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The Musings Of The Lost
Toucan
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09 Jan 2018, 12:45 pm

I just found out about this on another post when someone mentioned they had it.
Doing some reading it seems to match me nearly completely.
If I try to picture something in my head, I don't see anything. Closing my eyes I just see irregular darkness (this looks sort of like a tunnel system to me, and I had all sorts of daydreams falling through it. I talked about this in another thread, but this is probably the closest I am to imagining an image).
Sometimes, rarely, I will get a flash of an image. Its dull and vague and it dissapears nearly immediately, but its there. Its like when watching a movie, and one frame is completely different and you just see it but you arent really sure. Thats what it looks like. Trying to picture something in my head gets me nothing most of the time.
Do I proobably have aphantasia or could this be something else?


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SaveFerris
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09 Jan 2018, 1:51 pm

No idea sorry , but this test might give you a better idea


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The Musings Of The Lost
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09 Jan 2018, 3:49 pm

SaveFerris wrote:
No idea sorry , but this test might give you a better idea

I took the test before I even made this post. It says I probably have it, or at least issues with mental imagery. These sorts of tests aren't exactly incredibly reliable though.


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SaveFerris
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09 Jan 2018, 6:39 pm

The Musings Of The Lost wrote:
SaveFerris wrote:
No idea sorry , but this test might give you a better idea

I took the test before I even made this post. It says I probably have it, or at least issues with mental imagery. These sorts of tests aren't exactly incredibly reliable though.


definitely not reliable I agree. There was a member here last year with aphantasia , shame he doesn't seem to be around for you to talk too - the member was called jute


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firemonkey
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09 Jan 2018, 8:00 pm

OP, you might want to do the questionnaires here- http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/research/h ... etintouch/

I scored 8/40 on that BBC questionnaire. I can't imagine sights,smells,sounds,taste and touch.



The Musings Of The Lost
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10 Jan 2018, 3:49 am

firemonkey wrote:
OP, you might want to do the questionnaires here- http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/research/h ... etintouch/

I scored 8/40 on that BBC questionnaire. I can't imagine sights,smells,sounds,taste and touch.

Ok thanks, I will look into them


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strings
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10 Jan 2018, 8:46 am

firemonkey wrote:
OP, you might want to do the questionnaires here- http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/research/h ... etintouch/

I scored 8/40 on that BBC questionnaire. I can't imagine sights,smells,sounds,taste and touch.


I remember it was a post on this topic by you a while ago, firemonkey, that first led me to discovering that I have aphantasia. A problem I had when taking that test on the BBC website was that I had no idea how to normalise my (lack of) mental imagery against the possible answers that were offered. At first I assumed, as I suppose I had unconsciously done all my life, that people who said they saw mental images were just vastly exaggerating, and speaking figuratively.

It was only a bit later, after I found one of those other tests, which you also just gave a link to, that I understood that I have what would be called, I suppose, total aphantasia. This was because finally there was a test which offered the answer that fitted me to a tee, namely "No image at all, you only “know” that you are thinking of the object." That describes my situation perfectly.



The Musings Of The Lost
Toucan
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10 Jan 2018, 9:24 am

strings wrote:
firemonkey wrote:
OP, you might want to do the questionnaires here- http://medicine.exeter.ac.uk/research/h ... etintouch/

I scored 8/40 on that BBC questionnaire. I can't imagine sights,smells,sounds,taste and touch.


I remember it was a post on this topic by you a while ago, firemonkey, that first led me to discovering that I have aphantasia. A problem I had when taking that test on the BBC website was that I had no idea how to normalise my (lack of) mental imagery against the possible answers that were offered. At first I assumed, as I suppose I had unconsciously done all my life, that people who said they saw mental images were just vastly exaggerating, and speaking figuratively.

It was only a bit later, after I found one of those other tests, which you also just gave a link to, that I understood that I have what would be called, I suppose, total aphantasia. This was because finally there was a test which offered the answer that fitted me to a tee, namely "No image at all, you only “know” that you are thinking of the object." That describes my situation perfectly.

And I found out about it from you!


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firemonkey
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10 Jan 2018, 9:25 am

Another survey the OP might like to do. https://boisestate.az1.qualtrics.com/jf ... yWafcDXc69



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15 Jan 2018, 7:45 pm

I’m a very visual thinker but I don’t literally see images that I imagine, as if I were actually looking with my own eyes. If people could just will themselves to hallucinate then there wouldn’t be people taking hallucinogenics, would there?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think those with Aphantasia can’t recall sensory information at all so they remember events as essentially a laundry list of facts. You can recall images, even if fleetingly, and I presume other sensory input so you probably don’t have it. You might not remember some sensory input as vividly as some but you seem to have at least a baseline level of sensory memory.



The Musings Of The Lost
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16 Jan 2018, 3:09 am

MindBlind wrote:
I’m a very visual thinker but I don’t literally see images that I imagine, as if I were actually looking with my own eyes. If people could just will themselves to hallucinate then there wouldn’t be people taking hallucinogenics, would there?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think those with Aphantasia can’t recall sensory information at all so they remember events as essentially a laundry list of facts. You can recall images, even if fleetingly, and I presume other sensory input so you probably don’t have it. You might not remember some sensory input as vividly as some but you seem to have at least a baseline level of sensory memory.

Nope no other sensory memory. I can't even begin to understand how people can remember touch or taste or sounds


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17 Jan 2018, 11:51 am

The Musings Of The Lost wrote:
MindBlind wrote:
I’m a very visual thinker but I don’t literally see images that I imagine, as if I were actually looking with my own eyes. If people could just will themselves to hallucinate then there wouldn’t be people taking hallucinogenics, would there?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think those with Aphantasia can’t recall sensory information at all so they remember events as essentially a laundry list of facts. You can recall images, even if fleetingly, and I presume other sensory input so you probably don’t have it. You might not remember some sensory input as vividly as some but you seem to have at least a baseline level of sensory memory.

Nope no other sensory memory. I can't even begin to understand how people can remember touch or taste or sounds


I guess you might have a form of it. You said that you sometimes recall images so maybe this is something that runs on a spectrum. That makes sense, seeing as there are people that are said to have Hyperphantasia or whatever it was called.



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17 Jan 2018, 12:10 pm

When I first heard of aphantasia, I didn't think that I have it. After talking to others, though, I find that they seem to be able to visualize things very readily -- often in very realistic detail. For me, I can kind of visual something, but it is very fleeting and highly cartoonish at a very low resolution. The image seems to last, at best, for maybe about 1/4 to 1/2 of a second and then vanishes completely. Once visualized, for that fraction of a second, I cannot bring the image back again for quite a while.

When thinking about the example of walking on the beach and looking over my shoulder at the sun, I get a flash of a beach and then it's gone. Then a flash of water and then it's gone. And a flash of the sun, but it's gone. Trying again, there is nothing.

Oddly enough, another mathematician once told me that he wished that he had my visualization ability. He thought that I could visualize higher dimensions much better than anyone else he knew. While I don't think that I can visualize higher dimensions, I did once have a really fantastic dream that I seemed to see in four dimensions.



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17 Jan 2018, 12:25 pm

The Musings Of The Lost wrote:
MindBlind wrote:
I’m a very visual thinker but I don’t literally see images that I imagine, as if I were actually looking with my own eyes. If people could just will themselves to hallucinate then there wouldn’t be people taking hallucinogenics, would there?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think those with Aphantasia can’t recall sensory information at all so they remember events as essentially a laundry list of facts. You can recall images, even if fleetingly, and I presume other sensory input so you probably don’t have it. You might not remember some sensory input as vividly as some but you seem to have at least a baseline level of sensory memory.

Nope no other sensory memory. I can't even begin to understand how people can remember touch or taste or sounds


What I remember are voices. I can often place voices very quickly of people I haven't seen in years.

That's also applies to tv shows and movies. I was flipping across the channels on the tv the other day and ran across a voice that I instantly recognized. I couldn't recognize the person, but the voice was clearly that of Richie Cunningham of Happy Days. Forty years later and Ron Howard still sounds the same.



The Musings Of The Lost
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17 Jan 2018, 1:05 pm

kokopelli wrote:
When I first heard of aphantasia, I didn't think that I have it. After talking to others, though, I find that they seem to be able to visualize things very readily -- often in very realistic detail. For me, I can kind of visual something, but it is very fleeting and highly cartoonish at a very low resolution. The image seems to last, at best, for maybe about 1/4 to 1/2 of a second and then vanishes completely. Once visualized, for that fraction of a second, I cannot bring the image back again for quite a while.

When thinking about the example of walking on the beach and looking over my shoulder at the sun, I get a flash of a beach and then it's gone. Then a flash of water and then it's gone. And a flash of the sun, but it's gone. Trying again, there is nothing.

Oddly enough, another mathematician once told me that he wished that he had my visualization ability. He thought that I could visualize higher dimensions much better than anyone else he knew. While I don't think that I can visualize higher dimensions, I did once have a really fantastic dream that I seemed to see in four dimensions.


Yes, I get the same sort of image flashes, but they are rare. They don't just flash whenever I think of something. It is completely random when they occur, and they never occur twice.


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09 Apr 2018, 1:54 pm

If I make a great effort I can only have a vague idea of a theoretical picture. That is sometimes frustrating when I read a book.

My "pictures" are more feeling, sound and abstract 3D geometrical pictures.



Last edited by LaetiBlabla on 09 Apr 2018, 2:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.