Aphantasia

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Well, I just really found out that supposedly people see things like it is in front of them, and they can see it with their eyes. With ME, it is more of a sense. Also, I guess I kind of developed it as a kind of coping mechanism. So I guess technically I have aphantasia. I DO have an idea of what types of abilities phantasia, as described, would impart, but I really don't see that anywhere! So either nearly NOBODY has phantasia, or their description, as I understand it, is WRONG!

I could, for example, describe people to a degree, remember something I have seen visually to a degree, I could map out places I haven't been to for DECADES. And yet I don't see ANYTHING with my eyes, outside of reality. And I couldn't really tell you I see anything per se.

So I really have to wonder about that doctor's diagnosis.

I always wondered about imaginary friends. I never had one. I have to wonder if THAT is related to phantasia.

I'm this way too but it's not really a problem. My kids don't have this but have even more problems in several situations e.g. if it comes to driving the optimal curves. People who are this way have a more abstract way of thinking and of realizing their environment. The biggest problem is not aphantasia but not to know that most peoples mind works different.

Likewise. However, there are limits. I have to see someone's face at least twice in order to remember it. Sometimes I forget what a face looks like (if I haven't seen that person in a long time) but then I'll suddenly remember. For instance, I was thinking back on a memory with an old maths teacher. Couldn't recall her face. I was walking around one day and I saw someone who looked similar to her. This caused a mental image to pop up in my mind of what that maths teacher looked like. My mind is frequently visual and I recall memories in a multi-sensory fashion. The same goes for how I experience dreams, and I can usually do so lucidly.

Every so often when I want to relax, I'll call upon certain memories. The main downside to thinking in such a way is that mental imagery for me tends to also appear completely unintentionally at times. Sometimes this is pleasant. For instance, a certain sound might trigger visual memories of a nice holiday, or a taste reminds me of a mild Summer day I spent relaxing. Unfortunately, it can tap into negative emotions and associations also. If I'm somewhere that reminds me of a horror movie or a bad memory, then horrible imagery will pass through my mind. Although, I have found that if I can create better memories in that place then the negative associations lessen.

I tend to think heavily in associations. The strange thing about creativity is you don't always know when it will strike. I was stuck for ideas once for a project, so I decided to take a break and make some pizza. This suddenly caused an outburst of ideas in quick-fire succession. My ideas presented themselves as mental imagery. So I grabbed my notebook and jotted them down before I could forget. My ability to visualise situations lends well to improvising, and I've certainly had to do that enough.

Despite typically being visual-minded, I remember certain types of information more when they are presented in an audio-format. It depends.

I tend to remember faces better than names.

I have trouble identifying a person out of uniform when I see this person in uniform a lot.

I once forgot a girl’s name while we were making out on her first date. She found that funny.

The only one I can do is sound.

I’m not very good with names, either. I’m much better with faces.

I need to work on getting better with names because it’s really important in my current job.

Just out of curiosity, for others with aphantasia, do you enjoy vacations and travel?

I'm completely blah on vacations and travel. Part of it is that I tend to get anxious when I go anywhere, even to another nearby town, and can't wait until I go home again. The only times I've been 200 miles from home in nearly two decades was for medical reasons.

I used to be able to travel without anxiety and I did enjoy the trip. But when I got back, I could remember the trip but to me it wasn't any more real that if I had read about it in a book or magazine article. Essentially, to me, any travel I did in the past is very flat.

For example, I can remember riding the Alaskan inland ferry, the Malaspina, from Bellingham, Washington to Skagway, Alaska and then hiking the Chilcoot Trail to Lake Bennett in British Columbia, but my memories of the trip are no more than what can be written as paragraphs in a book. That was in 1977 -- when we got to Ketchikan, Alaska, the newspaper headlines were about Elvis's death -- he was still alive when we got on the boat.

In other words, I don't really retain much in the way of memories of what it was like on the trip.

Do others have the same issues? When you go on a vacation, how well can you remember the feeling of what you experienced in the vacation?

Interesting. A fellow engineer who I suspect is also on the spectrum disagrees with me ehen I joke about Radio having the best picture quality because the picture is generated in the Listeners' mind. He asserts he needs the picture from the television.

Is there a connection between aphantasia and difficulty in being hypnotized?

I can not form detailed images at all. I have very rich fantasy but piss poor resolution.

It is like this:


I can appreciate art and I have ideas regarding it but I can not execute. I can not follow movements in real life. My visual memory is poor because I have brain damage. I can not really feel my body hence I have causally related imagination combined with cognitive disorganization and parallel symbolization.

Addressing the questions you raised here. I must stress that I am not a psychiatrist, so I can only give a layman's viewpoint, but a couple of points do strike me:

I have aphantasia, and I don't really feel that potential problems over decision making are likely to be much affected by aphantasia, at least in my case. One can go through life blissfully unaware of having aphantasia, and while it undoubtedly does affect things associated with one's ability to think in visual terms, it just means, at least in my experience, that one just adapts and has a more verbal way of thinking.

I would also be somewhat surprised if aphantasia and its possible side-effects had made much of an impact generally in the field of psychiatry. It was first described (not under the name aphantasia) in the 1880s by one Francis Galton, but was then largely forgotten, and only recently has there been much research at all on it, beginning with a study by Prof. Zeman at the University of Exeter in 2015. So it would seem to be a bit premature for the profession of psychiatry to have evolved any well-developed theories about the impact of aphantasia on decision making, etc.

You don't mention what other components there were to your daughter's diagnosis. Speaking from my own experience, I would say that I can certainly understand how asperger or ASD traits could impact upon executive functions such as decision making. But as for the possibility that aphantasia could have significant impacts in that area, I would have thought that was much less clear cut. Apart from anything else, I really doubt that there has been time for any substantial research in that area to have been carried out, given the relative infancy of the study of aphantasia.

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I also cannot visualize images in my mind. I have no visual, audio, emotional or other sensory experience when imagining something. Instead, I can only hold a vague, fleeting "impression" (much like the "tip of the tongue" phenomenon) about the subject in my mind, and mentally list its characteristics and relationships to other subjects.

It does not matter if it is something created purely by my imagination, something I recall from seeing every day, or even something I am currently looking at. However, the impression is stronger if it is something that I have touched a lot.

I do not see or hear anything in my dreams. I do not see and recognize familiar people/places in my dreams; I simply "just know" who/where it is. Other than that, I only remember a sequence of plot points about things that happened. When reading fiction, I skip descriptive language entirely and, again, focus only on plot points. I spell, draw, and play music, not by visualizing it, but by using muscle memory.

Because I cannot visualize it, I cannot remember multi-step directions for procedures or navigation. Because any information stored in my working memory for complex cognitive tasks such as learning, reasoning, and comprehension is not a solid image that I can refer to throughout the task, it is forgotten as soon as I try to recall a second piece of information to use with it. I need to constantly refresh all information in my mind to continue the complex task. Because I cannot re-visualize it, I cannot remember things I have done in my life, even earlier that same day. I remember facts about my life the same way people studied facts in history class, and then when asked questions about my own personal history, I answer with a script. But it is a constant struggle to remember things I have already done, and therefore, what things I still need to do, in a day.

It affects my executive functioning, including setting and following goals, organization, planning, and working memory.

^ And yet through it all, you are silently correcting our grammar.

Much of my life, I've heard of references to "undressing a woman with your eyes".

Obviously, with aphantasia, I can't actually visualize a woman in my mind as if she has no clothes. I've often wondered about the phrase because I've never visualized a clothed woman as if she had no clothes on. Is that what the phrase means or does it mean something else?

Similarly, I've heard people say that if you get nervous giving a talk in public, then you should visualize the audience as being nude and that will make it somewhat funny to you can you can proceed with much less nervousness.