Would knowing I had Aphantasia have made a difference?
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- Опубліковано 26 сер 2024
- I really think knowing I had Aphantasia (along with SDAM, Autism and ADHD) would have made a difference in my schooling. I was able to struggle along, just like many others with things like undiagnosed dyslexia ,dyscalculia or dysgraphia often do make it through school, even though it is harder than people without these neurological differences.
This is not a medical channel, I am not giving out medical advice, just my personal experience. And everyone with these neurodivergencies will have their own unique experiences.
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#Aphantasia
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Hi. I have autism (diagnosed in 2021) and aphantasia. I realised I had aphantasia four years ago when my husband and enrolled in a sign language class at Uni. (We needed to do the class as my husband is going deaf.) I was struggling a lot with the class and couldn't work out why. One thing I noted from the class was that they never gave us class handouts. I asked for some and they said, "No. that's not the way we do things here. Deaf people have to learn sign language organically so that's the way we teach it as well." I tried to explain to them that I needed handouts to be able to remember the signs. Their response was that it just was not going to happen and that I just had to learn to see the signs in my mind. (They also told me that they didn't believe me and that I was just being obstructive so I said that telling me to learn to see signs in my mind would be like telling a deaf person to learn to hear.) When I did some research online to find out if not visualising in your mind was an actual thing or not, I discovered all about aphantasia. (The only sense I have in my mind is sound which is not very helpful when trying to learn sign language.) I printed out some information about aphantasia and took it back to the instructors at the Uni. I ended up having to discuss it with the course coordinator. They decided that I didn't deserve any special help as they thought it would be a waste of time and effort because in their estimation, I would never be able to learn sign language so, they kicked us out of the course. They also promised to reimburse the fees we had paid for the course, but they didn't.
That's such a bad response from the Uni. Sorry you experienced that.
Oh wow! That's really not a great way that the university handled that. I do know people with aphantasia that are actually Sign Language Interpreters, but they probably learned from a young age (where our brains are more adaptable to learning new languages), they probably did have visuals and they were in more immersive environments. Every ASL class I've been in has had flashcards or printouts of the signs. I'm sorry that they wouldn't provide that for you. If you are still looking to learn, check out www.lifeprint.com There's an entire university level ASL course up for free with practice videos. I've used it many times and it's a great resource. Unfortunately, not having someone to practice with made retaining any sign I learned harder too.
Wow so your husband was basically told he's just out of luck because of your condition? Isn't that against Americans with Disabilities Act? Some kind of discrimination?
I know I've seen charts and posters of the alphabet in sign language . There must be books. This is unbelievable
Thank you for all of this helpful information. And thank you for not editing your dialogue. It has helped me understand myself better, and affirm that my speech patterns are not something to be ashamed about.
I too have aphantasia and I didn’t realize some people could taste stuff in their mind! I already knew I couldn’t see things in my mind but damn now I feel like I’m really missing out 😅
I know! It sounds so fantastical. 😁
Great video, thanks. I have aphantasia too and it's really helpful to hear your experiences with it. I think I have global aphantasia but I struggle to understand exactly what non-aphantasics actually experience if they can imagine (say) the taste of a peach. If they can literally taste things that aren't in their mouths then that could backfire horribly!
I am a maths graduate and always found maths came naturally to me, but I HAVE to write everything down. I can't do arithmetic in my head at all 😂 . I can't spell without writing words down either.
I expect having aphantasia did impact my school work too, but I can't remember specifics either because I also have SDAM! 😂
From what I can tell, like everything even the taste in peoples minds is a spectrum. For some people it seems like it's the idea of the flavor and that's where their cravings come from. I've talked to some people who can think of a flavor and then be satisfied and not even need to eat it to get the craving gone. Like I have a friend who thinks about chocolate can experience the texture and flavor in her mind and then is like, "I'm good, don't need to eat any." I'm flabbergasted. I can describe a chocolate truffle as sweet & smooth but those words don't evoke any kind of emotional or experiential response in my brain. No more than saying chocolate is brown. I have heard this of course backfire on some people because if they think of a gross flavor they can also taste it. Or a gross smell! 😂
@@i.am.mindblind Wow, satisfying a chocolate craving just by imagining the taste is mindblowing! But if it also applies to sprouts I wouldn't want it! 😂
@@i.am.mindblindnow I imagine it, I want a chocolate 🍫😂. Having the ability to imagine is burdensome sometimes, like after watching a horror
i've had aphantasia my whole life but only learned about the concept in recent years, i've known about my adhd so i knew my brain didn't work the same as others, similar to you i believe i don't have taste, but i can remember other relevant information to the point that taste would 'appear', and i have proprioception so texture comes easier to me, but i can't imagine texture directly. i also didn't realize i was thirsty or hungry until physical ques like literally my stomach protesting for food or my throat and nose being dry as a desert or my head starting to hurt from dehydration, the only remedy for this is habitual eating or constant snacking. i also do the same thing you do with math but i liked it a lot more and likely didn't have the same issues you did since you can't sense anything in your minds eye. my mother actually was quite surprised to know that aphantasia is even a thing, since she experiences a vivid imagination. i haven't met a person in reality that has aphantasia, but in discussing this with people i've found more interesting phenomenon that other people go through like "visual snow" and other such things. the only gripe i have with aphantasia is the lack of facial recognition i deal with, if i hear a name, i couldn't tell you who that is, if i see the face, it helps more, but if i don't consider them important in my life then even if i know them i can't bring that information to light, doesn't help when people recognize me and i forget for a whole minute or two who they are and have to sit awkwardly trying to remember them. i could have SDAM but i can also remember some memories of my past, but not well at all. and most were traumatic in a way so i wouldn't forget them. saying that though i can only remember my past experiences in random chance moments when i suddenly just remember it all, not all, but quite a lot more than what is readily available. i can hear sound in my mind, i believe i can smell in my mind but since taste is impaired i don't really know if what im imagining constitutes smell or taste or a variation there-of. if i had to explain to someone who doesn't have these conditions how aphantasia feels in a literal sense; i'd say it feels like i'm always living in a dream like state with little to no above board sensory experience in my mind at that present moment, like im going through the motions and watching it unfold like an unwilling observer, that could also be different but that to me explains my experience with aphantasia TL;DR aphantasia is a constant dreamlike state of immersive being, there's thoughts but no fancy lightshow. sorry if none of this was coherent since i'm not going to proof read this.
SDAM is severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory, some people with SDAM do report having some memories. The weird thing for me is whether I'll have semantic memory or not. Sometimes my sister will bring up something from our childhood and I'll "remember" that it happened but I don't relive the memory in an episodic way.
Same about the math! Omg it was so hard in school
I'm a fan. I like the way that you describe and inform about the diverse diagnostics that you mention on your videos. From my point of view they are very fresh and they let me spend my time in a healthy and Clean way, these ways are better and bring results that resolve in better situations that we enjoy with you.
Thanks for sharing!
I have a total similar experience to you. Not sure I am autistic. My mom surely is undiagnosed autistic, my brother has some traits.
I learned I had this maybe two years ago and I also thought everyone was just very metaphorical 😂😂😂
I've thought a lot about how aphantasia probably affected me in school. (And in other areas where criticism on different art forms take place.) I'm glad you approached this subject.
On the topic of spelling, you bring up an interesting concept - I've always been really good at it; however, one time I failed out of a spelling bee in the first round because I put an "i" in blaze - I had gotten used to it being there in a stylized form I'd been using as a name in Pokémon. 😅 I think that is also a form of muscle-ish memory.
On the topic of mental math and language learning: I have multisensory aphantasia (with an internal monologue), ADD, and SDAM, so I can't be sure what is what - but mental math and learning a new written languages/sentence structures are definitely struggle points for me. I can do basic math in my head, but as soon as you add double digits, fractions, decimal points? I'm either getting a calculator or working it on paper. I've also been trying to learn Japanese for more than a decade - I have a rudimentary understanding at best. I'm getting a grasp on some characters after being regularly exposed to them, but it's a struggle; I have a basic understanding of beginning sentence structure only after learning it in an app designed for children. Reading the language as a whole, though, writing the characters, saying complete sentence structures I didn't learn via repetition - nope.
Thanks for your comments. I've found things that rely on muscle memory are things I learn the best, I think it's why I'm good at crafts, sewing, building, etc. But even with sewing every single time I go to put in a zipper, a multistep specific process, I have to look up how to do it. I just can't remember the steps or visualize it as I go along. 😜
I really enjoyed your video - thank you. There's something I noticed while you were talking that I'd love to hear your take on: Every time you mentioned (not) seeing something in your mind (and I accept that you can't), you basically pointed to it! It was clearly there in space, in a particular place and even a particular shape, in front of your eyes. You mentioned numbers, for instance, and pointed confidently to each digit. So you DO imagine it, at some level, even if you can't see it. Maybe it's like blindsight, where people believe they're totally blind and yet can post a letter through a letterbox that they insist they can't see? I have a good mind's eye myself, but smell might be like this for me - I can't bring smells to mind and always assumed that nobody can, and yet they're not exactly absent. I do get glimpses (whiffs?). Some sense of them being in my mind, even though I can't smell them. There's something there for me to focus my attention on. So when you pointed at those imaginary numbers, what were you pointing at? How did you know where they were? Why were they there and not somewhere else? I'm genuinely interested.
That's an interesting take! So, as I mentioned I'm also Autistic, high masking. I didn't get diagnosed until last fall. Part of that means I naturally am REALLY good at Mimicry. High Masking Late diagnosed Austic people watch and mimic social situations to blend as a survival technique. I literally had no idea I did this, until after my diagnosis.
Now combine this with, I've been learning about and talking about aphantasia with so many people for the past about 5-6 years since learning about it. When I talk to someone who visualizes these are the hand motions THEY do. Apparently I've picked them up, mimicking their movements! Lol. This is legit funny. I do it to literally blend, it's my Autism. Haha! 😂😂 So no, I don't see ANYTHING in my mind at all. If I close my eyes it's blackish. Unless I'm looking towards a light and then I see the reddish of my eyelids. When my eyes are open I only see what is in front of me in real space. I can't even really grasp how someone who visualizes sees in their mind. Some people have described it as a projection in 3d space, some people say it's more like in their minds but not overlaid in 3d space. I don't have a concept of what that really translates to. It'd be like explaining color to someone who was born blind.
Anyway, hope this helps explain it a bit more. As hard as it is for me to imagine how you see in your mind (or experience any sense) I can grant it's just as hard to imagine not being able to.
Thanks for watching and commenting. 😁
Hi Amanda! New to the channel, just shuttling between various videos! I'm absolutely fascinated by your description of aphantasia! I have the opposite, or close to it.
Apparently very few people count as having "hyperthymesia" without being able to put exact dates on stuff that happened to them, but at least compared to most people I've met, and especially most people with childhood trauma... my autobiographical memory and sensory memory are both very sharp.
And until recently, maybe a couple months before discovering your channel, I hadn't heard of aphantasia at all. It was wild and strange to me. Still is a bit strange, but people's ongoing descriptions of how they process have been really insightful and lovely!
What you're saying about music is very real. The things that you're sort of "meta-imagining," right? Imagining what it may be like to imagine... yes, those things are real to the musically inclined. I'm also autistic, but I do have that passionate and intuitive drive towards music.
It's interesting to point out that you can certainly write a descriptive scene using reference, the same way you can draw a picture using reference... why DON'T we get taught that more? If anything, that might really show kids that you can be describing the same thing as somebody else does, but the words you choose endow it with a different overall emotion and quality.
But yes, again you're saying "I thought it was all metaphor" and yet the mind's eye uses much of the same brain space as the literal eye. "It's like I'm there" isn't even exaggerating when you're really into a piece of fiction or what have you.
The observations about spelling hit home for me very hard. I can't NOT picture words in my head when hearing them. They are always there. Unless I can't spell them, in which case they appear smudged or redacted. I'm told this is highly unusual. But it explains why I'm good at learning languages with the same alphabet as English, yet bad at learning languages with different alphabets or characters. Can't see the words hovering over people's heads when they talk? Good luck remembering anything... my brain's weird.
And all of that spirals into layered feelings over visual art, songs with lyrics, poetry... because it's all building on the interactions of this imagined stuff.
There's definitely some cool stuff about aphantasia that makes some aspects of life way better. Feeling like your experiences are brand new every time would be really amazing. And obviously I could do without SO MANY negative autobiographical memories. I'm not even deliberately holding grudges; I just CANNOT FORGET so many bad and mean things that some people in my life have said or done. It's so hard to move on. So hard to accept that they may never truly change or grow. If you don't remember a sharp sensory impression, a tangle of feelings that hit like a truck, and it doesn't block out everything else you're doing that day... safe to say you can get a lot more done with your time.
The weirdest thing is recalling autobiographical memories that you have cognitive dissonance about, years later with the new lens attached. Just like you're swapping the filters on a photo, but it changes the entire thing. That's such a big topic by itself that it simply cannot be covered here.
There are plenty of positive memories I wouldn't trade... but disability is value-neutral. It's not all good, and it's not all bad either. It's just our lives and we're living things differently. Thanks for being yourself and living your truth. I promise not all my comments are this long! Going to watch more of your great videos now. :)
I appreciate long comments, as an Autistic person the more information the better. I really enjoyed reading your experience of visualizing. Not all people with aphantasia have Autobiographical Memory problems but there is about 51% overlap from a recent stufy of people with SDAM and aphantasia. It amazes me anytime someone recounts a memory and can recall sensory information with it especially if they can sort of relive that sensory in their minds. That is completely devoid from me.
I learned when I was about 57. I'm 63 now. Still there are things I never thought about.
One of my hobbies is coffee, exploring coffee from different origins and various blends. It's frustrating that I can't identify the tasting notes - stone fruit, blueberry, etc.
It could be part of a taste/smell aphantasia. I can't remember/think of what coffee smells like in my head right now where there is no coffee present. But I can identify coffee as a scent when I smell it. But it's fairly common for even chefs not to be able to identify flavors blindfolded so I'm not quite sure how that would play into it. Interesting to think about it.
My God!! Is it possible to remember flavors too? I can remember textures and sensations when they are linked to a word, I can remember sounds and touch but I never even imagined that it was possible to remember smells and taste... I thought that aphantasia only affected the sense of sight but apparently that's not all.
I actually kind of discovered about it in high school , but it scared me that I couldnt visualize like other students in my class, a teacher got really rude with me and I ended not wanting to face I was different 🤷♀️ so I just recently put a name to it, and discovered that Im not alone, my mom and uncle have aphantasia too 😅 but beyond that one class , I never really felt diferent 🤷♀️
I did art and fashion design in college so I guess it could have been useful, but I dont feel like I missed a lot! Maybe I feel Im missing out about daydreaming that I love to do 😅
As for other senses in the mind I dont have them either, my mom and uncle dont have them too, it all sounds like superpowers really 😂😂😂
Have Aphantasia and SDAM also and something i don't have is the knowledge of when a food needs salt. for me the taste of the food is what i'm eating, how would I know the taste of that food+salt ? So, when i was leaving alone i just didn't have salt in my kitchen, the foods taste is what it is. for spicy condiments i know that i will feel it in my mouth and lips but not the taste itself.
I suspect that the right sort of therapy could help you discover how to awaken multi-sensory imagination. You seem to be thinking that your live sensory experiences are not internal experiences, but they are. You do not see with your eyes,, but see in your mind what information is supplied to your mind by your eyes. Similarly, you do not hear with your ears, but hear, in your mind, sounds, triggered by signals passing through your ears to your mind. Same with all your other senses.
I think a series of simple musical exercises might flip the switch that lets you generate auditory experiences triggered by your working memory of recently heard sounds or your imagination, using the same hearing process that is already taking place in your mind, but driven only by live signals from your ears. Your memory or imagination are essentially different microphones that you learn how to plug into your hearing mind.
But that's the point, with aphantasia I don't have sounds in my head. I can't hear songs play, I can't imagine what a siren sounds like. I don't hear a voice as I type these words. Same with all my senses. Many people on the aphantasia message board I've been on have tried all sorts of therapies, drugs, meditation to no end. There are currently researchers in England studying Aphantasia thoroughly. Sure, I think visualizing could be really useful at times. But I've adapted and I mostly talk about it because I think comparing our inner experiences with each other I'd fascinating. I like to bring awareness to the fact that often we assume that others internal experience are the same as our own but there is a huge variety in our brains and it's a cool subject to explore.
It's also one of those things that if suddenly I did have all my senses I think my autism might be even more effected. The fact I have a quiet mind I think can help balance some sensory overload I would feel otherwise. But that's just a guess.
@@i.am.mindblind My point is, that the only place you can hear sounds is in your head. A part of your mind constructs a model of external reality, constrained by inputs from your senses, and that model is where you experience all your senses. As you have often said, autistics are rule followers, and you evidently follow a strict rule that your mental model of reality can allow you only experiences based on your senses, not on your memories or imagination. But rules are made to be explored, expanded and broken.
Other people have said they hear a sound in their head. Like if there is no music playing externally in the room, they can think of the song and hear it in their heads. I cannot. I hear no sound in my head if I'm in a quiet room. Other people with multisensory aphantasia also describe this experience so I don't feel like I'm making something up. Others have the same internal experience.
@@i.am.mindblind I have no doubt that you are being completely honest and sincere about what you experience. You have taught yourself to do many things that you once could not do. I used to be an amateur hypnotist. I have helped many people do things, with their mind, that they had never done before. So I have some appreciation for how minds can learn to do new things. I am not an expert on the subject of aphantasia, but just have some hunches, based on my experience with minds.
Music sounds normal to me and, unless it's those songs where you hear the damn instruments louder than the actual person singing, I actually find quite enjoy music. Not sure if that's what it is (I'm not a doctor) but I know a lot of autistic people also have Sensory Processing Disorder on top of it so I wonder if that could be what's making music sound more like noise to you.
I do have sensory processing disorder as part of my autism, but what I mean by thst is because of total aphantasia I'm tone deaf. I can't distinguish a piano vs a guitar for example. So most music doesn't come into my head as seperate pretty sounds but usually a jumble of just what my brain says "noise." I do listen to music sometimes, but definitely a lot less than most people.
I learned english with manga in english language 😂 in school I wasn't that good. I also learned pronouncing english words with the help of UA-cam Videos 🙃
That's awesome. I really love how you can learn just about anything on UA-cam!
See more and more videos without "add to" function (like with content for kids, but without "for kids" mark), so to bookmarks it goes. So you mean some people also imagine smells and tastes? Thought that aphantasia was simply no video or pictures :-)
I'm don't know what the "add too" feature you mentioned. I mark my videos not for kids because kids videos I am pretty sure don't allow comments. Also, while my content is fine for teens, a young child probably shouldn't watch without a parent present to explain, but they probably wouldn't be interested anyway.
When aphantasia was first discovered they thought it was visual only. Then people like myself reported no senses. Some people just have the no visual and some have more than one or all absent.
hi Amanda, I wonder, do you have visual dreams (sleeping dreams)?
Hi Traci, I do! Not often though. Apparently the awake visualizing part of the brain and sleep one is different parts. Although I have met some aphants who don't visualize in their dreams and some who do. I just very rarely do, but when I have a visual dream it startles me! I go into more detail in this video:
ua-cam.com/video/Z0X2z5P25_s/v-deo.html
@@i.am.mindblind How interesting, thanks, I will check out that video tomorrow, it’s bedtime for me in U.K.!
Have NO problem with video streams during sleep, no video or pictures while awake.
Good afternoon
There was this spring at a summer camp under a mint field.
The water was sooo delicious natural mint.
But I can only describe it as the best, maybe "wintermint" I have had... but was it wintermint, or spearmint... I can't remember, the taste and smell is forever gone; a memory like a tale told by your grand parents.
It amazes me how some people can recall flavors. Well, most people can to some degree!
Yeah, all the words and simple tasks based around "Mental Imaging" and always thinking it was a really weird metaphor! =oD
No wonder people looked at me like I was an idiot when I didn't perform the task as expected =oD
@@chibinyra no kidding. I just chuckle at all the meditation classes that told me to visualize walking down a beach, or my favorite quiet place. 🤪
I think by the time I got to Calculus, having NOT relied on visual imagery to run math, I was less reliant on "showing work" and more needed the paper to track what I loaded into the calculator.
So while other students turned in multiple pages front and back, I pissed off my teacher because I used just the front of a single sheet... Teacher was NOT amused =oP