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'm at the opposite end of the scale, I see images very clearly, especially 3d/spacial things, I can rotate them in my mind.

It's hard to say if this is innate or learned though as I do work in design and with 3d computer models. I was also a precocious reader, reading chapter books by 6/7 years old which may have helped develop it as a skill at a young age.

I don't think there's a strong connection with face blindness as despite the above I'm awful at recognising people, I wonder if faces specifically are recognised elsewhere in the brain.

4% is one in 25 people. That isn't very rare. Most class rooms will have a child or two with this.

DH has aphantasia. I’m the opposite and hyper visualise with some synaesthesia. Normal is somewhere in the middle.

I thought this was normal! 😟

Those of you who do "see" images in your mind, what is that like? Is it as if you are really seeing something, as clear as if you are looking at it with your eyes open? I do sometimes wonder if we are experiencing the same thing but describing it differently.

I know what something looks like in my mind but I'm not "seeing" it. I do have vivid, occasionally even lucid dreams where things are very clear, but not in my waking hours.

That’s so unfair! I wish I had movies playing in my head.

mind you, there is a flip side. If I read about something horrible that happened, I am spared the images that I’m sure other people have to deal with.

I can't see images. I'm really bad at recognising people, and I definitely think it's linked. I'm also bad with directions - it takes me longer to learn a new route because I can't picture what's ahead.

Can you imagine how quiet their heads must be!!

Yes, OP, I have movies playing when I read or listen to radio plays it whatever, I 'see' the rooms and how they're furnished etc.

I think of my mind as an old 8 track tape from the 70s. There's the 'movie' that I'm reading. On a separate track I have whatever music is on my head. Then there's the internal dialogue track, and the musing on a problem track. Plus one that's hearing and identifying the birdsong as I read outside.

I’m a total aphant cant imagine pictures, sounds, smells or touch. Seems quite rare as when I mention it to people they are surprised.

I definitely have an internal monologue!

Yes, visual flashbacks are awful.

Ok that’s the first one that’s made me grateful to have no processing going on 😁 i read in silence in a quiet room - internal monologue disappears I am just reading the words of the book no music, no images and I tune anything outside out completely.

Yes it's crystal clear. I invented a whole world with characters in it for a story and can see it as clear as day, along with their activities and clothes, etc. That plus conversations etc.

I see images very clearly, and in colour. Also dream in colour but ironically my dreams are less clear on the whole!

I didn't realise people see images.

I close my eyes and try but nothing. I can describe a picture but not see it.

Ooh yes, that's one reason I cannot watch horror movies or graphic violence. Those images will keep coming back.

Is it? Temple Grandin mostly thinks in pictures, I think. I don't know how aphantasia/ autism correlate.

Yes. Most likely. Are you ND?

Another reason to be grateful I don’t have this. As I love murder mysteries!!

The dream thing is interesting, I have very vivid dreams in full colour which I can recall easily.

I'm beginning to think I might be autistic.

I can watch anything. It then disappears and never comes back as an image

In that case your poll will be meaningless because it’s not clear what "it" means in either option.

Aphantasia is rare. I know someone who has it. He can’t even picture his wife’s face.

Weirdly I can picture all kinds of fluffy cats, but find it very hard to picture faces even of people I know well. And I have trouble recognising faces.

I'm guessing that it is a bit like being left-handed, in that it is a minority thing but perfectly normal.

It is complicated by the fact that, unlike left- versus right-handedness, it is quite hard for people on either side of the divide to conceptualise what it even is to be on the other side. We have a constant low-level scepticism or confusion about what is going on for the person 'not like us' so we start to think of it as something outlandish, which makes it 'feel' very rare/abnormal.

I do often wonder whether this confusion may also involve the fact that two people with a quite similar level of internal imagery might conceive of it differently from one another, and describe it differently. For example, I sometimes wonder whether some people with low or no internal imagery imagine that what other people have is something as vivid as a picture book, which is actually rare-to-non-existent

It’s interesting that you say you have a poor memory.

If my husband asks where his keys are I can tell him because I remember where I saw them. As in a picture of where I saw them flashes into my mind.

If I’m checking back in my work notebook for some information I can usually remember where on the page the info is, eg the name I’m looking for was on the bottom of a left hand page and circled.

I can walk through every house I have lived in room by room in my mind. Some of the details might have been lost (eg I can’t remember all the pictures on the living room wall from our house when I was five) but I can walk through”seeing” all the rooms and could draw a floor plan and describe them.

So, are you saying that if you met a cat one day and petted it, as soon as it was out of sight, you would not be able to visualise the cat? You would forget what the cat looked like? But you would remember that you had met a cat and had petted it?

And if you saw the same cat the next day, presumably you wouldn't recognise it if you couldn't remember it? Would you be thinking "I petted a cat yesterday. I wonder if this is the same one?"