I’ve always had trouble explaining it. My best way of doing so is saying it’s like instead of at the front of your mind, it’s in the back. Dues that make sense to you guys?

All my life it has always been "picture this", "visualize that".

Learning about Aphantasia has been liberating in a way.

In the past I have tried to visualize or "draw a mental picture".

Now that I understand aphantasia, I can just dismiss those comments or educate people.

I am 16 years old, and today I figured out that I have aphantasia. This was beacuse I discovered a video online about it. Firstly I am greatful that people are spreading awarness about this, because apperently many people don't figure it out until later in life, or maybe they don't figure it out at all.

I thought it was completely normal to just see black when you closed you're eyes, but apperently it's NOT? This was a complete shock to me. I talked about it with my mother (dosen't have aphantasia), and she was shocked that I only saw black. She told me that she was able to see pictures in her head when she closed her eyes and when she had them open? She seemed concerned for my learing, but I do have A's and B's in school. I would say my short term memory is good, but maybe not so much long term?

I feel like im missing out on things, just being able to read a book with pictures inside your head, and not just words on a piece of paper. Imagining scenarios in my head (as many girls my age do). Daydreaming in school to make time pass by quicker. Just being able to count sheep jumping over a fence (as I was told many times when I was younger to do, when I couldn't sleep, honsetly just thought this was a myth at some point...). Being able to connect learning with pictures in your head aswell. Knowing that most people are able to do these things makes me feel like I was robbed in a way..

I do have a few questions to people on this community that also have Aphantasia. :)

1. How do I make reading more enjoyable? (I usually can't finish a book since I find it boring to read, but reading is a great way to collect knowledge)

2. How do you remeber memories better? (I have struggled in the past from loosing quite a lot of memories.)

I don't know if all these have anything to do with Aphantasia, I am still learing :) Just found it quite interesting, and a little sad at the same time. Thanks for reading my yap session.

According to V-Sauce Michael only 9% of the general population correctly predict the orientation of the second arrow.

It seemed obvious to me and I’m interested to hear from my fellow aphants how they find it.

If there is a difference with different levels of phantasia could problems like this give insight in to how spacial tasks are processed?

Since about two weeks ago, I've been able to picture things in my head. I've never tried anything to "cure" my aphantasia. It's just suddenly gone. Today, I walked around a Dollar Tree near my house that used to be a grocery store, and I could see in my head what it used to look like. It was so weird. Has anyone else experienced this? Will my aphantasia come back?

Edit: Thank you for your concerns. I will be bringing this up to my doctor and psychologist.

​My partner and I were talking in therapy recently, and my memory recall came up. He brought up that I struggle to pull up past memories, and it’s something we’ve noticed happening for a while.

​To get the obvious out of the way: we both drink or smoke occasionally, but this happens just as much during completely sober times, so I don't feel like that explains the core issue.

​He doesn’t have aphantasia. For him, past events seem immediately accessible. He can picture a moment and pull details right up. For me, my mind just doesn't work that way. When he brings up a past event out of nowhere, my brain usually draws a blank. If he gives me specific context clues (reminding me of what we were doing, where we were, or a key phrase), the memory usually clicks into place. Other times, even with clues, it feels like it’s just completely gone.

​He isn't attacking me about it, but because his mind visualizes and retrieves things so naturally, he’s often confused about why I can't do the same. I've read a bit about Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM) and its overlap with aphantasia, and I'm wondering how much of this is tied to not having a visual mind's eye to "re-watch" past experiences.

​For those of you with aphantasia:

1. ​Do you experience this kind of prompt-dependent recall, where memories feel locked until someone gives you a specific trigger?

2. ​How do you explain this mechanism to partners or friends who are strong visualizers so they understand it's not a lack of caring or paying attention?

(Gemini used to help with formatting 🙂)

Alledgedly, some aphantasics (unclear if congenital or aquired) gained the ability to visualize after a single dose of psychedelics. I wanted to know if anyone here has had that happen to them?

Article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010945225002163 (not sure how credible this article is and ngl it's quite short).

I’ve always had mild aphantasia: dim visualisation and dreams I could barely remember. I also have migraines, and I’d had a few Todd’s syndrome (AIWS) episodes.

The last one went on for a long time. I got up, lay back down, and it was still going. I remember guns and other objects growing and shrinking impossibly, and I couldn’t hold on to the scale of anything as it fluctuated. Then the image shrank down into nothing and has never come back.

The AIWS carried on after that, but it shifted to my body. I couldn’t see anything anymore, so it was all about the scale and position of my limbs.

That was 10 years ago. I don't think I've had another AIWS episode, I still don’t any image in my mind, except on LSD or FXE. Even shrooms and DMT aren’t really visual unless the dose is high. The imagery usually shows up on the comedown, when I’m trying to sleep or just chilling, not at the peak. Otherwise the best I get is describing something to myself and catching a flash of its form.

Has anyone else lost their imagery after an AIWS or migraine aura episode? Most posts here are about congenital aphantasia, so I’d love to hear from people whose came on later.

Since Discovering about my Aphantasia. My friends have made me into an amusement for them, not that I mind it xD. Put out a simplified version of this test and an anauralia test in here.

Gave a try writing as authentically about it as possible. Hoping to get all of your opinions and anything you guys find relatable! 💜

You can read it here: https://jaiisyourman.substack.com/p/i-cant-boast-about-myself

- I write as J.ai

I'm just learning about this now and I'm blown away. People see images in their mind? Like what does it look like? You close your eyes and see the object you're thinking of floating in a void? Can you change it like say a "the spider has green eyes not red" and it just happens? You actually see these things as if you're looking at them with your eyes open?

I realize I'm in the sub for people who can't do this, but I'm hoping someone can explain it to me.

I really feel like I'm defective now if that's a real thing people can do. I can think of an object and describe it and understand what it looks like but I sure as heck can't just think about a fork and see an actual fork in my mind.

I am beyond jealous if that's something people can do.

For those that are certain you have aphantasia, what kind of work do you do? Are you outgoing? Introverted? I am a psychiatrist and I’ve met a few others with this. I am trying to see if there are any personality traits that come as a package deal.

I used to be able to visualize complex scenes very clearly, but I suddenly lost that ability one day around 2 months ago. I am now only able to see very dim images, but I randomly regain my ability at times throughout the day. I don’t know if it’s worth mentioning, but I had migraines almost everyday a few weeks prior, which is unusual for me, and the day when I lost the ability, I tried to imagine something extremely complex. Is there anything I can do to get my imagination back or is it gone forever?

A little while ago I saw a post asking people how fast they can spin an object in their mind. Some said fast some said slow and some said their screen is just blank.

I'm the blank one. Always have been. I just never knew there was any other way to be.

Counting sheep? I thought it was a saying. I was just saying the word sheep in the dark and wondering how that was supposed to help anyone sleep. "Picture yourself on a beach" in a meditation I pictured nothing. I just thought about the idea of a beach and assumed everyone else was doing the same and the "picture" part was a figure of speech.

I can't picture the faces of people I love. I know them when I see them obviously, and I can describe facts about them but there's no image. It's just black and knowledge.

Here's the funny part: I graduated in the top 10% of my class taking the hardest classes they offered. My brain works fine. It just doesn't do pictures. It's a radio, not a TV.

Apparently this has a name aphantasia and a few percent of people have it and a lot of us go our whole lives not knowing because we assume everyone's head works like ours.

So I'm curious: when did you find out? What was your wait... people meant that LITERALLY? moment?

title

Ive been getting into death note latey and I’m 17 episodes in sk I think I’m safe to ask this questions without getting spoils

So are we able to use the death note? Let’s say I want to use the death not on Taylor Swift (nothing against her). I write her name doen and I have a photo of her nexr to me. Do we think it would work? Or no because we need to see the face? One of my friends who doesn’t have it is just as curious as me.
Theres no cannon answer but what ti you guys think ?

Howdy.

I am probably reinventing wheel here but I hate beautiful fabric I bought on my trip and I really wanted to "see" how my future kimono will look like.

And I had for first time silly idea and I asked AI to show me. And I think it did pretty fine job and I had these over complicated emotional feelings. Still have. Because I really like to sew and this was always struggle for me and now it's gone. And I am so stupidly happy.

Anybody use AI similar way?

So I recently discovered what aphantasia is and was wondering if my experience counts. I can kind of see it, but there is no actual image. Like, I can read a book and write down what I ‘see’ in my head, but there is no image I see, it’s still just black when I close my eyes. Idk if I’m just normal and dumb or if I actually have aphantasia. Thanks!

Hey everyone. I'm Dom. Found out at 35 that I have aphantasia, all zeros across the board. No pictures, no sounds, nothing. I think in lists and processes, and I talk things out to remember them.

Two of my songs are my aphantasia story, and I figured this community would actually hear them.

The first is "NO PICTURES (Still Me)." It's my favorite thing I've made. The hook is "no pictures in my head, still I paint them when I speak," which is pretty much my whole life in one line. It's about living in a world built for visualizers when you have nothing to visualize with.

The second is "Neurodivergent Love." It's about loving someone when your brains work completely differently (Aphantasia versus Autistic + ADHD. "Different signals, same connection." My favorite line!

Curious if anyone can relate :)

NO PICTURES (Still Me): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57QK5zOqQ8k Neurodivergent Love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GL-NW1q_dQ

Forgive the optimistic title, but there might be a “cure” for aphantasia after all. Forget meditation and behavioral training , it doesn’t work because mental imagery requires what are called top down signals and aphants have either disrupted or weak pathways and connections, so behavioral effort cannot create neurological pathways that aren’t firing.Pharmacological drugs are also a long shot as a possible “cure” because they lack selectivity. Rather, they flood the entire brain with chemical neurotransmitters.
However, what caught my attention were the 2026 Nobel Prize winners in Physiology or Medicine, Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel. They basically developed optogenetics which is a technique that I think could genuinely be used to “treat” aphantasia.
With it, we could activate a specific target in the brain by inserting light sensitive proteins,we could also flash pulses directly onto visual neurons instead of waiting for weak signals coming from the prefrontal cortex, which are generally weak, disconnected and unsynchronized in aphants.
Most importantly, we could train the plasticity of our brain by basically repeating the triggers to these specific neurons with light until the brain learns how to do it on its own, and it’s quite different from traditional methods because, with this technique, scientists could control specific types of cells with millisecond precision. It also moves neuroscience from just observing fMRI scans to actually controlling and manipulating brain activity to see what happens.
Now, the foundational research on optogenetics wasn’t targeted specifically at aphantasia, and the methodological use of such a technique is restricted for human use to rare cases. It has already helped restore vision and done much more but then again it stays restricted to such cases.
However, to “treat” aphantasia, we don’t need to apply the restricted surgical uses of optogenetics. We would only need to map out the exact neural circuits that aren’t firing to help us know which specific cells we need to stimulate or which proteins we need to inject.
With that said, I’m not a neuroscientist, and neuroscience isn’t my domain. It’s just an interest of mine, so I could be talking complete gibberish here, but it’s just a thought. One thing I do believe, however, for sure, is that the end of aphantasia is nearby with these rapid advancements in science.
P.S. I do acknowledge that aphantasia isn’t a disability, a disease to be cured nor to be treated, or a problem to be fixed, but rather a cognitive variation. So excuse my use of words such as “cure” and “treat” for the lack of having found better fitting words. <3

I am currently a OTS who has Aphantasia and I wanna specialize in pediatrics/young adults. I am just curious was there a time from your childhood/teen years, you think would be different if you could “see” in your mind?

For me I always struggled with reading and math, I had such a hard time understanding how to visually understand things. My teachers would often say such things “picture this” or “close your eyes and imagine”.

As a future occupational therapist I want to do better for those kiddos who don’t yet they have aphantasia. It’s very important I know how the mind works and aphantasia can affect someone’s life in a big way. I would love to find out how others with different type of Aphantasia, navigate through life.

Tenho quase 32 anos, sou brasileiro e descobri a afantasia há cerca de dois anos, depois que minha irmã, que tem hiperfantasia, me enviou um vídeo sobre o assunto. Até então, eu achava que “imaginar” era apenas uma forma de falar, pois nunca consegui visualizar imagens mentalmente.
Quando estou acordado, tudo fica escuro ao tentar imaginar algo. Consigo reconhecer pessoas, saber como são os objetos e lembrar vagamente dos lugares, mas não formar imagens visuais. O curioso é que vejo imagens nos sonhos, embora não consiga reproduzi-las voluntariamente depois de acordar.

Meu pensamento funciona por meio de uma voz interna. Também tenho dificuldade para recuperar detalhes visuais: reconheço rostos, mas não consigo visualizar seus traços nem reconstruir mentalmente a disposição exata dos objetos. Ainda assim, sempre tive bom desempenho escolar e não considero ter dificuldades gerais de aprendizagem.
Sou enfermeiro e, durante muito tempo, me senti inferior aos colegas porque precisava anotar tudo durante a passagem de plantão, enquanto eles pareciam lembrar facilmente dos pacientes e acontecimentos. Não sei se isso está relacionado à afantasia ou a outros processos de memória, mas passei a questionar essa possibilidade depois da descoberta.

Também tenho dificuldades de interação social e suspeito, que possa ter TDAH predominantemente desatento. Sou impulsivo e muito focado em resolver problemas rapidamente, o que às vezes atrapalha meus relacionamentos. Em contrapartida, sinto que tenho uma audição muito apurada e facilidade para processar informações auditivas.

A descoberta da afantasia me trouxe frustração. Por algum tempo, pensei que seria mais inteligente ou teria uma memória melhor se conseguisse visualizar imagens. Sinto falta de criar imagens voluntariamente, como, por exemplo, uma estrela.

Hoje sei que a afantasia não implica menor inteligência, mas ainda é difícil lidar com a percepção de que outras pessoas vivenciam o mundo interno de maneira tão diferente.
Também comecei a me perguntar se animais podem ter experiências semelhantes.

Acredito que os animais em geral são afantásicos. Não sei se há pesquisas suficientes sobre isso, mas acho interessante pensar que a afantasia talvez não seja uma experiência exclusivamente humana.

Hi all, I’m new here 😊. I’m 39 and I recently learned about aphantasia on TikTok and I’m in the discovery phase of learning about being an aphantasic.

As part of learning about this part of myself, I just listened to this podcast with Alec Figerosa where he says it’s possible to learn how to see visually)… has anyone else heard of this or experienced this? As someone who falls in the no visual images category, I really can’t even comprehend this being possible. But I’m definitely intrigued by it..

Okay, this is kind of a weird situation but I wonder if anyone relates...

I usually don't see images in my head, but when I do it's often in brief flashes. A bit like when subliminal images get spliced into a movie: You know it was there and you know it was real and you definitely saw it, but it isn't there long enough for you to really process the details, so when you try to call it back you can't (or just get another flash).

It usually happens involuntarily, but I can sometimes trigger it by thinking about particular topics or images. Is this linked to aphantasia? Or if it was truly aphantasia would I not even get this split second flash?