What's it look like to project mental images (prophantasia)?? 

Damn, I thought people could just naturally do this, huh. What’s the deal with this? Superimposition, making walls melt, disassembling a car while it was driving, looking at myself from a different person’s perspective, that’s pretty awesome!!

I've been constantly projecting images around me ever since I can remember. It's very much like I have 2 sets of vision, and I can always tell which one is real. The projecting is quite subconscious, I usually don't realize I'm doing it unless I pay attention, then I'll "see" all the weird objects around me. The strange part is I don't have control over it. If I decide to picture something in my room, it'll be there for a few hours at least. I thought this was completely normal and everyone did it. But I just googled it and I could barely find anything, this video is the closest I've found that describes my experience.

It was hard to show people my art drafts because I’d instantly see what the end product is and when rearranging a room/decorating i would explain it whilst seeing that completed room. It’s good to see studies and acknowledgement about this.

My son is 9, and a few years ago he told me about his "super power" where he could see anything he thought about as if it was right in front of him, but transparent. I have spent a lot of time and effort looking into it, but didnt know where to begin or who to ask. Some people suggested that he was hallucinating, but I know that's not the case. He can control it and it doesnt hinder him in life in any way. If anything, it just helps him. He is very creative and intelligent. I finally came across your videos this morning after having looked deeply into different types of synesthesia and not finding anything that fit, which lead me to aphantasia/hyperphantasia research, where I eventually found your description of prophantasia and this is my son's "super power", 100%. He also can do it with music, it plays quietly like background noise when he projects it. I would love to hear from you because up until today, I never found anyone else who was even familiar with the phenomenon. If this finds you, please reach out to me.😊

I was drawing a lot as a child, and one thing I often did was to project something onto the paper and just trace the lines

This is the most articulate video I've ever seen on the nuances of 'visualisation'.

I can imagine things super detailed but it’s like inside the center of my head behind my eyes

i see it in my visual eyes and mind eyes, but i dont get the visual snow, its clear and i can make anything appear, i can even make it move in front of me, obviously its not there but i can look at my room and “see” people walking thru my door and talking to me, i see it without it being there. i really cant describe this. i imagine things in my head as if youre in a vivid dream. i also can create tastes, textures and scents. if i think of a banana, i can taste and smell it. i have synesthesia and an incredible memory i believe because of this. my first memory is at 10 months old because i have the visualization in my head in great detail, almost like a movie

This is incredibly insightful, thanks a bunch for this. I've been scouring the internet for examples of how to cultivate this skill and this is the best I've found so far!

Everything your working on here needs some serious funding your truly onto something

OK YOU BLEW MY MIND WHHHAAAAAT ive always been good at prophantasia and i tried explaining to a spiritualist that i could meditate with my eyes open easily and project and she looked at me confused and told me to close my eyes itll be easier , omg thankyou so much for breaking this down no wonder noone understands what im going on about

I just did an experiment with holographic visualization and I imagined something in front of me, like a piece of wood and the wood did literally block my vision of what was behind it. When I do it it's super easy though. It takes almost no effort. What's weird is if I try to make it more real it kind of hurts my head because it's already real enough. I have a block to purposely keep my imagination from being real. That would drive you crazy. But if I want to look at my wall and change it from brick to drywall to leaves I can change the wall in a split second and it mostly looks like a semi transparent image unless I chose to make it more solid, but that is a choice. I can also do it in my minds eye. Picturing things in reality is mostly for organizing or imagining the scale of things or imaging how something can change etc.

Hey Alec, we just talked, and I think this really explains my confusion, this is what I have been training, not my amphantasia! This is crazy!

I've been experiencing this since February 2019. I developed very strong visual snow CONSTANTLY after developing neurological complications from coronavirus. I find that if I meditate and imagine my mind walking back and back like a lens that was zoomed in slowly zooming out, that i'm able to hyper impose images after a few minutes. Last night, I was able to open my eyes and see my cat's face in front of me like a hologram after imagining that he was in front of me. Even though he was laying right next to me out of vision.

I’ve started drawing them , usually it’s a combination of real life of visions intertwined. But I love to know more on the subject. I’ve only just found out what aphantasia was yesterday!

Your work is incredible! Thank you so much! I started researching for my self since I had some profound accidental experiences lately without practicing. Keep on going and have a look into the work of mark komissarow, and the Indonesian merpati putih system, MP USA has quite some videos here on RU-vid. Children learn this ability in notime! I remember doing it when I was a child, but it got lost during the distracting experience called life.

Wow. Thank you so much for answering big questions for me!!!! I think I have Aphantasia? I'm hoping to visualize someday still. I thought people counting sheep was just an expression and I honestly don't have an image of my loved ones, or anyone in my head. I remember parts of what they look like and piece the idea of them together.

Your awesome and thank you so much.

I’ve been able to do that since I was little, it’s not extremely vivid like some people but I can decorate my house before I buy a thing from Amazon 😆. I have a hard time projecting images when I close my eyes though, I basically have to day dream on purpose. It has helped tremendously with grad school because visual representation is awesome and easy to remember.

Ughhh I want this so badly, Aphantasia sucks man. Ive only just found your channel and it's so cool ,it's awesome seeing someone that's so devoted to helping . Not tryna sound like a simp but I hope your work gets the recognition it deserves and that I can learn to drop this crap

Once I was asleep and I had direct access to my brain and everything was more colourful and vivid. It was like watching something in 4080p instead of 1080p but then I moved the imagery around in my mind and I freaked out which woke me up.

Ive always said my thoughts are like a movie playing on the back of my eyelids, and I love to envision in real-time

Thank you🙌🏼

so basically i can make my hand look like chrome if i could project images through my mind? wow i didn’t know that it was this intense for some people. I’m definitely missing out!

I'm sure I'll get there at some point. Until then, just gotta keep practicing.

This will happen to me sometimes, usually not at will and not something i pick. The first time was just a fire moving around

This makes perfect sense. I can experienced prophantasia for a moment with my eyes closed but it’s extremely brief (l’ve experienced more advanced forms of prophantasia but not without cheating lol). I feel like I experience hyperphantasia when I’m daydreaming. For example, while driving (dangerous I know) I might blank out and start making up some scenario in my mind and become so focused on it I forget what I’m doing. While in that state of mind my visual imagination becomes more vivid than my physical sight but I’m obviously still seeing what I’m looking at because I’m reacting to my visual stimuli. Under normal conditions, the visuals in my mind’s eye are grayish and blurry especially when I try to visualize something on purpose. The only thing that find hard to comprehend is how someone with normal physical sight can completely lack a visual imagination. That’s like mental blindness. Another thing I find interesting is that some people lack an inner monologue which to me sounds like mental deafness. I wonder what it’s like to have no inner monologue and aphantasia. Must be peaceful lol

I feel like I could have aphantasia, profantasia, hyperphantasia, and phantasia all at once loool

I definitely have decent while mostly low functioning (remembering images with my eyes open or in thought) phantasia. I don't have prophantasia and I wouldn't say I have hyperphantasia. When I close my eyes and look in my blank/dark visual field, I see spontaneous movement with occasional colors and outlines. It has always been difficult for me to manipulate my dreams and visual thoughts ever since I was a kid. I would daydream cartoons, but I think that was more phantasia/perhaps hyperphantasia as it would be more in my head than like a layer over my vision. I also just found out that my best friend has aphantasia, too, and now everything makes sense for her.

Saw the entire directors cut of Gone With The Wind in my head while trying to make it through this video 🤣🤦🏼‍♀️

If I am correct with my assumptions this sounds like when you’ve possibly been in a hypnogic state of half sleep half wake and your transitioning over to dream and any slight thought of something specific brings you directly into that scene as if you were really there except people are doing this in a more awakened state. Very interesting sounds awesome. Also would be of great help for manifesting ! You my friend have sparked a nother flame on me. I’ve learnt telekinesis which is a good ability to see for your self how powerful you are but this right here…. It actually can have some real world applicable use in terms of manifesting !

Omg! This is what it's like for me!! Ill end up spacing out imagining things with my eyes open and i end up i think my eyes might go crossed or something because i snap back into reality and i sometimes cant remember where my mind went but i can see full scenes and sometimes real life scenarios right infront of me like a projection

i have aphantasia unfortunately but a couple days ago i was just trying to sleep then i saw something!! it was really blurry but you could tell what it was and i saw colors too. i was so excited about it so i only saw it for like a few seconds then it went away. but man it was the best thing ever. visualization is such a gift. btw does this mean if i practice i can start to 'see' things?

I've watched a ton of your videos and I am very curious if you might have some insights for me. Through my own journey I've found a lot of the same tips/keys which you discuss such as finding and learning the altered state's feeling and using that feeling to reproduce the state that enables visualizations, but I haven't been able to make any real progress yet since I hit a roadblock right after. I'm a full congenital aphantasiac (unable to recreate or alter any sense or sensation in the mind since birth) and I've spent about five years now practicing and experimenting with trying to develop my "mind's sight" - and by that I mean I've been trying almost daily to develop the start of everything from hypnagogia to internal visualization to projection to imagination itself. In addition to aphantasia I also have SDAM, which means I cannot even recall my past experiences from memory to be experienced again - I only semantically "know" that I've done or experienced something in the past and I can't relive it to any degree. I can't bring to mind my spouse's appearance from memory if I'm not looking at them, not even to describe it in words, but I never have trouble recognizing people because appearances are remembered like flavors are remembered for me - I can't describe what a strawberry tastes like besides "sweet and fragrant and wet" and I can't taste strawberries in my mind whenever I want, but I always remember what strawberry tastes like when I'm tasting it. I'm also neurodivergent/autistic and don't have a functional non-visual imagination either - I've never played pretend or had an imaginary friend or been able to come up with details about a hypothetical scenario or even create a hypothetical or fantasy narrative when prompted to, my mind just goes and remains blank when I try. I've also tried several "image streaming" techniques but I haven't been able to induce any image/shape/light or "visual sensation" to my internal mind's eye (black screen) or to my closed eye vision or to my open-eye visual field. I didn't dream at all for the first 33 years of my life until I participated in a psychedelics study hoping it would jump-start my ability to visualize, but despite more than ten doses I never experienced any hallucinations or visual effects or euphoria, however, I've vividly dreamed every night since that study over two years ago. Where I got stuck: During my final psychedelics study's trip I managed to "locate" my mind's eye - I was able to turn my attention to it for the first time ever! Nothing was displayed there, but I learned the "feeling" of the state of mind or altered state of consciousness where I can perceive my mind's eye, and since then I've learned to access/reproduce that feeling at will which in turn shifts my attention away from my visual field and to my mind's eye whenever I try. The problem: I can't hold my focus onto my mind's eye for more than 1/4sec at a time. It's not long enough to really do or perceive anything there and I haven't yet figured out how to keep my attention there for longer than a split second. When I reproduce the feeling again after my perception of my mind's eye slips away it just goes back to a blank black mind's eye screen. I've tried everything from meditation to drugs to hypnosis to binaural beats to retinal pulsed light stimulation, etc, to extend the time I can look at my mind's eye or to increase the level of detail I can perceive there. It's taken more than 5 years but I can now visualize a blank white or solid light-color background or a single projected light-colored line to my mind's eye for 1/4sec at a time. I feel like I could really begin to develop my mind's sight and at least partially cure my aphantasia if I could find a way to stare at my mind's eye for however long I want to. Any tips?

Sir, do you have email where I can send some questions to?

I still don't fully get the difference, always viewed them as one and the same, but if some people only have one of them understanding the difference could be useful XD Is mind's eye view kind of like when you look at stuff but don't see it? So for example if i glance over a table while thinking of something else, i can see it, seemingly in detail, but I don't like observe it. It's as if I think that I see the table, but don't actually SEE it. I can see the whole picture and how it fits together but not actually the details (omg communication is so difficuly when trying to describe subjective thought). On the other hand, prophantasia would be like me staring at the table while focusing (also can't SEE the whole table, only a small fragment, but that could be related to adhd). Does that sound about right?

I think people who say they see things exactly the same way in their mind as seeing it in reality are full of it. There is a physical/mechanical component to an eye that makes that possible. The brain can't just conjure that up. Seeing without actually seeing is more of an accurate statement.

Is there a limit until which prophantasia can extend? The example with triangle the roof of this ability or you can go further?

So one day I was randomly dozing off in a class a couple of years ago and this eye ball in the static popped out at me and now anytime I look if I want to see said eyeball I just think about it and I see it in my physical vison thought I was going crazy or something at first loll

I don't understand, I thought this was normal thing that all humans do! I don't understand how it is unusual!

i experienced this before everything thing kinda shrunk and was in front of it was col but i could only see smal blurry green dots on black. because I have aphantasia

Hello, do you know if the cognitive function stack by Jung is influenced by this? Im an INFP and can imagine everything inside my head, and can even walk trough these remembered worlds. But i cannot project it outwards. Maybe extraverted functions Will allow this more?

I’ve always thought this was so normal, and everyone did this on the daily and naturally just projected things all the time and lived in their imagination. Finally have a word to describe my weird imagination as 😂

It helps for me to phantasie all senses. A yidam practice I do has a long phase of imagine your self at a specific place. When I start to hear the place, feel it on the skin and so on, my actual vision can get superimposed by my mental image. But not that clearly. Can one train that?

i heard abt aphantasia like 2 days ago and now after watching this video i'm confused if i have aphantasia or prophantasia it's a really subjective topic bc we can't see the world like anyone else do. these make me think we won't understand this completely but i hope we can also for me i imagine things but see darkness if it makes sense

So what do you think visual snow might be? I'm curious to know cause I've been thinking about my visual snow for the past 6 months 😅

great visualization and great content. i have 100% afantasia (atm) and i 'm on the autistic spectrum. I just can't imagine that I'll ever be able "to do" phantasia or propantasia. But it's really helpful to know what's possible and to understand other people. Is it possible that having 100% aphantasia is actually autism and what I understand as 100% aphantasia is actually the inability to prophantasia. Greetings from Germany

Wow ive done this a few times only when very relaxed and I see my cat 🐈‍⬛ I just thought it was a pre-dream lol . Can people really learn to do this at will? I totally want to try, that’d be awesome

Hey, I have a question since some things aren't clear to me so much. So someone with Hyperphantasia don't actually see anything as in real life, but just thinks about how something will look like. While an Aphant wouldn't know/remember how something will even look like. I'm confused, because while I can construct in my mind let's say an inner room and start inserting furniture in that space I can't actually see it, I can also imagine a coordinate system, draw a line with certain degree, and if it lands on X=21, I know where it will land on Y, just by imagining at where the line goes visually, but again, I don't actually see the graph infronnt of me. I can also 'listen' to long sequences of songs in my imagination, but I'm not actually hearing them. In your representation at 6:00 you present a cat in the mind's eye, and blur on the sides, while you're saying the color is getting blurred around the edges. It looks to me what you said to be prophantasia. Because if I imagine a cat now, all I imagine is a Gray Siamese cat, but only his face and he looks forward, he doesn't move uncontrollably and there's no background, like what you presented. I can add detail, move it, rotate it, but unrelated details never come in unless I choose to insert it, so when people imagine things they see blur around the edges? doesn't that mean that they 'actually see' a picture. I would be glad if you can elaborate that topic :D. I also was playing with after-images as an attempt to develop my mind's eye (which I thought is actually seeing things, like what you describe in Prophantasia). I sometime barely see phosphenes and buzzing due to that exercise. Is that what's called really low on the spectrum of Prophantasia?

What are the differences between prophantasia and schizophrenia? Are they both connected or totally different thing?

What's really interesting for me is that since all of the things I imagine in my mind's eye are in 3d (don't know if that's common or not), I can move the location of those 3d objects to no longer be behind my line of vision but to be somewhere in the real world. I don't think it's quite the same as imagining the real world in my minds eye and then placing the object in that. Everything I imagine has a location, it just defaults to behind my plane of vision, usually inside my physical head but it could be anywhere including places I can and can't see but it's always relative to my own position (I can't imagine something in a coffee shop unless I am there or imagine the rest of the coffee shop here). But it's still not actual prophantasia because I'm never really seeing it, it's not even multiple layers like if you have one eye seeing a different thing than another. It's just not the same as real seeing even though it's perfectly imagined and I can manipulate it and change it or whatever I want, other than it really being there. If I close my eyes, I see black plus some other somewhat random colors. If I concentrate really hard, I can get it to form a kind of a line in the noise and it is a completely different experience to imagining something which is exactly like that start of prophantasia that you described except that a triangle is way too complex, I can really only do lines that cross my entire vision and maybe a spot in the middle.

I'm curious to know, do you have a podcast?

What if a person can see actual imagery onto their closed eyelids? Not just an object but a full fledged scenario playing out like a film, and even imagining/feeling all 5 senses during it. Is that hyperphantasia or prophantasia?

Is it possible to fool your other senses as well? Smell, hearing, touch etc

So, if you can see a triangle in your mind, that's Phantasia? But if you can imagine a triangle on a wall, it's now called Prophantasia? So, wouldn't the largest % of people with any of these levels from aphan to hyper be the "norm" and those lacking, have a "disorder"? Also, I can't find anything on the levels? of hyperphantasia. I can create scenes where I interact with people, who would give me a range of possible responses based on what how I feel they could react. It's not just a movie scene. There can be feeling touch and smell, as well as overall emotional feeling. Exactly like it happened. I'm very aware of the difference. Like it's in a separate "file folder" than in person vision. Kinda like imagining chess moves, except with voice inflection and tones, almost like you can feel you're actually there, describing the "scene". I say scene, because I can't see everything. Just what's in the context of my focus. It's 100% controllable, also. Which, is hopefully why I'm not all the way crazy. Lol!

From 'practice' I can see a very very faint visual change when I try to project items, but its still quite bad for me. By contrast if I were to imagine my cat I could call to mind a specific picture of my cat in my room and various details and etc. However in all cases my imagination is not very "solid" or permanent. Even if I can see a faint staticky image of a triangle on the wall it will float around, or twist out of shape. In my mind's eye things will appear and disappear and move at their own will. Any face I try to imagine will melt or distort itself. Idk what that means but it could be my ADHD 😭

As someone with aphantasia I can still not understand how seeing in your mind's eye might be but prophantsia makes more sense? I can see the black and I can try (and fail) to create an image there so is this the way to go? First try to imagine in the black, then in the mind? I'm also wondering if people are seeing things in their minds, isn't that dangerous???? I now see everyone as dangerous, especially when driving. It's crazy to me that people go around seeing things other than what they see with their eyes :D

Okay, is it possible to have both the field of vision and the minds eye. Cuz I never realised I have been doing this from childhood. Especially when I go out for shopping dress, I see myself wearing the dress, even before buying it, with the same field of vision and if I close my eyes it changes to my mind vision. Even falling asleep my mind need it's own imaginary story telling to fall asleep 🥲😂. My most favourite is seeing myself in space 🚀 😂

OK, I Close my eye and I can't see any image, nor a sent in my mind, nor music in my mind. however, I can project a very weak transparent image in my field of view with my eyes open. So this looks like prophantasia while i also have aphantasia.

so I could also project my visuals from the mental to physical eye but... It doesn't really feel real as prophantasia soooo what does that makes me?

Hi! 👋 Can you link to the discord server? I can’t find it.

Are there any advantages to this?

when i was at elementary school i look at the stacikly table and i see some thing

i can copy the thing i see in my mind and move them like some game or like fortnight

Do you guys have a discord server?

I think most people can do holographic image projection. How else would you look at a room and imagine what it looks like with different furniture or rearrange the current furniture without actually doing it. It's very common to assume people can do this so it must be very common. I wonder though.

how? I just wanna imagine things I can see a see red star but I can't? I can but I can't see it

i just wanna get hypnotized since i cant do anything in quarantine

I have pondered about your videos. Not that I want to find a fault. But something felt not alright. And then I got it. The mind is not the brain or the intellect. The mind is a fusion of feelings (heart) and thoughts. Therefore when we imagine something in the minds-eye we cannot locate the minds-eye. The minds eye is not somewhere in the head. It is a part of our whole being. We need not to close our eyes to see things. But when we „see“ things than all our senses, feelings, memories, consciousness and subconciousness are included. So my whole being is involved in this process.

I'm really good at this. I'm now also developing this geometrical yoga style thing and it really helps me to enhance the hyperphantasia also if you are a Christian and by the way I am. I am getting really close to the Holy spirit and am now using hyperphantasia in my prayer warrior life. And the truth is I could give Stephen king a run for his money on it. I can visualize the demons and smack them in the name of Jesus.. please repent and He will free you. And he will prove to you that he is really God Because folks hell is a very real place. Please think about it.. He loves you so much and no matter how dirty and unclean you feel. He longs for you. He died a horrific death for you. The cross smothers you. I'm not sorry that I'm being forward with you. I love you too and if I didn't love you I wouldn't say anything. I owe Jesus my eternal soul and his Love is pure bliss. Please listen God Loves you more than you can imagine. Yes. You

I have hyperphantasia

Very interesting that, like with prophantasia, visual snow may also be present in the onset of schizophrenia. Personally, I think humanity is going to owe a huge, heartfelt apology to people with schizophrenia and psychosis in general; but that’s a story for another day.

so why are they creating augmented reality glasses if ppl can do this in their brains???!

Lecoq de boisbaudran

I thought everyone could do that lol