What Does Your Imagination Look Like? 

That guy moving his mouth throughout the video almost looks like he’s lip syncing with Sands’ vocals perfectly.

Wait... Solar Sands' face isn't just a hourglass. It's all a lie-

Rose= six inches with convoluted red form with a linear green attachment Glove= continuous brown form with folds Wife= hat

I have aphantasia, yet I dream in full color. My whole life when I’d hear people say “imagine your relaxing on a beach” or count sheep jumping a fence”, I didn’t know they could actually “watch the movie” in their head. One advantage of having aphantasia is when I lay down to go to sleep, I see perfect pitch black and have no visual distractions. I loved your imagine truth and justice examples, I will use those to explain to people what I see in the future. If I lay still and try really hard, I can sometimes visualize simple objects for a fleeting moment. The best what I can describe it is like when you close your eyes after someone shines a flash light in your eyes and that bright image fades away quickly.

everyone is talking about the face reveal but I just saw a hat.

He started with browsing deviant art And now he's turning into Vsauce

the best way i can describe how my mind works with aphantasia is: imagine you have a computer where you can research any info you want, including images and videos but the screen is painted black, u can't actually SEE anything but somehow you still have access to all the info that the computer gives you, you are still able to understand perfectly any image that is showed in the computer, u just dont literally see anything :')

I will never understand the concept of "seeing" things purely by imagining. The closest I can get is dreaming but that still seems like a long way from consciously deciding to picture an image in front of you whilst being disconnected from it

So you're telling me he could identify his brother by his teeth but mistaken children for a water hydrant

Solar sands before: This art is bad, no you cant see my face Solar sands now: What if we can read your mind

as a person with aphantasisa, I wanted to try an experiment. I drew a simple cartoony cat, then took a good look at it, closed my eyes, and tried to draw it. It looked like a zucchini. I kept trying, and I got kind of close to drawing it perfectly. The only reason I was able to draw it was not because I was imagining an image in my head, but because I could (non-visually) remember where the pencil marks were.

As someone with Aphantasia myself, on the scale of 'nearly nothing' in mental imagery, I can say it's a little complicated and depends on how the person is centered. I am centered around the 'feel' of a place, person, or thing. Not actual touch, but an impression of it. A person can have a warm 'feeling' about them, and your home can 'feel' safe. I go largely off of that, myself. I'm sure other people go based off of other things.

I don’t know why, but the most interesting part of this video to me is that Solar Sands is an actual human and not a weird vocaloid

I went from “Holy shit this aphantasia shit sounds crazy” to “damn I can’t see the apple in my head WHY CAN’T I SEE THE APPLE IN MY HEAD”

I can only imagine an image so long as I’ve seen that *exact* object “Imagine an apple” *imagines apple slices on paper towel* “Now rotate the apple” “What?”

I can imagine an apple on a table with details while spinning, but the entire image is always at like 50% transparency. If I imagine it with my eyes closed, it'll have like a dark layer on it making it duller. If I imagine it while looking at something bright/white, it'll have a layer of white over it.

He’s wearing big sunglasses because he’s hiding his third eye

I wasn't expecting that face reveal. Nice

As a child I remember everything I thought about being something visual. When I thought of someone I would see their faces and they would be moving, like running for example. I could vividly see everything I thought about, for example a rubber duck. When thinking of something I would also quite literally see the words I was thinking about as if I was reading them. Nowadays I don't know if I still have that. Like I think I do but whenever I force myself to do it it doesn't really work. I can imagine things very well, but it's not the same anymore. The more I think about this I get more and more crazy.

I think that the recent DALL-E AI is quite close to creating this. One thing to remember is that dreams are rarely (With exceptions) in high detail, often all that's present in your "Dream vision" is the thing in a room that you're focusing on. It's not crazy high res like 8k or anything of that sort.

When I was a little kid I would play “mind video games” where I would legit just play video games in my head and dominate everyone

I‘m like really confused. When I concentrate about seeing an apple, I see absolutely nothing. Not even the slightest bit of color. Yet, when I want to sleep I can make up stories in my head, design chatakters, make backgrounds, everything.

I have 100% aphantasia but only realized it a year ago so when people used to tell me to "imagine you're on a beach" to relax I'd think of the properties of a beach (sand, water, umbrella and beachball) then try to think of a canvas and put them on it. I'd have a yellow strip for the bottom half and a blue strip for the top then add in my beachball and umbrella without ever seeing them so it'd just kind of be in my mind for a bit while actually SEEING just pour black. kinda makes me sad lol

I didn't know that people could imagine something in front of them. At a young age I could imagine the shape of something in my mind and see it, but only when I focused on it very heavily. Now as a young adult I can't see imagined objects at all. I can still imagine the shape of something, but it's like I can identify what I'm seeing without seeing it.

Took me longer than 20 seconds to realize he’s showing his face.

It took me a minute to realize that the mouth of the guy talking in a closet was synchronized with the audio of the video.

My friend has aphantasia, I forget a lot and ask things like, “how do you think this hair would look on me?” I feel really bad when I forget and he tells me for the billionth time that he can’t picture things.

I just came across your channel today and so far, I've forgotten to feed my dogs and start on dinner. Mind you, I began at around 2pm and it's now nearly 7pm. That, Sir, is the marker of excellent content!

If you could project your imagination on a screen, then artists will be hungrier than ever

This guy's entire world was probably like the "can you recognize anything in this picture" picture. Must have been terrifying.

Those clip reconstructions are actually incredibly similar to what my imagination looks like. I've always described as being vague, blurry impressions mixed with a sort of inner dialogue of knowledge that "fills in" the missing finer details. I know they're there, i just can't picture them. The image is also faded and colors are muted, but not completely colorless. What I'm imagining usually exists in an empty void unless I'm deliberately conjuring an environment. Strong moods can influence that void to become a generic background, or a specific place I'm familiar with. But its still quite blurred and morphs and shifts slightly. If i focus really hard sometimes I can get the image to get sharper or more detailed but it fades in and out, i can't control it well, and sometimes it doesn't work at all

Waked up after a Lucid nightmare once, and I literally got so frightened, I couldn't recognize my sister by her face. It just felt like, I was alone everywhere. UNTIL I REMEMBERED I HAD HOMEWORK.

how does a man so casually reveal his face in a video so strange and otherworldly that only his best fans would dare to watch it?

AHHHH WTF HE HAS A FACE AND ITS NOT AN HOURGLASS AHHHHH

i don't have aphantasia, but your description of how you visualize is much more vivid than i experience. i can call to mind vague images of things, fluctuating outlines, splotches of color, the general vibe of depth of a form, but i can only really maintain one such detail at a time. but i'm really good at math, which feels to me like a surprisingly visual discipline; whether that's mentally performing algebra on visualized math symbols, or coming up with and manipulating visuals of systems which exhibit a particular relation in one or more of their properties, etc.. it'd be interesting to see how my mental models/methods compare to those of near-aphantasic artists.

I don’t know why but i just bursted out in laughter after hearing “6 inches in length” on 1:15

“He could however identify Platonic solids” damn his wife got friend zoned in multiple dimensions!

Do you guys ever try to imagine a song in your head but sometimes your mind just goes crazy and you keep reversing the song at a specific point like half a second back and keep doing it and it's hard to control?

This reminds me of the mental pains of drawing illusion artwork. If you stare at the possibilities too long, you'll end up thinking simple things like tree stumps are leprechauns or abstract business signs are people standing next to the building (when stared at from a distance). Luckily for the non-artists, you can view these pieces in a few seconds or trip out on them longer to see into our imaginations, without being stuck with visual inconsistencies of an illness.

5:23 Hit me like a brick wall. I've thought for a while that I have aphantasia but because I'm artistic (designing crochet) I didn't think I could have it. But I'm on the verge of tears because there are actually people that struggle with visualizing things in my mind and still can make things. I have to have several reference photos and videos to make things freehand, but I can make them pretty accurately. And even thinking of the designs I make, they're very minimalist with 1-2 extremely distinct features letting you know what it is (wings and nose of a bat, nose and tail of a fox, gills and tail of an axolotl). I guess it's easy for me to do that because I don't really "see" those things in my mind, but more see the "concept" of what those things would look like. Idk, probably need to finally tell my therapist or doctor about this. Just had to share my self revelation.

Just imagine people with that disorder trying to pass an 'Im not a robot' test.

I was in Art Class at school when I realised I had aphantasia. Of course the teacher said "Picture an apple, what colour is it? Is it perfectly round? Is it all one colour? Is it a uniform shape?" So everyone's drawing their apples and I'm thinking "oh so I just draw a generic apple" and the teacher said to me "no, picture it in your mind" and I just blinked at her and said "But I can't, no-one can" she thought I was lying 🤷🏾‍♀️👏🏾😂

I have aphantasia and only discovered recently. I’d never heard of it before and it made so much sense. My dreams are more about feelings than pictures, my thoughts are not easily put into words. I’ve learned to describe it as being aware of concepts.

I quite like the interesting psychological topics you delve into in your videos now. Prof fancies the essays I write about things like this.

Solar Sands : Shows his face Me : I'm just going to ignore that and act like as if he's an hourglass

I think that the ability to have your thoughts be machine-readable will be a skill like any other, like writing or speaking. as neither writing or speaking are particularly clear indications of what one is thinking either

Great video, and I love your analysis at the end.

when i writing a book and daydreaming about it or getting inspiration and seeing images and full scenes in my head and even sentences, after i written it down in a document and reading it back its like it wasnt the scene i fully had in my head and its sometimes so frustrating but also quite interesting and fascinating that the mind is so different than real life. same happens for me with artwork (painting and drawing) i have it different in my head but my skills never match my imagination. maybe i imagine too vivid or my imagination is dreamlike. probably the reason i remember much of my dreams (and actually have a kind of Nightmare Disorder i developed though it could be just normal dreams that are vivid in my mind when trying to know what i dreamed of). Ocasionaly i have lucid dreams but the worst part about it is that when i'm trying too hard to get lucid it wouldnt work but when i'm not even trying i become lucid but because of not expecting it i lose it quickly or just wake up in another dream. reading books when i try to imagine the characters, sometimes its very hard. when writing story's i have visuals in my head and actually hear my characters talk when i'm writing said dialogue. so maybe i'm one of those people who have Hyperfantasia?! maybe, but i'm not sure.

Scientists: **hook me up to mind reading machine** "Is that... a shopping cart with shoes?"

solar sands: *interesting topic* everybody: YOU’RE NOT AN HOURGLASS???

Coming across your channel just now is gonna change my life, I'm so sure of it. 😻

I have aphantasia and I experience the world through my senses mostly. I can remember smells, sounds and feelings so deeply that it can be debilitating sometimes. I have so much to say about this topic and I hope more discoveries are found in this field!

The shock I felt when he casually appeared on screen. The amount of swag he exudes, I am swooning

His hair looks so fluffy. Also I wasn't expecting an existential crisis.

I don’t know how to describe how it is for me. I can imagine stuff, but it’s like I can’t see it. The image appears but it’s like it’s in the back of my eye and moving around a lot so I can’t directly look at it. It’s like having those rainbow splotches after you look at a bright light. It also depends on the image and how much I’m focusing on it.

This is so interesting as someone with anphantasia, to answer your question I can remember images without having to describe them to what I assume people without it would. Its like how people daydream or go past their eyelids and into their mind.

lol i like how he's slowly but surely showing more of his face. it started with the hourglass mask, then sunglasses and a face mask, and now just the sunglasses. dope

Other RU-vidrs making a face reveal: *nervous about showing their face for the first time* Solar Sands: *calmly makes face reveal* Edit: OHHH it’s just an actor nevermind dam I’m disappointed

I can vividly imagine things with their complete and accurate physical properties. I can even visualize the intricate details of gears and pistons and "render" an animation in my mind, simulating the mechanics to see if the gears turn smoothly or if they encounter too much friction. I created my first machines using my imagination when I was just three or four years old. Many of the inventions I later detailed on paper eventually became a reality, though not by my doing, because I lack the financial means. For example, I envisioned an electromagnet-powered levitating train similar to the one in Japan before I knew it existed. However, my version operated in a vacuum tube to minimize air resistance at high speeds and featured doors that would align with the tube using suction. A computer program would facilitate this by automatically initiating a docking procedure. All these ideas came to me when I was just 14 or 15 years old. Now, at 25, I am planning to start my own businesses after college.

I think of things way too deeply most of the time, Its like being self aware in a way. It is scary an shes caused me OCD and anxiety, this video is an AMAZING way to describe things like this, Solarsands in general really is amazing.

Imagine being in school and your teacher notices you're not paying attention and starts playing your thoughts on the board 👀

The fact that my brain could just decide “ya see that’s rock, that’s a sandwich now”

This video actually got me to read Dr. Sacks' book. Really interesting. Thanks Solar :)

I think you are correct with the comparison. As somebody who can't imagine very well (red Apple shaped blob with a stem) I go by feeling. When I am told to think about a house, I have a feeling associated with it. It's the house feeling. Same with music. My mum says she can visualise the sheet music in front of her to read off of but for me, it's a feeling. This note feels like the right note to play after this one to make this melody. Imo it's an asset with music. Since I go by feeling, I pay attention to making it sound right instead of playing each note robotically off of an imaginary piece of sheet music. Gives me an edge in tone.

I'm one of the ones with aphantasia who can't picture things in their head, but can hear and manipulate sound very well. I didn't even realise it until I was about 20 or 21. I always though "Picture this" was a metaphor.

It actually took me 15 minutes to realise that the person you were showing while talking was actually You

When I was younger my imagination was so vivid that sometimes in the dark I would see faint hallucinations of things. I’ve also always been able to picture images in my mind but it feels like the image just isn’t there, like it’s behind my physical eyes. I have no idea on the quality of the images though, but usually I only focus on one aspect. Like if I think of my house I just see my house but I have the knowledge of everything else that’s there. I don’t see anything else until I think about it though. What I mean by this is that if I think of my house I just have a general image of what it roughly looks like. When I think about the roof, I can see the exact shade and material. When I think of the garden I can visualise the plants there. Kind of like a microscope. Looking at an image is like looking at something out of focus, but I can focus on particular parts of the one image to make them clearer. On another note, I can imagine music extremely vividly. It’s just like listening to the actual thing. While my memory of lyrics might not be 100% accurate, I can imagine the beat and instruments very vividly. I can basically listen to music whenever I want. Maybe my visual imagination is below or around average but my auditory imagination is very high. One more thing, with the apple test, I can very easily imagine the apple in those circumstances. I can imagine what it’s like after taking a bite, I can imagine it in a table and casting a shadow. I can grab it and move it around but the animation quality of my mind feels like I took a video at 3 fps and got a computer to generate the frames in between to get it to 60fps. I only vividly imagine the starting image and the end image, but I can faintly see the process or animation. It’s a lot easier to visualise things I’ve seen, imagining something new usually results in a less vivid image. I can remember some of my dreams though. Not all of them, but if something stood out to me I can remember it, but I’m usually reminded of it through an experience the following day. Edit: I do have an internal monologue as well

This really makes me think about well the way I think. I consider myself a very good visualizer when anyone says or mentions anything I visualize it. When I read a book I am visualize it like a movie playing in my mind while I read the words. The things that I visualize are often very very clear, this also happens when I dream. My dreams are often very detailed and usually in color. I rarely ever think something without visualizing it unless it's a concept. I can also visualize things I've never seen, especially landscapes. I think this is one of the main reasons why I find art so difficult. Because I have this perfect picture of it imagined in my mind but I have a really hard time putting it on paper (mostly because of lack of skill) I'll try to look up references that look exactly like what I'm thinking of but they're really hard to find (sometimes impossible)

First time seeing Solar Sans's face. It feels wrong, like I've seen something i wasn't supposed to see. I'm not upset tho ! What a lad :D

My imagination is somehow perfectly clear but blurry and unfocused when I try to think details.

I have been reflecting on a similar subject for two decades, in regards to music. As a composer of classical music, I often have dreams in which I enjoy listening to music, often through speakers or headphones, except... this music had never been written before! my mind composes it live, layers upon layers of beautifully orchestrated parts, in the most vivid way possible. When I wake up, this ability to auralize original music seems to vanish as if it never existed. I can play recorded opuses entirely from beginning to end (and I often do), but new music? that's a whole different story. The mind works in mysterious ways... and like a good scientist, I will continue to catch that elusive particle until I find it!

As somebody who's just finding out they have this I find it more crazy that people can close their eyes and forced them self to hallucinate. You're seeing things that aren't there I just find it really creepy that the majority of humans can do that

Maybe the "face reveal" is just our imagination of how he looks

As a kid, I remember I used to "break" my mind's eye. I'd imagine something so vivid and then go into more and more detail until I just went blank and wasn't able to imagine anything for the next hour or so

I don’t even know what “visualize” OS supposed to mean, because often that word is connotatively according to people’s own experience. I can “see” images for split seconds, or see faint silhouettes of stuff then get distracted and it dissipates. I can’t see crisp images without intense concentration. I can’t see anything behind my eyelids like some people claim to do. I can imagine an experience, but I see nothing except a slideshow of faint pictures. I can mentally rotate something, but is no truly visual lol

Damn I literally have never heard of this condition but I think I do have some form of it. I can visualize things in my head but not very clearly at all and I literally almost never remember the dreams I have. As soon as you mentioned how these people can struggle to recall their dreams I was like wow because I only ever remember a dream maybe 5 times in an entire year it’s crazy to me that everyone else experiences that every night

Who is this mysterious man, and why is he discussing existential philosophy in a closet?

I like how this channel is becoming a lot more psychological.

I seem to have this... I have never been able to visualize things in my mind... Yet, I could describe everything I imagine in perfect detail... How the sun set and the way the water moved down the river in my dream... I was never able to lucid dream like I wanted to... Yet, when I did, my dreams became so much more described... I can't see what I think, but I can hear and write about it mentally...

When ever I try to imagine something like when someone tells me or if I’m trying hard to look at my imagination it’s hard to but when I’m doing it on my own it’s VERY vibrant and I can see it clearly

this guy is just vsauce but he stays on a single topic

God I'm crying. My immediate thought when he came on screen was "Oh hey Kurtis Conner is growing some facial hair."

i have hypophantasia (like aphantasia, but i have a small ability to visually imagine something). when i ‘see’ something in my mind, i get parts of a whole in some blurry messed up shape. if i think of an event, it’s usually myself describing each movement. i can dream, and i dream extremely vividly, but when i wake up everything is gone, no matter if it was a good dream, a lucid dream or a nightmare. it sucks, and i’ve had to get my friends to relay information such as simple directions to somewhere, who a person i’ve seen regularly or just let is, or who a character in a movie is if they are in a common uniform within the film. i cannot draw without tracing, or making key marks and constantly moving everything around, so i do exclusively digital art to draw. i am a quite creative person, but in very word-based subjects (such as creative free-righting).

5:20 yes that's how I "visualize" things. If I think of an apple, all the information around the concept of what we call an apple comes to my mind. For me, things are defined by their interactions with their surroundings and the information they store, not by what they look like.

Bruh I’ve been waiting for almost 5 years to see his faces and it took me a whole ass minute to understand that the dude with sunglasses was him😭

everyone that has drawn fanart of him with brown hair is going mad rn

Sometimes I have dreams where I’m reading something and I can hear myself and it always comes out as random words or words that don’t exist and rarely do the things I’m saying make sense

It smells like someone changed the title last minute cuz it ended up fitting better xD Amazing Video! Was fun and interesting to watch

"You can't visualize concepts like truth or justice" Me, who has severe word-to-shape synesthesia: *Truth aaah yes you mean that bright marble rectangle with an ominous feeling to it*

I'm a maladaptive daydreamer with aphantasia. It's very frustrating spending hours everyday daydreaming, but not being able to see my daydreams. I have to write it like a book, and think about scenes in concepts rather than pictures. It's so crazy to me that most people can actually see things in their mind.

One of the best videos I've seen in a long time.

I beleive I have hyperphantasia, or atleast some form of it. I can imagine a person sitting next to me as vividly as if they were really there, and sometimes I get so lost in vivid imagery in my mind its hard to realise something I'm imagining isn't actually there. The only issue is I struggle greatly with geography. I forget places I've been 3 weeks ago and cant remember them other than by imaging where I am now and picturing myself walking left and right until I reach the place. This usually frustrates people quite a bit

Solar Sands looks like a 80's disco hippie crossed with a emo

i hate that when you came on cam, it took me five minutes to realize it was you talking and not just stock footage or something. I'm an idiot

A weird side effect I have from anti anxiety medication is that I can remember vividly many dreams I've had since childhood. Any dream that made me feel shocked, scared, happy, they're all stocked there, somewhere, and I can now access them. The weirder part is that I sometimes wonder if I dreamt something or actually had it happen in real life.

this is such an interesting topic, thank you for this vid!

I love how you didn’t put “FaCe ReVeAl” on your title. No point of that drama. As fans, we shouldn’t even tell anyone that asks.

love that hes not making a big deal about his face reveal

Not sure if I'm overthinking, but when I try the apple trick, I can be _aware_ of the contents of the apple, the shape it should portray, and the shine and color of what an apple should look like, but its not like anything actually that "vivid". I like thinking of it similar to that of a "screen" above my field of vision that I am looking at, similar to what you might do when looking above your computer/phone's screen or perhaps more of an overlay of your vision that you aren't actually seeing, but more like "recalling" a memory visually over what you're seeing. Try laying down on your side and putting something to partially obstruct either your left or right eye (I used a pillow) and simply attempt to switch your "main control and perception" to either eye (you'll see what I mean if you set it up right, seeing the pillow "engulf" your vision when switching to the partially obstructed eye). It's sort of similar to that, seeing the apple or whatever as your main focus when nothing is actually changing to what your eyes can see. Might've just explained the definition of "imagining" but seeing that I do not have anyone else to reflect off of, might as well tell this to a bunch of strangers pondering the same topic.

That thumbnail is such an accurate depiction of the "picture" I have in my mind when I think of something. The basic structure is there but the fine details are missing.