AIBU to think aphantasia is not rare?

[Sunninginthecorner]

I was doomscrolling insta and a video came up about aphantasia.

Rather than explain what it is badly I found this:

Aphantasia is a condition in which people do not visualize, or see, images in their minds. This rare way of processing information and recalling memories affects about four percent of people. Close your eyes and imagine a fluffy cat. What color is the cat? What is the cat doing? When asked such questions, many people will conjure up a lifelike visual image. But others do not. People with aphantasia know they are thinking of a cat. They can even describe what a cat generally looks like. But they do so without “seeing” a cat in their mind. Instead of using their ‘mind’s eye,’ someone with aphantasia may think using words, numbers or ideas.

Brain scans show that people with aphantasia respond differently to sounds than people who use mental images.

I can’t see images and my very small poll IRL hasn’t found anyone who does see images.

IABU - you can see in images and it is rare
IANBU - you can’t see images and can’t believe it’s that rare

I was the same with Harry Potter!

I would say I have a good ability to visualise. If I wanted to visualise an apple I could swap between different varieties (a pink lady, jazz, royal gala…), I can rotate them, I could imagine a “moving camera” shot that starts wide and pulls in for a heroic close up shot with a single bead of water glistening on the side… :-)

I’ve always enjoyed things like photography, partly because I can visualise how I want the shot to look, and then I try to recreate it for real. If I draw from imagination I try to picture an image in my mind and then reproduce it on paper.

Does it affect dreaming? My Mum says she never dreams.

From AI:
Most research suggests about 1–4% of people have aphantasia. That’s roughly 1 in 25 to 1 in 100 people

No i dont nor is considered a form of disability.
My inability to see images has never interfered with learning to navigate, read, write, draw or do anything other than not see images in my mind.
Calling any neurological difference a super power is ridiculous bs that in some circumstances such as asd becomes not only offensive but harmful.
When it comes to aphantasia it is no more a disability than being left handed so please dont refer to 4% of the population as mentally disabled just because you dont understand something

and I bet you don't think anythiing of it and probabaly have never been to the doc about it? For one thing, mostly ot probabaly fades quite quickly and leaves no after effect? The only time i managed to get to a doctor with the bruising still showing on my foot, the doctor said it was chillblains!!!

Exactly! I only found out what it was because I decided to look it up one day. I'd had it for years by then.

I have this when reading it’s amazing! I can see whatever I’m thinking about, they’re like memories so if I’m asked to imagine my daughters it’s usually from the last time I saw them. Another thing I do, not sure if others do this, is if I’m asked to spell a word I will sketch it with my finger on my leg to remember the spelling. The muscle memory and my brain work together.

same here! What I also found interesting is how the medical information on it seems to gets so much wrong and misses bits out.

I do the spelling thing on my thumb, I sometimes get words stuck in my head and repeat them to myself over and over (it can be massively annoying!).

I stand corrected and apologise to anyone offended.

Sorry if someone’s already asked this, but how do you describe it if you can’t recall what it looks like?

if you’d been to a certain location, and you were then to describe what it looks like to someone else, how do you do that if you can’t bring the image into your mind? I can’t fathom it at all.

Not to speak for this pp, but for me I sort of have a list of characteristics that I can run off. Like I can remember what something looks like I just don’t see it. So if I’m describing my childhood home I don’t picture it, but I know it was a red brick, 1990s style house. It had a purple door. 3 bedrooms. I couldn’t specifically tell you the colours of all the walls and super specific stuff though as my memory has disappeared for that! But if I were to describe my husband I’d say long brown hair, beard, tall, thick eyebrows. I know what he looks like I just don’t see him! It’s hard to explain 😂

I am exactly the same, it is like having a picture or film of places I have been to going right back to my early childhood. I can also recall conversations I have had or conversations between other people just like watching a film. My mother always said I have a 'Photographic Memory' , which I suppose I have.

I can't do the key or the notebook thing but I can do the house walkthroughs. Oddly I can remember the house my grandmother lived in when I was small. but not the council flat she was moved to when her house was condemned

I see the images when I listen to the radio too. Or when someone tells me things.

I have aphantasia - I first heard of it on MN and my mind was blown.

I genuinely had no idea that anyone else could actually see things in their head. When people said things ike 'Imagine being on a sunny beach' I just assumed it was a figure of speech. I didn't realise some people actually could!

Funnily enough I used to be good at Art at school, but I have to have something in front of me to draw, like a still life or a landscape. I can't picture stuff in my head. Although I obviously know what they look like and would recognise them I cannot picture my husband or my children's faces in my head.

I'd make a shit police eye witness.

This is so crazy to me! So do you have like a list of words you have to remember associated with things? Like your house, your write it on a list in your head - red bricks, purple door, slate roof… and reel it off as if you’ve been handed the list and never seen it before because you can’t picture it?

I can walk around my childhood home in my head, both in the form I lived in it as a kid and the “updated” version we left it in (new kitchen, bathroom, carpets etc.) I know the carpet colours because I can see them in the image that conjures in my head, I can’t fathom how else I would know what it looked like 😩

the brain is wild

I don't have the whole movie when reading but certainly still images or short scenes. and yeah I have the "film not as good as the book" thing For me, two programs EVER, TV series not films which nailed the book(s) for me were The Lord Peter Wimsey series with Edward Pethybridge and Harriet Walter and the George Smiley series with Sir Alec Guinness.

But I am hyperphantasic and I don’t necessarily need to move my eyes to see anything. It depends on what it is. An apple, as in the example earlier, is small and I can move it around and rotate it. I don’t think my eyes move. I really only move my eyes for something big or moving.

My whole family is autistic and my mum and I are hyperphantasic with “maladaptive” daydreaming. All the rest I know of are probably closer to the middle, and I do feel they miss out. It may be why they aren’t as keen on novels or audiobooks as me, but prefer manga which does the pictures for you.

I cannot bear film adaptations if I’ve read the book. Everything will be wrong. Sometimes I get thrown off by rooms being the wrong way round, or people not standing the way I expected.

I am terrible at face recognition though. Absolutely awful. I’ve reintroduced myself to friends before. And I don’t generally see faces in my mind - just a fuzzy sort of face place-holder. I can’t remember routes either, be dude although I have a good memory for places I cannot fit them together!

I can recall images in my head, or create images and visualise plans. My dreams are occasionally vivid and i have had a lucid dream (where you are aware you're dreaming and can control what happens). I can also play music in my head, either exactly as the song goes, or change bits.

I don't have a continual inner monologue though - i didn't even know this was a thing until i read it here! So, i can hear people taliking in my head when i'm reading or writing, but i don't think in a monologue. I don't hear internal dialogue, i just picture things or think conceptually. I'll talk to myself if i'm having to think really hard to work something out, but generally i'm playing music or visualising.

I'm terrible at faces, too. I have blanked so many people that i know on the street because i can only recognise them when they're in the context that i normally see them. I actually explain this to work colleagues to avoid offense.

In dreams i struggle to see faces eventhough the dream itself is pretty vivid and detailed. I used to think it was because i don't look at people much when they're talking, i tend to listen better if i'm sat next to someone rather than opposite them so that i can concentrate on what they're saying.

I'm not autistic, but my middle son is. My eldest recons i am too, but i only have certain traits.

Same here.

I actively avoid looking at faces. Maybe it’s related.

I do think this will be one of those areas that’s massively under reported though. I only heard of this because a friend asked me if I was one of those odd people who could see images when I read, be sure she couldn’t believe it was actually a thing. We worked out we’re at opposite ends of the spectrum. But neither of us has ever discussed it with a professional, and we’ve both had therapy and diagnosis appointments!

In terms of how many people are turning up to discuss it here, it’s like MILs. No one starts a thread to say their married life is plodding along nicely and their MIL is average. And when I ran bf sessions I found roughly a quarter of long term bf mums had had vasospasm at some point, although doctors and health visitors told me it as vanishingly rare! But none had ever gone to the GP be sued it was just part of life (See also prolapse, joint pain, Ehler Danlos etc).

I have almost no ability to visualise physical sensations though, but I still gave trauma associated with them.