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basically, aphantasia means your brain is blind- you are unable to picture anything. 2-3% of people have it. people who have it don’t usually realize that other people have the ability to see 🙂 i realized i had t because in a book I was reading the character was picturing something- and I was like hey I can’t do that. So i asked a bunch of my friends, and researched online, and I finally figured out what it was. It’s really cool.
How do you remember things?
If you reread a book, is it like reading it the first time?
How do you know what brown is when you’re not looking at something brown?But how do you even know what seeing is?
I don’t know. People hallucinate their thoughts?
Thanks chabadgal!!! This is so interesting 🙂
G-d forbid this happens: Wondering what would happen to someone with aphantasia who also experienced a trauma, which resulted in symptoms of PTSD. Would that person experience flashbacks with aphantasia-influenced symptoms? Or what if that person did end up seeing the images again, for the first time — would that feel bittersweet — and maybe lead to a breakthrough, or would it be traumatic and unpleasant and unwelcomed as any other intrusive painful imagery?
On the flipside, maybe a significant positive event could trigger imagery in one’s mind too!?
I don’t have aphantasia, but I think that I might be somewhat “learning disabled” in terms of being able to hold things in my mind in any form other than numbers or letters. For example, I have a hard time recognizing people.
I read an article in one of the Frum magazines once about people who have a hard time recognizing people. There is a name for it, but I forget what it’s called. I always assumed, at least in my case, that the reason why I have a hard time with this is that I have a hard time processing anything that is not in letter/number form. I don’t know if that is definitely true – that was just my assumption.
chabadgal- Thanks for the topic! I am surprised they say so few people have it because many of the children I worked with who have learning disabilities have trouble visualizing anything. When trying to teach them to write (stories, not letters) we would have to teach them to visualize a scene so they could describe it. So many of them could not, or they could only visualize an item, but not a scene.
Oddly enough it is the very opposite of the way people on the spectrum think. Temple Grandin calls it ‘thinking in pictures’.
SYAG – it sounds like what you are describing is a lesser-degree than what Chabadgal is describing. You wrote that you have to teach the kids how to do this – that means that they are capable of learning it; it is just harder for them and doesn’t come naturally like it does for everyone else.
Chabadgal seemed to be saying that she is incapable of doing this. Unless that is just because she didn’t have qualified educators teaching her how to do it when she was young.
quoting myself:
” we would have to teach them to visualize a scene so they could describe it. So many of them could not“SYAG – I apologize if I misunderstood you.
You started off by writing that these kids “have trouble visualizing anything.”, not that they “can’t but that they “have trouble”.
So when you wrote: “So many of them could not, or they could only visualize an item, but not a scene.” after “we would have to teach them to visualize a scene so they could describe it. “, I thought that you meant that you had to teach them BECAUSE so many of them could not. But I guess you meant that you had to teach them, and (then realized) that “so many could not..”Again, I apologize for misunderstanding.
as it turns out (and i quote from Wikipedia) “The online aphant community has declared the 18th of August to be ‘Aphantasia Awareness day'”
coming up in 8 days!National Dog Day is also coming up! 🐶
“Oddly enough it is the very opposite of the way people on the spectrum think. Temple Grandin calls it ‘thinking in pictures’.”
I have a child on the spectrum who seems to think in pictures. When he describes something they did in gan, he’ll give lots of detail about little irrelevant things in the room and will even point in various directions to show me where the window is and where the nail in the wall is and where the cracked tile is even though we’re obviously at home and not in his gan. He seems to take a picture of it all with his eyes and store it in his mind. He can also memorize the contents of a paper by reading it once or twice. Pretty fascinating.
” He seems to take a picture of it all with his eyes and store it in his mind.”
exactly. And for those on the spectrum with difficulty sorting Important vs unimportant facts, this can be a very overwhelming amount of information.I remember sitting at that conference when Temple Grandin explained that theory, it was shortly after she published the book by the same name, and it was such a lightbulb moment. It helped explain so many things about the way I process information, and tangential thinking (to you it is a separate topic, but to me it is part of the same ‘picture’).
CG – I hear ya! I didn’t mean you, I was just describing how I found out that there are some people who can’t see in their minds. I find it so fascinating and went to do a bit of research. Thanks so much for bringing it up.
Can somebody explain this better? I’m not sure if I can visualize things or not. do you mean that if I close my eyes I should be able to picture things as if I’m looking at a color photograph? I can picture the scene I saw during a traumatic incident when I was a kid. I don’t have to close my eyes. But if I close my eyes, and try to visualize… let’s say my sister’s living room…. the image slips away. I am not sure if I’m seeing anything or I’m thinking it!
I know her couch is brown…. I don’t know if I’m seeing the color brown as if I’m looking at a picture! Now that I tried it, I think I can visualize only if my eyes are open! Does that make any sense?
LU my good friend has that also. He said it’s called facial blindness. I always remmebr faces so when im with him i help him know who people are right before they introduce themselves to him
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