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I'm aphantasic, and like others here was blown away to learn that people can see things with their eyes closed. That statement seems like an oxymoron to me. On

I'm aphantasic, and like others here was blown away to learn that people can see things with their eyes closed. That statement seems like an oxymoron to me. Once I started thinking about it more, I realised I can actually imagine a very precise scenario, except that it is always behind me. It could be similar to how a blind person perceives the world, not seeing anything but knowing that everything is there. The way I see it, I can process two different worlds at once. I've always been very good at modeling abstract things in my head, e.g. binary trees or a graph.

michrassena 8y ago
One thing the Internet has been good for has been finding people with similar conditions. Knowing that many people can see images on demand alleviates some of my confusion; "Imagine yourself on a beach" to relax never made much sense to me. I do feel I'm missing out somewhat on richness of experience. When I try to visualize it's as if there's just a texture to the blackness in my mind, like a handprint in mud. I recently learned about Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM). It's hard to tell based on textual descriptions, but it does seem to relate to aphantasia and the fact I can't recall most of the past, whether it be ten days or ten years ago.