To not be able to picture things in my head?

[FedoraTheExplora]

I know I'm not BU, but shamelessly posting here for traffic as I've wondered all my life if there was anyone else like me out there!

So, I can't form images in my head. It's kind of hard to explain, but my memory and thoughts are entirely words - I can't picture anything, not even my daughters face it doesn't cause me any problems really, but I have a horrible memory I.e. I don't know what colour car my dads been driving for 10 years, or what colour the walls are in my mums home, that I lived in for 10 years up until about a year ago. I've tried to google it, but I can't find anything, and I'm tempted to ask one of my psychology lecturers, but I'm a bit too shy and it's a bit too weird.

So MN, do any of you have this? Have you ever heard of it? Even a name for this condition (?) would be interesting to me..

I'm similar - struggle to picture things in my head and have a dreadful problem with recognising people's faces. I once didn't recognise someone I work with every day when it was out of context. I also have a very poor memory for events etc. Interestingly I have a very good medium memory for learning things which was useful for exams

I have an excellent memory for facts, and faces and names and am fine with directions and imagining maps etc. Also okay with remembering what people/places look like when I've seen them before.

However like Neil in the bookshop, I find it very difficult to convert text to images - so landscape description is lost on me. I never imagine what characters look like in books, or picture things described. My partner reckons that's why I love reading and find it so easy (compared to watching telly) because I don't need to convert it to images to understand or enjoy it.

I also recognise cars by their number plates, including my own

So definitely have some degree of this!

I always assumed my brain hadn't quite developed this function, either because I was premature, or because I think I have a lot of autistic traits. My memory of my childhood is also very sketchy - I gave always been fascinated by my DH's memory of his, and little details like the top I wore on our 1st date. I had met him in a bar and arranged to meet him a few nights later but purposely turned up late so he could recognise me as I came in the bar and make it obvious - I could not remember what he looked like at all!

I also do things like watch a film twice only a year apart and not realise...

"Also okay with remembering what people/places look like when I've seen them before. " I mean visualising them when they are not there. Am fine with recognition (better than most people I'd say).

Example: my friend once texted me and asked me where Warehouse (clothes shop) was in town she'd just moved to. I said 'there's one on X st, beside the Early Learning Centre.'

When she got there it was a Carphone Warehouse. I'd remembered the word 'Warehouse' was there but didn't remember what the shop looked like!

williamherschel I don't think it affects imagination. I've always been very imaginative - it doesn't have to be visual

I can't picture people either. Took me ages to recognise dh and when my kids were little I was worried I would take the wrong ones home from nursery as they all looked similar!

Does this go with having no imagination

Nope. I'm very imaginative. I can produce compound images in my brain, which aren't visually clear, but are literally very clear (I can't "see" the compound image so much as I can describe it in detail enough to allow someone else to produce a physical image of it).

Very interesting about the reading - another super-fast, early reader here and I never picture images in my head of what I'm reading either. I do enjoy descriptive passages if the writing is good but I just sort of let the words sink in and enjoy the atmosphere they evoke rather than actually creating a picture in my mind of what the scene actually looks like.

This is really interesting. Possibly a daft question, but does this mean that you can't for example walk around a familiar room in the dark/blindfolded?

Not without risking significant personal injury!

I'm massively relieved other people have very sketchy memories of childhood. I remember odd "scenes" - being somewhere, rarely actually doing anything, just the act of being there. E.g. I remember my neighbour's fishpond when I was about 2. I know my father was with me and I can deduce we were looking at the fish. My parents don't recall this, but acknowledge it probably happened. All my childhood memories are like that - very sketchy, very vague, people utterly irrelevant, but location/context or what I said being super clear, whilst also utterly trivial. And huge, huge gaps between them. Friends tell me about events we went to or stuff that happened and I just draw a total blank.

This is such an interesting thread!
I'm exactly the opposite in that I imagine everything as pictures in my mind - from abstract concepts such as time; to recently learnt facts (when I was at school sitting an exam, I'd recall the page with whatever I needed to remember on).

About books/tv - yes I imagine everything very vividly. I read the Harry Potter books before the films came out. One day, I was re-watching the first HP film on TV and complained to DH they'd obviously cut quite a few scenes; especially the one I remembered so well with the potions. Turns out that scene had never been filmed; I had just merged my pre-imagined scene with the film actors and thought I'd actually seen it

This is terrifically interesting. Really great to read about pp who think and imagine in great strings of words. Hello my people

I'm not quite as extreme a case as you, OP, but I'm almost the opposite way around - I think in images and written words but have a terrible memory for sound. My hearing is fine but I usually can't 'hear' things in my mind - even songs that I am super familiar with once they start playing or the voices of people I know well etc (but I can dream people including their voice, unless in a dream my mind just sort of assumes they sound normal and glosses over that part - I don't know how that works!).
I blame this for being disproportionately terrible at the listening part of foreign languages - if the sounds don't turn into accurate 'subtitles' for me (albeit in another language) that I can read, I have no chance of translating them!

Oh oh oh I can't do sounds either! I can get small portions of songs stuck in my head, but usually only one or two lines and no matter how well I know the song I can't get past them (currently Drinking in LA, because it was on absolute this morning). I can't recognise even very well known music unless it has lyrics I can work through - utterly abominable with classical music recognition too. As for voices... Nope, not in a million years. It takes up far, far too much space in my hard drive!

I'm the opposite. I can picture things very clearly. I just done that test and found I am hyperphantasia. I wouldn't be able to think in words at all.

Another one here! I've known since I was quite young; the thing that made my parents and I look it up was my utter perplexity at the idea of counting sheep to go to sleep. I just had no idea how to do it whatsoever. Also those memory tricks where you assign a character to each card in a deck (for example) and then run the story in your head to remember. Hopeless.

I also read early and read very quickly! I cannot give directions as I can't visualise the route.

It's so interesting to find I'm not a complete weirdo like I've always thought!
I have no problems with people or faces. In fact I'm really really good at knowing I 'know' someone from somewhere. I've done a test and come out as almost as 'super recogniser' which seems at odds with the other stuff?
So, people who 'see' pictures in their minds..it's like an actual picture? I find it really strange to imagine that. Surely it takes ages to read a book when you have to picture everything? I have another odd thing as well. If I'm signing a song in my head or out loud. As soon as I hear another song or someone humming something different I instantly forget what I've been singing and can't remember it when questioned. Again like my brain knows but doesn't process.
Love this thread!

Oh and one more different thing at odds with some others. I have a fantastic imagination. I just can't see what I'm thinking about its all words but I don't see the words.
In fact that makes no sense but I guess I know what I mean!

What about dreams for people who don't form mental images - what are they like?

I have vivid dreams. Maybe I'm just really strange.
I wonder though if I just have a rubbish memory and minds eye but I dream about people because I'm good at recognising people?
I wonder what other will say about dreams?

My DM is like that and no dreams that she remembers.

I always thought she was strange. When buying things for the home I will know exactly what I want and how it will look, she looks at me as if I have a super power.

DH has it. He thought it was"normal" until he read the article.

Another question for those with aphantasia (I just took the test linked below and turns out I've got hyperphantasia) - how do you daydream? If at all? As long as I can remember, I've always made up stories in my head; they're as clear as films to me - settings, actors, everything. I don't think I could even go to sleep without "watching one of my favourites" first...

Wow, this thread is fascinating! I mentioned it to my husband and he was saying he's the same - he finds it hard to visualise things, is terrible with faces, doesn't get imagery from books, etc. I'm the complete opposite (the test had me as hyperphantasic).