8 ms·

Hypnosis with Aphantasia

34 points by danhite 9mo ago

danhite 9mo ago
Author's short personal account, basically solving the mindblind imagery/hypnosis fail with another level of indirection. Her subtitle: > Can aphantasics be hypnotized? My experience learning to be hypnotized with imagery-free inductions.
bondarchuk 9mo ago
>the (sometimes subliminal) states of confusion, frustration, shame, and inadequacy aphantasics feel when asked to visualize Wow, take it easy.. This whole pathologization of "aphantasia" really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
- LordGrey 9mo ago
  Right. I have aphantasia and I've never felt bad about it. Maybe confused a few times, but that happens a lot anyway for any number of reasons. I posit, without evidence, that the people who feel "confusion, frustration, shame, and inadequacy" about something like aphantasia are simply attention-seekers. If it wasn't for lack of mental imagery, it would be for something else.
  - agentcoops 9mo ago
    I agree with you as an adult with aphantasia, but I think it's a relatively common experience as an undiagnosed kid in grade school etc.
    - bondarchuk 9mo ago
      Well, even the idea of "diagnosis" in this case implies that there is something wrong. I saw the whole idea of aphantasia/variations in mental imagery enter the mainstream over the past ~decade, it's really disheartening how people just can not ever accept that there are differences between people without immediately branding one type as good and the other as bad.
      - fileeditview 9mo ago
        So true! I was well into my thirties until I learned that people actually can "see" images. I was totally perplexed by this revelation. After some research I realized that this also applies to taste, smell, sounds.. and none of them I can "imagine". In hindsight this explained a lot of things. One example would be that I always was bad at blindfold chess even though I was a decent chess player. Before, I never understood how people can do this. Still I am absolutely fine. I can recognize all these things. I can describe them. I just can "imagine" them. After the first shock you understand that everything has pros and cons. E.g. I never have trouble sleeping. I close my eyes and turn the world around me off. My wife can see images very vividly and always has trouble going to sleep. In the end we just need to accept that the brain is very complex and each of us has developed / adapted the best way, allowed by our biology.
        mewpmewp2 9mo ago
        I don't see any images, but I have trouble sleeping because of my inner monologue or not feeling calm etc.
        dyauspitr 9mo ago
        Interesting. So that trope of smells being strongly connected to memories never really happened to me. I didn’t know this was also part of aphantasia.
        t-3 9mo ago
        I definitely have memories linked to smell, but I can't imagine or remember and pull them up on demand, I am reminded of them when I detect that scent. I can make myself imagine/remember sourness though, but not other flavors. Just thinking of lemon, citrus, pickles, etc. makes my mouth water and start tasting sourness.
        agentcoops 9mo ago
        That's so funny: I also first started to realize I had aphantasia during a period when I was taking chess very seriously during university. Unlike even lesser skilled peers, it was so difficult for me to understand games written out in chess books without playing them out on the board and I couldn't understand why... Experiences like that are how I understand the question of 'shame' relating to aphantasia and the importance of 'diagnosis'/understanding how your mind actually works. 'Diagnosis' just helps you understand how to adapt and prevents you from slamming your head against approaches that won't work no matter how hard you try. Similarly on sleep, I can sleep anywhere anytime with little effort and always tell my wife, who often has insomnia, "just close your eyes until you sleep" to her frustration. What's really remarkable is how similar the life experiences are of most who have aphantasia...
  - technothrasher 9mo ago
    Hmm, agreeing that the pathologization of aphantasia is distasteful but then immediately positing that people who might feel shame and inadequacy about having it must be "simply attention-seekers" seems counterproductive. Not treating aphantasia as a disease and also acknowledging that people may suffer mental illness triggered by it are not mutually exclusive.
  - mrob 9mo ago
    For me, learning that normal people go about their days constantly hallucinating had the opposite effect. I think it could partly explain some problems in society, e.g. people's susceptibility to advertising.
    - ben_w 9mo ago
      Regardless of current mechanism, susceptibility to advertising would still be present even if all currently exploited cognitive pathways were removed or deactivated across all human minds, as the advertisers would keep experimenting until they found another one.
    - astral_drama 9mo ago
      I think your implicitly getting at something here. Both are dealing with an inferiority/superiority dynamic. The suggestion of a group you identify as being less, causes a predictable reaction to characterize the other (non-aphantasia) as problematic/hallucinating (i.e. broken/lacking). This ties back to the post where the author speaks of feelings of inadequacy (shame, etc...) about being unable to visualize, again signs of an inferiority complex. While such complexes may be traced back to particular memories or events, they're also habits of thought which are common place and culturally reinforced, so much so that they seem quite normal. For example, the culture of idol worship, like raising up of tech heroes while implicitly lowering your own self worth, which happens often on this site. The fact that the author doesn't mention the details of the memory or events of the day also suggests shame and concerns of being judged for them. The good news is they are writing about their struggles which suggests their willingness to work with these fears. I think the answer probably isn't about pretending you're not better or worse, but accepting that being better or worse at something doesn't change your inherent self worth. Accepting that your not in control of many of your conditions and conditioning can free the mind from a sense of guilt and the fear around judgement of yourself and others. Hopefully this helps the author and those who struggle with notions of identity and self worth.
      - t-3 9mo ago
        > The suggestion of a group you identify as being less, causes a predictable reaction to characterize the other (non-aphantasia) as problematic/hallucinating (i.e. broken/lacking). No, it's not a defensive/counterattacking reflex. The thought of people hallucinating all the time is terrifying to me, because hallucination is a sign of something being very wrong, like schizophrenia. After getting past the language barrier and finding out these were "mental hallucinations" rather than "visual hallucinations", it's slightly less scary, but still unsettling for me to think about. Finding out that visualization was actually a thing meant that idioms that I thought were metaphors or superstition were suddenly something the majority of the population takes literally. People who have "invisible friends" talking to them all day long scares me though.
  - shaunxcode 9mo ago
    I will say it was a mind blowing experience to learn after decades of buddhist practice other people were LITERALLY seeing things (and in some cases trying not to). I never found it detracted from my experience as learning to NOT get distracted by that stuff is half the battle for a lot of people. So it can be a warp whistle in some ways. It is also why I am probably more interested in playing/listening to heavy doom music as it is hypnotic in its monotony. I reckon it is why I am fixated on genera lisp, smalltalk, self esque environments as they are more tangible for creating scenes on the screen that match how I am thinking about code (inside out and all that).
- ryanjshaw 9mo ago
  He described his feelings, albeit as a generalization of all people with aphantasia. How can somebody describing their feelings be pathologization?
  - bondarchuk 9mo ago
    When the negative feelings are described (interpreted!) as resulting from a supposedly pathological condition, for example. Also, when negative feelings result from the idea that a certain issue is pathological. And when you put these two together in a loop you have a pretty clear dynamic of pathologization, I'd say. Of course it's hard to argue with the bare fact of someone feeling something, but everything surrounding that such as the attribution of the causes, potential solutions, and the terms in which feelings are described are all open to debate.
- slibhb 9mo ago
  Yes. Please don't turn aphantasia into yet another marginalized identity...
- Traubenfuchs 9mo ago
  They are missing an aspect of the human mind that the majority of humans have. It's defined as the "inability" to do something most humans can do. Research on cognitive performance shows it's most likely connected to worse memory. Some studies show reduced social skills. Then there are the deficits in autobiographical memory. It's progressive form is indicative of dementia. How exactly is this anything but a pathology?
  - bondarchuk 9mo ago
    I think it's weird to call an aspect of mental functioning a pathology simply because it's not the majority, regardless of any impairment in normal functioning. Depending on how you slice definitions many many things are in the minority. Those studies, well, I'd have to see them. There's the risk that people for whom (e.g.) memory is accompanied by imagery automatically assume that imagery is required for memory. Vague correlations with social functioning can be drawn for nearly anything. Regarding dementia: obviously the disappearance of imagery in someone who used to have it is very different from someone who never had it.
  - musicale 9mo ago
    That sounds more like a disability than a pathology. However, there may also be benefits; for example, it seems to be associated with stronger conceptual imagination.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]
blurbleblurble 9mo ago
Tangentially, I've always been fascinated by this reddit post "Craniosacral therapy temporarily activated my mind's eye" https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/payx1i/craniosacral_therapy_temporarily_activated_my/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/payx1i/craniosa...
- vidarh 9mo ago
  I consider myself to have aphantasia, but I have one singular experience of having seen things in my minds eye in a waking state, during meditation. I wish there was research into what might trigger this, and how, as I've not been able to repeat it. (I'm sure I wasn't asleep as I both never remember my dreams, but have distinct memories of how "fuzzy" and ethereal the imagery in my dreams feel, while this imagery during meditation was crystal clear and I was fully lucid)
  - Traubenfuchs 9mo ago
    DMT and psilocybin are proven to help some people with aphantasia.
arowthway 9mo ago
Isn't this 'pretend-and-perceive approach' what all aphantasics do by default when asked to imagine something? That is, until they know they're aphantasics AND choose to feel 'confusion, frustration, shame, and inadequacy' instead.
- vidarh 9mo ago
  I certainly think that is what I've done. I've meditated, and experimented with self hypnosis (still on the fence on whether hypnosis works), and I simply always interpreted such "visualize" instructions as metaphorical, as I had no idea until a few years back that people meant them literally, so pretending was the only option I thought possible.
- t-3 9mo ago
  No. I can imagine just fine without visualizing. It's the same as "thinking". Posit a sphere of radius x. Why do I need to see to imagine that?
brador 9mo ago
Without being able to experience the world as another the existence of aphantasia can’t even be confirmed. The myth that everyone, or even anyone, can imagine anything, and is doing so regularly, has no basis, yet is the only cited basis of the diagnosis.
- quickthrowman 9mo ago
  This is my take on it as well. You can only know what it’s like to be yourself and communicating the qualia of being you is impossible to do with words. You can only ever know what it’s like to be you, so aphantasia cannot be confirmed or denied. People that think they have aphantasia like talking about it because we like applying labels to ourselves and it makes them feel distinct. I’m sure this is not a popular opinion, but given the inability of knowing what it’s like to be someone else, it’s the only rational belief about aphantasia.
- pseudalopex 9mo ago
  No.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia#Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia#Research
laszlojamf 9mo ago
I'd be curious to know how people with aphantasia come up with ideas, or what they call that process if not imagination. The author has written books. Books have stories. Somehow she comes up with them. If that's not imagination, then what is it. I have a hard time visualizing things myself, and I'm a lousy painter, but is _that_ what aphantasia is?
- vidarh 9mo ago
  People without aphantasia see images in their head. If you don't see images, you have aphantasia. I don't see images. It took until I was in my 40's to realised that this wasn't most peoples experience. I agree with you regarding imagination - the problem isn't the usual definitions of imagination, but that the process of seeing images to varying degrees (from fuzzy, brief views to "full fidelity video" they can rewind at will at the other extreme) is so deeply ingrained in most people that a whole lot of our vocabulary uses visual metaphors for the entire process rather than just for the visual aspect.
  - laszlojamf 9mo ago
    yeah, I had a similar realization as an adult that not everybody else talks to themselves inside their head
  - mewpmewp2 9mo ago
    I get my ideas completely from inner monologue. But my ideas are mostly related to developing automated systems etc, I don't really need imagery for that, although I think I need to sense some sort of graphs or how things work together on the higher level.
    - vidarh 9mo ago
      I write a lot, including fiction, and I feel my aphantasia probably shapes what I like to read and write in ways I wasn't aware of (before realising aphantasia was a thing, and that I have it), but it doesn't stop me either. E.g. when reading I tend to skim over writing that spends a lot of time describing the visual appearance of things unless the words themselves are beautiful to me, because no matter how well written the descriptions are, they don't achieve anything for me beyond the shape of the prose itself. (I love the structure and flow of language, so there are absolutely moments I find myself reading visual descriptions because of the descriptions themselves) When writing, I prefer to write relatively sparse prose that focuses on how things works and relates to each other, and dialogue, rather than trying to evoke imagery that I can't see for myself when reading the text back.
ryanjshaw 9mo ago
I wonder if author is one of the lucky aphantasics who doesn’t have SDAM [1]. I tried the exercise they described… and nothing happened. I can’t even remember major life events that everybody is supposed to. Best I can do is recall there’s a photograph of the event, and using my recollection of the existence of the photograph, I can pull up a few facts I’ve intentionally made note of. And now cue the other commenters telling me my experience isn’t real, or I’m misunderstanding how other people can recall stuff like getting married and or the birth of their kids when I can’t. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010945217303568 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00109...
- pcl 9mo ago
  I’m one of those lucky ones! It sounds like you’re implying that most aphantasics have SDAM. Is that the case? Do you have any sources?
- j_bum 9mo ago
  I’m curious if there is a diagnosis criteria for SDAM. It likely exists on a spectrum (just like mental imagery). I have aphantasia and struggle quite strongly with autobiographical memory, but if someone reminds me of an event or I look through old photos, I can remember things. This is why I love having Immich so much - it lets me feel connected to my past.
- davidhs 9mo ago
  There are people interested in overcoming aphantasia (or hypophantasia, an extremely weak form of imagination). Today I have medium-ish hypophantasia, but I remember when I was doing phantasia exercises, in particular "snapshotting" and "memory streaming", at least two times, there was a subtle shift in my perception and all of a sudden I could remember a ton of things, as if I opened a door. It would only last maybe 10-20 minutes (I would practice 30 - 60 minutes per day). It wouldn't surprise me a bunch of those memories are in the brain but you just don't have access to them in everyday waking consciousness. So, for me, it feels like a lot of my memories are visually indexed, and if I can't visualize then I can't remember, but once I configure my mind through meditation and these exercises, it is like I can "tune my mind" to mind's eye access (radio/TV analogy here) and with it the memories. Then once I stopped the exercise (for the day) it would go away in around 10-20 minutes (kind of like how a muscle pump goes away rather quickly after exercising).
kszxn 9mo ago
[dead]
amelius 9mo ago
Curious, do people with aphantasia "feel" the pain when they see other people hurting themselves (e.g. accidentally hitting their thumb with a hammer)?
- mannykannot 9mo ago
  I am not aphantasic, but I would not say that I "feel" pain when I see people undergoing painful events (depending on how much weight the quotes around 'feel' are carrying.) I can remember that hitting my thumb with a hammer was very unpleasant, how much of my body it affected, and how it faded over time. I know that the last time I did it, I recognized it as being pretty much identical to the previous times. What I cannot do is imagine it with anything like the vividness with which I can imagine what tonight's sunset could be like.
- t-3 9mo ago
  No. I will wince or look away, because it is uncomfortable to see people experiencing pain. But I don't feel pain, I just feel emotionally uncomfortable due to seeing people in distress.
mewpmewp2 9mo ago
Not related to article ncessarily, but more so to processing differences. One more thing that I think might be similar in fashion. In therapy I will say what I am feeling, e.g. anxiety, frustration or whatever. But then I am asked "where" in my body am I feeling it. And I have no clue what to answer. I don't think my feelings are felt in random body parts. Although supposedly this is not pseudoscience and people feel things in their bodyparts? I wonder if this is just another processing difference I have compared to other people. And my therapist kept asking even though I could not answer. I started to doubt if I have emotions in the first place. I wonder if people process and feel what they think are same emotions in very different ways? I usually am externally quite unreactive though, but I didn't think I don't feel emotions actually? Or maybe I do feel something in my bodyparts, but I am just unable to identify or recognize it? If I am frustrated or anxious and I focus on my brain, maybe I can kind of tell there is tightness? But then I could focus on other bodyparts, and I can also think that maybe there is chest heaviness? But then I can focus on my feet and think ok even my feet can feel weird, but is it because I am focusing on them and thinking there should be something?
- kgwxd 9mo ago
  Maybe your just good at keeping the emotions from tensing up any part of your body.
  - mewpmewp2 9mo ago
    I do think that my body is tensed up, but I think it is constantly tensed up. Or at least others say I am tensed up. I wonder if I have this constant tension then and I feel this constant sense of dread and anxiety and that is why I can't recognize change in my body, or emotions having physical meaning because it is just constant low grade tension? But the tension is everywhere not necesseraily pointed to a specific location. Like I don't ever feel what I think is "good". I feel like there is always something that I should be doing, solving some problem that is on back of my mind. I can try to make myself forget about the problems I have to solve temporarily, but mostly it doesn't work. But it is always the same, constant feeling of pressure and inability to relax, while my therapist seems to assume it comes on and off and in a specific body part.
tboyd47 9mo ago
There are subtle verbal cues that give away the dominant modality the person thinks with: visual, auditory, or kinesthetic, then you can tailor the session for that modality, using inductions for feeling- or hearing-oriented subjects. My dominant modality is kinesthetic, so I tend to use those first anyway. Even though we live in a visually stimulating environment, and society tends to express things to us in visual ways, the goal of hypnosis is to relax the person and guide them to a comfortable place, so we can relate to people how they are internally and we don't have to worry about making everything highly visual.
johnea 9mo ago
So apparently, even when a web site is for users who can't form mental images, you still have to put a picture at the top of each article?

34 points by danhite 9mo ago

Author's short personal account, basically solving the mindblind imagery/hypnosis fail with another level of indirection. Her subtitle: > Can aphantasics be hypnotized? My experience learning to be hypnotized with imagery-free inductions.

bondarchuk 9mo ago

>the (sometimes subliminal) states of confusion, frustration, shame, and inadequacy aphantasics feel when asked to visualize Wow, take it easy.. This whole pathologization of "aphantasia" really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

LordGrey 9mo ago
Right. I have aphantasia and I've never felt bad about it. Maybe confused a few times, but that happens a lot anyway for any number of reasons. I posit, without evidence, that the people who feel "confusion, frustration, shame, and inadequacy" about something like aphantasia are simply attention-seekers. If it wasn't for lack of mental imagery, it would be for something else.
- agentcoops 9mo ago
  I agree with you as an adult with aphantasia, but I think it's a relatively common experience as an undiagnosed kid in grade school etc.
  - bondarchuk 9mo ago
    Well, even the idea of "diagnosis" in this case implies that there is something wrong. I saw the whole idea of aphantasia/variations in mental imagery enter the mainstream over the past ~decade, it's really disheartening how people just can not ever accept that there are differences between people without immediately branding one type as good and the other as bad.
    - fileeditview 9mo ago
      So true! I was well into my thirties until I learned that people actually can "see" images. I was totally perplexed by this revelation. After some research I realized that this also applies to taste, smell, sounds.. and none of them I can "imagine". In hindsight this explained a lot of things. One example would be that I always was bad at blindfold chess even though I was a decent chess player. Before, I never understood how people can do this. Still I am absolutely fine. I can recognize all these things. I can describe them. I just can "imagine" them. After the first shock you understand that everything has pros and cons. E.g. I never have trouble sleeping. I close my eyes and turn the world around me off. My wife can see images very vividly and always has trouble going to sleep. In the end we just need to accept that the brain is very complex and each of us has developed / adapted the best way, allowed by our biology.
      - mewpmewp2 9mo ago
        I don't see any images, but I have trouble sleeping because of my inner monologue or not feeling calm etc.
      - dyauspitr 9mo ago
        Interesting. So that trope of smells being strongly connected to memories never really happened to me. I didn’t know this was also part of aphantasia.
        t-3 9mo ago
        I definitely have memories linked to smell, but I can't imagine or remember and pull them up on demand, I am reminded of them when I detect that scent. I can make myself imagine/remember sourness though, but not other flavors. Just thinking of lemon, citrus, pickles, etc. makes my mouth water and start tasting sourness.
      - agentcoops 9mo ago
        That's so funny: I also first started to realize I had aphantasia during a period when I was taking chess very seriously during university. Unlike even lesser skilled peers, it was so difficult for me to understand games written out in chess books without playing them out on the board and I couldn't understand why... Experiences like that are how I understand the question of 'shame' relating to aphantasia and the importance of 'diagnosis'/understanding how your mind actually works. 'Diagnosis' just helps you understand how to adapt and prevents you from slamming your head against approaches that won't work no matter how hard you try. Similarly on sleep, I can sleep anywhere anytime with little effort and always tell my wife, who often has insomnia, "just close your eyes until you sleep" to her frustration. What's really remarkable is how similar the life experiences are of most who have aphantasia...
- technothrasher 9mo ago
  Hmm, agreeing that the pathologization of aphantasia is distasteful but then immediately positing that people who might feel shame and inadequacy about having it must be "simply attention-seekers" seems counterproductive. Not treating aphantasia as a disease and also acknowledging that people may suffer mental illness triggered by it are not mutually exclusive.
- mrob 9mo ago
  For me, learning that normal people go about their days constantly hallucinating had the opposite effect. I think it could partly explain some problems in society, e.g. people's susceptibility to advertising.
  - ben_w 9mo ago
    Regardless of current mechanism, susceptibility to advertising would still be present even if all currently exploited cognitive pathways were removed or deactivated across all human minds, as the advertisers would keep experimenting until they found another one.
  - astral_drama 9mo ago
    I think your implicitly getting at something here. Both are dealing with an inferiority/superiority dynamic. The suggestion of a group you identify as being less, causes a predictable reaction to characterize the other (non-aphantasia) as problematic/hallucinating (i.e. broken/lacking). This ties back to the post where the author speaks of feelings of inadequacy (shame, etc...) about being unable to visualize, again signs of an inferiority complex. While such complexes may be traced back to particular memories or events, they're also habits of thought which are common place and culturally reinforced, so much so that they seem quite normal. For example, the culture of idol worship, like raising up of tech heroes while implicitly lowering your own self worth, which happens often on this site. The fact that the author doesn't mention the details of the memory or events of the day also suggests shame and concerns of being judged for them. The good news is they are writing about their struggles which suggests their willingness to work with these fears. I think the answer probably isn't about pretending you're not better or worse, but accepting that being better or worse at something doesn't change your inherent self worth. Accepting that your not in control of many of your conditions and conditioning can free the mind from a sense of guilt and the fear around judgement of yourself and others. Hopefully this helps the author and those who struggle with notions of identity and self worth.
    - t-3 9mo ago
      > The suggestion of a group you identify as being less, causes a predictable reaction to characterize the other (non-aphantasia) as problematic/hallucinating (i.e. broken/lacking). No, it's not a defensive/counterattacking reflex. The thought of people hallucinating all the time is terrifying to me, because hallucination is a sign of something being very wrong, like schizophrenia. After getting past the language barrier and finding out these were "mental hallucinations" rather than "visual hallucinations", it's slightly less scary, but still unsettling for me to think about. Finding out that visualization was actually a thing meant that idioms that I thought were metaphors or superstition were suddenly something the majority of the population takes literally. People who have "invisible friends" talking to them all day long scares me though.
- shaunxcode 9mo ago
  I will say it was a mind blowing experience to learn after decades of buddhist practice other people were LITERALLY seeing things (and in some cases trying not to). I never found it detracted from my experience as learning to NOT get distracted by that stuff is half the battle for a lot of people. So it can be a warp whistle in some ways. It is also why I am probably more interested in playing/listening to heavy doom music as it is hypnotic in its monotony. I reckon it is why I am fixated on genera lisp, smalltalk, self esque environments as they are more tangible for creating scenes on the screen that match how I am thinking about code (inside out and all that).
ryanjshaw 9mo ago
He described his feelings, albeit as a generalization of all people with aphantasia. How can somebody describing their feelings be pathologization?
- bondarchuk 9mo ago
  When the negative feelings are described (interpreted!) as resulting from a supposedly pathological condition, for example. Also, when negative feelings result from the idea that a certain issue is pathological. And when you put these two together in a loop you have a pretty clear dynamic of pathologization, I'd say. Of course it's hard to argue with the bare fact of someone feeling something, but everything surrounding that such as the attribution of the causes, potential solutions, and the terms in which feelings are described are all open to debate.
slibhb 9mo ago
Yes. Please don't turn aphantasia into yet another marginalized identity...
Traubenfuchs 9mo ago
They are missing an aspect of the human mind that the majority of humans have. It's defined as the "inability" to do something most humans can do. Research on cognitive performance shows it's most likely connected to worse memory. Some studies show reduced social skills. Then there are the deficits in autobiographical memory. It's progressive form is indicative of dementia. How exactly is this anything but a pathology?
- bondarchuk 9mo ago
  I think it's weird to call an aspect of mental functioning a pathology simply because it's not the majority, regardless of any impairment in normal functioning. Depending on how you slice definitions many many things are in the minority. Those studies, well, I'd have to see them. There's the risk that people for whom (e.g.) memory is accompanied by imagery automatically assume that imagery is required for memory. Vague correlations with social functioning can be drawn for nearly anything. Regarding dementia: obviously the disappearance of imagery in someone who used to have it is very different from someone who never had it.
- musicale 9mo ago
  That sounds more like a disability than a pathology. However, there may also be benefits; for example, it seems to be associated with stronger conceptual imagination.
deleted 9mo ago
[deleted]

blurbleblurble 9mo ago

Tangentially, I've always been fascinated by this reddit post "Craniosacral therapy temporarily activated my mind's eye" https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/payx1i/craniosacral_therapy_temporarily_activated_my/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/payx1i/craniosa...

vidarh 9mo ago
I consider myself to have aphantasia, but I have one singular experience of having seen things in my minds eye in a waking state, during meditation. I wish there was research into what might trigger this, and how, as I've not been able to repeat it. (I'm sure I wasn't asleep as I both never remember my dreams, but have distinct memories of how "fuzzy" and ethereal the imagery in my dreams feel, while this imagery during meditation was crystal clear and I was fully lucid)
- Traubenfuchs 9mo ago
  DMT and psilocybin are proven to help some people with aphantasia.

arowthway 9mo ago

Isn't this 'pretend-and-perceive approach' what all aphantasics do by default when asked to imagine something? That is, until they know they're aphantasics AND choose to feel 'confusion, frustration, shame, and inadequacy' instead.

vidarh 9mo ago
I certainly think that is what I've done. I've meditated, and experimented with self hypnosis (still on the fence on whether hypnosis works), and I simply always interpreted such "visualize" instructions as metaphorical, as I had no idea until a few years back that people meant them literally, so pretending was the only option I thought possible.
t-3 9mo ago
No. I can imagine just fine without visualizing. It's the same as "thinking". Posit a sphere of radius x. Why do I need to see to imagine that?

brador 9mo ago

Without being able to experience the world as another the existence of aphantasia can’t even be confirmed. The myth that everyone, or even anyone, can imagine anything, and is doing so regularly, has no basis, yet is the only cited basis of the diagnosis.

quickthrowman 9mo ago
This is my take on it as well. You can only know what it’s like to be yourself and communicating the qualia of being you is impossible to do with words. You can only ever know what it’s like to be you, so aphantasia cannot be confirmed or denied. People that think they have aphantasia like talking about it because we like applying labels to ourselves and it makes them feel distinct. I’m sure this is not a popular opinion, but given the inability of knowing what it’s like to be someone else, it’s the only rational belief about aphantasia.
pseudalopex 9mo ago
No.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia#Research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia#Research

laszlojamf 9mo ago

I'd be curious to know how people with aphantasia come up with ideas, or what they call that process if not imagination. The author has written books. Books have stories. Somehow she comes up with them. If that's not imagination, then what is it. I have a hard time visualizing things myself, and I'm a lousy painter, but is _that_ what aphantasia is?

vidarh 9mo ago
People without aphantasia see images in their head. If you don't see images, you have aphantasia. I don't see images. It took until I was in my 40's to realised that this wasn't most peoples experience. I agree with you regarding imagination - the problem isn't the usual definitions of imagination, but that the process of seeing images to varying degrees (from fuzzy, brief views to "full fidelity video" they can rewind at will at the other extreme) is so deeply ingrained in most people that a whole lot of our vocabulary uses visual metaphors for the entire process rather than just for the visual aspect.
- laszlojamf 9mo ago
  yeah, I had a similar realization as an adult that not everybody else talks to themselves inside their head
- mewpmewp2 9mo ago
  I get my ideas completely from inner monologue. But my ideas are mostly related to developing automated systems etc, I don't really need imagery for that, although I think I need to sense some sort of graphs or how things work together on the higher level.
  - vidarh 9mo ago
    I write a lot, including fiction, and I feel my aphantasia probably shapes what I like to read and write in ways I wasn't aware of (before realising aphantasia was a thing, and that I have it), but it doesn't stop me either. E.g. when reading I tend to skim over writing that spends a lot of time describing the visual appearance of things unless the words themselves are beautiful to me, because no matter how well written the descriptions are, they don't achieve anything for me beyond the shape of the prose itself. (I love the structure and flow of language, so there are absolutely moments I find myself reading visual descriptions because of the descriptions themselves) When writing, I prefer to write relatively sparse prose that focuses on how things works and relates to each other, and dialogue, rather than trying to evoke imagery that I can't see for myself when reading the text back.

ryanjshaw 9mo ago

I wonder if author is one of the lucky aphantasics who doesn’t have SDAM [1]. I tried the exercise they described… and nothing happened. I can’t even remember major life events that everybody is supposed to. Best I can do is recall there’s a photograph of the event, and using my recollection of the existence of the photograph, I can pull up a few facts I’ve intentionally made note of. And now cue the other commenters telling me my experience isn’t real, or I’m misunderstanding how other people can recall stuff like getting married and or the birth of their kids when I can’t. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0010945217303568 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00109...

pcl 9mo ago
I’m one of those lucky ones! It sounds like you’re implying that most aphantasics have SDAM. Is that the case? Do you have any sources?
j_bum 9mo ago
I’m curious if there is a diagnosis criteria for SDAM. It likely exists on a spectrum (just like mental imagery). I have aphantasia and struggle quite strongly with autobiographical memory, but if someone reminds me of an event or I look through old photos, I can remember things. This is why I love having Immich so much - it lets me feel connected to my past.
davidhs 9mo ago
There are people interested in overcoming aphantasia (or hypophantasia, an extremely weak form of imagination). Today I have medium-ish hypophantasia, but I remember when I was doing phantasia exercises, in particular "snapshotting" and "memory streaming", at least two times, there was a subtle shift in my perception and all of a sudden I could remember a ton of things, as if I opened a door. It would only last maybe 10-20 minutes (I would practice 30 - 60 minutes per day). It wouldn't surprise me a bunch of those memories are in the brain but you just don't have access to them in everyday waking consciousness. So, for me, it feels like a lot of my memories are visually indexed, and if I can't visualize then I can't remember, but once I configure my mind through meditation and these exercises, it is like I can "tune my mind" to mind's eye access (radio/TV analogy here) and with it the memories. Then once I stopped the exercise (for the day) it would go away in around 10-20 minutes (kind of like how a muscle pump goes away rather quickly after exercising).

kszxn 9mo ago

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amelius 9mo ago

Curious, do people with aphantasia "feel" the pain when they see other people hurting themselves (e.g. accidentally hitting their thumb with a hammer)?

mannykannot 9mo ago
I am not aphantasic, but I would not say that I "feel" pain when I see people undergoing painful events (depending on how much weight the quotes around 'feel' are carrying.) I can remember that hitting my thumb with a hammer was very unpleasant, how much of my body it affected, and how it faded over time. I know that the last time I did it, I recognized it as being pretty much identical to the previous times. What I cannot do is imagine it with anything like the vividness with which I can imagine what tonight's sunset could be like.
t-3 9mo ago
No. I will wince or look away, because it is uncomfortable to see people experiencing pain. But I don't feel pain, I just feel emotionally uncomfortable due to seeing people in distress.

mewpmewp2 9mo ago

Not related to article ncessarily, but more so to processing differences. One more thing that I think might be similar in fashion. In therapy I will say what I am feeling, e.g. anxiety, frustration or whatever. But then I am asked "where" in my body am I feeling it. And I have no clue what to answer. I don't think my feelings are felt in random body parts. Although supposedly this is not pseudoscience and people feel things in their bodyparts? I wonder if this is just another processing difference I have compared to other people. And my therapist kept asking even though I could not answer. I started to doubt if I have emotions in the first place. I wonder if people process and feel what they think are same emotions in very different ways? I usually am externally quite unreactive though, but I didn't think I don't feel emotions actually? Or maybe I do feel something in my bodyparts, but I am just unable to identify or recognize it? If I am frustrated or anxious and I focus on my brain, maybe I can kind of tell there is tightness? But then I could focus on other bodyparts, and I can also think that maybe there is chest heaviness? But then I can focus on my feet and think ok even my feet can feel weird, but is it because I am focusing on them and thinking there should be something?

kgwxd 9mo ago
Maybe your just good at keeping the emotions from tensing up any part of your body.
- mewpmewp2 9mo ago
  I do think that my body is tensed up, but I think it is constantly tensed up. Or at least others say I am tensed up. I wonder if I have this constant tension then and I feel this constant sense of dread and anxiety and that is why I can't recognize change in my body, or emotions having physical meaning because it is just constant low grade tension? But the tension is everywhere not necesseraily pointed to a specific location. Like I don't ever feel what I think is "good". I feel like there is always something that I should be doing, solving some problem that is on back of my mind. I can try to make myself forget about the problems I have to solve temporarily, but mostly it doesn't work. But it is always the same, constant feeling of pressure and inability to relax, while my therapist seems to assume it comes on and off and in a specific body part.

tboyd47 9mo ago

There are subtle verbal cues that give away the dominant modality the person thinks with: visual, auditory, or kinesthetic, then you can tailor the session for that modality, using inductions for feeling- or hearing-oriented subjects. My dominant modality is kinesthetic, so I tend to use those first anyway. Even though we live in a visually stimulating environment, and society tends to express things to us in visual ways, the goal of hypnosis is to relax the person and guide them to a comfortable place, so we can relate to people how they are internally and we don't have to worry about making everything highly visual.

johnea 9mo ago

So apparently, even when a web site is for users who can't form mental images, you still have to put a picture at the top of each article?