Aphantasia

[Newrumpus]

Recently, I discovered that I am aphantasic. I had never heard of this until recently and after hearing about it I have become interested in the experiences of others.

To save anyone googling, aphantasia is mind blindness or lack of visual imagery. When someone says ‘Imagine an elephant’ I think of an elephant but I don’t see one in my mind.

Does anyone else have experience of this and how did you discover it?

That’s funny, I was just telling my daughter about this and she’s aphantasic like me! We’re also both autistic.

Not for me. I have always been exceptionally good at mental arithmetic, but very poor at visualising.

I don't use images to do arithmetic. I use my knowledge of patterns, combined with logic. For example, I'd work out 5x19 as follows. I know that 19 is one less than 20, and so I work out that 5x19 is five less than 5x20.

If I am dealing with a lot of information then I have to store some of it in my auditory memory.

Sorry if this has been answered but what do you see when you dream? If you dream?

Not that I know of. It just happened.

I also started having visual images in dreams. Not always, but sometimes. Previously I had only dreamed in ideas. So in a nightmare I would have been aware that a goat with two heads was chasing me, but I didn't see it, I just knew it was there. Now sometimes I see the goat!

I don’t understand. What do you mean by a strong imagination if you don’t see things? Imagination is surely what you’ve described yourself as lacking?

I usually dream in first person (I’m staring in the film) but occasionally in third person (I’m watching myself starring in the film). My dreams are very visual. They may be set in real places I have visited or be complete fantasy; involve real people I know or complete made up characters.

I don't even purposely visualise a rabbit and a squirrel, as soon as I read that question though I could instantly picture both in my head. Blows my mind that others don't do this, I never knew!

For me, I dreamed in concepts.

So for example if a friend told you she had a new partner, I suppose you wouldn't picture the partner because you've never met him and don't know what he looks like. You would just know she had a partner. You could remember facts she told you about her partner. But you wouldn't have a mental image of him. (Or maybe I'm wrong: would you make up an image of him before you met him?)

It was like that in my dreams. In my dream, I'd know I was with my sister, and I'd know what we were doing. But I wouldn't see her.

I can imagine a dream house by thinking about what it would be like but at no point can I see it.

I can think ‘there would be a cherry blossom tree leaning over the dry stone wall’ but I can’t see those in my imagination. Just think about them.

You can imagine scenarios without visualising them 😵‍💫

I can't imagine a picture, I just pull up a "stock image" of the thing I'm trying to visualise.
I struggle with counting sheep to fall asleep, because again its a little cartoon stock image of a sheep in my head rather than a visualisation of one.
I am poor at directions because although I know where I want to get to, I can't visualise the actual route at all. I find this very frustrating.
When I read a book, even one I'm really enjoying, I skip paragraphs that are just description of scenery because they are meaningless to me. Other people in my book club were aghast when I said that, as they love the descriptions and can "smell the blossom and taste the coffee". One woman said she felt sorry for me not having am imagination but I do! It's not the same at all.

Yup

My partner has this, I find it really funny because he went 32 years without realising that it’s not the norm!

I’m currently also trying to convince him that most people have an inner monologue/can hear their own thoughts, he thinks I’m having him on.

I can see rabbits and squirrels from my office window at work. If someone asked me to visualise a rabbit or squirrel I would see a colour replay of my recent rabbit/squirrel sightings out of the window. If I try to contour up an imaginary squirrel or rabbit though it would be hard to do, greyscale and grainy.

Nothing

If I remember dreams, it's sensations and emotions

I can dream about being insanely scared and can feel myself falling, but don't see images.

I have this, sometimes I get a fleeting image, but if I try and focus on it it disappears. Otherwise, nothing, just blackness. I have extremely vivid dreams though. It mostly causes issues for me when I am driving, it's hard to explain but I can't figure where one place is in relation to another, even places i have been to lots of times. My sister was describing how she can go out her back gate and into the back of a local park, i had only ever seen the park from the front, to me they are in different places, it wasn't until I actually saw the back of the park and where it was in relation her house that i understood. I feel I have no 'mind map' of places, if that makes sense.

Me too, discovered by reading a bbc article. Never realised people can actually see until I read this. I presumed all were like me

My DS and I are the same (he has ASD, I share a lot of his traits) - we both see things as pictures in our heads, have photographic memory.
DH however I suspect has aphantasia - he thought we were bonkers when we explained how our minds work.

I don’t see things in my mind but I do have an internal monologue. Do the others who don’t “see” things in their imagination also have internal monologues?

I do have internal monologue.

I was just telling DH that I was only picturing things in 2D this evening after reading this thread and found it weird. He then said he doesn't see things in his head which I never knew. He said at school when the teacher said "everyone close your eyes and try to imagine", he thought they were all joking.

I also have an internal monologue as well as a visual mind.
DH (non-visual mind) does not have an internal monologue. Another thing he thought I was crazy when I told him about my brain 😂

Surely, if you can close your eyes and "see" and image, then you would also see it when your eyes are open... and it interferes with your vision?

I have this, I see "auras" of things in my mind, like foggy impressions, colours and feelings. I realised a few years ago that I can't picture my child's face in my mind. If I really try I can see little fragments of things, like a close-up of the tip of an elephants trunk, but I cant connect the fragments. Bizarrely I'm a visual artist and would have no problem drawing a realistic elephant from "memory", even though I can't "imagine" a picture of it. When I start to draw its like a different part of my brain takes over, and the only way I can describe it is I somehow carve the feeling of the elephant out of the space on the paper with my pencil. I also can't "see" in my mind what I want my drawing to look like, even though what I draw is accurate and realistic. It's very odd!

Me too . And I have no sense of direction . I also dream a lot .

my head is in a constant conversation though . It’s not like load voices but constant chatter from one subject to another .

I suppose if I close my eyes and think of a dog , it’s there but I can’t see it , it’s conceptual.