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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be freaked out, Can't imagine images...

167 replies

Slappadabass · 14/10/2019 19:42

So I came across a post on here about aphantasia, not been able to imagine or picture a image in your mind, I can't, but I'd never thought about it and thought it was the norm until now.
I've been trying to picture my DC (amongst other things) in my head, I know what they look like, could give you every little tiny detail about them, but can't imagine their faces, I can't imagine anything.
I don't know how I've not realised people can do it but I can't until now.
AIBU unreasonable to be freaked out? Shock apparently there's a fair few people on here with aphantasia, anyone?

OP posts:
DaveMyHat · 14/10/2019 22:47

If you can't picture anything, what happens when you read a book? That's so odd to think the prose wouldn't conjure vivid images in your mind.

I hear the words in my head in my inner voice. I don't see anything. I still love reading.

ToPlanZ · 14/10/2019 22:54

I also can't visualise at all. Not one bit. I always fear that I will be involved in a crime and have to do a photofit. I'd be mortified.

It's weird because obviously I know what people I know look like when I see them, but I can't imagine their faces, or a sunset, or a blue sky. Literally just see blackness. I can draw but only by copying a drawing in front of me, I couldn't draw you something by imagining it.

I do have a tremendous sense of smell though!

wigglybeezer · 14/10/2019 22:57

I can't picture the red star at all yet I have a Master's degree in Fine Art! DH is also an artist and he is off the scale good at visualisation, he creates 3D objects in his mind's eye and can rotate them and see them from all angles ( and then draw them). I can draw what's in front of me but falter when drawing from imagination. I think like the PP described I conceptualise, and make word pictures. I can't follow other people's directions or verbal instructions, I always have to work out my own way of doing things. It's all very weird!
I make images by experimentation, almost like a scientist testing a hypothesis. I'm only just starting to realise the contradictions in my situation but I suspect I'm not alone and there are possibly more artists like me than you would expect.

AmateurDad · 14/10/2019 23:02

What?!?!?

AmateurDad · 14/10/2019 23:07

I would have said Wednesday is yellow. Perhaps because it’s the third day of the working week, and 3= yellow? (At least, it is to me!)

Deadringer · 14/10/2019 23:12

I have this I can't visualize anything but I have very detailed dreams some of which I remember for years. My sense of direction is actually fairly good, but I find it difficult to imagine where one place is in relation to another. I mix up right and left a lot too.

Theromanempire · 14/10/2019 23:12

I have this too - the penny dropped when they were discussing it on television a couple of years ago and they showed a photo of a dog and they all said they could visualize it perfectly if they closed their eyes...me, absolutely nothing!

I have a reasonable memory and can describe people/objects/places well but it's not from being able to picture them in my head. It's so hard to explain isn't it?

Never stopped me from enjoying reading or daydreaming!

Amortentia · 14/10/2019 23:13

Fascinating, this must make life quite tricky. I have an amazing visual memory, I can locate anything for you if I try and visualise when I last saw it, even if it was a long time ago. I think this ability is why I have very vivid dreams that often have a movie like quality.

However, I cannot retain names, even people I’ve known for a very long time. I will actually try and not address people by name and avoid introductions because I struggle to get names right. I never notice posters names either, I just don’t retain them. I wonder if many other people have this too.

Aveisenim · 14/10/2019 23:15

I'm the same and have a bad memory in general.

Theromanempire · 14/10/2019 23:22

Oh and I am definitely a 1 on the red star test. Can see absolutely nothing!!

MintTeaLady · 14/10/2019 23:24

My DH has aphantasia and was devastated when he realised that I had a “superpower” as he called it. There was a BBC quiz about it but it seems to have been taken down unfortunately. I have the complete opposite - I often freak people out with the level of detail that I can picture. If I had to, I could probably picture the teeth of everyone in my primary school class. I really struggle with any sort of bad news as I just see it happen over and over again in my mind in extreme detail.

BoogieFeet · 14/10/2019 23:26

Ok, so this will be why while I love reading I get really bored and just skip ahead when the author spends ages describing what the place/clothes/landscape looks like.

And why I had to make little paper models to get through a course with lots of lines of symmetry/rotation questions.

Didn’t realise other people visualise mental arithmetic!

smoresmores · 14/10/2019 23:26

This is fascinating. I have a vivid visual imagination and had anxiety as a child. I would see a horrible scene in my mind as though it were real and in-front of me. I had to go through CBT to learn how to stop it.

I often wonder what other people think and 'see' in their head, so this is an interesting read.

As an adult I have issues sometimes with vivid daydreaming. I read a term 'maladaptive daydreaming' which I related to quite a lot.

Also about the visual memory thing. I have an estranged parent and even though I saw them last when I was 13, so old enough to remember, I can't place their face. It's blurred almost.

JaimeBronde · 14/10/2019 23:33

I see 6 on the red star test.
Wednesday is red.
Choosing paint colours is easy because I can 'see' them on my say living room wall before I actually buy the tin of paint.
I can smell & sometimes taste food on a tv programme.
If someone is having a massage on tv or even just talking about a massage they've had, I feel it.
I also have a near photographic memory.

JaimeBronde · 14/10/2019 23:39

Posted before finishing
I can smell or get a sense of smell of a perfume from the description of it.
I'm good at finding my way round new places.
However I get my left & right muddled up & frequently walk into things, lose things (though usually find them quite quickly.) & get words stuck on the tip of my tongue.
And my sense of time is atrocious, it either whizzes past or goes very slow.

TitchyP · 14/10/2019 23:49

Monday is red
Tuesday blue
Wednesday yellow
Thursday green
Friday brown
Saturday yellow (again)
Sunday sort of transparent
Grin

DishingOutDone · 15/10/2019 00:07

My DD age 16 told me she is like this, a couple of months ago. It freaked out, although I have not let on to her, as I cannot imagine being like that. She had a head injury when she was younger and has anxiety and depression now, but apparently she has always been unable to "see" things in her mind so its not an issue. One of the neurology nurses we have said its not unusual or significant.

Is anyone here who is like this upset by it?

64sNewName · 15/10/2019 00:25

OK, the counting sheep thing, though - I reckon that’s a red herring in this discussion. I’m good at visualising but despite having heard the expression ‘counting sheep’ in childhood like everyone else, I’ve never found it useful or possible to actually do.

You would have to really like visualising sheep, and be really familiar with how they look, to make this effortless and soothing. I, like most people (I think), would find it hard not to lose interest and think about something less tedious instead. The effort it would take to fix my mind on sheep would keep me awake and irritated.

So if you don’t/can’t count sheep, I don’t think that’s evidence of aphantasia.

And if you do have aphantasia, you’re not missing much with the sheep thing.

mathanxiety · 15/10/2019 00:33

My DS has it. It made reading novels for English Lit a horrible slog as he couldn't visualise any characters or settings. He compensated by developing his ability to memorise.

Original poster
Slappadabass · 15/10/2019 00:41

@DishingOutDone
I was feeling really strange about it, but I think it was more the fact that I'd not realised other people were different to me rather than the not been able to see images part.
I'm feeling much better about it after this thread, it's obviously not all that uncommon, I'm in my 30s and other than having a crappy memory and been rubbish with directions it's not affected me. I wouldn't worry too much, she doesn't know any different so it's her normal.

OP posts:
DustyMaiden · 15/10/2019 00:43

I can see everything as vividly in my minds eye as in reality. I thought everyone could until I met my MIL. She couldn’t see anything and never once had a dream.

mathanxiety · 15/10/2019 00:48

TheVanguardSix your description of your uncle is exactly how my DS functions.

Walnutwhipster · 15/10/2019 01:14

I have this. I feel it most succinctly in the fact I can't picture my mum, dad and brother. DD and DB died before digital photography and DM died this year. I have a lot of photos of DM but not many of the others. I take huge amounts of photos as a consequence and can immediately conjure a narrative when I see a visual cue.

AllTheNameAreTakenEvenThisOne · 15/10/2019 02:05

can you imagine / mentally recreate noises, sensations, smells at all?

I can mentally recreate music and sounds a bit.

Definitely not smells.

I can get a faint whisper of an image if I really try, but I can't really see it, It's more like imagining the concept of the thing.

64sNewName · 15/10/2019 02:57

I wonder if some of this is to do with differences in how we report or describe these experiences - in what words like ‘see’ mean to each of us, subjectively.

That must at least play a part. I can kind of imagine that one person’s ‘Yes, I can see it’ might be surprisingly similar to another person’s ‘No I can’t see it, but I can remember things about it and describe it pretty well’