anyone here has aphantasia?

Home Forums Decaffeinated Coffee anyone here has aphantasia?

Viewing 26 posts - 1 through 26 (of 26 total)
  • Author
    Posts
  • #1297444
    chabadgal
    Participant

    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.

    #1297460
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    How do you remember things?

    #1297474
    chabadgal
    Participant

    different type of memory 🙂 I ‘know’ how my mother llooks- she has a dark sheitel, brown eyes, glasses, etc…. but if you ask me to picture her and describe what i see- its impossible.

    #1297486
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    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?

    #1297512
    chabadgal
    Participant

    no, cuz i remember what happened, i just cant picture it. and ill recognize brown when i see it, and i ‘know’ what the color brown is, but if i close my eyes, i cant see it.

    #1297537
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    But how do you even know what seeing is?

    #1297690
    chabadgal
    Participant

    because i can see in real life…..
    when i close my eyes there is NOTHING. most people can see stuff. canyou?

    #1297861
    👑RebYidd23
    Participant

    I don’t know. People hallucinate their thoughts?

    #1297936
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    Thanks chabadgal!!! This is so interesting 🙂

    #1297961
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    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!?

    #1298242
    chabadgal
    Participant

    lightbrite- i dont think that would be possible, as its not a mental thing… (i mean yeah its in the brain but its an actual physical thing someone cant not be blind anymore because of something like what you wrote)
    the way it was discovered was someone has a brain surgery and afterwards he couldnt picture stuff anymore, so there was a big article about it, than other people started saying they also have it. but that was a surgery that affected it, so kinda different,

    #1335383
    chabadgal
    Participant

    -bump- to see what other people have to say about this

    #1335441
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    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.

    #1335460
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    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’.

    #1335484
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    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.

    #1335491
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    quoting myself:
    ” we would have to teach them to visualize a scene so they could describe it. So many of them could not

    #1335495
    Lilmod Ulelamaid
    Participant

    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.

    #1335504
    showjoe
    Participant

    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!

    #1335516
    Lightbrite
    Participant

    National Dog Day is also coming up! 🐶

    #1335523
    Shmiras Haloshon
    Participant

    “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.

    #1335556
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    ” 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’).

    #1338062
    chabadgal
    Participant

    showjoe thanks for the info ill be sure to celebrate!
    SYAG no it isnt that I ‘have trouble’ visualizing. I CANNOT VISUALIZE. my brain is completely blind.

    #1338070
    🍫Syag Lchochma
    Participant

    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.

    #1338083
    Thinking out loud
    Participant

    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?

    #1338200
    oyyoyyoy
    Participant

    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

    #1339052
    chabadgal
    Participant

    TOL- I cannot picture anythign when my eyes are open either 🙂 but if you want you can search online and take the official quiz I’m too lazy to write out all the questions here sorry

Viewing 26 posts - 1 through 26 (of 26 total)
  • You must be logged in to reply to this topic.