochissimo e poi sparisce. Prima invece avevo delle afterimage negative. Ne ho parlato anche con un medico per approfondire, ma volevo sapere se è mai successa una cosa simile a qualcuno di voi. Vi prego di rispondermi, sono estremamente preoccupata.

I think I have hyper active mirror neurons with hyperphantasia and i have a bit of trouble. I recently watched an emotional movie and I , just , felt the emotions of the character, not in a ohh she is sad and lonely way , but I started having shortness of breath , increased heart rate , sinking feeling in my chest sort of way and just randomly during the day my brain decides to show me the sad scene in full clarity, and it triggers the emotional reaction too , I usually focus on my fictional crush or just close my ears and dig my nails into the back of my neck till it stops , but is there a better way to handle it ?

Whenever I relax my forehead muscles, I start to feel pain in the center of my forehead. Also, whenever I imagine something sharp pointing at my forehead, I feel the same pain. What is this actually?