Okay, so I had aphantasia before my TBI and afterwards I could literally picture things in my mind. It's wild. You don't hallucinate the picture per se, but the imagined sensation really is like seeing a picture in your mind.

Imagine the feeling of seeing something. You get the same feeling when imagining a picture of it. You can examine the picture and look at it from different angles and perspectives, but like, there isn't literally a ghost image floating around your head like a cartoon. It just feels like seeing.

It's almost like lucid dreaming while awake? You know it's in your mind and not real, even if you also feel like you see it.

idk you'd think having lived on both sides of the fence I could explain it but this probably sounds fucking bizarre to you lol

it kinda does piss me off that I can't see someone else's mind from their perspective.

Yeah this is kind of the conclusion I've come to. I don't really know what it is that 'see' is really supposed to mean. I mean very obviously I don't see it in the same way as I see an object in front of me, but at the same time there is still an apple that has various characteristics and exists in some way within some sort of mental space, and whose attributes, including ones which for a real apple would be visual, I can be aware of and understand

I'm a 1 on this scale. It's like Virtual Reality, where you experience something that isn't your material space. You can manipulate those experiences, but they have an ethereal quality due to their lack of physicality. Not to mention bumping into things while distracted. While I haven't used any AR equipment, I imagine those experiences feel similar.

A good "tell" that I am in this imagination space is a blank stare while otherwise still engaging (conversation, work, etc) because I'm not (entirely) seeing with my eyes. It's the same with hearing, and to a lesser extent touch, taste, and smell. It also functions as a spectrum, with some experiences being stronger or weaker than others, particularly when I have material experience to fall back upon. My own memories work as stronger, more visceral experiences as I can ground the experience more than a brand new space conjured on the spot. However there is a limit. The details can be hazy or morph if I'm not paying attention to that part of the experience. Dreams are an excellent complementary experience of how side details can change to "fit" the experience.

I think it's like this: there's multiple layers to the process of seeing something. Light enters the eyes, it's converted to an electrical signal in the nervous system, that signal is formatted into the "video feed" in our brain, and that picture is matched with existing patterns we know. Visualizing something is working backwards from the resultant pattern to produce possible inputs that would match. It doesn't go to the video feed level, but it goes to the intermediary stage where patterns are being matched to a picture. Less "what are traits I associate with an apple" and more "how does it feel when I recognize an apple?"

yea i dont think this image is coherent and its intended to elicit the poster’s reaction

Yes some of it is dismissed that way but once you get past that it's a real phenomenon

It's a very interesting discussion. I would say that a good barometer for this is how well you can draw an object from memory. Trying to squeeze this phenomenon into a 1-5 scale is silly either way.

I'm a 3 or a 2 on the scale I think, and for me it's like I can actually see the thing I'm visualizing, but in parallel to what my eyes are seeing. Like, imagine you were looking at some security monitors on 2 different screens, one is the visual information from your eyes, the other one is the thing I'm visualizing which is very hazy and I only have a loose grasp on it.

It is a different thing.

I don't think I understand what you mean? I thought it was clear. As a 1 you can imagine an apple within your had at high detail, noting the location of the stem and maybe being able to zoom in on its texture, seeing the striation of its color and perhaps a moisture. Maybe you can rotate it and note the dimple at its underside of slice it and see it's slightly yellow roughly textured crisp inside. As any level between 1 and 5 you lose detail; maybe the shape is imperfect or fuzzy, maybe you can't see the color as clearly or perhaps it's a solid color, maybe it's less of an apple shape and more spherical, the stem may be less noticable or not there at all, you may be able to imagine how it might feel under your teeth but not manipulate the visualization into slices and see it's core or it's seeds. Am I misinterpreting?

Edit: I misinterpreted your comment it seems, I thought you were critiquing the concept itself instead of asking for clarification. Apologies. I do think that the 1-5 scale is entirely arbitrary and doesn't really express accurately the varying degrees at which people are capable of visualizing; like most things, it's probably a spectrum.