Aphantasia
I was once watching an episode of House with my college roommate and the doctors had a machine that let them see a visual image of what the patient was seeing in their head. I laughed to roommate and observed that it was a stupid machine because, of course, people don&#x27;t really &quot;see&quot; things in their head.<p>In the ensuing discussion (and Google searches) I learned about the word aphantasia and about the phenomenon where people do actually (claim to) visualize things in their head. Until that moment I assumed that language was just figurative.<p>I still have some doubts that people actually do visualize things. One example is when you ask people to draw a helicopter or a bicycle they produce nonsense simplifications or abstractions. Are they really visualizing these goofy versions of the machines? If not, why don&#x27;t they draw them accurately. I tend to think that I have a better understanding, I know my brain doesn&#x27;t create visuals. When I draw a simplified bicycle I know it&#x27;s because I only remember things like &quot;two wheels, pedals and handlebars&quot;. Other people think they have a visualization but do not.