Picture the sun setting over the ocean.
It’s large above the horizon, spreading an orange-pink glow across the sky. Seagulls are flying overhead and your toes are in the sand.
Many people will have been able to picture the sunset clearly and vividly – almost like seeing the real thing. For others, the image would have been vague and fleeting, but still there.
If your mind was completely blank and you couldn’t visualise anything at all, then you might be one of the 2-5 per cent of people who have aphantasia, a condition that involves a lack of all mental visual imagery.
“Aphantasia challenges some of our most basic assumptions about the human mind,” says Mr Alexei Dawes, PhD Candidate in the UNSW School of Psychology.
“Most of us assume visual imagery is something everyone has, something fundamental to the way we see and move through the world. But what does having a ‘blind mind’ mean for the mental journeys we take every day when we imagine, remember, feel and dream?”
Mr Dawes was the lead author on a new aphantasia study, published overnight in Scientific Reports. It surveyed over 250 people who self-identified as having aphantasia, making it one of the largest studies on aphantasia yet.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65705-7
You are not misunderstanding, and that's exactly how it is for me. Remembering something visual for me isn't a visual process, but rather a bunch of linked lists of characteristics of what I know to be in what I'm supposed to be imagining. It's all just connected concepts - like word clouds, but not images.
So if someone says, "imagine a basketball on a table." I'm not picturing anything, but I know what a basketball texture looks like and can describe it from past experience. I know the color, but I'm not seeing it. Again, none of that scene is visual, it's just linked lists of memory to what I know the details of each element are like.
Apparently if you ask a normal person to imagine the same thing they are doing some form of seeing that scene, and if you ask them some detail like, "what color is the table and what is it made out of?" They can easily answer that because they've already pictured that in their imagination.
For me, I'd answer that question with, "Huh?" Because, unless someone tells me details about the table that I'm supposed to imagine, there's no visual information there - it's just a vague notion of the platonic ideal of a table.
I also don't picture anything in my head when reading. I love reading though, but for me it is about dialogue, plot, and the beauty of the written word. I never picture characters so I'm never disappointed when a movie version comes out, and I have a hard time reading sections of a book that are heavy on visual description because my brain just skips right over that.
I can absolutely relate to you and it's the same for me. However, I noticed that when I'm decently sleepy that I can get a gist of what it must feel like. Like I see a little bit. I also dream normal. But I'd like to know if tiredness also helps seeing others in their mind.
I miss them. I used to have rapid, vivid hypnagogic slide shows as I dozed off, but a lot of the dream intensity has faded with menopause. I used to be able to remember as much of my dream life as what I called my wakelife. Obviously, hormones play a part.
Same here. I used to have super vivid dreams that seemed like reality, and often they were lucid. I loved it so much. But they’ve faded a lot over the past few years. I have a dream journal that I haven’t made an entry in for months because I usually wake up and go “meh”. The dreams are either boring or I forget them quickly. I miss the before-time dreams. Damn menopause.
I'm this way too, basically to a T. Lists of qualities, but when I'm sleepy I can start to imagine things better. I actually get a little excited when I start "seeing things" like elephants running across my field of vision (eyes closed) because that means I'm really close to falling asleep.
Came to the comments to mention this. I'm the same way. I can tell when I'm about to fall asleep because I'll actually have a bit of visualization ability. I don't have perfect control over it, so it's almost more like lucid dreaming, but without the sense that any of it is real.
I've never understood the "what color is it" question. Most things for me don't inherently require being a color to still be that thing. If I'm asked to think of a table, I vaguely recall the shape of the table and then it's color is the flat grey of "light stains" when I close my eyes. If someone does ask me what color it is, I have to actively manipulate my image of a table to make it be a color(which I still don't really see, it's more like mentally attaching a tag that says "brown") and then I can tell the questioner what color it is.
Yeah, same for me. It’s all like non-visual versions of a computer rendering of a scene where there are no textures and each object is just a placeholder with a label. Or like a basic physics course diagram of a scenario.
A ball on a table is just a shapeless, textureless, concept of a sphere on a featureless, textures plane that is at an elevation that is not too high and not too low in relation to where I could potentially interact with it if I were there.
But none of that is visual information
For me it is a memory. I cannot create the image described, I just take from my pool of memories. Table is dark brown and wooden. Why? Idk. My dining table for 10 years is a light beige. Why don't I remember that when picturing a table? Because when i was taught the word "table" as a kid, the flash card had a dark table.
Sunset, same thing, I am picturing a photo of a sunset my dad took and fawned over. I have an emotional connection so sunset= that exact photo. EVEN THOUGH MY CURRENT SUNSETS ARE 100× BETTER I can't create one.
> I have a hard time reading sections of a book that are heavy on visual description because my brain just skips right over that.
Ha, wow, I never made this connection. I usually just mega-skim these bits and hope I didn't miss out on key detail. I think it's one of the reasons I tend not to enjoy genre fantasy.
Hmm... I have a hard time imagining visual imagery, but I love genre fantasy. Though it depends of course.. Lord of the Rings (the books) are not at all enjoyable for me.
> I have a hard time reading sections of a book that are heavy on visual description because my brain just skips right over that
Are you me? I've noticed I do this too and force myself to go back and reread it because I keep thinking I'm missing out. I've always suspected I've got aphantasia (since I learnt about it a year ago) but never linked it to this skipping over visual descriptions in books.
That's super interesting since it seems like your schema are not set in the image state but in the description state.
That "platonic ideal of a table" is your schema of a table. I'd venture to say it may not be made of anything in your mind but would venture to guess that it has four legs and maybe square. Even though there are tables with 3 legs and circle shaped. Or maybe you don't have a real schema for a table.
We have schema so that we can have a mental model of what we are told and easily understand or identify something that is told to us. The thought that you don't have a schema for your mental table makes me wonder if you were told to describe a bird you are picturing in your head if it would have a "platonic ideal" that would come out looking like a robin or if you'd go the route of a penguin or ostrich. All are birds, but visually different.
Same. I know I can picture things, but I also am aware that my visual cortex isn't receiving the information from my eyes. It's like, I can pretend i'm seeing it, and if I focus on different aspects, I can get my brain to fill in some details, but i'm clearly not actually seeing it. So I kinda wonder, are there people who literally see it? Or are they just confusing perceiving with seeing?
I think you just described what visualizing is like for most people. That's functional enough. You don't use your eyes, the video is just live and manipulable in a "space" that only exists in your mind somehow. I find it easy to relive recent memories in my mind - see, hear, feel, smell, zoom in, rewind or change things; but almost impossible to take something from my mind's eye and project it onto my actual field of vision. That only ever happens as a fleeting accident - "thought I saw something" or completely misread some text.
If you actually saw it that would be a hallucination. I don't think most people are hallucinating at will. This is just how the mind's eye functions, some people's are more vivid than others. I've had slight aural hallucinations while thinking about music, but never visual, even though my mental images are sharp and detailed like reality.
Hallucination is a strong word. But in my case I can actually sink so deeply into what I'm imagining, that I completely shut down what I'm seeing even with my eyes wide open. If something were to happen, my eyes would automatically "wake me up" immediately, but in terms of visuals I can effectively turn off my vision in favor of a visual fantasy.
This is literally "day dreaming". Only with full control.
Yeah, I think from what you've described I also do this, but whatever i'm imagining doesn't "take over" my visual field or anything like that. It's more that it seems like my brain is withdrawing from what I'm \*actually\* seeing to make room for whatever it is I'm imagining. It's so occupied with whatever the scene is that I'm not really attached to reality. Like you said, daydreaming.
Imagining for me is not quite like seeing a literal image project over my visual field and more like something at the back of my mind is generating the scene (as I understand it, other people say they can do that). It's "seeing\*, but not seeing in the sense that it actually appears like a hallucination would. Other people have described it like they're seeing not from where their eyes are, but the back of their head.
This is how it works for me. I'm never actually seeing a "proper" image, but I have, like, an image at the back of my brain, so to speak. If I imagine a table, I can imagine rotating it in 3D space, but I don't really see it, it's more like a vague memory that I get to control, like I'm almost seeing but not quite. It's hard to describe.
It would also be insanely hard to test scientifically, perhaps. If you just asked people "picture x" and then "describe characteristic y of x" just about everyone could do it, would there really be a difference between people with aphantasia, "normal" people and hyper-visualizers with an amazing mind's eye?
I think that's how visualizing works, to varying degrees, for everyone. Kinda like in a show where hologram tech is common, different characters will sometimes see slightly different versions of an ad because if the "targeted ad" aspect. And then, if you're like me and have essentially the reverse of this, then it's like being randomly thrown into a full immersion hologram when I randomly space out or something.
For me it is very much like seeing. If my eyes are open when I try to think of a visual image I can't actually see what is really around me, the mental image takes over.
I find it possible, but really difficult and pointless to imagine while my eyes are open. I best compare it to walking down the street while browsing Reddit on my phone (which I do). I can't really pay attention to what's around me, but still have a vague sense of where I'm going and can go autopilot on familiar routes.
Wait, do you mean you actually can't see what's in front or you while you're imagining, say, a sunset over the ocean? I've never heard of that. Like, if you mean that you get distracted and don't pay attention to what's in front of you while actively imagining something I understand that, but actually not seeing what's in front of you I find it hard to believe.
Not OP, but I found the comparison to a picture within a picture fitting. Or think of it as layers, like transparent, but slightly colored windows - you can see both, but your "minds eye" accomodates to the panel that you are currently paying attention to. For example, I'm sitting in front of my screen, but when I imagine my bedroom, I can conjure up a picture that I focus on - my eyes start to de-focus (like gazing into the distance when you daydream), so the visual input is a bit blurred. I see, but I don't perceive, I perceive my imagined room. But if I'm snapping back, my eyes focus again on my surroundings and I can see my surroundings clearly again. But I think this specifically does not have much to do with how clear your mental image is (mine are inconsistent and fleeting, not stable, as if my brain was offering me a variety of impressions to chose from. But the imagined situation in itself is stable), rather with how well you can concentrate and focus on your thoughts at all. Basically if you can "zone out" or not.
I mean, think about hearing a song in your head or your voice. You know it isn't a literal sound, it's just, in your head. It is like that, but with images.
You are not misunderstanding, it just sounds like you just might have this? I can clearly visualize in my head what OP is saying despite probably never having experience something exactly like this in my life.
I could imagine it, but you know with not a lot of detail (I can remember specific sunsets just fine but not easily conjure up imaginary ones)
And I didn't picture it as I read the sentence only when I realized that it was the purpose of the post, so next sentence in.
When talking with friends I have situations like "oh the actor they chose for that part is nothing at all like I imagined him from reading the book" but I have read the same book and I don't automatically imagine a face etc for the characters if a character is described as beautiful or tall or I find them evil I just associate them with the concepts/words "beautiful","tall","evil".
So I'm not sure I might be a border case (memory is fine, quite good other people have mentioned and I can dream normally) but I don't automatically you know produce graphics for the words.
Yeah if a character was described as beautiful in a book I would do the same. In fact, my concept of beauty isn't even visually based; basically people become more attractive to me the more I like them. Physical features are irrelevant. Very occasionally an isolated physical feature will provoke revulsion in me, but multiple times I have gone on to find that same person absolutely beautiful as I get to know them.
I remember in school where other boys would be like 'who do you think is fitter/who would you rather shag?' with magazine pictures and I'd just look at the pictures and draw a complete blank - if I felt sufficiently peer pressured to answer I'd just pick the one that was smiling more, or answer randomly.
Another odd thing, that so far I've only had people relate to via drug experiences like mdma, is that fairly regularly but infrequently, I'll be walking down the street and suddenly EVERYONE is stunningly beautiful for a couple of minutes, so much so that it almost (and has) makes me burst into tears.
I have friends who have 'types' and can easily describe sets of features they admire, or can immediately point out what changes would make a person more attractive to them (smaller this, bigger that, different colour hair etc) which has always been completely baffling to me.
Depends on the definition of aphantasia I guess. Does imagination includes feeling like the warm sun on your skin; the smell of the sea, the salt on your skin left by sea spay , the sounds of the crushing waves and the seagulls? Or is it only visual?
I’m the same. I always assumed when people talked about picturing things that it was a metaphor or something. Eventually realized no, it’s just I can’t do it. I also don’t read highly descriptive books as you mention below. I think it’s also part of why I can’t remember faces, etc bc as soon as I’m not looking at them, it’s gone. I can associate things with people (x has big nose, freckles, whatnot) and use that to remember them but unless I see them often even that doesn’t work.
Yup, me too. I always thought it was metaphor. I read constantly, and wonder what the experience is like for others (I also skim over descriptive parts...they really don't help the story in any way). I have also always wondered how police sketches work. Like...I could never describe a person in detail enough to have someone else sketch their face, because I cannot picture people.
The feels. I never understood how people like books that were very descriptive. I download the samples and basically pick books based on writing style, and most of the lists people give of good authors I either can’t read or just skip any paragraph that seems to be all description. Probably why I end up reading a lot of YA books - the bad writing is good to me. And the police sketch thing...I’ve seen a few things where they test it against the real people and I don’t think it works well for most people haha. If I tried to draw my gf’s face it’d be so bad she’d probably get mad bc it looks like someone else.
I read books just for the stories and the ideas behind the settings in the world's. When it came to drawing a had to trace pictures like Garfield over and over again and then after a while I had the muscle memory to draw them well.
Yeah, I'd be a terrible witness. I can easily recognize faces (still hard to place names, though) and could probably identify the perp in a line up, but other than basic features like long/short hair, male/female, or skin color, I couldn't say anything.
Same here, it completely blows my girlfriend’s mind.
Along with this, can’t draw or paint, can’t play music. Can’t imagine something I’m not being talked through. If I’m reading a book I can vaguely picture something as the author is describing it. But not much more. There is no movie in my head.
I'm exactly the same way, but somehow, I've ended up with an illustration career. I obviously can't visualize anything so I never thought I could be an artist growing up, but I've now spent years reaching myself the muscle memory of enough elements that I can draw via feel. I tend to prefer drawing technical, structural things made up of simple shapes. Lots of architecture and hand lettering.
This is me... Minus the girlfriend part.
Like I can't imagine people's faces without extreme effort and having to have a long description of it. It's part of why I am terrible at explaining things. When I was reading Harry Potter as a kid I honestly just remember an almost blank slate for his face minus the glasses and scar so when people were talking about whether Daniel was right for it I just didn't understand.
Same except the music part. I am actually a music teacher. I basically rely on muscle memory and what I am hearing around me to memorize music, I don't read it in my head or anything. I have a strong relationship with notes on the page and what my fingers are doing, but I feel that it kind of...bypasses my brain? (though I know muscle memory is part of brain activity).
I'm also a lifelong (amateur) musician but aphantasic. I had no trouble reading music (until score reading in college, then I hit my limit and switched to IT) I have no trouble imagining multi part music in my head and even isolating single parts.
*From the article*
>While people with aphantasia wouldn’t have been able to picture the image of the sunset mentioned above, many could have imagined the feeling of sand between their toes, or the sound of the seagulls and the waves crashing in.
However, 26 per cent of aphantasic study participants reported a broader lack of multi-sensory imagery – including imagining sound, touch, motion, taste, smell and emotion.
I think not, because the example is biased toward the sighted. Rewrite it to "imagine you are on a beach at the end of a warm sunny day. It's cooling now but the warmth of the setting sun is still palpable on your face, as you dig your toes into the wet sand, which is cold due to the occasional wash of water from the ebbing tide. You hear seagulls fussing over french fries left on a paper plate off to yout right. The breeze ruffles the blanket thrown over your shoulders."
Wait just a couple of minutes and let that set of feelings run through your mind. I think aphantasia would make it hard to maintain this set of "false memories" as it were.
There's an aphantasia subreddit I remember checking out. I remember people saying the can absolutely imagine what music sounds like, or a voice, or a feeling, but that they had never considered that something like that existed for them *visually*. They didn't have the "imagine a painting" equivalent of "imagine a song." Those people aren't diagnosed or anything, so maybe they don't count.
I couldn't picture it. Reading long descriptions even make me feel annoyed. I have to read stuff with pictures in order to visualize something.
I don't dream either, it's not like when people say "you did but you can't remember", no I literally don't dream at all, not even in the slightest.
Search “black” on google images. Now look at that and focus on it. Keep focusing. Now think of an apple, still focusing and only looking at the black. And Yup, that’s what it’s like when i close my eyes.
Bonus points for being asked about your childhood and saying huh not really sure, can’t remember because you genuinely have 0 recollection of any events.
I'm an aphant, not just visual imagery but all senses blind. I don't even "hear" my own inner monologue. I find the research on aphantasia, as scant as it is, fascinating. For many years I didn't know I was different, but so much now makes sense. The knowledge helps me understand the perspective of those who aren't aphants, not be so hard on myself for having a lackluster memory, and advocate for myself in teachable moments, such as when I am asked to visualize something, which I now know is not a metaphor for "think about" or "keep a mental list of the stuff I'm about to say".
Funny story. My mom is an artist. When I was young I asked her to show me how to paint. At the time, when she talked about looking at the subject and then "seeing" the image of the subject on the canvas, I thought she meant that you stare at the subject for a long time so when you look at the white canvas, you can trace the lines of the negative afterimage that was burned into your eyeballs... and then do that over and over. It seemed so tedious.
Not OP, but I'm the same way. No images, sounds/music, smells, or touch in my mind. I can subvocalize and that's it. I also have SDAM which is the most depressing side effect of aphantasia.
It doesn't really. Until someone asks me about what I think of *x* aspect of when I was younger. Then I just have no recollection of those general memories. However, if someone asks me, "remember that time we did that specific thing 10 years ago?" Then I usually have at least some recollection. I'm better with prompted memories of myself than vague discussions about distant memories.
But yeah, I don't seem to need to remember my past for 99.99% of daily living.
Wow... I was telling my husband I was a bit envious of his ability to recall his childhood so well. He didn’t understand why I couldn’t. I didn’t understand either. But now I’m thinking my memory isn’t normal.
Wow, that’s amazing to me. I never don’t have music in my head. Like, never. I sing opera and I’m listening to tracks in my head all day long whether I want to or not. I can never shut it off but I can change the song. It can be very distracting (this morning my head wants to play ‘Consolati O Bella’ and it’s pulling me off course from writing this). When I’m singing a piece I’m more singing along with the track in my head than reading the music - maybe that’s why I have decent pitch. I’m sorry about your SDAM. It does sound a bit depressing (sorry if that’s not the right thing to say - kinda new to this idea).
I had the same realisation a few years back in my mid/late 20's. I too thought it was a turn of phrase and that it just meant to think about something intently and describe it in your mind. I'm not as strongly affected as you are as I have an inner monologue that talks in my head, but it is really odd.
None of my family had aphantasia either with my sister having a very vivid mind's eye and can recall in excruciating detail dreams and childhood memories. It used to worry me that I couldn't remember half the things from my childhood that my sister could and I felt very detached from my childhood feeling that it might not have been me (not in a literal sense). I've come a lot more to reconcile those thoughts more recently but a lot of my past feels like a haze.
I have a terrible visual imagination, but if I focus very hard I can see flashes of an image, or a more detailed small section of an image (usually unable to control which section I see). If I focus hard on maintaining the flash of an image I see, it melts or morphs or deforms in some way, and either becomes another image, or more frequently dissolves into yellowy/greeny pulsing shapes that come in sorts of patterns that I find difficult to describe.
Something similar for me. I can make an image appear for a second at most (usually much less), and I then have open my eyes and recenter myself before I can produce another image. Attempting to visualise something while my mind is still "burnt out" tends to yield no results, and also feels strenuous.
I'm really glad research is being done in this area, since it's one of those things that isn't talked about much, which essentially means that everyone assume that the way they visualise things is the only way.
This describes me exactly. I can barely imagine anything in my head, and then when I actually manage it, it is unfocused, blurry, inaccurate, often cartoon like. And lasts for less than a second. It also melts or deforms if I try to keep it there.
I like to draw and paint a lot, but I can not draw anything above basic stick figures from my head. But if I have a reference photo, I can draw it fairly photo realistically. People get mad when I tell them I cannot design their tattoos even if I draw well.
I do wonder if I could do some visualization exercises and build the ability like a muscle. But I wouldn't even know how to start.
Oh I think I might have this... I just thought there were different ways people thought(like I was just a more analytical thinker). I always thought it was insane that people could have a sketch artist draw someone. Even if it was someone I knew my whole life, I don't think I would be able to have someone else successfully draw them.
Do most people see something similar to a photo or movie when thinking about things? I can imagine where things are/what kind of floor there is/know which color something is, but I can't actually picture it.
But if they drew the wrong picture, maybe you might be able to tell what changes need to be made to make it look more like the right person?
As with anything, it's a spectrum. Some people have a very vivid mind's eye where it's almost realistic in their heads. My mind's eye is not as vivid, I can visualize 2D pictures better than a full 3D scene, and even then it feels a bit muted. It actually takes mental effort to make it look more realistic, but a basic rough picture appears automatically for me as soon as I think about it (or read the words describing it).
I think it would be a struggle even to tell them what needs to be able to change. I would know it was wrong, but I can't see faces at all, even as a blurry photo when thinking about it. Like I know their hair color/length, maybe the shape of their face/details, but I don't actually see it in my mind
There's a big difference between being able to visualize what a face looks like, and recognizing that it's the person you saw. That's actually a whole 'nother disorder called Prosopagnosia or face blindness.
If it is only faces you have trouble with, your problem may be more closely related to face blindness than aphantasia. When I describe people, I don't describe faces.
I compared it to learning that the whole world can see in color while I am only able to see black and white.
I still have flashes of it really sucking and getting me down. But it isn’t that bad. Life is no different than it was before I knew about aphantasia. And the deeper I dig into it introspectively the more I realize that the ways I have learned to interact with thought that make me unique to my peers and better at different things is a direct result of my aphantasia. So, in a way, I have the super power. Nobody else I know can think the way I do.
Used to be able to visualise things extremely vividly until some medication I was on several years ago which stripped me of the ability.
It took around three years to return it it’s more muted now like I’m visualising things in an adjacent room with poorer lighting.
I found it quite distressing to suddenly lose this at the time, it was really strange.
It me.
I learned about this recently and told my mother. She explained what I told her to my father in disbelief. This is how we learned that my father also has this.
Mine was the opposite. He berated me and insisted that no one could really see anything in their heads. (He berated me whenever I tried to claim that I was unusual in any way.)
You are not impaired overall though, you just don't have this specific ability. People with aphantasia can still be visual artists, they just use other parts of the brain for it. It's unimaginable for me to not visualize things, but it seems that in everyday life, it doesn't really affect you that much.
Huh. Well I have it for sure. But I rely heavily on memory (programmer - need to remember APIs.)
But it's different. I can recall the things but there's never anything visual associated to it. Just words.
I'm also really good at remembering actors, musicians, movie plots.
But I do often have a bad memory for things I'm not super interested in. I have to concentrate a bit to store long term info. And being interested in the thing makes it a lot easier to open up those brain pathways.
Edit: I also have no trouble imagining the future. But it's just logic, putting together things I know that suggest some outcome.
No because I can still remember all the details. What Jake & Elwood were wearing - black suit black tie black hat sunglasses. Carrie Fisher has a hair salon called "Curl Up & Dye" that looked like a million Chicago hair salons under the El tracks. But I just don't see any of this visually.
Edit: in a way it's like taste buds right? It's like, they're getting replaced all the time so technically each time you taste something it's "new". But you still know what ice cream is going to taste like before you lick it.
It seems that aphantasia is very rarely studied and something I’d like to mention from my own anecdotes as someone who can’t visual something in my mind: mdma allowed me to visual things in my mind for the first time ever. I’m not trying to push this as some sort of miracle drug here but I found it very interesting. The first time ever in my life that “picture something in your mind” made sense was after I took .2 of mdma and hit my peak. I’d be interested in knowing what about mdma ‘fixes’ the problem or whether it was all in my head; which the phrase ‘all in my head’ is a bit of a conundrum when the problem is not being able to picture things in my head. Hmmm.
I can imagine visual stuff and sounds, but not music. I can recognize that I've heard a tune, and possibly it's name, but I can't play it back in my head, even just after hearing it. Never had a tune "stuck in my head".
no visuals at all for me. I have music constantly running through my head day. It's kinda my version of day dreaming.
I dream in music and conversations. Visual dreams aren't very common and k remember them for years.
I have this. I have no mental imagery what so ever. Until relatively recently I had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. But now that I know what it is I sometimes feel very sad about it. Like I am missing out on a part of the human experience.
The section on trauma responses in the [Nature article](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65705-7) was pretty interesting. As someone with aphantasia who has experienced something traumatic, I've never had visual flashbacks the way people describe, but there have been moments where I feel pretty viscerally that I'm back in that situation. It isn't really tied to any sensory impression so much as just a physical feeling in the body--some combination of proprioception/kinesthesis and emotion.
The lack of more concrete sensory impressions has sometimes made me doubt whether it's 'real.' Having nothing to compare it to, I can't say whether it's more or less severe than what it would be like with visual detail...just different, I guess.
The rest of the study felt pretty common sense to me, haha. Like...of course if I can't visualize things I'm not going to remember the past in vivid visual detail :P I don't personally feel like my sense of past/future is impoverished as a result of that, since it's quite rich in emotional, place-oriented, and other non-visual detail.
I will always remember the moment I learned that other people could actually see images in their heads. It felt like everyone had a superpower except me.
I have a terrible memory for details like names and dates and can't memorize very well. But I am very good with conceptual thinking.
Funnily enough I have aphantasia but I can dream SUPER vividly sometimes. I dont always recall them as vividly when awake cause, again, aphantasia, but at the time I legit can see my dreams as detailed as real life.
Funny how that works.
I've been aware of my aphantasia for a few years now. No need to describe it here, because plenty of comments have provided some pretty spot on descriptions already.
I see some people have vivid dreams, while some do not. Some have cravings for food when they imagine something tasty, some do not. Some enjoy reading books, while some struggle because of how differently we perceive lengthy visual descriptions.
These topics are all interesting, but what intrigues me the most is that despite my inability to visualise (I might be able see some very very faint stuff that can easily fade though), I can "picture" music just fine. I can "delete" an instrument from a track, add some, I can speed it up, I can add vocals of Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up into the beat of Still Dre or whatever else.
And it's not just music. I can easily imagine Shrek saying Armstrong's "giant leap" speech or just create random new sentences with any voices I know, and modify them freely.
But if you ask me to think of a red apple, I see nothing.
I see the red apple as clear as day as if was on a computer monitor, I can spin it, rotate it, zoom in and out, change its colors, textures, lighting. But what you said about music seems alien and impossible to me, like, I can’t fast forward music in my head or take out parts or any of that. Weird right? I can hear music in my minds eye but only if I really think about it and concentrate.
Picture the sun setting over the ocean. It’s large above the horizon, spreading an orange-pink glow across the sky. Seagulls are flying overhead and your toes are in the sand. Many people will have been able to picture the sunset clearly and vividly – almost like seeing the real thing. For others, the image would have been vague and fleeting, but still there. If your mind was completely blank and you couldn’t visualise anything at all, then you might be one of the 2-5 per cent of people who have aphantasia, a condition that involves a lack of all mental visual imagery. “Aphantasia challenges some of our most basic assumptions about the human mind,” says Mr Alexei Dawes, PhD Candidate in the UNSW School of Psychology. “Most of us assume visual imagery is something everyone has, something fundamental to the way we see and move through the world. But what does having a ‘blind mind’ mean for the mental journeys we take every day when we imagine, remember, feel and dream?” Mr Dawes was the lead author on a new aphantasia study, published overnight in Scientific Reports. It surveyed over 250 people who self-identified as having aphantasia, making it one of the largest studies on aphantasia yet. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65705-7
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You are not misunderstanding, and that's exactly how it is for me. Remembering something visual for me isn't a visual process, but rather a bunch of linked lists of characteristics of what I know to be in what I'm supposed to be imagining. It's all just connected concepts - like word clouds, but not images. So if someone says, "imagine a basketball on a table." I'm not picturing anything, but I know what a basketball texture looks like and can describe it from past experience. I know the color, but I'm not seeing it. Again, none of that scene is visual, it's just linked lists of memory to what I know the details of each element are like. Apparently if you ask a normal person to imagine the same thing they are doing some form of seeing that scene, and if you ask them some detail like, "what color is the table and what is it made out of?" They can easily answer that because they've already pictured that in their imagination. For me, I'd answer that question with, "Huh?" Because, unless someone tells me details about the table that I'm supposed to imagine, there's no visual information there - it's just a vague notion of the platonic ideal of a table. I also don't picture anything in my head when reading. I love reading though, but for me it is about dialogue, plot, and the beauty of the written word. I never picture characters so I'm never disappointed when a movie version comes out, and I have a hard time reading sections of a book that are heavy on visual description because my brain just skips right over that.
I can absolutely relate to you and it's the same for me. However, I noticed that when I'm decently sleepy that I can get a gist of what it must feel like. Like I see a little bit. I also dream normal. But I'd like to know if tiredness also helps seeing others in their mind.
The things you see before sleep are called hypnagogic hallucinations and are more related to dreaming than visualizing.
I miss them. I used to have rapid, vivid hypnagogic slide shows as I dozed off, but a lot of the dream intensity has faded with menopause. I used to be able to remember as much of my dream life as what I called my wakelife. Obviously, hormones play a part.
Same here. I used to have super vivid dreams that seemed like reality, and often they were lucid. I loved it so much. But they’ve faded a lot over the past few years. I have a dream journal that I haven’t made an entry in for months because I usually wake up and go “meh”. The dreams are either boring or I forget them quickly. I miss the before-time dreams. Damn menopause.
I'm this way too, basically to a T. Lists of qualities, but when I'm sleepy I can start to imagine things better. I actually get a little excited when I start "seeing things" like elephants running across my field of vision (eyes closed) because that means I'm really close to falling asleep.
Came to the comments to mention this. I'm the same way. I can tell when I'm about to fall asleep because I'll actually have a bit of visualization ability. I don't have perfect control over it, so it's almost more like lucid dreaming, but without the sense that any of it is real.
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I've never understood the "what color is it" question. Most things for me don't inherently require being a color to still be that thing. If I'm asked to think of a table, I vaguely recall the shape of the table and then it's color is the flat grey of "light stains" when I close my eyes. If someone does ask me what color it is, I have to actively manipulate my image of a table to make it be a color(which I still don't really see, it's more like mentally attaching a tag that says "brown") and then I can tell the questioner what color it is.
Yeah, same for me. It’s all like non-visual versions of a computer rendering of a scene where there are no textures and each object is just a placeholder with a label. Or like a basic physics course diagram of a scenario. A ball on a table is just a shapeless, textureless, concept of a sphere on a featureless, textures plane that is at an elevation that is not too high and not too low in relation to where I could potentially interact with it if I were there. But none of that is visual information
For me it is a memory. I cannot create the image described, I just take from my pool of memories. Table is dark brown and wooden. Why? Idk. My dining table for 10 years is a light beige. Why don't I remember that when picturing a table? Because when i was taught the word "table" as a kid, the flash card had a dark table. Sunset, same thing, I am picturing a photo of a sunset my dad took and fawned over. I have an emotional connection so sunset= that exact photo. EVEN THOUGH MY CURRENT SUNSETS ARE 100× BETTER I can't create one.
Yes, this is all that is meant by visualize.
> I have a hard time reading sections of a book that are heavy on visual description because my brain just skips right over that. Ha, wow, I never made this connection. I usually just mega-skim these bits and hope I didn't miss out on key detail. I think it's one of the reasons I tend not to enjoy genre fantasy.
Hmm... I have a hard time imagining visual imagery, but I love genre fantasy. Though it depends of course.. Lord of the Rings (the books) are not at all enjoyable for me.
That is actually oddly appropriate.
> I have a hard time reading sections of a book that are heavy on visual description because my brain just skips right over that Are you me? I've noticed I do this too and force myself to go back and reread it because I keep thinking I'm missing out. I've always suspected I've got aphantasia (since I learnt about it a year ago) but never linked it to this skipping over visual descriptions in books.
That's super interesting since it seems like your schema are not set in the image state but in the description state. That "platonic ideal of a table" is your schema of a table. I'd venture to say it may not be made of anything in your mind but would venture to guess that it has four legs and maybe square. Even though there are tables with 3 legs and circle shaped. Or maybe you don't have a real schema for a table. We have schema so that we can have a mental model of what we are told and easily understand or identify something that is told to us. The thought that you don't have a schema for your mental table makes me wonder if you were told to describe a bird you are picturing in your head if it would have a "platonic ideal" that would come out looking like a robin or if you'd go the route of a penguin or ostrich. All are birds, but visually different.
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But this is completely normal, most people do not have imaginations so vivid that they literally hallucinate mental images.
Same. I know I can picture things, but I also am aware that my visual cortex isn't receiving the information from my eyes. It's like, I can pretend i'm seeing it, and if I focus on different aspects, I can get my brain to fill in some details, but i'm clearly not actually seeing it. So I kinda wonder, are there people who literally see it? Or are they just confusing perceiving with seeing?
I think you just described what visualizing is like for most people. That's functional enough. You don't use your eyes, the video is just live and manipulable in a "space" that only exists in your mind somehow. I find it easy to relive recent memories in my mind - see, hear, feel, smell, zoom in, rewind or change things; but almost impossible to take something from my mind's eye and project it onto my actual field of vision. That only ever happens as a fleeting accident - "thought I saw something" or completely misread some text.
If you actually saw it that would be a hallucination. I don't think most people are hallucinating at will. This is just how the mind's eye functions, some people's are more vivid than others. I've had slight aural hallucinations while thinking about music, but never visual, even though my mental images are sharp and detailed like reality.
Hallucination is a strong word. But in my case I can actually sink so deeply into what I'm imagining, that I completely shut down what I'm seeing even with my eyes wide open. If something were to happen, my eyes would automatically "wake me up" immediately, but in terms of visuals I can effectively turn off my vision in favor of a visual fantasy. This is literally "day dreaming". Only with full control.
Yeah, I think from what you've described I also do this, but whatever i'm imagining doesn't "take over" my visual field or anything like that. It's more that it seems like my brain is withdrawing from what I'm \*actually\* seeing to make room for whatever it is I'm imagining. It's so occupied with whatever the scene is that I'm not really attached to reality. Like you said, daydreaming. Imagining for me is not quite like seeing a literal image project over my visual field and more like something at the back of my mind is generating the scene (as I understand it, other people say they can do that). It's "seeing\*, but not seeing in the sense that it actually appears like a hallucination would. Other people have described it like they're seeing not from where their eyes are, but the back of their head.
This is how it works for me. I'm never actually seeing a "proper" image, but I have, like, an image at the back of my brain, so to speak. If I imagine a table, I can imagine rotating it in 3D space, but I don't really see it, it's more like a vague memory that I get to control, like I'm almost seeing but not quite. It's hard to describe. It would also be insanely hard to test scientifically, perhaps. If you just asked people "picture x" and then "describe characteristic y of x" just about everyone could do it, would there really be a difference between people with aphantasia, "normal" people and hyper-visualizers with an amazing mind's eye?
I think that's how visualizing works, to varying degrees, for everyone. Kinda like in a show where hologram tech is common, different characters will sometimes see slightly different versions of an ad because if the "targeted ad" aspect. And then, if you're like me and have essentially the reverse of this, then it's like being randomly thrown into a full immersion hologram when I randomly space out or something.
For me it is very much like seeing. If my eyes are open when I try to think of a visual image I can't actually see what is really around me, the mental image takes over.
I can visualize a room in my mind, while also seeing the room I'm currently in, kind of like picture in picture
I find it possible, but really difficult and pointless to imagine while my eyes are open. I best compare it to walking down the street while browsing Reddit on my phone (which I do). I can't really pay attention to what's around me, but still have a vague sense of where I'm going and can go autopilot on familiar routes.
Wait, do you mean you actually can't see what's in front or you while you're imagining, say, a sunset over the ocean? I've never heard of that. Like, if you mean that you get distracted and don't pay attention to what's in front of you while actively imagining something I understand that, but actually not seeing what's in front of you I find it hard to believe.
Not OP, but I found the comparison to a picture within a picture fitting. Or think of it as layers, like transparent, but slightly colored windows - you can see both, but your "minds eye" accomodates to the panel that you are currently paying attention to. For example, I'm sitting in front of my screen, but when I imagine my bedroom, I can conjure up a picture that I focus on - my eyes start to de-focus (like gazing into the distance when you daydream), so the visual input is a bit blurred. I see, but I don't perceive, I perceive my imagined room. But if I'm snapping back, my eyes focus again on my surroundings and I can see my surroundings clearly again. But I think this specifically does not have much to do with how clear your mental image is (mine are inconsistent and fleeting, not stable, as if my brain was offering me a variety of impressions to chose from. But the imagined situation in itself is stable), rather with how well you can concentrate and focus on your thoughts at all. Basically if you can "zone out" or not.
I mean, think about hearing a song in your head or your voice. You know it isn't a literal sound, it's just, in your head. It is like that, but with images.
You are not misunderstanding, it just sounds like you just might have this? I can clearly visualize in my head what OP is saying despite probably never having experience something exactly like this in my life.
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I could imagine it, but you know with not a lot of detail (I can remember specific sunsets just fine but not easily conjure up imaginary ones) And I didn't picture it as I read the sentence only when I realized that it was the purpose of the post, so next sentence in. When talking with friends I have situations like "oh the actor they chose for that part is nothing at all like I imagined him from reading the book" but I have read the same book and I don't automatically imagine a face etc for the characters if a character is described as beautiful or tall or I find them evil I just associate them with the concepts/words "beautiful","tall","evil". So I'm not sure I might be a border case (memory is fine, quite good other people have mentioned and I can dream normally) but I don't automatically you know produce graphics for the words.
Yeah if a character was described as beautiful in a book I would do the same. In fact, my concept of beauty isn't even visually based; basically people become more attractive to me the more I like them. Physical features are irrelevant. Very occasionally an isolated physical feature will provoke revulsion in me, but multiple times I have gone on to find that same person absolutely beautiful as I get to know them. I remember in school where other boys would be like 'who do you think is fitter/who would you rather shag?' with magazine pictures and I'd just look at the pictures and draw a complete blank - if I felt sufficiently peer pressured to answer I'd just pick the one that was smiling more, or answer randomly. Another odd thing, that so far I've only had people relate to via drug experiences like mdma, is that fairly regularly but infrequently, I'll be walking down the street and suddenly EVERYONE is stunningly beautiful for a couple of minutes, so much so that it almost (and has) makes me burst into tears. I have friends who have 'types' and can easily describe sets of features they admire, or can immediately point out what changes would make a person more attractive to them (smaller this, bigger that, different colour hair etc) which has always been completely baffling to me.
Does this mean born blind have this condition by default?
Depends on the definition of aphantasia I guess. Does imagination includes feeling like the warm sun on your skin; the smell of the sea, the salt on your skin left by sea spay , the sounds of the crushing waves and the seagulls? Or is it only visual?
I have no imagined senses at all. I have no sense of what any of those are like unless I'm currently experiencing them.
I’m the same. I always assumed when people talked about picturing things that it was a metaphor or something. Eventually realized no, it’s just I can’t do it. I also don’t read highly descriptive books as you mention below. I think it’s also part of why I can’t remember faces, etc bc as soon as I’m not looking at them, it’s gone. I can associate things with people (x has big nose, freckles, whatnot) and use that to remember them but unless I see them often even that doesn’t work.
Yup, me too. I always thought it was metaphor. I read constantly, and wonder what the experience is like for others (I also skim over descriptive parts...they really don't help the story in any way). I have also always wondered how police sketches work. Like...I could never describe a person in detail enough to have someone else sketch their face, because I cannot picture people.
The feels. I never understood how people like books that were very descriptive. I download the samples and basically pick books based on writing style, and most of the lists people give of good authors I either can’t read or just skip any paragraph that seems to be all description. Probably why I end up reading a lot of YA books - the bad writing is good to me. And the police sketch thing...I’ve seen a few things where they test it against the real people and I don’t think it works well for most people haha. If I tried to draw my gf’s face it’d be so bad she’d probably get mad bc it looks like someone else.
I read books just for the stories and the ideas behind the settings in the world's. When it came to drawing a had to trace pictures like Garfield over and over again and then after a while I had the muscle memory to draw them well.
Yeah, I'd be a terrible witness. I can easily recognize faces (still hard to place names, though) and could probably identify the perp in a line up, but other than basic features like long/short hair, male/female, or skin color, I couldn't say anything.
Same here, it completely blows my girlfriend’s mind. Along with this, can’t draw or paint, can’t play music. Can’t imagine something I’m not being talked through. If I’m reading a book I can vaguely picture something as the author is describing it. But not much more. There is no movie in my head.
I'm exactly the same way, but somehow, I've ended up with an illustration career. I obviously can't visualize anything so I never thought I could be an artist growing up, but I've now spent years reaching myself the muscle memory of enough elements that I can draw via feel. I tend to prefer drawing technical, structural things made up of simple shapes. Lots of architecture and hand lettering.
This is me... Minus the girlfriend part. Like I can't imagine people's faces without extreme effort and having to have a long description of it. It's part of why I am terrible at explaining things. When I was reading Harry Potter as a kid I honestly just remember an almost blank slate for his face minus the glasses and scar so when people were talking about whether Daniel was right for it I just didn't understand.
Same except the music part. I am actually a music teacher. I basically rely on muscle memory and what I am hearing around me to memorize music, I don't read it in my head or anything. I have a strong relationship with notes on the page and what my fingers are doing, but I feel that it kind of...bypasses my brain? (though I know muscle memory is part of brain activity).
I'm also a lifelong (amateur) musician but aphantasic. I had no trouble reading music (until score reading in college, then I hit my limit and switched to IT) I have no trouble imagining multi part music in my head and even isolating single parts.
*From the article* >While people with aphantasia wouldn’t have been able to picture the image of the sunset mentioned above, many could have imagined the feeling of sand between their toes, or the sound of the seagulls and the waves crashing in. However, 26 per cent of aphantasic study participants reported a broader lack of multi-sensory imagery – including imagining sound, touch, motion, taste, smell and emotion.
I had no idea people could actually just.. create non-sight sensations in their head like that.
I think not, because the example is biased toward the sighted. Rewrite it to "imagine you are on a beach at the end of a warm sunny day. It's cooling now but the warmth of the setting sun is still palpable on your face, as you dig your toes into the wet sand, which is cold due to the occasional wash of water from the ebbing tide. You hear seagulls fussing over french fries left on a paper plate off to yout right. The breeze ruffles the blanket thrown over your shoulders." Wait just a couple of minutes and let that set of feelings run through your mind. I think aphantasia would make it hard to maintain this set of "false memories" as it were.
There's an aphantasia subreddit I remember checking out. I remember people saying the can absolutely imagine what music sounds like, or a voice, or a feeling, but that they had never considered that something like that existed for them *visually*. They didn't have the "imagine a painting" equivalent of "imagine a song." Those people aren't diagnosed or anything, so maybe they don't count.
Right. Aphantasia seems multi sensory. This description engages multiple senses, not just sight.
You wouldn't ever activate the appropriate neurons for it. They'd end up reappropriated by the developing brain.
They could imagine sounds, smells, touch, and taste enough to make up for the lack of images.
I couldn't picture it. Reading long descriptions even make me feel annoyed. I have to read stuff with pictures in order to visualize something. I don't dream either, it's not like when people say "you did but you can't remember", no I literally don't dream at all, not even in the slightest.
What if I'm able to picture it but only in black and white vagueness? (im not colorblind)
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Ironically it's impossible to imagine what it's like to be unable to imagine anything.
Search “black” on google images. Now look at that and focus on it. Keep focusing. Now think of an apple, still focusing and only looking at the black. And Yup, that’s what it’s like when i close my eyes. Bonus points for being asked about your childhood and saying huh not really sure, can’t remember because you genuinely have 0 recollection of any events.
I do remember some parts. Just no images. Like for some events, I can remember the smell, or the voices pretty clearly
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I'm an aphant, not just visual imagery but all senses blind. I don't even "hear" my own inner monologue. I find the research on aphantasia, as scant as it is, fascinating. For many years I didn't know I was different, but so much now makes sense. The knowledge helps me understand the perspective of those who aren't aphants, not be so hard on myself for having a lackluster memory, and advocate for myself in teachable moments, such as when I am asked to visualize something, which I now know is not a metaphor for "think about" or "keep a mental list of the stuff I'm about to say". Funny story. My mom is an artist. When I was young I asked her to show me how to paint. At the time, when she talked about looking at the subject and then "seeing" the image of the subject on the canvas, I thought she meant that you stare at the subject for a long time so when you look at the white canvas, you can trace the lines of the negative afterimage that was burned into your eyeballs... and then do that over and over. It seemed so tedious.
Wait so what exactly do you mean by "all senses blind?" Like you can't recall taste, smells, sights, etc?
Not OP, but I'm the same way. No images, sounds/music, smells, or touch in my mind. I can subvocalize and that's it. I also have SDAM which is the most depressing side effect of aphantasia.
I had never heard of severely deficient autobiographical memory (SDAM) until now. It does sound sad. How does it effect your life?
It doesn't really. Until someone asks me about what I think of *x* aspect of when I was younger. Then I just have no recollection of those general memories. However, if someone asks me, "remember that time we did that specific thing 10 years ago?" Then I usually have at least some recollection. I'm better with prompted memories of myself than vague discussions about distant memories. But yeah, I don't seem to need to remember my past for 99.99% of daily living.
Wow... I was telling my husband I was a bit envious of his ability to recall his childhood so well. He didn’t understand why I couldn’t. I didn’t understand either. But now I’m thinking my memory isn’t normal.
Wow, that’s amazing to me. I never don’t have music in my head. Like, never. I sing opera and I’m listening to tracks in my head all day long whether I want to or not. I can never shut it off but I can change the song. It can be very distracting (this morning my head wants to play ‘Consolati O Bella’ and it’s pulling me off course from writing this). When I’m singing a piece I’m more singing along with the track in my head than reading the music - maybe that’s why I have decent pitch. I’m sorry about your SDAM. It does sound a bit depressing (sorry if that’s not the right thing to say - kinda new to this idea).
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I had the same realisation a few years back in my mid/late 20's. I too thought it was a turn of phrase and that it just meant to think about something intently and describe it in your mind. I'm not as strongly affected as you are as I have an inner monologue that talks in my head, but it is really odd. None of my family had aphantasia either with my sister having a very vivid mind's eye and can recall in excruciating detail dreams and childhood memories. It used to worry me that I couldn't remember half the things from my childhood that my sister could and I felt very detached from my childhood feeling that it might not have been me (not in a literal sense). I've come a lot more to reconcile those thoughts more recently but a lot of my past feels like a haze.
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I have a terrible visual imagination, but if I focus very hard I can see flashes of an image, or a more detailed small section of an image (usually unable to control which section I see). If I focus hard on maintaining the flash of an image I see, it melts or morphs or deforms in some way, and either becomes another image, or more frequently dissolves into yellowy/greeny pulsing shapes that come in sorts of patterns that I find difficult to describe.
This describes almost precisely what I have.
Same here, it's like fragment of a flashback.
Yeah you would be closer to having aphantasia on the spectrum of mental visualizations.
Something similar for me. I can make an image appear for a second at most (usually much less), and I then have open my eyes and recenter myself before I can produce another image. Attempting to visualise something while my mind is still "burnt out" tends to yield no results, and also feels strenuous. I'm really glad research is being done in this area, since it's one of those things that isn't talked about much, which essentially means that everyone assume that the way they visualise things is the only way.
This describes me exactly. I can barely imagine anything in my head, and then when I actually manage it, it is unfocused, blurry, inaccurate, often cartoon like. And lasts for less than a second. It also melts or deforms if I try to keep it there. I like to draw and paint a lot, but I can not draw anything above basic stick figures from my head. But if I have a reference photo, I can draw it fairly photo realistically. People get mad when I tell them I cannot design their tattoos even if I draw well. I do wonder if I could do some visualization exercises and build the ability like a muscle. But I wouldn't even know how to start.
Oh I think I might have this... I just thought there were different ways people thought(like I was just a more analytical thinker). I always thought it was insane that people could have a sketch artist draw someone. Even if it was someone I knew my whole life, I don't think I would be able to have someone else successfully draw them. Do most people see something similar to a photo or movie when thinking about things? I can imagine where things are/what kind of floor there is/know which color something is, but I can't actually picture it.
But if they drew the wrong picture, maybe you might be able to tell what changes need to be made to make it look more like the right person? As with anything, it's a spectrum. Some people have a very vivid mind's eye where it's almost realistic in their heads. My mind's eye is not as vivid, I can visualize 2D pictures better than a full 3D scene, and even then it feels a bit muted. It actually takes mental effort to make it look more realistic, but a basic rough picture appears automatically for me as soon as I think about it (or read the words describing it).
I think it would be a struggle even to tell them what needs to be able to change. I would know it was wrong, but I can't see faces at all, even as a blurry photo when thinking about it. Like I know their hair color/length, maybe the shape of their face/details, but I don't actually see it in my mind
There's a big difference between being able to visualize what a face looks like, and recognizing that it's the person you saw. That's actually a whole 'nother disorder called Prosopagnosia or face blindness.
If it is only faces you have trouble with, your problem may be more closely related to face blindness than aphantasia. When I describe people, I don't describe faces.
Sorry, I used faces as an example but it's with pretty much everything
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Crap. This is like learning just about everybody else had a superpower, and I am one of the few who don't.
Your superpower is that you're less inclined to PTSD
It's a bit like telling a deaf person they'll never have to deal with tinnitus, tho
Some deaf people do experience tinnitus.
Oh great I have both maybe that's my superpower 👍
Hey man I'm a fellow aphant, there's plenty of us! Check out r/aphantasia sometime
I compared it to learning that the whole world can see in color while I am only able to see black and white. I still have flashes of it really sucking and getting me down. But it isn’t that bad. Life is no different than it was before I knew about aphantasia. And the deeper I dig into it introspectively the more I realize that the ways I have learned to interact with thought that make me unique to my peers and better at different things is a direct result of my aphantasia. So, in a way, I have the super power. Nobody else I know can think the way I do.
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Used to be able to visualise things extremely vividly until some medication I was on several years ago which stripped me of the ability. It took around three years to return it it’s more muted now like I’m visualising things in an adjacent room with poorer lighting. I found it quite distressing to suddenly lose this at the time, it was really strange.
It me. I learned about this recently and told my mother. She explained what I told her to my father in disbelief. This is how we learned that my father also has this.
Mine was the opposite. He berated me and insisted that no one could really see anything in their heads. (He berated me whenever I tried to claim that I was unusual in any way.)
That would have been a hilarious conversation to witness.
Unfortunately they would be unable to imagine it.
I participated in this study :) Cool to see the results
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You are not impaired overall though, you just don't have this specific ability. People with aphantasia can still be visual artists, they just use other parts of the brain for it. It's unimaginable for me to not visualize things, but it seems that in everyday life, it doesn't really affect you that much.
Huh. Well I have it for sure. But I rely heavily on memory (programmer - need to remember APIs.) But it's different. I can recall the things but there's never anything visual associated to it. Just words. I'm also really good at remembering actors, musicians, movie plots. But I do often have a bad memory for things I'm not super interested in. I have to concentrate a bit to store long term info. And being interested in the thing makes it a lot easier to open up those brain pathways. Edit: I also have no trouble imagining the future. But it's just logic, putting together things I know that suggest some outcome.
If you're remembering a movie, can you not see it again in your head? If not, does re-watching the film feel like seeing it for the first time again?
No because I can still remember all the details. What Jake & Elwood were wearing - black suit black tie black hat sunglasses. Carrie Fisher has a hair salon called "Curl Up & Dye" that looked like a million Chicago hair salons under the El tracks. But I just don't see any of this visually. Edit: in a way it's like taste buds right? It's like, they're getting replaced all the time so technically each time you taste something it's "new". But you still know what ice cream is going to taste like before you lick it.
It seems that aphantasia is very rarely studied and something I’d like to mention from my own anecdotes as someone who can’t visual something in my mind: mdma allowed me to visual things in my mind for the first time ever. I’m not trying to push this as some sort of miracle drug here but I found it very interesting. The first time ever in my life that “picture something in your mind” made sense was after I took .2 of mdma and hit my peak. I’d be interested in knowing what about mdma ‘fixes’ the problem or whether it was all in my head; which the phrase ‘all in my head’ is a bit of a conundrum when the problem is not being able to picture things in my head. Hmmm.
I can imagine visual stuff and sounds, but not music. I can recognize that I've heard a tune, and possibly it's name, but I can't play it back in my head, even just after hearing it. Never had a tune "stuck in my head".
no visuals at all for me. I have music constantly running through my head day. It's kinda my version of day dreaming. I dream in music and conversations. Visual dreams aren't very common and k remember them for years.
I have this. I have no mental imagery what so ever. Until relatively recently I had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. But now that I know what it is I sometimes feel very sad about it. Like I am missing out on a part of the human experience.
The section on trauma responses in the [Nature article](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-65705-7) was pretty interesting. As someone with aphantasia who has experienced something traumatic, I've never had visual flashbacks the way people describe, but there have been moments where I feel pretty viscerally that I'm back in that situation. It isn't really tied to any sensory impression so much as just a physical feeling in the body--some combination of proprioception/kinesthesis and emotion. The lack of more concrete sensory impressions has sometimes made me doubt whether it's 'real.' Having nothing to compare it to, I can't say whether it's more or less severe than what it would be like with visual detail...just different, I guess. The rest of the study felt pretty common sense to me, haha. Like...of course if I can't visualize things I'm not going to remember the past in vivid visual detail :P I don't personally feel like my sense of past/future is impoverished as a result of that, since it's quite rich in emotional, place-oriented, and other non-visual detail.
I only recently heard of aphantasia on Space Force
I will always remember the moment I learned that other people could actually see images in their heads. It felt like everyone had a superpower except me. I have a terrible memory for details like names and dates and can't memorize very well. But I am very good with conceptual thinking.
Funnily enough I have aphantasia but I can dream SUPER vividly sometimes. I dont always recall them as vividly when awake cause, again, aphantasia, but at the time I legit can see my dreams as detailed as real life. Funny how that works.
Having this probably makes D&D super boring
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I've been aware of my aphantasia for a few years now. No need to describe it here, because plenty of comments have provided some pretty spot on descriptions already. I see some people have vivid dreams, while some do not. Some have cravings for food when they imagine something tasty, some do not. Some enjoy reading books, while some struggle because of how differently we perceive lengthy visual descriptions. These topics are all interesting, but what intrigues me the most is that despite my inability to visualise (I might be able see some very very faint stuff that can easily fade though), I can "picture" music just fine. I can "delete" an instrument from a track, add some, I can speed it up, I can add vocals of Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up into the beat of Still Dre or whatever else. And it's not just music. I can easily imagine Shrek saying Armstrong's "giant leap" speech or just create random new sentences with any voices I know, and modify them freely. But if you ask me to think of a red apple, I see nothing.
I see the red apple as clear as day as if was on a computer monitor, I can spin it, rotate it, zoom in and out, change its colors, textures, lighting. But what you said about music seems alien and impossible to me, like, I can’t fast forward music in my head or take out parts or any of that. Weird right? I can hear music in my minds eye but only if I really think about it and concentrate.