Aphantasia ???

Terrywoodenpic

Terrywoodenpic

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Has anyone heard of Aphantasia.
I have always had it...:(
I did not even know it existed.
Or that most people could visualise images in their minds eye.
If you had suggest that they could, I would have though it was just science fiction.
Though it seems to at least sometimes withe the extreme disadvantage of not being able to put names to faces... which is my problem:(
Any one else suffer from it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
 
That sounds like what people who are born blind must endure all the time.
What puzzles me is why I cannot find any mention of this on medical websites.
Is this a condition that is recognised as existing by the medical profession ?
 
arclight said:
That sounds like what people who are born blind must endure all the time.
What puzzles me is why I cannot find any mention of this on medical websites.
Is this a condition that is recognised as existing by the medical profession ?
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There are plenty of research papers on it, but as it is not considered a handicap it is not somthing doctors can do anything about. It is like not having an appendix.
 
I'm good at visualising objects and things which has made me very good at fixing things but at the same time I often find it difficult to recognise people even close family if they're not in a familiar setting or not wearing familiar clothes and I often have to wait until they speak to be sure I recognise them. I've always just put this down to being a bit of a geek but in reality I think it's probably that something went a bit wrong when I was wired :D Mrs WW calls me "Reject person." :D
 
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woof woof said:
I'm good at visualising objects and things which has made me very good at fixing things but at the same time I often find it difficult to recognise people even close family if they're not in a familiar setting or not wearing familiar clothes and I often have to wait until they speak to be sure I recognise them. I've always just put this down to being a bit of a geek but in reality I think it's probably that something went a bit wrong when I was wired :D Mrs WW calls me "Reject person." :D
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But can you see these objects when you shut your eyes.?.
 
Not see as I do with my eyes open like an eyes closed film show, no, it's more of an imagining or visualisation in that I know what I'm "seeing" isn't reality. When I look at a thing it's almost like an xray to some extent but it's not a real xray as per Superman xray vision :D it's just me sort of automatically visualising my own internal version of it and how it could be built. For me one question is if I do this for things and to an extent that it really helped me understand how things work and fix things why doesn't that same recognition and understanding of things extend to people and why do I find it difficult to recognise even people I know.
 
woof woof said:
I'm good at visualising objects and things which has made me very good at fixing things but at the same time I often find it difficult to recognise people even close family if they're not in a familiar setting or not wearing familiar clothes and I often have to wait until they speak to be sure I recognise them. I've always just put this down to being a bit of a geek but in reality I think it's probably that something went a bit wrong when I was wired :D Mrs WW calls me "Reject person." :D
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That's prosopagnosia aka face blindness, another of these weird brain things. I'm the same. It's common if you're born with one of these conditions (some can be acquired due to injury) that you have no idea that you're different, or if it causes you problems you just assume you're the one who can't cope. When you find out, purely by chance, that you really are different, it can be a revelation.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
Has anyone heard of Aphantasia.
I have always had it...:(
I did not even know it existed.
Or that most people could visualise images in their minds eye.
If you had suggest that they could, I would have though it was just science fiction.
Though it seems to at least sometimes withe the extreme disadvantage of not being able to put names to faces... which is my problem:(
Any one else suffer from it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphantasia
Click to expand...

Do you dream during sleep ? If so, do you see anything ?
 
arclight said:
Do you dream during sleep ? If so, do you see anything ?
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Most Aphantiatics Dream in pictures though not necessarily in colour. Though few people can remember dreams very well if at all.
The minds eye allows people to recall images on demand and these images energise the same part of the brain that seen images do.
Aphantiatics recall events and things or faces, but can not visualise them as images. these recollections do not energise the visual part of the brain.
 
I have very vivid dreams, I also have lucid dreams.
 
woof woof said:
I have very vivid dreams, I also have lucid dreams.
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I too have lucid dreams.
I can also return to a dream if woken.
It's not all good though, as I also have night terrors.
 
I guess we can't know what is in someone else's head and I have sometimes wondered what people "see" with their minds eye. Most of the time I don't bother to "see" things in my head as you might see something in real life or a photograph, it's more a kind of knowing what something looks like rather than actually conjuring up a picture of it. I can bring dim/hazy pictures to mind if I think about it but it's not what I normally do.
 
sirch said:
I guess we can't know what is in someone else's head and I have sometimes wondered what people "see" with their minds eye. Most of the time I don't bother to "see" things in my head as you might see something in real life or a photograph, it's more a kind of knowing what something looks like rather than actually conjuring up a picture of it. I can bring dim/hazy pictures to mind if I think about it but it's not what I normally do.
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That sounds like you are at the lower end of the scale of minds eye capability.
 
woof woof said:
I'm good at visualising objects and things which has made me very good at fixing things but at the same time I often find it difficult to recognise people even close family if they're not in a familiar setting or not wearing familiar clothes and I often have to wait until they speak to be sure I recognise them. I've always just put this down to being a bit of a geek but in reality I think it's probably that something went a bit wrong when I was wired :D Mrs WW calls me "Reject person." :D
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Same here. I often see people I recognise and have no idea where from or what their name is. I have to wrack my brains and go through a list of possibilities... Work, neighbors, family, pub, brothel etc and rarely manage to place them.
It gets embarrassing when folks come up with " Hi Graham, how you doing?" and I don't have the first clue as to who they are.
My wife is just the opposite...she remembers people and their names having met them fleetingly years previously.
 
I used to think I could picture things very vividly in my mind, I've always been decent enough at drawing and would visualize in my mind pretty clear what I was aiming for. It almost never turned out as good as what I could clearly see in my head, which was frustrating as I could copy an image very closely from paper or a screen. These days though I find it hard to imagine a familiar face or even place in my mind, sometimes an accompanying smell will trigger a better response, but then I lose it quick. Like I'll get a certain scent, which triggers a familiarity, and I'll search for the connection in my mind and try get some visual but it fades fast and becomes like a mental block. Cannot chase it back.

Them again, I've often walked into a store only to stop and think, why am I even in here, think my memory is fading with age

As for dreams I feel like they're very visual just after waking during or after them, but when I try to back through it looking to make some sense of them the images again, fade fast
 
viv1969 said:
I too have lucid dreams.
I can also return to a dream if woken.
It's not all good though, as I also have night terrors.
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I used to have night terrors but grew out of them. I still remember a few of them to this day.

These days I'm a happy dreamer :D and sometimes even wake up... laughing :D
 
woof woof said:
I used to have night terrors but grew out of them. I still remember a few of them to this day.

These days I'm a happy dreamer :D and sometimes even wake up... laughing :D
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Never had night terrors thankfully, but I would describe most of my dreams as 'strange' feeling, never really jolly happy ones. I have woken up the very rare occasion laughing to myself though - and if you've ever tried to explain a dream to anyone you'll know it's pointless :D The more you try to explain the less interested they become
 
Night terrors are interesting things as you're awake but in a sort of altered state in which you can see everything around you and move about and communicate with those around you but you also experience other things too which obviously other people can't see or experience.

Some of mine involved a wolf in the room, a snake in the room, the bed being on fire and other strange creatures and things. They can be absolutely terrifying.
 
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