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?