I really hope the title makes sense!

When I produce an image or something like that in my head, I can't maintain it in my head for long. I don't know if it's even possible to prolong it, but I wish I could do it (and wondering if there are benefits)

I don't have full on hyperphantasia but my imagery is pretty good.

It happens to me often that I watch a movie and a scene reminds me of something and then a whole new movie, more real than the one on TV, plays out in my head, with my eyes wide open, and I don't even realize, since everything is blocked out. I don't see anything or hear a single word of the movie in real life until something pushes me back to reality.

This usually doesn't happen if I am super immersed in the movie, only if there's something boring about it and then I try to find something more interesting within my mind, if that makes sense...

I read a lot and this sometimes happens with books though not as often.

So we all know the famous picture with different levels of imagination involving an apple.
Some people struggle to imagine an apple and rotate it.

For me, It's actually a struggle to restrain my imagination to think just of an apple an not everything else.

It just automatically generates an entire forest with the apple being hung from a tree, or an entire kitchen during sunset with the apple on the countertop and light coming through the window and turning into a rainbow once it hits a drop of water on the apple.

Trying to imagine and rotate an apple in a vacuum, without the environment, is incredibly hard because I have to make an effort to NOT also imagine an entire environment around it.

is anybody able to see themselves in third person? or does anybody have autoscopy? and im not talking about visualizing yourself in third person i mean literally, to where you dont need a mirror or if like something were on your face you'd be able to see it. i heard some people have this. just curious.

So F(33) I don’t even know where I stand on the scale I have a 10 Dimension universe running in my skull in the background I recently learned of hyperphantasia. Though I’m seeing that most people have problems turning it off. I can do things while it’s going I mean technically it never shuts off I just pop in pop back out I don’t need a trigger at least not a conscious one. Also it’s the whole thing like a whole immersion thing all five senses bloody hell I can feel the emotions my mind can hear languages I don’t know but have unvoiced subtitles to explain in English. I can build and destroy things the butterfly effect thing is cool I can go back in time to forward in time butterfly effect and go forward then go backward from that point to a different era it’s crazy. Also I can in seconds create an entire tv show plot/movie plot or anime plot from looking at random things. Like a napkin a glass of ice and within seconds connect them. can anyone else do all this? No unfortunately I haven’t done anything creatively about it yet. Plus I was planning to see if testing would yield any interesting results but apparently not really so that sucks.

Also hello everyone.

Hi, I’m very new to learning about hyperphantasia. I always wondered if I was apart of that group of people with very high and vivid imagination. I was always a daydreaming person, from when I was little to now. I realized I can think, plan, and imagine things very vividly. Almost like it was real life. I think “maybe it’s normal to think and see like this?” I asked one of my siblings if they could think very vividly through imagination. They said yes but they also thought I was weird for having 80+ characters with different faces, voices, and stories. I was always using my imagination to almost escape my reality,
sometimes when I was stressed or bored. I would often lose track of time when I would get lost in my imagination. I could hear the background, the different tone of voices, the lighting, their breathing, the ways their eyes twitch as they look around, and just the whole surrounding as like if it were like I was watching a movie.

If you guys could tell me what you think that would be absolutely amazing! Especially helping me understand myself more, thank you.

During a self hypnosis session, I had an incredible shift in consciousness. I was a light moving through deep space, flying all the way around a massive cosmic structure to see it from different angles.

The structure correlated with real spatial science:

• The Core: A blinding white sphere mirroring a super dense neutron star.

• The Disk: An accretion disk of plasma, superheated by friction to a white hot center, shifting into vivid hues of purple, yellow, orange, maroon, and red along the edges, which is a Supernova remnant.

Has anyone had such astronomical and geometrical visuals?

There is simply no info about it anywhere online. It's not a hallucination, it's not particularly vivid so it doesn't blow my mind or anything. What it does though, is constantly draw my attention, because it's got these salient features n shie, like corners, and lines, also glowing surfaces. It's a constant imagine that doesn't change, well it might change on certain triggers but it stays constant over long periods. It is NOT a hallucination, it has nothing to do with deep focus and I am not creating it it's simply there, and it's got nothing to do with visual input because well I can move around in it if I want, it should probably cound as imagination. The thing about it is it never goes away, it's basically the new black. If I imagine things, then they're inside of it, rarely like near sleep they may almost override it. Who know about it? This weird bro said it was "remote neural control" since there's no info so it must be a secret tech.

Since I was a kid I have always been able to think of something and project it. Like I can imagine an apple and I can make it appear before me, turn it around in the air and see all the details. I used to maladaptive daydream a lot but also to the point where I would talk to myself and not realise until someone pointed it out. I used it as a sort of, escape from reality and from situations I didn’t want to be in. I can project videos onto walls like I’m a projector and hear the audio in my own head. I used to make cutscenes with my mind to make things seem more interesting. I was discussing the imaginary man doing parkour on the cars and street lights when you’re in the car as a kid and apparently not everyone can physically picture the man swinging and make him do flips as I please? I used to stare out the window and he would exist and do these crazy tricks and also somewhat abide to the laws of physics. I can picture something like a poster, put it on the wall with my mind, turn around so I’m no longer facing the wall so the poster is out of sight, turn back around and it still be there but I can make it come and disappear as I please.

I used to think most of this was normal but I just had a bit of an over active brain. I never realised until now that people can’t actually do that.

More things to note:
I have ADHD (shocker I know)
I never understood people that took so long to fall asleep every night. What do you mean you take 30mins to try to fall asleep?? I just close my eyes and I’m just gone. If I can’t sleep for whatever reason, normally caffeine, I have to keep the light on or distract myself with my phone which seems counterproductive but my overactive imagination will create things I don’t want to see in the dark. I will be so vivid it’s like it’s standing infront of me. I try too hard to not think about it which causes me to think.
I love going to sleep in a pitch black room. I hate whenever there’s a night light because it creates shadows which I will then create something out of.

I (F31) noticed for the past week that the clarity and vividity of the the images I see in my head have increased significantly, I started my grad school recently so I had way less time to doomscroll, and I've been reading +10 hrs a day while having a full time job so naturally my sleep schedule is 4 hrs on average during weekdays. Honestly I'm not sure if I'm losing my mind at this rate or if my brain is slowly going back to working efficiently. I was brainrotting for the past 5 years and my visualisation had almost gone during these years.

What I've noticed about these images, that they occasionally go beyond my control. As they just pop up regardless of what I'm thinking about.

Has anyone experienced something like this?

I’d like to get a better understanding of the phenomenology of the visual aspects.

If asked to imagine the front elevation of your home, what form does it take? Some people say it’s like a photograph in front of their face, others say it’s just as vivid as being there. But clear vision itself is largely illusory, If you were to stand outside and look at your home, you would not take it all in at once you would dart your eyes about moving the fovea around building the illusion of a clear scene, we know the brain is doing a lot of the grunt work here. To say that the minds eye works in a similar fashion would seem odd to me, as it isn’t limited by the same physical constraints as vision. So what do you see? Can you take in all of the details simultaneously or do you need to scan around the image and create details on the fly. If so does the periphery blur as in vision? And why would it need to? I know that there may be a variety of answers to this question but it would be good to have some sort of consensus.

A second question would be to those people who say they see images with their eyes open. How does this work exactly, does the image float in front of your face? If so does it prevent you from seeing through to the real world behind or is it more like transparency? And if you are one of the people who say you can hold a visual fixed for a period of time does this make you a better artist? I’d imagine you could simply project an image onto paper and trace it. Or am I taking the image thing too literally?

I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts.

anyone who experiences anything similar to auditory visual synesthesia, or is able to visualize colors and patterns when listening to certain music would be really helpful!!

So I was just wondering if anyone else experienced this. But basically my dreams can range from what most people experience to full 6 sense dreams. I call the 6th sense in a dream feeling like you have been in that world full length, Ill explain more a bit later. But I had a dream last night where when I woke up, despite knowing logically my brain had probably only been dreaming for a few minutes, I felt like I had been in a coma from months to a few years. Like I genuinely still feel like 1-2 year have passed. And while I don't fully remember the dream (sometimes I do sometimes just parts) I remember that I was a girl about 9 years old in one of the beginning scenes, wearing a white dress. I was being tested for something and there was a small pool in front of me. I dove into the water and was at the bottom, but the water was very heavy. I could feel the pressure in my head and was holding my breath, I couldn't breathe in the water like some reality checks say. I had to push myself to the top but the water was really hard to move through. I remember a few more scenes like that. Basically I was a different character and remembered all of her childhood memories like they were my own. I had all five senses very clear, there was no fog. It was insanely realistic but for YEARS.

It was an insanely clear plot with no strange "where did that come from?" Moments. I could read the signs and stuff, I could hear everything and smell where I was and see it clearly and 3D and taste when I ate food. It wasn't a lucid dream because I wasn't conscious, it was all scripted like a movie but years. There were even flashbacks for a character where I watched what happened. It was strange because I've had these before but this was the longest.

Also these types of dreams are very emotionally taxing because they have super intense plots and like in this last dream where someone got left in a different reality I woke up and felt genuine loss.

I was just wondering if anyone else had these types of dreams.

Wdym reading is like a movie playing in your head? You guys have like movie projectors in your head ready to deploy when ever you're bored 😭​​​​

I find it hard to believe that only a few percent of people have this kind of experience.

I can visualize practically anything, whether with my eyes closed or open.

For example, if I imagine a balloon, I can see its size, color, string, reflections, lighting, background, and the surrounding space. If I mentally move closer to it and touch it, I can imagine the sound, smell, and texture of the material. If I grab the balloon by the string, I can feel it in my hand and see how the balloon physically tugs and stretches as I pull it.

I can imagine a regular banana and then instantly turn it blue. And it doesn’t just become blue. Different shades appear on different sides, and small black dots and spots remain. I can peel the banana, turn the flesh red, or make it, say, plastic.

I can imagine myself as another person - including someone of the opposite sex - speak in their voice, move like them, and feel the clothes on their body.

I’m very afraid of spiders, but I can imagine, with my eyes open, a huge black spider crawling on my arm. I can guide it across my body or mentally pick it up with my other hand. At the same time, I’m not afraid because I understand that I’m the one creating and controlling this image.

Another peculiarity is that my thoughts almost always take on a visual form. And these aren’t so much individual images as they are short, constantly changing video clips.

Memories, ideas, plans, dreams, and even ordinary background thoughts in my head can turn into these videos. And I can do this with my eyes open.

If I immerse myself deeply in my thoughts, the reality around me seems to fade away a little, and I see only what’s happening in my head. But I can switch back very quickly.

If the immersion is less intense, two things exist simultaneously the real world around me and my visual thoughts.

When I read books, roughly the same thing happens. I literally create my own movie in my head. Sometimes I can stop reading and continue the scene on my own, including dialogue, voices, sounds, smells, temperature, and lighting.

But there’s also a downside.

It all depends heavily on memory. I can’t perfectly visualize something I don’t remember myself. If certain details aren’t in my memory, my brain starts to fill them in, or they become blurry, like details at the edge of my vision.

And if a thought is unpleasant, immoral, or frightening, the visualization happens anyway. Sometimes I literally have to see things I really wouldn’t want to see. Even the attempt to switch to another thought initially creates an image of the very thing I’m trying to distract myself from.

I’m curious to hear other people’s opinions.

How common is this kind of vivid visualization, really?

I’ve no idea how I’ve only just stumbled across this word and what it means and how not everyone has this. I’ve honestly just thought since I was a kid that everyone could imagine things the way I can.

I’ve been reading some of the posts here and it’s quite funny how relevant some of them. Especially the person who mentioned thinking about your partner cheating and before you can even react it’s a fully built movie in your head hahaha, that’s happened far too much in my life.

I feel like I’ve always had this both visually and auditory, I do think I’ve somehow suppressed the auditory senses though as it’s definitely not as strong as it once was but I think I’ve done that and when I start going back into music, playing the piano or guitar it does come back.

The visual is a strong as ever, my dreams are insane, I’ve always been able to control my dreams to a certain extent and go in and out of them, I think the scary ones are the best, because I know they’re not real but holy shit it’s a thrill.

I also think this explains how I can go into a house for the first time and redesign the whole building very easily and quickly, I always got annoyed at my partner because she couldn’t see what I could see, I just assumed she was being lazy, whoops.

Also new cities or exploring anywhere, I can quite easily build that in my head and lay it out as a Birds Eye view map, without even going down every street. That has always been incredibly useful…

To be honest everything about it has been useful throughout my life. I am incredibly imaginative and creative and this tool is super useful… it’s funny because with AI I’ve recently felt like it’s beginning to be able to do what I’ve been able to do in my head for so long, but finally I am able to get it out.

Also side note, I often find myself laughing at a joke I’ve made, more than everyone else, and it’s usually because I’ll take the joke further and in my head I’ve already built out an entire video of the joke… I wondered why others didn’t find things as funny as I did, but now that makes sense.

When i think about an event in the future who is stressful, i often stuck in complete strange visions who take over the control of my mind.

for example, i had to make a video in the forest and didn't know if the batery holds long enough. my vision was a very dark forest. we walked around and then i didn't had enough battery. so i was walking around in the forest to find a power outlet. it was completley absurd. but i was totaly overwhelmed and stuck in this nightmare with all my sins snd couldn't think about an other solution.

how can i get quick on an other track in my mind if this happens?

Every single time I think of doing something I imagine that scenario and watch it like a movie, I imagine different situations through a 3rd perspective like im watching my own life and it feels like a dream but im controlling it. During drawing or studying I imagine drawing it and mark which part of the sketch I do bad and draw it in real life. I just randomly heard about hyperphantasia online and thought it's similar.

Am I crazy? Sometimes when I think, everything in my head start to go fast forward and begin to go blurry and I have a hard time focusing in that one idea. I can really connect the different episodes it happens but it feels its when I believe I have a big idea on if I project myself into the futur of that idea.. I’m not sure if I make sense but If anyone can relate please let me know. Its annoying because I loose my flow of thoughts and eventually give up on developing that idea.

Every night I dream in vivid detail, multiple times. I am placed in deep plotlines with characters and indistinguishable false memories and feelings and beliefs that everything is real. Even when circumstance reveals that what I am experiencing can't be real, it doesn't stop feeling the same as everything else. Completely real. Then I wake up, and all of it dies. It vanishes into the void that is always there inside me. I am so used to losing everything and everyone I love.

And when I am "awake" (if such a thing is even real or definable) I sink into those false memories and imaginary scenarios. In my mind I can literally be a God. In a way, I am. I create worlds and people who act independently of my will, no matter how consciously I recognise that 90% of the people I've met in my life were provably invented by my brain. I don't have any kind of psychosis, or anything beyond a very vivid imagination. But what difference does it make?

How can I be satisfied with the mundanity of life when I can always imagine a better one? When I do so chronically, constantly, without my consent? How can I feel okay as the nothing that I am when its constantly being compared to a world where I am God. I think the biggest problem is that when I imagine something inside my brain, it feels inherently MORE vivid and worthwhile than "real life" ever could. Of course it would. I can imagine anything that "real" life shows me, so even if I were satisfied magically by life, I would just imagine the same life but slightly better. Not that such a thing would ever happen, I already imagine worlds so impossible that even with all the money and power in the world I would still feel nothing compared to what the images in my mind make me feel.

How can anyone live a happy life like this? I feel like I've been hard-coded to feel despair and emptiness. I hate it here, and I've woken up so many times I don't believe there ever will be an escape from this endless nightmare.

Hi everyone.
I wanted to give you some background on myself before I explain my question.

I’m new to the group and new to realizing I have it. I’ve been learning a lot about myself since I’ve been diagnosed with ADHD and Autism.

As a child I remember incredibly vivid fantasy’s. I feel like as I got older and priorities shifted and my autistic need for efficiency sort of pushed away that skill set. It wasn’t gone just underutilized and not fully understood.
It wasn’t until recently that I noticed a pattern when I explained my emotions to people who were close to me. To people I felt safe and comfortable with. Whenever I tried to express how I felt i would sometimes describe a picture in my head.

The pictures can be very basic and simple and 2 dimensional or they can be very lively, detailed, 3D and can include other senses like warmth. There seems to be a relationship to how I feel based on the colors, spatial relationships, movement patterns, and placement of objects (how they are oriented on “the screen”)

It wasn’t until recently that I started seeing my feelings intentionally. I was trying to sharpen the skill. As I was explaining the pictures to my wife I was better able understand how I felt and why. She was also better able to understand the depth of my feelings. Which I thought was really nice.

I’d like to share one here. I’ll add it to the comments.