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Original poster

I've just discovered I have Aphantasia - who knew !

289 replies

VictoriaBun · 06/07/2019 10:41

You might have it also.

Close your eyes and imagine a happy place, a wood , a beach anywhere that floats your boat . See the image in your mind, feel yourself there etc etc.
Now can you actually see the image in your head ? No. Well then you also have it ! !
It's blown my mind that I've got to this age and realise that when people say something like count sheep to help you sleep that can actually see the sheep in their head. Wow. Apparently 2 -3 % of the population also have Aphantasia. Who's in the club ?

OP posts:
LucheroTena · 07/07/2019 09:21

Do people with this see images when they dream?

Fink · 07/07/2019 09:29

@IheartNiles It varies from person to person. It's a spectrum rather than an on-off switch. Personally, no, I don't see anything when I dream.

Original poster
VictoriaBun · 07/07/2019 09:41

It's a strange thing that some people have trouble to understand that some of us just close our eyes and see the blackness only, despite trying to conjure up an image in our minds. Yet others can easily get images that move, flip, etc yet both are perfectly ' normal ' to us as individuals.

OP posts:
MenuPlant · 07/07/2019 12:01

Victoria yes you see this with lots of things, i think it's just how humans are.

Thread recently about introversion, someone said it was odd how introvertsc gave no trouble understanding extrovert preferences but they aren't for them, while extroverts struggle to empathise with introverts and are quick to decide they are unhappy, lonely, would feel better if they got out more etc. Generalisations obv. I think maybe majority /dominant groups have a tendency to believe they are optimal so anyone else is lesser? It's really interesting.

MenuPlant · 07/07/2019 12:02

Unless i misunderstood your post!

katewhinesalot · 07/07/2019 12:11

fink If you don't see images when you dream, what do you see?

DobbyTheHouseElk · 07/07/2019 12:16

My friend has this, she can’t find her way to my house. It’s easier now with google maps etc, but previously she couldn’t remember a route.

Original poster
VictoriaBun · 07/07/2019 12:55

I'm fine with maps, recognising people, etc.
It's just when I close my eyes I cannot get images in my head , be that sheep,beaches, places I've been to, recall the images of my day, being up the garden or my loved ones etc. I can 'think ' of those things in my head, but a 'picture' of those thoughts never materialise as it were.

OP posts:
Original poster
VictoriaBun · 07/07/2019 12:56

Weirdly when I dream I'm 100% sure I get images then.

OP posts:
MenuPlant · 07/07/2019 13:00

I'm fine with maps have good sense of direction know which way we're oriented etc

When thinking of how to get somewhere I can't see it but I follow the roads in my head.

When thinking of a word and how to spell I do what one of the articles said I write it in my mind sometimes my fingers want to move. So it's like a physical thing more than a seeing one, to do with shapes.

My memory for people is poor I'm not face bound but I have to meet someone a few times before I can put a name to a face and who they are.

I have music playing in my head all the time and music feels like a physical sensation when I hear it which may be a payoff for not having the pictures :)

MenuPlant · 07/07/2019 13:01

Spacial awareness is good, according to the rotate a shape tests.

Not sure about dreams I have them but don't remember them well.

omione · 07/07/2019 13:06

I can see snapshots of things i have done but never moving pictures, so i can see a photo of DGD running but not the video

Esto · 07/07/2019 13:13

Weird. I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I can picture places and objects but I cannot picture faces. Even my DH or DC I can't really conjure up their faces. But I could easily picture their clothes or possessions.

I struggle generally with faces, I 'over-recognise' people. So if someone shares a slightly similar feature I think they look like them, or might be them. So I constantly think I see people I know, when in fact I'm just seeing people who have a similar nose to my brother or similar hair to my colleague, etc. But if you then asked me to picture their face, I couldn't. It's very odd and annoying!

I could never do an e-fit! I would be a hopeless witness.

Namechange8471 · 07/07/2019 13:15

Soola same!

lazylinguist · 07/07/2019 13:15

I'm towards the aphantasia end, but not extreme. I'm a very word-based person, not very visual-picture-based iyswim. I can picture very familiar people and things but it takes a lot of concentration and they are pretty indistinct. I cannot visualise a route and am terrible at directions.

I'm a teacher, and tbh this kind of difference in the way people's minds work doesn't surprise me. Different people learn, think, remember and see the world in very different ways.

Chloe9 · 07/07/2019 13:44

I don't have to close my eyes to visualise. I have whole other worlds I can tap into. Like Sherlock's mind palace. Mine is a a place I can go to look around. There is a house. Those things I "put in a box to look around later" are in a box room with the curtains shut not in the attic with my other memories. The attic has stairs not a ladder because I can never reach to pull ladders down. There are sometimes moths but never silverfish or spiders. They are in the damp basement with my other fears and dislikes.

I rarely get to go in the garden but it is my happy place. It's filled with beautiful flowers and bumble bees and butterflies and there is a two seat swing which I usually have to myself.

I can switch between being in that house and visualising a beach or the woods or sheep to count or whatever.

I do not for one second think that everybody thinks the way that I do and when I tell people tend to get the Hmm face

Skade · 07/07/2019 16:15

@ShutTheFridgeUp nope, nothing! I think it has something to do with not being spoken to for the first 18 months or so as a baby - my mum has Aspergers and didn't realise you were supposed to speak to babies. We were living in an isolated situation and although she cared for me physically she didn't communicate with me! I've read that this is often when the inner voice begins to develop.

I am a chronic oversharer because I'm not able to hold conversations in my head and am constantly asking others' opinions. If I try to talk to myself in my head it is much like the aphantasia, the words are there but I can't grab onto them if that makes sense?

mrsw2 · 07/07/2019 18:13

Me !

WoollyMummoth · 07/07/2019 19:05

Since seeing this thread yesterday I’ve been researching aphantasia as it’s come as both a shock and a relief that it describes me. I see nothing when I close my eyes and am told to visualise something. No objects, faces of loved ones, nothing. It initially made me feel sad that I can only describe my families features rather than see them and it came as quite a shock to know that most people can ‘see’ things in their minds nd. I only see images when I’m asleep and Ithats quite a relief as I’m not sure I could deal with all that imagery all the time.

Original poster
VictoriaBun · 07/07/2019 19:32

WoollyMummoth
I'm the same , and quite amazed I've got to the age I am without realising that that not being able to produce an image in my minds eye has an actual name. That's why I posted on the first place. It's been really interesting to read about others I've also been trying really,really hard for 24 hours so get a picture story going in my head in images but nope, it's not going to happen

OP posts:
katewhinesalot · 07/07/2019 19:45

The music in your head is completely alien to me, but then I can never remember words to songs no matter how many times I've heard or danced to it. The best I can do is remember an odd phrase in a chorus.

ElspethFlashman · 07/07/2019 19:51

So do people with this not get "earworms"?

I once had Jenny From the Block in my brain on a loop for 3 days.

...... A harrowing time.......

katewhinesalot · 07/07/2019 19:52

Nope. No concept of earworms.

LoafofSellotape · 07/07/2019 19:59

Current earworm is Losing my Religion ,arghhhhhhh!

Ambydex · 07/07/2019 20:21

Skade wow. Really interesting that you are a counsellor and must know a lot about how other people think.

I think I read that in the early middle ages, reading silently in your head wasn't a thing. No one could do it. It just didn't exist as a concept. Reading was only ever done aloud, like you'd only drive with your eyes open. IIRC Chaucer was one of the first people to do it. Maybe having an inner voice wasn't so prevalent back then. So much of what we think is "natural" is cultural.

I find it difficult to imagine not having earworms. We used to have the same handful of CDs in my dad's car growing up, and they played in my ear so convincingly against the vibration of the car that I couldn't tell if they were real or not. Whole albums.