aphantasia
I’m always bewildered when I see people saying they don’t think aphantasia is real. It’s so dismissive. Every time, it’s some variation of “Well, who are we to say that we aren’t both seeing or thinking the same thing? We probably all see the same thing but choose to describe it differently or have different standards.”
Imagine saying that about variations of color blindness or myopia, it would be absolutely ridiculous to deny those are real based on “you can totally see red, we just choose to describe red differently from each other” or “it’s normal to not see things that are far away as detailed as the things you see up close, doesn’t mean you have a condition”. Is it so weird and outlandish to some to just listen and believe people about their own rich inner life and experiences in their body? Their struggles and limits or talents?
I believe it when people say that they can see things in detail in their minds eye and even rotate the item freely. I believe people who say they can briefly see it but not rotate it. It makes sense to me, despite being one of the people who doesn’t see anything at all and cannot rotate. I believe them because I can somewhat do it while falling asleep, and I can still dream, and I am so good at imagining music that it feels like I am listening to it with headphones. And I can imagine smells and touch the same intense and realistic way - so they must have the visual variety of this skill. If I take time each day to specifically train my minds eye, I can see flashes of small details of an object briefly for a second or two, but that goes away again if I don’t.
The audacity of some people online to just go “Well actually, I think you’re all lying.” is so brazen at times - about something that’s actually being studied. It’s one thing to never have heard of it before, recognizing something you have that you thought everyone experienced but is actually not the case for everyone, so you’re going “wait, you can/can’t do this?” But dismissing people talking about it with downplaying the issue and claiming to know their inner experience better than them.. I can only recommend spending time with someone aphantasic to know it’s real.
If you do, at some point you’ll realize how it all fits together and affects them in ways you don’t experience: They might have face blindness, and/or harder time with orientation in a lesser known place, maybe they’re worse at remembering where they put stuff (because they cannot conjure up the mental image where they saw it last), need more references for drawing, have a harder time with puzzles and Legos (because they cannot rotate the piece in their mind), and so on.
I remember one time I was reading a thread like this and someone was writing along the lines of: “That can’t be real, how would you work, how would you solve problems, enjoy a book or be creative?” Yes, that’s the entire point! That’s how you’ll notice it is real, because either aphantasic people suck these things or need more help and developed more coping mechanisms around it to keep up with everyone else. I struggle with sewing because the flat pieces on the table and the 3D thing it’s supposed to be once sewn together don’t connect for me or make much sense. I can’t imagine how it all wraps around or rotate the pieces. I can’t imagine how stuff fits together - I need patterns or people to observe me and step in if I am being stupid. When I make art, I make it up as I go because I will only know if what I try to make works if I already have it in front of me. I don’t have a mental reference to follow loosely. I can’t imagine what that next paint stroke will make the image look like without actually committing to it. When I read a book, I see nothing, I imagine nothing, I just have a word list of how things look like, like remembering a recipe. Same with roleplaying in pen and paper adventures. No inner movie. I have no opinion what it all looks like. I’m never saddened by how things look like in movie adaptations because that’s the first time I even get a chance of seeing that stuff.
It’s all a spectrum of course, and I do believe it’s a matter of training to be able to somewhat undo this if yours is an acquired aphantasia - like orionsvoid did - and I have a theory on why I stopped being able to do this at some point. But to deny one end of the spectrum makes absolutely no sense. I beg people to grow some curiosity and respect for other people’s capabilities…
Published 17 Sep, 2024, edited 2Â days, 14Â hours ago