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 can’t see images properly either. Ive missed the poll. When Im told - picture this in your minds eye it doesn’t work. In hypno once they said go down the stairs but I couldn’t get the image and therefore it didn’t work.

I reckon the ability to do this entirely in your head requires a combination of both physical and visual past experience and memory, good working memory (as you will be testing a sequence of manipulations in your head, not just one, so need to be able to keep track of the effects of each stage), and obviously not having aphantasia.

That's a shame-I was briefly interested in hypnosis and I do remember it being a common theme to visualise going down a staircase. They must have an alternative for people like you though? Could you not even conjure up the feeling of going down? Like you could do a lift instead and just imagine that feeling in your stomach as the lift starts to go down? I don't know if that would work so well but be interesting to know if you could imagine that.

I just did a quick google and saw some reddit posts about this and people saying they have aphantasia and can't be hypnotised or it was a real struggle to be. Since they can't do any of the visualisations. How interesting!

@Firefly1987I reckon not, but I could try the lift.

It certainly is interesting. I also have trouble with face recognition. I’ve never knew aphantasia existed until this summer. I visited Cambridge and saw a flyer about it re research.