Aphantasia and mindfulness

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I recently learned the fact I can't picture things in my mind has a name, Aphantasia. There are a few interesting threads about the subject, but I couldn't find one about some recent struggles I've experienced. My mental health took a dire turn for the worse during the pandemic and I've spent a great deal of time in therapy over the last year. A large component of the treatment is meditation, guided meditation, and other mindfulness exercises. Because, or maybe not, of aphantasia, I can't seem to meditate successfully. I can't picture a tranquil beach, or blissful forest, or anything for that matter.

Do others have this issue? Does anyone have strategies for meditation with aphantasia?

It may be important to know that I can hear music in my head, in fact it's nearly constant, both earworms and random compositions.

Hi and welcome to WP!

I have Aphantasia, and like you I didn't even realise it until about eight years ago. Even then I didn't know it had a name, I just started to notice that other people could picture things and I couldn't.

I can't do anything with guided imagery, mindfulness, or meditation. CBT therapy is totally useless to me because the method doesn't work but it also relies a lot on imagery.

I notice I'm obsessed with old photos from my family and that makes sense, because it allows me to look at things.

I did a lot of work with an Occupational Therapist to learn proprioception and interoception skills. That helped to ground me and allow me to relax. Yoga and sensory materials help as well. I started by using a Wilbarger brush for tactile relaxation and moved on to creating whole toolkits of sensory aids (scents, lighting, music, etc). Working on sensory processing helps to regulate the nervous system which in turn will help you to relax. There are also breathing activities but I've never been into that, and I find my mind wanders (I'm also ADHD).

Good luck!

Hi. I'm also have afantasia. I only realised it last year.

Guided meditation I find useless. Like you I cannot generate the imagery. It's just frustrating.

Mindfulness meditation I find very useful. It doesn't require any imagery. I use the feeling of air flowing over the tips of my nostrils as my meditation support. And I just keep coming back to that. I also have adhd which means my mind is crazy busy. With the way I was taught meditation, this is not a problem because the goal is not to relax or calm the mind. There is in fact no goal! This was difficult to grasp at first.
The definition of mindfulness from my teacher is: "knowing what is happening while it is happening, without judgement." So I simply watch my busy mind. And when distracted I come back to my breath.
In doing this I can notice patterns in where my mind habitually goes. This let's me in on what is happening inside.

One useful technique is called Backtracking. This is when I notice I have been off on a train of thought and identify the thought I was having when I realised. Then I try to remember the thought that let to that thought. And then the one before that. And on and on until I find the thought that initially snared me and pulled me away from the support. This takes a fair bit of practice. Especially with my scetchy memory. This technique can help with finding what the emotional drivers of my thoughts are. So it's noticing what is happening to distract me.

Relaxation and calming the mind is an effect of mindfulness. Not it's goal. As I practice mindfulness and I begin to be able to not get involved in my thoughts so much, my mind naturally becomes less reactive. The space between a stimulus from outside and my response opens up and i become more centred and calm. My mind can still be busy, but i dont need to pay it as much attention. I am more in my body.

Another aphantasiac signing in. I have no difficulty with meditation on account of my aphantasia. I fix my attention to passively taking in the sounds of my environment.
I feel that deliberate visualisation, as something requiring an active and deliberate effort, would be contrary to the nature of the practice.

The word meditation is a problem because it can mean many things. It is also laden with baggage from past misconceptions.

I think that is why "mindfulness" is used for that form of it these days. A more "secular term.

One variant of generative meditation that is similar to visualization is using feelings. I use this for working on self compassion. I generate the feeling of compassion within my body by allowing myself to feel the compassion I have towards my child. ( you could use a pet or anything you have compassion for.) Then I transfer that feeling to myself and just allow myself to feel it for a bit. This has been hugely useful in getting me through tough situations where my tenancy is to beat myself up. It took a fair bit of practice to begin with, but it has got easier.
So I guess I can generate feeling but not pictures. I can only make the feeling by using an example where I can feel it easily, like my child.

Experience tells me one does not necessarily need mental imagery. There are meditations or mindfulness exercises that do not need visualizations.
It can mean many things, with many purposes of varying intent.

One in particular is simply focusing or simply observing in one or various areas of awareness or sensation.
No need to turn your the mind elsewhere.

Another is to recall or observe or allow sensations or feelings.
Usually through a prompt like scenario through incoming and outgoing thoughts associated with certain words.

Then the other is through the breath or certain hums. There are various breathing patterns and various hums.
Humming could be through the throat or some special bowls that generates it.
Some breathing guides may just skip the mental part and go straight to the nervous systems or so my experience says.


... Heck there are meditations and mindfulness exercises that doesn't even have to sit down with eyes closed.
I could do so while doing stuff around the house or going out on errands.
.. I've yet to do it in places of urgency like while at work though.

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My favoured method of meditation is to focus on passively taking in the sounds of my environment. If the session goes well, I experience the sound in a way that feels more direct and more real. Words fail me, but it's something like the difference between seeing a photo of something and seeing it in person.

I was with a meditation-teaching group in my 20s, and for many years afterwards was confused by the wide variety of other meditation teachings my friends used. I finally realized that the best technique is the one that an individual will use, because they like the story that comes with it. Now, I just count my breaths from zero to twelve and repeat. If I'm really scattered, I'll lose count before 12. Often, I'm still double-tasking, but keeping count. It starts to get like meditation when I can focus on the relationships between the numbers, such as which are prime. In real meditation, the numbers float by like markers in a vast space. The goal is not to imagine yourself in a field, but to be conscious without specific thoughts, just being aware.

Oh boy does this sound familiar. Long before I learned about my aphantasia I tried "mindfulness" It simply frustrated and infuriated me, I simply could not "get it". Standard lessons which included "picture yourself on the beach" etc simply did not work for me. Even the word "mindfulness" reminds me of the frustration and anxiety I had trying to do this. I do have an imagination and can remember experiences I have had without actually seeing things in my head. I do remember what an elephant looks like when I see one, I just can't picture one in my mind. So interesting to find that so many others here are also aphantasiac. Aphantasia is supposed to affect only about 2 percent of the world's general population. So far there has been no connection directly to autism. It is a form of neurological processing though, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see it among those who are known to have variants of neurological processing in other ways as well. Nice to know I am not alone!! !

I don't have aphantasia, but I've never been good at guided visualization - my visualization always gets hung up on something and starts looping annoyingly.

Luckily, you don't actually need to do guided visualization to meditate. There's also mindful breathing and body scan meditations, which focus more on the physical sensations of your body than on visualizing anything. Mindful breathing is about focusing all your attention on your breath, breathing slowly and deeply while really feeling the breath go in and out. Body scan is about shifting focus between body parts, typically starting at the head and moving down, and noticing the sensation in each body part.

Very interesting IsabellaLinton.
I also have some Alexithymia. Emotions tend to be tangled together in a mass. With practice I've managed to separate compassion, though it does depend on my state. Sometimes I can maintain it for longer; other times not so much. I have also used compassionate self-talk, often before or after working with the feeling.

I usually use a kneeling posture while doing any of these things (I can't sit cross legged for long and lotus position not at all). However I sit, I have my hands in my lap palms upward. I imagine them as a kind of accepting embrace holding me and my inner child with loving kindness. This seems to be more of a spatial body awareness or proprioceptive imagining without pictures, which I find possible.

I feel my meditation is like a "holistic state perception". A whole perception of everything at once, body and mind. But I see the mind part as an unruly child. Loved and allowed to do it's thing, but not taken too seriously.