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

A couple of things helped me figure out I definitely had aphantasia!

1. imagine a ball being knocked off a table by a hand. Now immediately answer - what colour was the ball? Whose hand was it? What happened to the ball? I couldn’t answer any of those as I conceptualise a ball being knocked off a table but I don’t see it

2. imagine hearing a song - assuming you can! You can hear it like you’d hear it in real life just in your head? Do you have the same with pictures? I don’t! I can hear an imaginary version of a song but it’s like it’s playing in my mind. I cannot “conjure” an image in the same way!

Ok, I sort of get it I think!

The weird thing is, I guess I can’t imagine being a blind person that’s never seen either! If I imagine being blind I’d use my image memory to navigate the house.

Being blind in a place I’d never seen before would be quite scary. But even then, I’d feel my way round, feel an item and imagine an image of what it looks like, so it’s just a fundamental difference in how we process things I guess! I’ll never quite be able to understand what it’s like.

This is actually something I’ve considered/worried about. If I daydream too hard, I stop fully seeing what’s in front of me.

The description of closing your eyes and just seeing eyelids, veins, swirling light shapes - I agree, I get that. And that when I conjure a memory of a place or image, I’m seeing it in my mind, it doesn’t create a hologram in front of me that I can examine. However if I’m doing it for a prolonged period and really going into detail with my imagination, it does definitely impact my ability to see properly! It’s like the same part of my brain is processing what I’m actually seeing in front of me and what I am seeing in my head.

That said, all my thoughts don’t have to be images. If I’m driving I might just run words and conversations through my head. Or the image thoughts might just be fleeting in and out of my mind while I think. So it probably flashes between the two so fast that I don’t notice a gap in my vision.

Your explanation then of what you’d do if you went blind fascinates me because it really does show the difference in how we process information. Like if I imagine being blind it’s kind of like im now having to use my spatial imagination in both real life and in my mind! It almost matches up which is so strange to think about

To be blind would be my worst nightmare. I think it would finish me as I'd literally have no reference to any of my family, friends etc or memories, as my acquired aphantasia means I'd literally not see them in my mind's eye 💔

I think I'd be ok with it before I lost my ability to see in my mind's eye. Now, I would find it devastating.

I cant see people's faces if I try to recall them in real life in my memory . I can see the hair and everything else but no face. However if I see the person in a picture I can recall the picture and see the face.

Yes that would be awful.

You developed aphantasia during your life?? That’s even more interesting then….

I totally understand that, it must be so different because it’s something you acquired.

Because you acquired aphantasia later in life - how would you explain the difference between visualising and what aphants have? I see a lot of people online saying it’s just a semantics thing and it doesn’t exist. You are proof it absolutely does.

Yes, I hate it so much. Sorry to sound whiny lol 😆

I had a head injury and post concussion syndrome a decade ago, and it made me lose my ability to see in my mind's eye. The acquired aphantasia is something I've never quite accepted or come to terms with completely 😢

It's a hard one to explain. I think it's definitely something that was ike a photo in my mind's eye. I could think of my mum, for example, or my childhood home, and see the details of it all, as though I'd be looking at it in real life.

It would be pretty crystal clear, in colour, and if I wanted to imagine a scene or something similar as in a story or situation, I could manifest the way it happened.

Now, even as I'm trying to picture something typing this, it feel literally like my brain hurts and I'm "straining" or over exerting my brain to be able to see an image. It's like the connections in the specific part of my brain that form visible images have been so damaged, it must be unable to use the neuronal connections ad efficiently now.

It's literally black now when I close my eyes. All I see is the back of my eyelids.😕😩

Ironic that I have such insight into my lack of insight 😂😂😂

I have the opposite, hyperphantasia. I can picture things with a huge level of detail. If I describe a fluffy cat I can visualise everything from the way it’s walking and what speed, to the colour at the tips of its grey fur being a lighter shade than the rest, the green eyes flecked with brown, it’s whiskers are pale and it’s got a little dry leaf stuck in its fur. I know how it would feel to give the cat a smooth, even how it would smell if I picked it up. I can easily change it to a calico cat with pink skin and amber eyes, a black can with yellow eyes who’s shiny fur catches the sun… I could even make the cat a weird colour such as green or blue with pink eyes.
I can’t imagine being any other way and it definitely influences how I move through the world as I’m very visual orientated.

Aw, I can understand that being upsetting 😢 I’ve never heard of that happening before

OMG i think i might have had this when i was 3-4 years old! I remember that i could "see" jesus, i knew he wasn't really there but he looked real, like photograph real. I used to sing songs to him that i'd made up on the spot, my mum used to record them as she thought i had some sort of gift. We were a christian family, but not bonkers religious at all, i wasn't encoraged to have visions or told it was a miracle. I think i just latched onto being told "jesus is with us all the time", so my brain just sort of conjured him up!

I am '5' no image at all. I just think about what a red apple might look like. I don't 'see' it at all

There was supposed to be a image here, a range of where people fall. It didn't add

Trying again

I never realised it was a thing to see images until someone told me that what I have is not usually a thing and most people see images.

I have hyper fantasia, so the exact opposite. I've also had a difficult life, so it's not ideal.

I picture my dead parents faces often. And my dead partner. In perfect and absolute detail. I see my own rape quite often - my mind helpfully filled in the blanks so I can see it in a bird's eye view. I have a phobia of something stupid and when I think about them, hyper realistic images of them go through my mind. It happens every time I'm stressed too. I think I actually use seeing awful things that have happened before as a sort of form of self harm when my mental health is poor, too.

It's lovely thinking about my kids when they were babies though. And useful for drawing and flat pack furniture! I have very vivid and sometimes lucid dreams quite often. I do wonder if they're linked.

I am not an expert but it sounds possible. Was the image you saw something you had seen or something you created?

He was pretty much just like the westernised images of jesus that you get in a kid's bible, with his arms out in the usual pose - from what i can remember. I've always thought it was just my version of the imaginary friend, but the image didn't talk or do anything. Nothing miraculous happened!

I can draw I just need the subject in front of me, I mean I'm no artist (I failed art class) but I could capture the likeness just fine. I just can't do what my friend did and draw completely from memory.

This sums me up too including the high occurence of ND in family members. I see words instead. If I hear a word or name for the first time, I can see a printed image of the word in a font similar to that on a flash card or an old style Ladybird book for toddlers. I have always been extremely good at spelling as I can visualise a word after seeing it once. I think my DS (diagnosed ASD) has the same.

If I try to picture something, I can conjure up a simple image, maybe a 2D cartoon image, but there’s no detail. I find it very hard to draw from memory. I also only realised this quite late in life when my 8 yo daughter drew some fruits from memory and I was amazed at the detail she’d put in, including shadows and reflections which I just couldn’t picture.

Yes it can definitely have it's drawbacks. When my gran died it was quite traumatic. I think I expected her to just peacefully pass away but it was much worse than I anticipated.

For months after all I could think about was what happened in vivid detail. I couldn't stop the images. I actually contacted a hypnotherapist to ask if he could erase the memories from my mind. Of course he said that's not possible. I thought it'd never end but eventually it did and now I can control whether I think about it or not. I wonder if I was doing the same thing re using it as a form of self harm.

This must have been such a loss for you. I think it’s very different to have been born this way and have acquired it.

a question for you. You know when you see sketch artists to find criminals? I’ve always wondered how someone describes what someone’s eyebrows look like or how it looks like them. But I’m guessing before becoming aphantic you could have “conjured” an image of the criminal? And described from that image?

In statistics, especially medical statistics which are based on frequency within the general population (ie. tens of millions of people) rare means something else. Something can be rare and still affect thousands of people every year for example. I was diagnosed with a rare condition affecting only 0.02% of people in the UK and yet the team that operated on me had treated thousands of people over the course of their career. Here's a helpful breakdown of what common v rare means in medical stats (courtesy of Dr Google):

• Very Common: 10% or higher (more than 1 in 10 people)
• Common: 1% to 10% (ranging from 1 in 10 to 1 in 100 people)
• Uncommon: 0.1% to 1% (ranging from 1 in 100 to 1 in 1,000 people)
• Rare: 0.01% to 0.1% (ranging from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 10,000 people

According to this classification, aphantasia is a common condition if it affects 4% of the population.

Yes, absolutely, it was innate and something I didn't think about. I'd be able to look and stare off into space (when awake), and 'see' the image with my eyes open (if that makes sense lol)

Yes, I definitely would have been able to describe and draw it from my mind's eye. Although I'm actually pretty good at art and never lost that talent (thankfully!), I couldn't draw from memory now (but then to be honest, I don't really remember doing when I wasnt an aphant lol 😆 😅 )