Apantasiac 3BLDers

[ProStar]

I believe diagnosing Aphantasia is much more complex

Than diagnosing someone with color blindness. I feel it is easier to transform the brain to start visualizing better, although I need to research more into this line of thought.

There is zero scientific evidence that there is or could be a “cure” for aphantasia. There are individuals who claimed to have cured their aphantasia, and there are also people who have claimed to have reality shifted. The most interesting account I could find on curing aphantasia is here, but a single person’s experience (much less one documented on Reddit) is far from a cure or evidence of one. You can certainly train your brain to be better at visualizing, but it is entirely possible—and in the current state of science, likely—that people exist who cannot and will never be able to voluntarily visualize images in their mind, even hazily. Again, I am a person who cannot visualize and am speaking out of my own personal experiences in addition to well-documented science.

 

[qwr]

Here's the diagram (or variation thereof) that made the rounds on twitter a while ago:

Personally I heavily rely on visual memory for solving math and programming problems, even for algebraic ones where I think about symbols moving around or Cayley graphs. "Think geometrically, prove algebraically." -AndrewJohn Tate
So to me it is impossible to "imagine" doing any kind of problem solving without visuals. I feel bad for people without it.

I should add it's the same for music too. If you cannot "hear" music in your mind or an "internal narrator" when reading then idk what to say. Music in my mind is much clearer than the apple visual which appears briefly and then I have to keep concentrating to "refresh" it.

 

[cranberryjuice]

Here's the diagram (or variation thereof) that made the rounds on twitter a while ago:


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Personally I heavily rely on visual memory for solving math and programming problems, even for algebraic ones where I think about symbols moving around or Cayley graphs. "Think geometrically, prove algebraically." -AndrewJohn Tate
So to me it is impossible to "imagine" doing any kind of problem solving without visuals. I feel bad for people without it.

I'm aphantasic (medically diagnosed (yes that's possible)) and I don't have much trouble day-to-day, but there are situations where I wish I could visualize things because it would make certain tasks easier. That's just me personally, and I can't speak for others.

 

[qwr]

It's weird for me to dream, because it happens in the form of words, almost like they're scrolling across my empty mind, and then I'm reading them. Then I take those words and replace them with images or pictures of things I have seen. It almost becomes a slideshow, sometimes my brain even adds transitions like a Google slide!

My dreams are like short videoclip experiences that morph into one another. Like I'll imagine myself in college, then think about a local restaurant I went to, then the scene will change automatically to being at the restaurant, then something random will happen like the restaurant is out of chicken so the menu had to remove all the chicken items and people in line are complaining, and so on

In the dreams they are always experiences I am experiencing in real time in the dream and never something abstract or disembodied like third person.

 

[ProStar]

I should add it's the same for music too. If you cannot "hear" music in your mind or an "internal narrator" when reading then idk what to say. Music in my mind is much clearer than the apple visual which appears briefly and then I have to keep concentrating to "refresh" it.

I should note that these are two different things. I don’t remember the name for hearing music in your head, but a narrator when reading is called subvocalization. Last I researched, it’s believed to be something you do when learning to read, and many people never moved beyond that for whatever reason (it’s not an intelligence thing). I cannot hear music in my head at all (although I may mentally know what the song sounds like), and I do not subvocalize. You may think it makes books far less enjoyable, but I love fictional and fantastical books, and don’t have any increased appreciation for movies/drawings compared to other people.

 

[Deleted member 36445]

About the red apple, if I try to imagine I can se the detailed patterns going from red to green on the apple skin, feel the texture of the apple skin, the form of the apple in my hand, etc.

But much of the stuff happen when I make an effort to visualize the thing. If you tell me to visualize a beautiful landscape, with flowers and trees, I will do the same thing... Feeling the texture of the trees, the grass, the overall colors, as if I was seeing a miniature of the landscape in front of me. Most of it is imaginative, not memories of me in that place, living that experience.

Sometimes my brain will just get lazy and be completely black or have the words in it.

If you tell me to imagine a shoe, a building, or some stuff i don't see that much daily it won't be so easy.