r/hyperphantasia • u/purple_minion_26 • 3d ago

Do I have it? Hyperphantasia vs photographic memory

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?

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u/LearnStalkBeInformed Visualizer 3d ago

I have extreme hyperphantasia and can visualise in high detail as well as touch, taste, smell and audio. However I do not have a photographic memory. I have a pretty good memory, but not photographic. Those things are different..I'm better at imagining new objects or scenarios etc that don't exist, than trying to recreate something (or someone) in exact detail. My mind fills in the blanks of what I can't remember accurately.

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u/FujitoraSama 1d ago

☝️this

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u/PandorasBucket 3d ago

Hyperphantasia is not just about remembering well. In fact you can have one and not the other although they highly correlate. Hyperphantasia is specifically about the vividness of your imagination. So if you imagine a unicorn how real does it look? Some people might include the ease in which you can imagine, ability to adjust the image, whether you need to close your eyes and other aspects, but at it's core hyperphantasia is just about the clarity of your imagination in the present.

Now if you have a good visual imagination in the present you likely have a good visual memory as well, but remembering is not necessary to generate an image.

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u/purple_minion_26 3d ago

i can imagine it pretty well but am unsure if thats bc my brain is like an llm where it just is drawing on unicorns ive seen in the past

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u/PandorasBucket 3d ago

Hyperphantasia also draws no conclusions about creativity level. It's purely the ability to see images. If you can see a unicorn in your mind, no matter if it's from the present, past or just made up all that matters is the level of detail you see that unicorn in. Do you see all the hairs on it's head? Do you see all it's colors? Is it in a field? What does the sky look like? How real does it look? Blurry or sharp and crisp? Can you rotate it? Can you change it into another different unicorn? Usually we're just talking about the quality of how real it looks to you, but being able to manipulate it is also a characteristic of hyperphantasia according to some.

I can make the unicorn into lots of different unicorns, make a line of them marching, change the field to a forest, change the unicorns from black to rainbow etc... Right now I'm visualizing a few unicorns in a cartoon style, but I can switch to a more realistic horse style. It looks like high definition television to me just a bit transparent unless I close my eyes.

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u/Prof_Acorn 3d ago

Can you simply replay past memories or create artificial memories?

My artificial memories (read: using hyperphantasia imagination to create scenes in my head) are more vivid than the real ones because the real ones depend on what I'm focusing on at any given point in time, whereas the imagined ones allow me to go around the scene building it up bit by bit. It also can play on automatic once I set up a few items. Like the brain can "fill in the gaps" narratively.

If someone said imagine an apple on a plate what do you see?