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

Absolutely fascinating. Is there anything you find a lot harder now, or easier for that matter?

Have you done an AMA post? It'd be interesting to ask you questions re hypnotherapy.

I think I have aphantasia. All I see is darkness when I close my eyes, and cannot summon images of any kind.

I find it harder to remember things that have happened years ago, as I can't picture the memory in my mind's eye, so i rely more on photos. Although, having said that, I do remember significant events like the birth of my children and my wedding, but just not in huge technicolour detail so it becomes a hazy memory, made more clearer when I look at a photo. It makes it a bit less meaningful if you see what I mean, but photos become more precious as they are a tool used to enhance the moment more - so if I lost my phone or any of my photos, I'd be pretty upset

Having said all this, I don't get a lot of unwanted images or mental reminders of horrible things so I guess there's a bonus! 🤣🤔

I think nowadays, its more photofit. You are shown options and can say how they differ from what you remember which is much easier and non experts can operate it.

I can't summon images with my eyes closed. They have to be open for my mind's eye to work.

I don't think the 4% thing is accurate, how many people on this thread have said "I can imagine things but it's not actually an image is it?" Therefore surely people who've been part of studies are saying they do imagine things in their minds eye, but they're not actually seeing the images. I can't see how it's only 4%

Yes this is what I said in an earlier comment, being able to visualise things so clearly is sometimes a very unwanted thing, I see things that I never ever want to see again, I experience them as if they're happening all over again because it's so vivid and detailed it's like I'm there. I'm sorry you've had to go through all that 💔

Gosh id still find this so hard though! Because I don’t have any mental image to compare to. So even two noses, I wouldn’t know which is more similar. I’d be so rubbish “man, brown hair, stubble…”

I couldn’t do this. It’s a joke in my house that I can’t describe anything about people we have met. Sometimes I have the most distinctive facts wrong - a red t shirt when it was a blue shirt - kind of wrong. It makes me very suspicious of memory and recall.

Yeah I can relate! I used to do this more than I do now but I could spend hours daydreaming my life away. My whole life has been about trying to avoid reality I think. I may look into PDA and see if it's something I might have-thanks!

If you don’t have a mind’s eye, how do you imagine manipulating something in space? Eg how would you work out which shapes are templates of a cube and which aren’t? Or where the matching cards are in Pelmanism?

I have got a minds eye and can't do any of those things

I think quite a lot of people can't imagine manipulating shapes like a cube template, even when they have a mind's ete.

Interesting! Nevertheless, there must be some people without a mind’s eye who can still do these things? How on earth do they do them? Is there a more efficient way of doing it than picturing folding the sides of the template up, or rotating shapes in your head, or remembering the positioning of a picture in a grid of cards?

Despite my terrible spatial awareness and partial aphantasia I can spot which templates would make a cube and which wouldn't, probably because as we made templates of cubes at school and I know what a correct "net" or template looks like. But I'm hopeless at most other tests of spatial awareness.

I experience maladaptive daydreaming, even though my ability to visualise scenes is vague and unfocused.

I don't. I would not have a clue, I'd look blankly at the figure on a page and be utterly unable to picture them in 3D, or what went together.

I do have a mind's eye and still can't do the matching 3d shapes thing.

So, those who have a mind’s eye but still can’t visualise 3D manipulation just can’t work out any 3D puzzles in their head, then, unless they have previously memorised templates (ie learnt answers by rote), or have a physical example to experiment with? So 3D visualisation is a bit more unusual?? I had thought of it more as a limited short term memory thing, limited by trying to hold too many manipulations in your head in one go, than as an inability to imagine an object being manipulated in a 3D space at all.

depends what you mean..... When I imagine in my mind's eye eg a rose I see a rose and can see all round the rose ...the same with any other real thing. Those 3D puzzles are images. the task is different, you have to turn a 2D image into a 3D image in your mind's eye and do the same with the others until you find two that fit together....different. I don't think I could even learn to do that unless it was a fixed set of shapes and shape A ALWAYS matched with shape B

But it isn’t turning a 2D image into a 3D image, it’s visualising a manipulation of something that is already imagined in 3D space in order to work out if it can be manipulated into the desired shape - in the case of the template of a cube, by imagining folding the sides of the template into different planes and positions from their starting points, to find out whether they can be manipulated into a cube shape, or if some of the sides overlap or are missing when you try to do so, so visualising the 3D manipulation step by step.

If I have understood you, the puzzle shows you an image...a 2d image...so I look at the image and have to "see" it as not just lines on paper but a real thing before I can fold it in my mind's eye. A cube is easy but the ones that fold into more complicated shapes I probably could not do anyway but I could go further along the line from piss easy to can't do with an actual cut out piece than with an image.

Can you visualise a football? Can you dismantle it in your mind and see the hexagons and pentagons that make it? Can you even work out the net and how many sides on each shape need tabs to form and stick tigether to form the 3d shape?

My bother and i did this, in our heads when we were kids, we even made it with a cereal box. Neither of us has more than gcses now, but we both work in IT and finance.

Nope, no idea! I’ve have to try making one and would probably learn a lot from doing it.

I've always struggled with anything to do with shapes. I can't imagine any of that stuff. My minds' eye is just a memory of things I've seen that I can replay when I want to-I can't put complex (or even simple) shapes together in my mind because I haven't seen how they go together beforehand.

My dad was an engineer so it's probably the kind of thing he would do but sadly I haven't inherited that skill. Maybe with some practice I could learn how to do it but I vividly remember struggling with shape questions on maths tests as a teenager.

I guess it’s this that interests me, because apparently people with aphantasia can be excellent at engineering, but I always thought of a talent at engineering as being something that was linked to good spatial visualisation, so find it fascinating the extent to which good spatial awareness and mental manipulation can be separated from an ability to visualise anything. Maybe if you can’t visualise, you may be better attuned to other cues that can give you the necessary information?