For those interested to know more about the spectrum of imagination there's plenty of online info & tests available, though remember they're a bit of fun and you'll get some weird results. People with highly visual imaginations (which can bring it's own mixed bag of strengths & vulnerabilities) are "hyperphantasic" and those of us whose ability to visualise is below average (maybe not mind-blind but mind-visually-impaired maybe?) are "hypophantasic". To be aphantasic is to have a capacity for subjective pseudo-sensory visualisation well below the average range of reported functionality. This of course impacts on our capacity for visual recall, however many of us still retain vivid memories absent of a strong (or any) visual element. Other senses, emotions & so on may be retained & recalled, though the traditional stimulation of a photograph or a visual description may not be appropriate or sufficient stimulus, however sounds, sentences or smells may trigger said memories. Sometimes such recollections include sensory data such as smells or vibrations which contradict the visual memories of others present, and can lead to disputes. Whilst aphantasic people may experience difficulty recalling visual memories, it is not to be confused with memory disorders or traumatic responses such as PTSD, cPTSD or "SDAM" which may or may not also be present. Whilst many autistic people suffer from stress related illnesses and there is a higher prevalence of aphantasia in autistic folks, no causative correlation between hypo/aphantasia & memory deficits or stress-related memory lapses has yet been determined at the time of publication.
@Autistamatic I don't think the typical person can imagine something like a person's face accurately, or any specific object. I think it's more like the quickly fading into silhouette type of thing you showed or other similar "vague image with properties." If they could, they would be able to imagine it over a piece of paper and just trace it to make a realistic drawing of a face or a car or an airplane, etc. Even (the vast majority of) artists use little tricks to measure a proportion from their own perspective in order to copy it to their canvas and keep referring back to their source, and they are doing it from their own perspective. Why would they need to even look back at the subject after the first look in order to paint them? :)
I had never heard of Aphantasia until just this last year and when I researched it I realized this described me perfectly. I started asking my spouse questions and the very idea that people can actually SEE things in the dreams, or even just by thinking about them as if they were watching a movie they were in, or looking at a photograph. I get absolutely nothing but blackness. For example I am aware of what an apple looks like, and if asked I can conjure up the concept of an apple, but it is purely thought without any visual imagery to support it. My spouse can freaking see an apple in their head somehow! I truly do not understand this concept.
I think "I can conjure up the concept of an apple, but it is purely thought without any visual imagery to support it" exactly describes me. I can imagine an apple, and all the details of it, but there's no picture. I can design quite complex systems in my head, and move objects around inside it, then draw it on a computer (within my limited abilities!), and know if what's on screen matches my thoughts, but there's no image in my head. It's like I can imagine a picture, but not actually see it. This isn't the first time I've come across aphantasia, but maybe it's a bit clearer to me this time.
I can very much relate to that description. Since computers stopped being a hobby and became productivity tools they've opened up so many possibilities for neurodivergences of all varieties and possibly masked a few traits along the way too.
How do you know that "conjuring up the concept" of an apple isn't what other people might describe as mental imagery? I mean it can't be an image in exactly the same way as sight or it would get in the way of seeing what's in front of you. Y'know? Imagery in the "mind's eye" can be interpreted as being similar to seen visual imagery, but experientially it's different, more purely thought (of course), however, the distinction may go unexamined.
I see in dreams as real as waking life. When I'm awake I can only see with physical eyes. I can bring up the concept of an apple but not a picture in my mind. If I try with all my might, I might get a hazy outline. Still not actually sure it's a picture and not just still a concept lol
That's quite dismissive of our experience and intellect, not to mention ability to compare experience with others and deduce. There's literally tests for finding out if you have this or not. Touch grass. @@eubique
I discovered this condition in my youngest child when she struggles with learning to read, especially making the transition from picture books to "chapter books". When I discussed her reluctance to read these books, she talked about how she couldn’t keep track of the setting or characters without pictures to guide her. After chatting a bit more, I finally realised that she couldn’t see any of this in her mind's eye. So I went to tell my husband....." Can you believe our child can't see images in her mind's eye?" and he was like, "So what, I can't either. You mean, you actually CAN?" Even now, at age 18, my daughter's favourite books are Amine. Its just too much mental load to read other fictional genres.
Interesting! I have always thought I had a good imagination. In fact, most people who know me would describe me as having an overactive imagination. I'm an artist and I draw pictures that I have conjured from my imagination, but I can't visualise or hold a picture in my mind of the faces of people that I know or of places I've been to, I have to look at a photo to remind myself of how it looks.
I'm still learning about how I fit into the autistic world. I was trying to find information about it to help me understand my grandkids better. Instead I discovered that I am autistic, adhd, and aphantasic. I have been masking for 60 years, and still having to because no one thinks that I am autistic. Don't get me wrong I am great at creating beautiful jewelry, quilts, and crocheted blankets, but I have never been able to picture in my mind a scene or person. So when I learned about aphantasia a little light bulb went off and I no longer felt abnormal. It has been a very good search for information and instead of just helping my grandkids I am helping myself to understand how my own brain works. I can't help the grandkids if I don't understand myself. Keep up the awesome work and know that your information is helping others.
It's still mind-boggling to me what a relief it is to learn there are names for these things and that I'm not alone, even sometimes realizing I'm even weirder than I thought. I'm very happy to hear this journey is so meaningful for you as well.
I think this might be why I've enjoyed every psychedelic experience I've had, even the uncomfortable ones. I felt things differently on mushrooms or LSD, but there was no hallucinating, it was just as if I had sharper focus, more ability to see details. I once spent about 6 hours with a crocheted hat pulled over my face, trying to imagine all of human history and connecting as much if it as I've been made aware of, but all I saw were pinholes of light from the room around me while my thoughts were roaming blind in another world based on what I've understood about the past. I'm a bit sad that I can't experience unreal visualizations and have all the bells and whistles of what others describe in their psychedelic experiences. But I'm also glad that I don't feel any of my experiences were wasted, and certainly glad that they were always safe. If I had to sum up how I'm understanding my own aphantasia right now, I'm reminded of an episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" when the gang has an epic dance scene at their high school reunion, and they all look glamorous and perfect, and then the music ends and it shows what everyone else saw, and they're all drunk and sloppy... When I've been on LSD I only see the real picture, even though I can still feel the excitement and sensations of company sharing the same experience. It's allowed me to remain in the sort of babysitting/caretaking role that I used to fall into way back when I tried to be a drinker. I can indulge the fantasies, but I can't let my friends get carried away and I've gotten rather good at redirecting their attention from bad ideas... I really don't know why I'm sharing all this, other than it's just what's unfolding in my mind after seeing this, and I truly want to offer what support I can by engaging the content.
Wow! I already knew that I am aphantasic (and autistic in the process of being diagnosed) but you are the first to talk about it in the same way about what I'm going through, and that's something! Thanks for that. I live constantly in my head and I am very detached from reality. I don't have any pictures but I have so much in there. I relive my emotional memories in a crazy way: sounds, smells, waves, I have a form of synesthesia (I feel the waves of certain sounds and music in general through shapes in me) but I don't have any 'pictures. Or very little, it can happen to me, but I experience it as a strong aggression, I can't stand it. It is rare to find these two subjects together. Please continue! (+1 subscription)
Recently learned my husband is aphantasic. It’s helped me be much more patient with him, because I now know he can’t visualize what I can. We are both learning to be more patient, now that we know. He no longer believes he’s stupid (I always thought he was brilliant). So, this discovery, though disappointing, has been quite enlightening. Knowing truly is half the battle, only we don’t need to fight as hard anymore. ❤
I have no image at all in my "Mind's eye" -- not even the cartoonish, brief variety you have -- just blank darkness. I always figured that what other people described in the their minds eye was them being metaphoric. However, I have a great memory for color (when going shopping I can tell right away if that blouse in the store will match the slacks have at home), I can remember where my husband left his keys (or whatever) (he has a vivid mind's eye), I can tell you how many windows are in my house without going around to count them, I write fiction that includes vivid visual description, etc. That said, I have little ability to recall scenes or events from my past unless there was an emotion attached to it. It's an interesting revelation!
I've realized I was aphantasic for a while now, but until I did I had never realized that when others said they "saw" something in their imagination, that they actually *saw* it. Your description of that lightning flash image that's barely there long enough to see? That is the perfect description of what goes on in my head as well. I've had such a hard time explaining to my normally phantasic (?) husband what I see, and now I can just have him watch your video. Thank you! In other news, I'm a visual artist. So normal imagination seems like a superpower to me.
I'm not aphantasic, but relate to something else you said: I frequently "don't know" things because it turns out I've taken them too literally. In fact, I didn't know I was autistic until it was worded to me in a different way than the "textbook" descriptions -- then it suddenly clicked. 🤦
Some of us experience prophantasia. I don’t get much detail, since my ADHD brain runs away to the next thing. But my brain superimposes, like augmented reality in specific circumstances, imagination over the real world, which helps me create, plan, and fix things.
I also only found out a year ago that I'm hypophantasic due to a discussion on it on an autism discord server. We did a simple test about imagining a horse, and then they started asking about what color the spot on its forehead was (if there was one to begin with)... and if there were flowers on the meadow... Much to my (and 2 other participants) surprise, the others had no problems in answering those questions, while I got no further than the concept "horse". This led to the others being surprised: their "you can't imagine that?" vs. my "you can imagine that?" It led to me discovering something new about myself in my 50s.
I realized that I was Aphantasic about 5 years ago, and within the last year I have realized that I also have AuDHD. I'm turning 55 this year and it's really shaken things up. I appreciate your content, Quinn!
I wrote a novel and shared it with my wife. I was worried as I have aphantasia my imagery would not be evocative enough. She had nightmares about the visual images it conjured up. My point is it’s incredible to me that I create such descriptive work without being able to see any of it in my ‘mind’s eye’.
Thank you for this video! We are in the process of investigating autism for myself and my children, and coming across this video has given me some more insight to how they see the world. We homeschool and I have noticed both my children struggle with creative writing. One is fantastic with dialogue and the other with more “cartoon-like” scenes, and they both struggle with details and providing the reader with a clear picture. I’m the same way. I think I’ll focus more on playwriting and cartooning for them, and be more patient with descriptive detail, maybe study more about how others write than trying to make them come up with it alone for now. This is incredibly helpful and should relieve some stress for us! Thank you!
I'll talk about this more in later explorations, but the distinction between visual imagination and creativity wasn't one I truly appreciated enough until recently. As I mentioned in the video, I was praised for my "imaginative" writing as a child and I like to think I do a half-decent job of scripting this channel, but I recognised my creative strengths lent themselves more readily to factual prose more than fiction long before the penny dropped that I'm aphantasic.
Quinn- welcome to my autistic word. A few brief flash with little details as you stated. No when sleeping I still have vivid move theme dreams because that is a different mechanism. When I suddenly awake from such a dream the images that I had disappear in seconds and the visual system switches.
I have to say this video outlined exactly my experience. When I found out about aphantasia it was a real penny drop moment. Really changed my world view and yes still makes me sad when I think about it too much.
This likely explains my deep frustration about failing when spiritual teachers take us on journies, or ask us about what we visualize and I get nothing...yet I am an artist. I would love more videos exploring this topic.
I have a very active visual imagination. I remember, as a child, asking the other kids on the playground if they also saw the monsters we were pretending to run from, and getting some very confused looks.
I just came across your channel today. I just learned I have aphantasia within the last year (ish). My husband does too. But he knew, he didn't understand that I didn't understand what it means. I never knew when people talked about seeing things in their mind or terms like the mind's eye or third eye, that they meant literally. I thought it was just a figure of speech. But I do occasionally see colors with music. And I can't figure out my dreams, I think I just think them, they're not often any more. (Also autistic. In US.)
I realized perhaps ten years ago there's something unusual about my brain in this way and understood that's part of why I enjoy non-fiction more than fiction. But also I enjoy the kinds of fictional stories that portray fascinating world systems such as often in fantasy and scifi more than those focused on creating visual vistas. It was still a relief to learn this has a name perhaps two years ago so I completely agree with you that it's better to know. It can bring deeper acceptance and appreciation. I'm an tabletop rpg'er, player and GM so this is also a continuing journey in that sense. It might seem paradoxic that I enjoy theatre of the mind play style more than relying on visual props. Perhaps because I want to be immersed and imagine situations in my own way, something which is almost completely taken over if I'm focused on a physical visual presentation on the table.
Just as you describe not being able to recall your mother’s face, it’s equally hard not being able to feel the love of a partner when you are apart. Some people with aphantasia are also unable to recall sounds, smells or sensations of touch. It can also affect the ability to “imagine” or recall emotions too. It’s an intellectual experience, one might be able to explain the qualities of a taste or emotional experience but not feel the sensation. It’s a parallel to the visual aspects of Aphantasia. As a result it has some crossover with alexithymia. Your ability to recall or predict (imagine) an emotion or feelings involved in iteroception (hunger, thirst, anxiety). It can make talk therapy hard, if you are not feeling the emotion it can be hard to relate it to another person. Feelings can become attenuated because it’s hard to identify them, or you suppress them. It’s a spectrum of experiences as always.
Thinking on it more, when I’m awake it is probably more like the lightning flashes behind closed curtains, and there is a sense of it being quite distant from me. It only flashes when uninvited, it can’t be summoned consciously at all; the more I try to picture something the more aware I am of the blackness.
I can't even see anything, nothing, just nothing. I can remember, vividly, the few times I've seen something with my eyes closed. All three times. I ran around asking EVERYONE if they could see stuff with their eyes closed. Blew my mind when I first found out. That was actually the true beginning of my autism journey along with learning it's hereditary, whew my family tree. The only other thing I've learned as an adult that change my perspective of everything as much is learning magenta + yellow = red. Once I learned that, I didn't believe anything anymore.
Very interesting, Quinn. I have a great imagination in some ways - I am an artist and can design complex works completely in my imagination - but I struggle when designing comes up against words to explain my imagery. That’s a huge problem as a professional artist and has really meant my work just doesn’t get seen much. I rarely can name what a work is “about” until many days or even years later, which I think is a result of delayed processing from autism.
It's a bit weird to me because it sounds like I was aphantasic most of my life... but with the right education (trade school, machining), I started to be able to see single 3D objects rotating in my head, and now in my mid-30s I can picture scenes. I practiced by making my imagination interact with the landscape while I'm a passenger on the bus/cars... Lifting houses with my mind, cutting trees in one swoop, a meteorite landing... it's not about the action itself, it's about imagining all the little details that would occur as a result. Thank you for the audio editing, you mentioned it is hard, but it's really appreciated. I was able to listen to the whole thing without any sensory issues. 💜
I found out I was aphantasic before I figured out I was autistic. I see nothing the vast majority of the time; sometimes I get a vague, shadowy outline, but it's gone almost instantly. Patreon subscribed!
This is an interesting video! I have the opposite experience; I recently found out I have hyperphantasia. I found a link to a hyperphantasia test in an autistic space and was so confused by the questions! When I imagine an apple, does it appear as a cartoon, or life-like, in 2D or 3D, etc? It can be any of those things, depending on how I choose to imagine it! And I thought that was how it worked for everybody. I was so confused lol. For me it’s a blessing and a curse. I have wonderful daydreams and can make decisions by literally imaging the sensations and feeling of the outcome, but I also get a lot of intrusive scary images, especially if I get caught unaware by a horror movie trailer or something similar. Really immersive daydreams are also conducive to maladaptive daydreaming, which ultimately can be pretty harmful. I’d be really interested to know how aphantasic people decide what to eat for dinner, what new piece of furniture to buy, etc. Because for me the answer is I close my eyes and imagine the taste/smell/feel of the food, or the look and feel of the new piece of furniture in my existing space. I literally don’t know how else to make decisions, so I’m really fascinated by aphantasia.
I am all 5 senses aphantasia. I can’t re-live any experiences. I can’t even begin to imagine how distracting it would be to have all those senses in my head.
I think this dedcribes me? I never understood the phrase "transported into the book" when my mum reads she gets totally absorbed where as I think I read stories as if i am reading something factual... I might be reading stories in a factual way, there are a few I have read and because the descriptions were soo good I could imagine the scenes and the characters well but most books I don't see that much in my mind. I can picture things I want to change in the house or garden and how they will look before the job done which hubby struggles to do. I think I took the meaning on afantasia too literally as well. My eyes have been opened!
Quinn, you are amazing. Found you by accident. You absolutely nail my experience , what my values are and my experience. 59 years just diagnosed. Taking your vids to my employer. The NHS!!!!
I first heard of aphantasia a few years ago on another autistic you tube channel (Yo Samdy Sam) and it was a shock to learn in my fifties that other people really do see with their minds eye. I find that despite not being able to hold an image in my mind, if I am woken by a nightmare I realise that I was visualising fully during it, but that I can not retain that image for even a moment on waking. I am never aware of having a dream unless I was woken up during it. I have very few memories as I cannot replay them, the few I have are more like a list of facts that I recall as having happened but I lack certainty over them as I cannot see the events in my mind. Remembering people is also tricky, I often don’t recognise somebody I know, I rely on context and voice to help, my next door neighbour thinks I am snubbing her as I have walked right past her on a number of occasions when away from the area of my home.
I realised I had aphantasia within the last year from an animated UA-cam video about an artist who realised they had aphantasia and the things they struggled with as an artist. I can see vivid images when I dream while I’m sleeping or sometimes while I’m starting to fall asleep or starting to wake, but I can’t summon images in my mind on purpose, maybe a dull flicker of something I’ve seen before but I can’t hold it for more than a fraction of a second, and I can’t see anything I have never seen before, it is like it is not accessible to me. I am sad to know that other people can see images in their mind it sounds really useful and cool. I never understood what daydreaming in class was, and found it boring when I tried to daydream by resting my head on my hand and thinking about something (copying what I’d seen daydreaming to look like in a comic).
My drawing ability when I have reference vs when I don’t have reference is vastly different. Without reference I know the elements that make up the object but the result will be very basic and cartoony and the proportions will not look quite right. It might be easier if I have drawn it before as the positions of the lines in relation to each other become easier to recreate through repetition or builds into some form of muscle memory. Using reference ends up with much better results but I have to relook at the reference frequently because I can’t hold the image in my mind, and it can be difficult to deviate from recreating the reference as it is. It can also be difficult to resolve visual issues, I can tell that there is something wrong but I can’t problem solve visual issues in my mind I need to see it visually represented, such overlaying the reference to see where it deviates. I also realised earlier this year that I’m an external processor, I find it easier to think things through using writing, drawing or speaking. It can be quite difficult to move forward in my thought process or solve problems without some external form of expressing and hearing/seeing the thoughts. I’m not sure whether that processing style has any link to aphantasia, but I could see it being potentially related to not being able to visualise the words or problems in my head either at all or for long enough to do anything with them.
Hi, I'm Authentistic, and I'm hyper-phantasic! This topic fascinates me endlessly. I cannot imagine not being able to visualize. It happens involuntarily. Details invent themselves in my head with little to no prompting. My dreams are vivid and I can sometimes remember a mental map after awakening of the locations I traveled in the dream. It's very cinematographic in nature. Camera angles, props, sets, even soundscapes come with my visualizing. It's not as fun as it sounds. It can be associated with extra PTSD flashback and anxiety scenario-making :( I have a hard time listening or reading others' words, becuase my briain fills in details to the scenario they describe and I often have to reality-correct my thoughts to avoid interrupting them with silly questions or reactions to my own imagination of what they're saying.
I don't think this is the norm, like Quinn says, though. Most people who can visualize who I speak to don't have this level of detail and auto-spawning of additional related imagery. They are somewhere in the middle. And it doens't distract them from communication tasks with other people like it can for me.
It's not the most convenient of situations for a creator in a visual medium, but you play with the card you've been dealt and make the best of it👍It IS a fascinating topic and it's been quite the learning experience!
Fellow aphantasic here! I only found out less than a year ago (I'm 41 now) and it's still continuing to blow my mind. Same goes for the autism (1,5 years for that), to be honest. Thank goodness for channels like yours. I happened across a video about aphantasia on UA-cam and I watched it out of curiosity. Afterwards, I was convinced I didn't have it, because - as you mentioned in the video - I'm perfectly capable of coming up with the most elaborate scenarios in my mind. Nothing wrong with *my* imagination, I thought. But then I discussed the video with my partner and after a few bewildering minutes, I asked: "But you can't actually SEE things in your mind that aren't there, right? That's ... hallucination, right?" And imagine my surprise. To me, there are two sides to knowing you're aphantasic. On the one hand, (combined with the time blindness) it explains to a huge degree why I have such poor memory and have been unable to, say, draw a character from a show from memory. I can't do it. (Thankfully, I have pretty decent recognition skills, so I usually get by with 'I'll know it when I see it'.) On the other hand, it makes me very sad to know that I won't be able to 'see' my loved ones' faces when I'm dying. Of course, I've *never* been able to - nothing's changed but the knowing - but realising that others CAN is ... something that makes me very happy for them, but sad for myself.
I'm also aphantasic. In the past during a few times that I was in a guided visualization, I felt frustrated and puzzled by how hard it was for me to visualize. I even felt that some of the people who related detailed scenes were just being showoffs embellishing their experience. Other times when I've tried to visualize, it only creates a fleeting image. I am artistic. There have been many times I've gazed at a scene in nature to try to memorize it for a possible painting later, but I could only bring up the basics in my mind's eye. So a natural remedy was to take photographs and work from that.
Fascinating stuff! I come from a very Austistic family (5 siblings all on spectrum, parents recently diagnosed, and grandparents suspected) but the opposite seems to be true for us- too much is vivid. My mother has synesthesia, and is tetrachromic, she gets strong crossovers with smell and colour and sees everything in permanently oversaturated colour, as a result her brain and imagination is very visual. I have similar issues, to the extent that I have a strong preference for winter because the sensory feedback from smell and vision is less painful. I used to engage in what is now termed 'maladaptive daydreaming' because the inside of my head was so much more interesting and calming than the mundane, yet hectic world around me. It affected me so severely that as a child I used to hallucinate, and struggled to engage in reality at all. This led to an artistic flair, but extremely poor forward planning skills and a kind of crippling 'future-blindness'.
Thanks for commenting. I'd like to cover hyperphantasia later on, so if you'd like to contribute your insights or stories, please get in touch. Contact details are on the UA-cam "about" tab or via forms on Patreon & my website.
Really interesting video! I'm the opposite, i'm a visual thinker and i'm pretty sure i have hyperphantasia. I love stories and books and for me reading is like watching films in great detail - my "own" films, because i make up the pictures and the writer gives me suggestions for them with their words - for quite a long time i thought that's how everyone reads and imagines stories and i was quite surprised to learn that not everyone reads/thinks in this way. There seems to be quite a bit of research about aphantasia and how it is connected to autism, but there is very little about hyperphantasia.
Hmmm. I wonder if I may be, then. I used to have real difficulty in high school once I was supposed to try to analyse what we read. For me that was destronying the story. I'll do some research.
Aphantasia also affects my memory. I can never take myself back to re-experience a memory visually. If I’m lucky, I remember some rote facts about some things that happened. Pretty sad to think others can. But on the flip side, I’ve probably buried some traumatic stuff that can’t haunt me in the way it may haunt someone else.
What you are describing sounds like SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory). It seems to co-occur with aphantasia quite often. It's only recently been identified as a memory disorder and hasn't made its way into the DSM yet, so there's no official diagnosis available as far as I know. My husband has this condition, and so does one of my children.
Thanks for another video! I’m excited to be able to share this with folks I know as I believe you’ve described what it’s like for me to not be able to hold onto an image. Do you find there are certain types of images you can hold onto for longer than others?
I clicked on this because I'm *not* aphantasic. In the same way you're astounded at how people can have these vivid pictures in their mind, I'm equally astounded at how people can't, and will happily listen as people try to describe how their imagination works. Similarly, I'm amazed that some people don't have an "internal monologue" (although I would call it an internal *dialogue*). How do people process their thoughts if they can't vocalise them in their mind?
There's comments alongside this one from hypo/aphantasic folks wondering how others can cope with those distracting voices and images getting in the way😂 I wouldn't say I'm personally astounded so much as had my long-buried suspicions confirmed, but I'll go into that in a later video. The feelings are quite hard to unpick tbh, but I'm working on it😊
I imagine the concept of an apple rather than the picture of it ive just realised watching this. Rather than see it i sort of 'know' its there. Probably why im totally rubbish at drawing.
This channel is really saving my life. I'm so extremely grateful. One question, something I don't seem to find is the relationship between aphantasia and so called visual memory. When people say "imagine or picture something" I always understood it as "remembering or recalling". I happen to be an autistic with what I thought it was remarkable "visual memory". But bc I'm a dancer, I think what I actually have is a really good spatial memory and from there I can "construct visuals". But I can't visualize (like those guide mediations or visualizing exercises). I can't "see" things I haven't "seen" before. I learned about aphantasia literally the day after receiving my autism diagnosis and I all made so much sense. But I'm trying to understand more the memory aspect of it. Have you done a video on this or are there sources that you know of? Thank you so so much for your amazing content.
Hey Quinn. Thanks for another great video. You describe me perfectly. I thought I might be hypophantasic which is not quite as extreme as Aphantasic but maybe I am Aphantasic. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the difference between the 2 versions of phantasia. Thanks again.
I also love trying to play with colours. That is very hard work with no frame of reference. However, I can now do it if the metaphorical light is right, and I know and love complex colours like magenta. I remember asking a sighted friend what this red/yello/purple colour was called? However, I have trouble identifying people's voices - even those I know well and even though I also have perfect pitch. Weird, I know. We've all got different strengths and skills and that's how we can fit together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
I've only very recently come across your channel but I think it's amazing! Really interesting content. Unfortunately I'm not in a position where I have disposable income at the moment but really think this channel could get big in the near future - keep it up 😄
Thanks for the feedback. Autistamatic has been around for 6 years or so, but it wasn't an occupation until recently (see the "change" series for why). You've already contributed that little bit extra by commenting 😊
I am aphantasic and autistic as well. My flavor of aphantasia seems to be identical to Quinn's although I cannot conjure the instantaneous flashes at will, they just kinda happen every now and then. I would be the worst person for a police sketch artist to rely on. I can't recall my wife's face outside of a general outline. If you ask me to imagine and describe something such as a beach I will just rattle off the ingredients that make up a beach because I know what they are but I am not actively picturing them in my mind. When I told people I do not dream they were fairly dismissive and just stated that "everybody dreams, you probably just aren't remembering yours." Aphantasia is also linked with SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory) but more study needs to be done as SDAM may just be a side effect of aphantasia rather than its own diagnosis. I do believe I have this as well as I do not seem to create episodic memories, or at the very least I cannot recall them because I cannot picture them in my mind. The only memories I have are stories I have been told or encounters that I have repeated in my head in story format.
Really interesting video. This is a coincidence with a similar process of realisation (?) for myself and a helpful data point to that end. There was a thought-provoking question in my autism assessment (I'm part way through the process) which was something like 'do you find it easy to picture a character in a book?' which set me pondering (and also researching). I've always thought of myself as imaginative and creative but in trying to answer that question I found myself reaching for words like 'fleeting' and wondered whether what I experience could be a phenomena of aphantasia. Something being lit for a moment or two by flickering lightening is a great way of describing it. I know I've found this consciously frustrating in the past when eg trying to hold an image of a loved one or place in my mind. It's almost like somebody holding up a photograph for a second and then hiding it again. You can ask them to hold it up again but you will only see it for second at a time. Just want to add I'm loving the content of this channel which is currently exceeding it's own high standards.
Thank you Alex. That's a really nice way to pay a compliment😊 I was away for a long time whilst burned out, but I learned a lot in that time and had plenty of time to think of new ideas for the channel. I hope I manage to keep up the trend you so kindly commented on.
@@Autistamatic you're very welcome. Class is permanent but you're definitely on a run of form as well🙂 Also, I edited my initial comment probably whilst you were replying but only to add a further description of trying to hold an image in mind
Im very creative, concept wise. I could always build in 3d in the real world, but not in my mind, nor can I draw unaided in 2d. This is crazy as I've built huge monuments and secenery for leading artists and production companies. Due to physical constraints, I now work in sound, I can't hear the sounds I want to create. In fact, I have no concept of them. I work on atmospheres and story boards. I'll draw from memory sounds that trigger feelings, recreate them, and try them for size. It's a time-consumingg process, trial and error, compared to the way others work. It's the only way I can work. Thank fully creative work is not my day job anymore.
I'm definitely not aphantasic. I have vivid imagination. As kid this vivid imagination got me into a lot of trouble. Too much day dreaming. I look back at think it was how dealt with bullies, the buzzing lights, the loud voices. I'd retreat in my own imagination and get spaced out look on my face. This still happens to me even now in 50s. I quite enjoy it from time to time but it can happen in inopportune times like at work in a meeting. So I'm not entirely in control of it. I suppress it a lot in order to mask. One the cool things about it is can visualize it externally. I can walk into a pub and turn it into old western saloon. I try not do that because that can lead to me to spacing out in my imagination as create cinematic scene of a gun fight over a poker game. I played lot of RPG games and made up my own stories. I never felt that conveyed them in game as I saw them in my mind. The color and texture of moss growing on rock in an ancient ruins. Figure I'd post this as you said posts help your channel out and I'm happy to post things like this.
Oh, I hear you. Even now I love to play music in my head, on the correct key, or sivit the entire inner world into which I love to escape when I'm meant to be doing other things. Half the tiem when I wasn't payign attention in school in my mind I simply wasn't even there.
Ehm, now this one has shaken me. I realize I'm in full denial mode, arguing that I've been a visual thinker all my life and shouldn't "jump on every new label". But I have to admit that my visual thinking is mostly restricted to structures. My "videos" are at most 2 seconds long, and my visual memory of my best friends are a blurred image highlighting the features that make them special to me. No technicolor here either. Dang!
I always hated when people would say things like “visualize the person you want to be to become that person”. Visualization is a real, valuable tool for people who can visualize, but for me, it was always pointless. It wasn’t until I learned I was aphantasiac and that visualization isn’t what I thought it was that I understood why it was such a useless endeavor for me. I literally cannot visualization anything, not even the silhouette flashes Quinn spoke of. I’m not training my brain about anything when I “visualize”. There are days that it sucks. I know it is tied heavily into my prosopagnosia. It’s also tied into my how I don’t really “remember” people when they aren’t around me (yay, object permanence). Some days, I’d really like to try the neurotypical experience for a little while.
Not every autistic person is Aphantasic though so I wouldn't call it the NT experience. I also have object permanence but also hyperphantasia. I can imagine someone I see frequently in space or under water doing impossible things. We do need to move away from words like visualization since not everyone can experience a 3D imagination. I thought everyone could imagine what I can until very recently.
@@ChetHanks-eh1md yeah, I didn’t mean to imply any relationship between autism and aphantasia (there is a relationship, but it’s complicated). Instead, it’s a more general “I’m very atypical neurally (autism, ADHD, aphantasia, prosopagnosia, strabismus (resulting in no depth perception), giftedness, and probably more); it would be nice to put ALL of that aside and experience the world with a completely “average” mind. I’d be giving some stuff up that I really like, and I don’t think I’d want to stay that way, but it would be so fascinating to see how most people experience life because my experience is VERY different.
I have about the same kind of aphantasia, it's like my minds eye only sees brief snapshots. If I think really hard and can hold a bit of an invisible ghost of a scene but it's very weak. I don't understand how people describe their imagination as looking like VR, or like able to place real looking items into their vision. I would think that would be closer to hallucinations no? I do have pretty vivid dreams - I recall a lot of detail and in this way I feel like I'm me in another world. It feels pretty realistic in the moment, but when I wake up it's harder for me to visualize it. I know the narrative details though.
Good Grief! UA-cam has given me so many labels for things I have discovered about myself over my lifetime. I have known that I lacked visualization skills for decades after attending classes where guided visualizations were conducted. Others would see detailed movies in their heads where I would see nothing or vague flashes of images. Aphantasia was only coined in 2015 . I ran across the term last year when an artist was discussing the difficulty she had in translating the concepts in her head onto the page. Where someone else might have a fully formed picture in their mind, she would have to draw many sketches in order to form her concept in reality. So, aphantasic (or hypophantasic), autistic (or AuDHD), SDAM, directionally dyslexic (not being able to correctly articulate left, right, north, south, east and west has caused me untold grief over the years.) Labels in and of themselves are not very useful, but being able to validate that one is not wrong or broken but simply a variation of the human experience is very uplifting. (I had a lot of trouble coming up with the word to describe how I felt here. Oh dear, is that alexithymia! lol)
I really like the visuals of how you see visuals in your imagination as this is my exact experience. I just didn't know this is the word that describes it. I have discovered that this is not the norm somewhat around 7 years ago when I was advised a meditative excercise to train concentration. The point of the excercise was to sit for some amount od time with your eyes closed and imagine a floating number starting with 50 and very slowly imagine the numbers count down to 1. Focusing on the floating numbers was the key. And I could not, for the life of me conjur up those images. All I could get a blur of a number which cost me a lot of effort and it was gone in a blink. This is how I learnt that majority of people think in both words and images, then somewhat around 20% only think with images and another 20% only think with words. I don't know the validity of the %, however, it became obvious to me, that I am in the "only words" group. I have this constant monologue in my head... Those are my thoughts. I also considered myself quite imaginative because my inner world is extremely rich and complex. There are simply no puctures there. It's a world of concepts, how everything relates to everything and the monologue of thoughts is a never ending attepmt at translating this world of mine to something that possibly makes sense to the world outside of me.
Interesting video, as usual, Quinn. I am hyperphantasic, myself. I have one question that came to me, watching this: Being aphantasic, how did you, in your own line of reasoning, make sense of other people stating that they can imagine things as vividly as real life, or stating that they can easily replay scenes like a video in their mind? How did you make sense of the phrase 'photographic memory'?
I'll answer that when I come back to this topic. There's a couple more videos to come and possibly more on the wider topic of imagination, depending on who I get to talk to in the coming weeks.
I thought this video was about the opposite. I’m AuDhd, and I just discovered that I have Hyperphantasia. I see things very vividly in my mind's eye. If I’m bored, I can create and watch a movie in my mind. I can’t hear words without seeing images.
Thanks for commenting. The "can’t hear words without seeing images" part is something quite familiar to a lot of us, though it takes different forms. I'll be talking about it in an upcoming video.
I am the opposite: hyperphantasiac -- if I am aware that a situation or perspective can exist, I can "picture" it in 4-8 senses vividly... which leads people to think I am very imaginative. But I have to be TOLD that a situation or perspective can exist. I don't spontaneously generate new ideas, and while I can know that there must be more than one or two perspectives or solutions in a situation, but hit a mental block when I try to generate those possibilities. Even when I try to consider just my perspective and the opposite, which should be fairly simple. I struggle significantly.
hyperphantasia and synesthesia get you a lot of scorn when mixed with a lot of sensory stuff. i have a lot of trouble with brutal imagery, or gross body sounds, but i also think i get more out of similar positive phenomenon.
It wasn’t until last year, shortly before or after my 52nd birthday, that I became aware of aphantasia, and it described my situation. I discovered it by unintentionally grossing out someone at work with what I described watching as a kid. It seemed like his facial expression was indicating he could actually see it, and I asked. I do have (at times) very vivid dreams while sleeping. Awake? I can’t even for a remotely useful transient flash visualize a circle. And yet, I am very good at visual and spatial reasoning. I do have a bit of a problem with face-blindness. I also feel it negatively impacts using computer user interfaces, or anything with graphical user interfaces and icons pf any sort. Just a part of me. However, and I wonder if this is more common with aphants as a tradeoff: I can readily do long division and multiplication in my head faster (within not too many digits) than most can get out a calculator and punch it in, and I figured out I could do this at the age of 10, though I think I had an inkling I could do it in second grade, just didn’t have a need to do so.
Thank you for an understanable description of aphantasia. I've come across it many times but the quality of the discussion has been lacking. The poor quality grainy images are very relateable. I vaguely recall, from the very dim and distant past, at school, feeling quite puzzled at being told to use may imagination when writing an essay. Even now, I still find fiction impossible and just don't go there any more, so much flowery waffle that doesn't paint a picture, for me at least.
I can think using images if i choose. However i am typically doing what i can only describe as shouting at ever increasing frequency into my mind at all times. I do not imagine myself with a body within my mind though. I just project my awareness through my infinite construct. I've asked other people, it seems they actually imagine themselves with a body, walking around. I wonder sometimes if other people traverse their mind in the same manner as i do.
Can I just say how I gasped hearing you describe the way how Aphantasia looked for you? I did know of it through a trending post of an image of 5 apples but in different level of details, but none mentions of how it generates in the mind. How you describe it, the way an image is generated through monochromic flashes is how I see it too. As an artist I adapted to visualizing better through using my sense and spatial perception of motion, is like playing in water and moving your limbs in there and feeling the space. or think of tracing ink on water, where the lines slowly fades off as you draw in your mind. It also makes me realize why I struggled with reading, especially music sheets when I was in band. So much of it going forward is doing side readings of the music sheet, reading in advance, but I just could not as my mind just never stores how it looks and I can't use motion to visualize. I end up having a slower learning experience and always have to resort to muscle memory (aka a lot of time and repitition)
Hm, interesting. I always have wondered why I see people I know, when I try to visualize them, as a kind of blob. Sometimes they have some fearures, like long blonde hair or feelings I have towards them are linked to it. But usually they are faceless and feel like a distant, fading memory, rather than having a proper image. And also most of the time it's a feeling, rather than I can see something. Guess I have some research to do on this matter.
I was watching a sci-fi movie with a buddy. There was a scene where someone holographically projected a scene from their mind. I thought that was the dumbest thing - who has maps and whole pictures and scenes in their brain? That's not how imaginative works, you just kinda know how the thing looks, you can't see it. The look my buddy gave me was so confused, he thought I was being absurd - as absurd as I thought the movie was
I really hate it when aphantasia is said to be synonymous with no imagination. It’s just not true. I am completely aphantasiac, but that does not mean I have no imagination. It means my imagination takes on a different form. Visualization != imagination.
I'm aphantasic as well. Thanks for the video on the topic! Do you experience an inner voice? Mine is quite strong. & I dream, but they're not fantastical, more realistic.
No I don't, but that's not to say I lack interior narrative. When I go into this topic further on screen I'll dip into this & observations & stories like yours can only help improve that future work.
I have a vivid imagination, and spend an inordinate amount of time day dreaming (in what is referred to as maladative daydreaming). However, I cannot read and imagine at the same time. I too have to pause and reread to form a picture in my minds eye of what I read -and even that can be hard for me to do-, but I cannot hold that image once I've returned to reading. Besides also being dyslexic, one of the main reasons I could never pick up a novel or a fantasy book for relaxation (or recreation) like many people do, is that while reading can be time tasking and require an enormous amount of energy on my part, I also cannot read and imagine at the same time... I'm not sure if that's related to dyslexia or something else, possibly a degree of what you are speaking to (aphantasia). I'm not sure if this information would be helpful to your next video on the subject, but I found that that part related to me so I offered it up just in case it might. *edit* I would also like to add I have a very detailed long term memory (though my short term is a bit faulty). Though being 41, I have very detailed memories dating back before I was only 1 years old. Many of when I was 3, 4 and 5. I also have very visually detailed dreams and nightmares. Sometimes to the point they feel like real life. But they tend to be rather bizarre, strange, and fantastic more often than not. I also suffer from both PTSD and cPTSD, but I can recall all of my traumatic events in high detail, from the visual to the emotional.
I watched this video several times and tried to process it. Now on reflection I don't "THINK" I am aphantasic. However I'm not sure. I can't say I have a particularly vivid imagination, I can certainly conjure up static images of things I'm very familiar with. I can remember my late Mum and Dad's faces however, when I try this I always get the same image. One of them sitting on a bench smiling at the camera and the photographer (My wife). This picture was framed and on my shelf for years. When I try to picture them in other situations or imagine their voice or how they looked I struggle with the fine details. As you say there's no binary switch that toggles from 0 "No Imagination" to 1 "Full 8K HD Dolby Atmos Surround Imagination" it's a dial and mine, while not dialed down to 0 certainly isn't dialed anywhere near 11. However, on the frame of reference thing I found your description of your blind friend's ability to describe a scene fascinating. As you know, but not all your viewers will, I'm a congenital anosmic. I was born without any sense of smell. I not only lack the "sensors" in my nasal cavity I lack the nerve "wiring" and even the part of the brain where smell is processed is apparently undeveloped. I have ZERO idea of what a smell is. No, let me rephrase that. I'm moderately intelligent and I can fathom out a description. I know a smell caused by detection of molecules in the air. I equate smell to "Tasting at a distance" much as the tongue detects chemical compounds in food, the nose does the same for molecules in the air. (Oddly my tongue works fine. I just lack the extra info from smell. Aromatic foods are lost on me :D ) I can write about smells but only in a limited sense. I have no idea what perfume/aftershave smells of. As I equate smells to taste I assume Nice smells are sweet and Nasty ones are bitter. Therefore woman's perfumes are Naturally all floral and sugary and mens are.. erm?.. Engine oil , Pine cones and sweat?? I literally have no idea ;D I've heard perfumers use Ambergris. Now I may be wrong but smelling of Whale vomit sounds really wrong to me. I can't imagine smells. When i try to I instead recall what other writers have written about them. it's odd but to me smells are a auditory thing. I hear the words I've read and get someone describing them to me. I don't/can't have a memory of them. Perhaps my imagination has always been poor but , because of my anosmia I've never really noticed as my lack of smell was more profound. I don't know what's going on in your, My wife's or any of your viewers minds. I don't know if my imagination is poor, average, or somewhere else. It's an interesting topic but even thinking about it makes my brain hurt. Wait? is that burning brain matter I smell???? ;)
Am I aphantastic? I thought I was not. I can picture in my mind anything. But there will be only characteristics I will force to be there. Imagine an apple. What colour is it? For me it has no colour until I would choose one. Or maybe all possible colours for apples. There is no difference between those states for me. Quite like old time character creators in games.
Our ability to imagine lies on a spectrum. In between the average and the aphantasic there is a range some call "hypophantasia" into which you may fall (at the other extreme is hyperphantasia). Only you and/or a suitably trained professional could really make an informed decision on where in the range you may lie. There's numerous online tests you can try as a guideline, though I personally look on them as a bit of fun & maybe a nudge in the right direction😉
Hmm, I'm the other way round... I've known I was aphantasic for a few years at least, but only got my autism spectrum diagnosis last year. A description that I've liked is that it's like the computer is running (all the information is there in some way) but the monitor is turned off - there's no visual representation. I'm curious - do we have any idea what the suspected difference is between autistic and allistic populations..?
My experience is exactly the same as yours. II have some imagination and can draw from life or photographs. I have knowledge of the texture of things, but I can't visualise an apple, say. I think about one side and before I get to constructing the other side it is gone. It is, as you say, a murky image lit by lightning. I have trouble believing that visual imagination is a real thing. I read about Temple Grandin playing films in her head and omg I never imagined that might be an experience exactly as it sounds and commonplace?!. I can't even imagine how it works. What's the real world doing as Vin Deisel is blowing away alien dinosaur bats in front of you? (If it is any consolation, I had read about this elsewhere so you're not the first to tell me, I would say I was short changed, but honestly, I'm sure no one else in the family has an imagination like that, so it is hard to see it as deficiency in any way. It does make you wonder though.)
You imagine in another way. We are all synesthetes. You are not deficient. The labels "autistic " or "neurodivergent" only means you don't fit the norm or average. The mainstream. You have different abilities along with norm abilities, but nothing is wrong with you. The great scientists and artists and leaders don't fall in the norm category, either. Einstein would have been medicated to norm him if he's been born today. He didn't start talking until he was 4. Repeat: there is nothing wrong or deffcient with you. You have a gift to offer the world. A unique perspective
I don't feel that it makes me a lesser human when I describe my visual imagination as "poor". It's just a fact, not a judgement or an opinion. I can't walk as well as most other people, I wear glasses to supplement my vision and my hearing isn't as good on one side than the other, but none of that makes me lesser either. It's also fair to say that were those facilities to function within a "normal" range, my life would be easier. Whether it would be as rich or not is moot. Suffice to say, as I have done on this channel many a time, I'd still rather be me, than not me, so I accept everything that comes in that "me" package as part of the balancing act I refer to in the video.
I'm trying to figure this one out. I have all kinds of visual stuff in my head: imagined movies, parts of movies I've seen -- I appreciate various kinds of visual art, I've done photography, I have visual recall. But my drawing abilities are primitive. I'm a language guy first and foremost; I know how to describe things, but what most interests me in language is sort of abstract: the sound, the music, even the texture of words, the rhythm, not necessarily strict meter, but rhythm, and the associations between words and phrases -- like linked HTML text. I can, and do sometimes, write without describing anything concrete. Is there a term for that? 🤔
Hi Victor. It doesn't sound like you're aphantasic, but whether you're hypophantasic or in the majority range, only you'll be able to judge. It does sound increasingly like you may be a verbal thinker/problem solver like myself though. I've more planned on aphantasia, including how it relates to memory, artistic expression/ability & some surprising connections that cast a whole new light on some of the mysteries & false assumptions still stuck in the dusty corners of my cerebral closet. I'll also be coming back to verbal thinking more than once in the coming months. I'm in the wonderful position of having no shortage of material to write about, but against a disappointing shortage of time, energy & security. I'm working on it though👍💪✊
For those interested to know more about the spectrum of imagination there's plenty of online info & tests available, though remember they're a bit of fun and you'll get some weird results. People with highly visual imaginations (which can bring it's own mixed bag of strengths & vulnerabilities) are "hyperphantasic" and those of us whose ability to visualise is below average (maybe not mind-blind but mind-visually-impaired maybe?) are "hypophantasic".
To be aphantasic is to have a capacity for subjective pseudo-sensory visualisation well below the average range of reported functionality. This of course impacts on our capacity for visual recall, however many of us still retain vivid memories absent of a strong (or any) visual element. Other senses, emotions & so on may be retained & recalled, though the traditional stimulation of a photograph or a visual description may not be appropriate or sufficient stimulus, however sounds, sentences or smells may trigger said memories. Sometimes such recollections include sensory data such as smells or vibrations which contradict the visual memories of others present, and can lead to disputes.
Whilst aphantasic people may experience difficulty recalling visual memories, it is not to be confused with memory disorders or traumatic responses such as PTSD, cPTSD or "SDAM" which may or may not also be present. Whilst many autistic people suffer from stress related illnesses and there is a higher prevalence of aphantasia in autistic folks, no causative correlation between hypo/aphantasia & memory deficits or stress-related memory lapses has yet been determined at the time of publication.
@Autistamatic I don't think the typical person can imagine something like a person's face accurately, or any specific object. I think it's more like the quickly fading into silhouette type of thing you showed or other similar "vague image with properties." If they could, they would be able to imagine it over a piece of paper and just trace it to make a realistic drawing of a face or a car or an airplane, etc. Even (the vast majority of) artists use little tricks to measure a proportion from their own perspective in order to copy it to their canvas and keep referring back to their source, and they are doing it from their own perspective.
Why would they need to even look back at the subject after the first look in order to paint them? :)
Turns out I have hypophantasia. Interesting. Thanks Quinn 😊
Same think that's why I didn't really watch much TV. I can't just make up something in the mind.
I’m amazed and confused by how, when really into a book, I do not see the page through the world it creates in my mind, while reading the words.
That is so awesome and entirely absent in my aphant mind. I envy your natural abilities to visualize!
I had never heard of Aphantasia until just this last year and when I researched it I realized this described me perfectly. I started asking my spouse questions and the very idea that people can actually SEE things in the dreams, or even just by thinking about them as if they were watching a movie they were in, or looking at a photograph. I get absolutely nothing but blackness. For example I am aware of what an apple looks like, and if asked I can conjure up the concept of an apple, but it is purely thought without any visual imagery to support it. My spouse can freaking see an apple in their head somehow! I truly do not understand this concept.
I think "I can conjure up the concept of an apple, but it is purely thought without any visual imagery to support it" exactly describes me. I can imagine an apple, and all the details of it, but there's no picture. I can design quite complex systems in my head, and move objects around inside it, then draw it on a computer (within my limited abilities!), and know if what's on screen matches my thoughts, but there's no image in my head. It's like I can imagine a picture, but not actually see it. This isn't the first time I've come across aphantasia, but maybe it's a bit clearer to me this time.
I can very much relate to that description. Since computers stopped being a hobby and became productivity tools they've opened up so many possibilities for neurodivergences of all varieties and possibly masked a few traits along the way too.
How do you know that "conjuring up the concept" of an apple isn't what other people might describe as mental imagery? I mean it can't be an image in exactly the same way as sight or it would get in the way of seeing what's in front of you. Y'know? Imagery in the "mind's eye" can be interpreted as being similar to seen visual imagery, but experientially it's different, more purely thought (of course), however, the distinction may go unexamined.
I see in dreams as real as waking life. When I'm awake I can only see with physical eyes. I can bring up the concept of an apple but not a picture in my mind. If I try with all my might, I might get a hazy outline. Still not actually sure it's a picture and not just still a concept lol
That's quite dismissive of our experience and intellect, not to mention ability to compare experience with others and deduce. There's literally tests for finding out if you have this or not. Touch grass. @@eubique
I discovered this condition in my youngest child when she struggles with learning to read, especially making the transition from picture books to "chapter books". When I discussed her reluctance to read these books, she talked about how she couldn’t keep track of the setting or characters without pictures to guide her. After chatting a bit more, I finally realised that she couldn’t see any of this in her mind's eye.
So I went to tell my husband....." Can you believe our child can't see images in her mind's eye?" and he was like, "So what, I can't either. You mean, you actually CAN?"
Even now, at age 18, my daughter's favourite books are Amine. Its just too much mental load to read other fictional genres.
Interesting! I have always thought I had a good imagination. In fact, most people who know me would describe me as having an overactive imagination. I'm an artist and I draw pictures that I have conjured from my imagination, but I can't visualise or hold a picture in my mind of the faces of people that I know or of places I've been to, I have to look at a photo to remind myself of how it looks.
I'm still learning about how I fit into the autistic world. I was trying to find information about it to help me understand my grandkids better. Instead I discovered that I am autistic, adhd, and aphantasic. I have been masking for 60 years, and still having to because no one thinks that I am autistic. Don't get me wrong I am great at creating beautiful jewelry, quilts, and crocheted blankets, but I have never been able to picture in my mind a scene or person. So when I learned about aphantasia a little light bulb went off and I no longer felt abnormal. It has been a very good search for information and instead of just helping my grandkids I am helping myself to understand how my own brain works. I can't help the grandkids if I don't understand myself. Keep up the awesome work and know that your information is helping others.
It's still mind-boggling to me what a relief it is to learn there are names for these things and that I'm not alone, even sometimes realizing I'm even weirder than I thought. I'm very happy to hear this journey is so meaningful for you as well.
I think this might be why I've enjoyed every psychedelic experience I've had, even the uncomfortable ones. I felt things differently on mushrooms or LSD, but there was no hallucinating, it was just as if I had sharper focus, more ability to see details. I once spent about 6 hours with a crocheted hat pulled over my face, trying to imagine all of human history and connecting as much if it as I've been made aware of, but all I saw were pinholes of light from the room around me while my thoughts were roaming blind in another world based on what I've understood about the past.
I'm a bit sad that I can't experience unreal visualizations and have all the bells and whistles of what others describe in their psychedelic experiences. But I'm also glad that I don't feel any of my experiences were wasted, and certainly glad that they were always safe.
If I had to sum up how I'm understanding my own aphantasia right now, I'm reminded of an episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" when the gang has an epic dance scene at their high school reunion, and they all look glamorous and perfect, and then the music ends and it shows what everyone else saw, and they're all drunk and sloppy... When I've been on LSD I only see the real picture, even though I can still feel the excitement and sensations of company sharing the same experience. It's allowed me to remain in the sort of babysitting/caretaking role that I used to fall into way back when I tried to be a drinker. I can indulge the fantasies, but I can't let my friends get carried away and I've gotten rather good at redirecting their attention from bad ideas... I really don't know why I'm sharing all this, other than it's just what's unfolding in my mind after seeing this, and I truly want to offer what support I can by engaging the content.
Wow! I already knew that I am aphantasic (and autistic in the process of being diagnosed) but you are the first to talk about it in the same way about what I'm going through, and that's something! Thanks for that.
I live constantly in my head and I am very detached from reality. I don't have any pictures but I have so much in there. I relive my emotional memories in a crazy way: sounds, smells, waves, I have a form of synesthesia (I feel the waves of certain sounds and music in general through shapes in me) but I don't have any 'pictures. Or very little, it can happen to me, but I experience it as a strong aggression, I can't stand it.
It is rare to find these two subjects together. Please continue!
(+1 subscription)
Recently learned my husband is aphantasic. It’s helped me be much more patient with him, because I now know he can’t visualize what I can. We are both learning to be more patient, now that we know. He no longer believes he’s stupid (I always thought he was brilliant). So, this discovery, though disappointing, has been quite enlightening. Knowing truly is half the battle, only we don’t need to fight as hard anymore. ❤
I have no image at all in my "Mind's eye" -- not even the cartoonish, brief variety you have -- just blank darkness. I always figured that what other people described in the their minds eye was them being metaphoric. However, I have a great memory for color (when going shopping I can tell right away if that blouse in the store will match the slacks have at home), I can remember where my husband left his keys (or whatever) (he has a vivid mind's eye), I can tell you how many windows are in my house without going around to count them, I write fiction that includes vivid visual description, etc. That said, I have little ability to recall scenes or events from my past unless there was an emotion attached to it. It's an interesting revelation!
I've not heard anyone describe what aphantasia is like in a way closer to how I experience it! Thank you for sharing
I've realized I was aphantasic for a while now, but until I did I had never realized that when others said they "saw" something in their imagination, that they actually *saw* it. Your description of that lightning flash image that's barely there long enough to see? That is the perfect description of what goes on in my head as well. I've had such a hard time explaining to my normally phantasic (?) husband what I see, and now I can just have him watch your video. Thank you!
In other news, I'm a visual artist.
So normal imagination seems like a superpower to me.
Wow it’s astounding how much we can continuously discover about ourselves: Thank you for sharing 🖖🏾
I'm not aphantasic, but relate to something else you said: I frequently "don't know" things because it turns out I've taken them too literally. In fact, I didn't know I was autistic until it was worded to me in a different way than the "textbook" descriptions -- then it suddenly clicked. 🤦
Some of us experience prophantasia.
I don’t get much detail, since my ADHD brain runs away to the next thing. But my brain superimposes, like augmented reality in specific circumstances, imagination over the real world, which helps me create, plan, and fix things.
Interesting...maybe what I experience. Thanks for sharing.
Ooh! Thats me
I also only found out a year ago that I'm hypophantasic due to a discussion on it on an autism discord server. We did a simple test about imagining a horse, and then they started asking about what color the spot on its forehead was (if there was one to begin with)... and if there were flowers on the meadow... Much to my (and 2 other participants) surprise, the others had no problems in answering those questions, while I got no further than the concept "horse". This led to the others being surprised: their "you can't imagine that?" vs. my "you can imagine that?"
It led to me discovering something new about myself in my 50s.
I realized that I was Aphantasic about 5 years ago, and within the last year I have realized that I also have AuDHD. I'm turning 55 this year and it's really shaken things up. I appreciate your content, Quinn!
This was helpful. I might have to cry for a while now, but I'm glad I understand something I hadn't considered before. Thank you.
Thank you, Quinn. I was wondering if I was aphantastic - and this video helped clarify for me that yes, indeed, I am.
Thanks for the photosensitivity warning, it almost made me cry
My wife said reading a book is basically on par with watching a movie to her. That is incomprehensible to me.
I wrote a novel and shared it with my wife. I was worried as I have aphantasia my imagery would not be evocative enough. She had nightmares about the visual images it conjured up. My point is it’s incredible to me that I create such descriptive work without being able to see any of it in my ‘mind’s eye’.
Thank you for this video! We are in the process of investigating autism for myself and my children, and coming across this video has given me some more insight to how they see the world. We homeschool and I have noticed both my children struggle with creative writing. One is fantastic with dialogue and the other with more “cartoon-like” scenes, and they both struggle with details and providing the reader with a clear picture. I’m the same way. I think I’ll focus more on playwriting and cartooning for them, and be more patient with descriptive detail, maybe study more about how others write than trying to make them come up with it alone for now. This is incredibly helpful and should relieve some stress for us! Thank you!
I'll talk about this more in later explorations, but the distinction between visual imagination and creativity wasn't one I truly appreciated enough until recently. As I mentioned in the video, I was praised for my "imaginative" writing as a child and I like to think I do a half-decent job of scripting this channel, but I recognised my creative strengths lent themselves more readily to factual prose more than fiction long before the penny dropped that I'm aphantasic.
Quinn- welcome to my autistic word. A few brief flash with little details as you stated. No when sleeping I still have vivid move theme dreams because that is a different mechanism. When I suddenly awake from such a dream the images that I had disappear in seconds and the visual system switches.
I have to say this video outlined exactly my experience. When I found out about aphantasia it was a real penny drop moment. Really changed my world view and yes still makes me sad when I think about it too much.
This likely explains my deep frustration about failing when spiritual teachers take us on journies, or ask us about what we visualize and I get nothing...yet I am an artist. I would love more videos exploring this topic.
I have a very active visual imagination. I remember, as a child, asking the other kids on the playground if they also saw the monsters we were pretending to run from, and getting some very confused looks.
I just came across your channel today. I just learned I have aphantasia within the last year (ish). My husband does too. But he knew, he didn't understand that I didn't understand what it means. I never knew when people talked about seeing things in their mind or terms like the mind's eye or third eye, that they meant literally. I thought it was just a figure of speech. But I do occasionally see colors with music. And I can't figure out my dreams, I think I just think them, they're not often any more. (Also autistic. In US.)
I realized perhaps ten years ago there's something unusual about my brain in this way and understood that's part of why I enjoy non-fiction more than fiction. But also I enjoy the kinds of fictional stories that portray fascinating world systems such as often in fantasy and scifi more than those focused on creating visual vistas.
It was still a relief to learn this has a name perhaps two years ago so I completely agree with you that it's better to know. It can bring deeper acceptance and appreciation.
I'm an tabletop rpg'er, player and GM so this is also a continuing journey in that sense. It might seem paradoxic that I enjoy theatre of the mind play style more than relying on visual props. Perhaps because I want to be immersed and imagine situations in my own way, something which is almost completely taken over if I'm focused on a physical visual presentation on the table.
Just as you describe not being able to recall your mother’s face, it’s equally hard not being able to feel the love of a partner when you are apart.
Some people with aphantasia are also unable to recall sounds, smells or sensations of touch. It can also affect the ability to “imagine” or recall emotions too.
It’s an intellectual experience, one might be able to explain the qualities of a taste or emotional experience but not feel the sensation. It’s a parallel to the visual aspects of Aphantasia.
As a result it has some crossover with alexithymia. Your ability to recall or predict (imagine) an emotion or feelings involved in iteroception (hunger, thirst, anxiety). It can make talk therapy hard, if you are not feeling the emotion it can be hard to relate it to another person. Feelings can become attenuated because it’s hard to identify them, or you suppress them.
It’s a spectrum of experiences as always.
I resonate with the lightning flash analogy, that feels pretty accurate to what I sometimes experience, thanks for that.
Thinking on it more, when I’m awake it is probably more like the lightning flashes behind closed curtains, and there is a sense of it being quite distant from me. It only flashes when uninvited, it can’t be summoned consciously at all; the more I try to picture something the more aware I am of the blackness.
I can't even see anything, nothing, just nothing. I can remember, vividly, the few times I've seen something with my eyes closed. All three times. I ran around asking EVERYONE if they could see stuff with their eyes closed. Blew my mind when I first found out. That was actually the true beginning of my autism journey along with learning it's hereditary, whew my family tree.
The only other thing I've learned as an adult that change my perspective of everything as much is learning magenta + yellow = red. Once I learned that, I didn't believe anything anymore.
Very interesting, Quinn. I have a great imagination in some ways - I am an artist and can design complex works completely in my imagination - but I struggle when designing comes up against words to explain my imagery. That’s a huge problem as a professional artist and has really meant my work just doesn’t get seen much. I rarely can name what a work is “about” until many days or even years later, which I think is a result of delayed processing from autism.
It's a bit weird to me because it sounds like I was aphantasic most of my life... but with the right education (trade school, machining), I started to be able to see single 3D objects rotating in my head, and now in my mid-30s I can picture scenes.
I practiced by making my imagination interact with the landscape while I'm a passenger on the bus/cars... Lifting houses with my mind, cutting trees in one swoop, a meteorite landing... it's not about the action itself, it's about imagining all the little details that would occur as a result.
Thank you for the audio editing, you mentioned it is hard, but it's really appreciated. I was able to listen to the whole thing without any sensory issues. 💜
I found out I was aphantasic before I figured out I was autistic. I see nothing the vast majority of the time; sometimes I get a vague, shadowy outline, but it's gone almost instantly. Patreon subscribed!
This is an interesting video! I have the opposite experience; I recently found out I have hyperphantasia. I found a link to a hyperphantasia test in an autistic space and was so confused by the questions! When I imagine an apple, does it appear as a cartoon, or life-like, in 2D or 3D, etc? It can be any of those things, depending on how I choose to imagine it! And I thought that was how it worked for everybody. I was so confused lol. For me it’s a blessing and a curse. I have wonderful daydreams and can make decisions by literally imaging the sensations and feeling of the outcome, but I also get a lot of intrusive scary images, especially if I get caught unaware by a horror movie trailer or something similar. Really immersive daydreams are also conducive to maladaptive daydreaming, which ultimately can be pretty harmful.
I’d be really interested to know how aphantasic people decide what to eat for dinner, what new piece of furniture to buy, etc. Because for me the answer is I close my eyes and imagine the taste/smell/feel of the food, or the look and feel of the new piece of furniture in my existing space. I literally don’t know how else to make decisions, so I’m really fascinated by aphantasia.
True for me. Its can be exhausting at times seeing and feeling so much detail all the time. I just want to shut it down for a few hours lol.
I am all 5 senses aphantasia. I can’t re-live any experiences. I can’t even begin to imagine how distracting it would be to have all those senses in my head.
I think this dedcribes me? I never understood the phrase "transported into the book" when my mum reads she gets totally absorbed where as I think I read stories as if i am reading something factual... I might be reading stories in a factual way, there are a few I have read and because the descriptions were soo good I could imagine the scenes and the characters well but most books I don't see that much in my mind. I can picture things I want to change in the house or garden and how they will look before the job done which hubby struggles to do. I think I took the meaning on afantasia too literally as well. My eyes have been opened!
Quinn, you are amazing. Found you by accident. You absolutely nail my experience , what my values are and my experience. 59 years just diagnosed. Taking your vids to my employer. The NHS!!!!
I first heard of aphantasia a few years ago on another autistic you tube channel (Yo Samdy Sam) and it was a shock to learn in my fifties that other people really do see with their minds eye. I find that despite not being able to hold an image in my mind, if I am woken by a nightmare I realise that I was visualising fully during it, but that I can not retain that image for even a moment on waking. I am never aware of having a dream unless I was woken up during it.
I have very few memories as I cannot replay them, the few I have are more like a list of facts that I recall as having happened but I lack certainty over them as I cannot see the events in my mind.
Remembering people is also tricky, I often don’t recognise somebody I know, I rely on context and voice to help, my next door neighbour thinks I am snubbing her as I have walked right past her on a number of occasions when away from the area of my home.
I realised I had aphantasia within the last year from an animated UA-cam video about an artist who realised they had aphantasia and the things they struggled with as an artist.
I can see vivid images when I dream while I’m sleeping or sometimes while I’m starting to fall asleep or starting to wake, but I can’t summon images in my mind on purpose, maybe a dull flicker of something I’ve seen before but I can’t hold it for more than a fraction of a second, and I can’t see anything I have never seen before, it is like it is not accessible to me.
I am sad to know that other people can see images in their mind it sounds really useful and cool. I never understood what daydreaming in class was, and found it boring when I tried to daydream by resting my head on my hand and thinking about something (copying what I’d seen daydreaming to look like in a comic).
My drawing ability when I have reference vs when I don’t have reference is vastly different. Without reference I know the elements that make up the object but the result will be very basic and cartoony and the proportions will not look quite right. It might be easier if I have drawn it before as the positions of the lines in relation to each other become easier to recreate through repetition or builds into some form of muscle memory.
Using reference ends up with much better results but I have to relook at the reference frequently because I can’t hold the image in my mind, and it can be difficult to deviate from recreating the reference as it is. It can also be difficult to resolve visual issues, I can tell that there is something wrong but I can’t problem solve visual issues in my mind I need to see it visually represented, such overlaying the reference to see where it deviates.
I also realised earlier this year that I’m an external processor, I find it easier to think things through using writing, drawing or speaking. It can be quite difficult to move forward in my thought process or solve problems without some external form of expressing and hearing/seeing the thoughts. I’m not sure whether that processing style has any link to aphantasia, but I could see it being potentially related to not being able to visualise the words or problems in my head either at all or for long enough to do anything with them.
ADHD check, Autism check, Aphantisia check. Welcome to the club.
Hi, I'm Authentistic, and I'm hyper-phantasic! This topic fascinates me endlessly. I cannot imagine not being able to visualize. It happens involuntarily. Details invent themselves in my head with little to no prompting. My dreams are vivid and I can sometimes remember a mental map after awakening of the locations I traveled in the dream. It's very cinematographic in nature. Camera angles, props, sets, even soundscapes come with my visualizing. It's not as fun as it sounds. It can be associated with extra PTSD flashback and anxiety scenario-making :( I have a hard time listening or reading others' words, becuase my briain fills in details to the scenario they describe and I often have to reality-correct my thoughts to avoid interrupting them with silly questions or reactions to my own imagination of what they're saying.
I don't think this is the norm, like Quinn says, though. Most people who can visualize who I speak to don't have this level of detail and auto-spawning of additional related imagery. They are somewhere in the middle. And it doens't distract them from communication tasks with other people like it can for me.
It's not the most convenient of situations for a creator in a visual medium, but you play with the card you've been dealt and make the best of it👍It IS a fascinating topic and it's been quite the learning experience!
Fellow aphantasic here! I only found out less than a year ago (I'm 41 now) and it's still continuing to blow my mind. Same goes for the autism (1,5 years for that), to be honest. Thank goodness for channels like yours.
I happened across a video about aphantasia on UA-cam and I watched it out of curiosity. Afterwards, I was convinced I didn't have it, because - as you mentioned in the video - I'm perfectly capable of coming up with the most elaborate scenarios in my mind. Nothing wrong with *my* imagination, I thought. But then I discussed the video with my partner and after a few bewildering minutes, I asked: "But you can't actually SEE things in your mind that aren't there, right? That's ... hallucination, right?" And imagine my surprise.
To me, there are two sides to knowing you're aphantasic. On the one hand, (combined with the time blindness) it explains to a huge degree why I have such poor memory and have been unable to, say, draw a character from a show from memory. I can't do it. (Thankfully, I have pretty decent recognition skills, so I usually get by with 'I'll know it when I see it'.) On the other hand, it makes me very sad to know that I won't be able to 'see' my loved ones' faces when I'm dying. Of course, I've *never* been able to - nothing's changed but the knowing - but realising that others CAN is ... something that makes me very happy for them, but sad for myself.
Dang! Realizing what I thought of as visualization is actually something I experience much more kinesthetically... Thank you
I'm also aphantasic. In the past during a few times that I was in a guided visualization, I felt frustrated and puzzled by how hard it was for me to visualize. I even felt that some of the people who related detailed scenes were just being showoffs embellishing their experience. Other times when I've tried to visualize, it only creates a fleeting image.
I am artistic. There have been many times I've gazed at a scene in nature to try to memorize it for a possible painting later, but I could only bring up the basics in my mind's eye. So a natural remedy was to take photographs and work from that.
Fascinating stuff! I come from a very Austistic family (5 siblings all on spectrum, parents recently diagnosed, and grandparents suspected) but the opposite seems to be true for us- too much is vivid. My mother has synesthesia, and is tetrachromic, she gets strong crossovers with smell and colour and sees everything in permanently oversaturated colour, as a result her brain and imagination is very visual. I have similar issues, to the extent that I have a strong preference for winter because the sensory feedback from smell and vision is less painful. I used to engage in what is now termed 'maladaptive daydreaming' because the inside of my head was so much more interesting and calming than the mundane, yet hectic world around me. It affected me so severely that as a child I used to hallucinate, and struggled to engage in reality at all. This led to an artistic flair, but extremely poor forward planning skills and a kind of crippling 'future-blindness'.
Thanks for commenting. I'd like to cover hyperphantasia later on, so if you'd like to contribute your insights or stories, please get in touch. Contact details are on the UA-cam "about" tab or via forms on Patreon & my website.
Thank you for talking about this. Knowing has changed my life.
Really interesting video!
I'm the opposite, i'm a visual thinker and i'm pretty sure i have hyperphantasia.
I love stories and books and for me reading is like watching films in great detail - my "own" films, because i make up the pictures and the writer gives me suggestions for them with their words - for quite a long time i thought that's how everyone reads and imagines stories and i was quite surprised to learn that not everyone reads/thinks in this way.
There seems to be quite a bit of research about aphantasia and how it is connected to autism, but there is very little about hyperphantasia.
Hmmm. I wonder if I may be, then. I used to have real difficulty in high school once I was supposed to try to analyse what we read. For me that was destronying the story. I'll do some research.
Aphantasia also affects my memory. I can never take myself back to re-experience a memory visually. If I’m lucky, I remember some rote facts about some things that happened. Pretty sad to think others can. But on the flip side, I’ve probably buried some traumatic stuff that can’t haunt me in the way it may haunt someone else.
For context, I’m AuDHD with alexithymia and aphantasia. And dysgraphia.
What you are describing sounds like SDAM (severely deficient autobiographical memory). It seems to co-occur with aphantasia quite often. It's only recently been identified as a memory disorder and hasn't made its way into the DSM yet, so there's no official diagnosis available as far as I know. My husband has this condition, and so does one of my children.
Thanks for another video! I’m excited to be able to share this with folks I know as I believe you’ve described what it’s like for me to not be able to hold onto an image. Do you find there are certain types of images you can hold onto for longer than others?
I clicked on this because I'm *not* aphantasic. In the same way you're astounded at how people can have these vivid pictures in their mind, I'm equally astounded at how people can't, and will happily listen as people try to describe how their imagination works. Similarly, I'm amazed that some people don't have an "internal monologue" (although I would call it an internal *dialogue*). How do people process their thoughts if they can't vocalise them in their mind?
There's comments alongside this one from hypo/aphantasic folks wondering how others can cope with those distracting voices and images getting in the way😂
I wouldn't say I'm personally astounded so much as had my long-buried suspicions confirmed, but I'll go into that in a later video. The feelings are quite hard to unpick tbh, but I'm working on it😊
@@Autistamatic yeah, trying to comprehend how another mind functions is incredibly difficult
I imagine the concept of an apple rather than the picture of it ive just realised watching this. Rather than see it i sort of 'know' its there. Probably why im totally rubbish at drawing.
That's a connection I'll talk about in the next aphantasia video😊
This channel is really saving my life. I'm so extremely grateful. One question, something I don't seem to find is the relationship between aphantasia and so called visual memory. When people say "imagine or picture something" I always understood it as "remembering or recalling". I happen to be an autistic with what I thought it was remarkable "visual memory". But bc I'm a dancer, I think what I actually have is a really good spatial memory and from there I can "construct visuals". But I can't visualize (like those guide mediations or visualizing exercises). I can't "see" things I haven't "seen" before. I learned about aphantasia literally the day after receiving my autism diagnosis and I all made so much sense. But I'm trying to understand more the memory aspect of it. Have you done a video on this or are there sources that you know of? Thank you so so much for your amazing content.
Hey Quinn.
Thanks for another great video. You describe me perfectly. I thought I might be hypophantasic which is not quite as extreme as Aphantasic but maybe I am Aphantasic. Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the difference between the 2 versions of phantasia.
Thanks again.
I also love trying to play with colours. That is very hard work with no frame of reference. However, I can now do it if the metaphorical light is right, and I know and love complex colours like magenta. I remember asking a sighted friend what this red/yello/purple colour was called? However, I have trouble identifying people's voices - even those I know well and even though I also have perfect pitch. Weird, I know. We've all got different strengths and skills and that's how we can fit together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.
I've only very recently come across your channel but I think it's amazing! Really interesting content. Unfortunately I'm not in a position where I have disposable income at the moment but really think this channel could get big in the near future - keep it up 😄
Thanks for the feedback. Autistamatic has been around for 6 years or so, but it wasn't an occupation until recently (see the "change" series for why). You've already contributed that little bit extra by commenting 😊
I am aphantasic and autistic as well. My flavor of aphantasia seems to be identical to Quinn's although I cannot conjure the instantaneous flashes at will, they just kinda happen every now and then. I would be the worst person for a police sketch artist to rely on. I can't recall my wife's face outside of a general outline. If you ask me to imagine and describe something such as a beach I will just rattle off the ingredients that make up a beach because I know what they are but I am not actively picturing them in my mind. When I told people I do not dream they were fairly dismissive and just stated that "everybody dreams, you probably just aren't remembering yours." Aphantasia is also linked with SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory) but more study needs to be done as SDAM may just be a side effect of aphantasia rather than its own diagnosis. I do believe I have this as well as I do not seem to create episodic memories, or at the very least I cannot recall them because I cannot picture them in my mind. The only memories I have are stories I have been told or encounters that I have repeated in my head in story format.
Really interesting video. This is a coincidence with a similar process of realisation (?) for myself and a helpful data point to that end.
There was a thought-provoking question in my autism assessment (I'm part way through the process) which was something like 'do you find it easy to picture a character in a book?' which set me pondering (and also researching).
I've always thought of myself as imaginative and creative but in trying to answer that question I found myself reaching for words like 'fleeting' and wondered whether what I experience could be a phenomena of aphantasia. Something being lit for a moment or two by flickering lightening is a great way of describing it. I know I've found this consciously frustrating in the past when eg trying to hold an image of a loved one or place in my mind.
It's almost like somebody holding up a photograph for a second and then hiding it again. You can ask them to hold it up again but you will only see it for second at a time.
Just want to add I'm loving the content of this channel which is currently exceeding it's own high standards.
Thank you Alex. That's a really nice way to pay a compliment😊 I was away for a long time whilst burned out, but I learned a lot in that time and had plenty of time to think of new ideas for the channel. I hope I manage to keep up the trend you so kindly commented on.
@@Autistamatic you're very welcome. Class is permanent but you're definitely on a run of form as well🙂 Also, I edited my initial comment probably whilst you were replying but only to add a further description of trying to hold an image in mind
0:56 That sound effect was scary 😭
Im very creative, concept wise. I could always build in 3d in the real world, but not in my mind, nor can I draw unaided in 2d. This is crazy as I've built huge monuments and secenery for leading artists and production companies. Due to physical constraints, I now work in sound, I can't hear the sounds I want to create. In fact, I have no concept of them. I work on atmospheres and story boards. I'll draw from memory sounds that trigger feelings, recreate them, and try them for size. It's a time-consumingg process, trial and error, compared to the way others work. It's the only way I can work. Thank fully creative work is not my day job anymore.
This is so interesting, fascinating how our minds work. Brilliant video 💛
I'm definitely not aphantasic. I have vivid imagination. As kid this vivid imagination got me into a lot of trouble. Too much day dreaming. I look back at think it was how dealt with bullies, the buzzing lights, the loud voices. I'd retreat in my own imagination and get spaced out look on my face. This still happens to me even now in 50s. I quite enjoy it from time to time but it can happen in inopportune times like at work in a meeting. So I'm not entirely in control of it. I suppress it a lot in order to mask.
One the cool things about it is can visualize it externally. I can walk into a pub and turn it into old western saloon. I try not do that because that can lead to me to spacing out in my imagination as create cinematic scene of a gun fight over a poker game.
I played lot of RPG games and made up my own stories. I never felt that conveyed them in game as I saw them in my mind. The color and texture of moss growing on rock in an ancient ruins.
Figure I'd post this as you said posts help your channel out and I'm happy to post things like this.
Oh, I hear you. Even now I love to play music in my head, on the correct key, or sivit the entire inner world into which I love to escape when I'm meant to be doing other things. Half the tiem when I wasn't payign attention in school in my mind I simply wasn't even there.
Ehm, now this one has shaken me. I realize I'm in full denial mode, arguing that I've been a visual thinker all my life and shouldn't "jump on every new label". But I have to admit that my visual thinking is mostly restricted to structures. My "videos" are at most 2 seconds long, and my visual memory of my best friends are a blurred image highlighting the features that make them special to me. No technicolor here either. Dang!
I always hated when people would say things like “visualize the person you want to be to become that person”. Visualization is a real, valuable tool for people who can visualize, but for me, it was always pointless. It wasn’t until I learned I was aphantasiac and that visualization isn’t what I thought it was that I understood why it was such a useless endeavor for me. I literally cannot visualization anything, not even the silhouette flashes Quinn spoke of. I’m not training my brain about anything when I “visualize”.
There are days that it sucks. I know it is tied heavily into my prosopagnosia. It’s also tied into my how I don’t really “remember” people when they aren’t around me (yay, object permanence).
Some days, I’d really like to try the neurotypical experience for a little while.
Not every autistic person is Aphantasic though so I wouldn't call it the NT experience. I also have object permanence but also hyperphantasia. I can imagine someone I see frequently in space or under water doing impossible things. We do need to move away from words like visualization since not everyone can experience a 3D imagination. I thought everyone could imagine what I can until very recently.
@@ChetHanks-eh1md yeah, I didn’t mean to imply any relationship between autism and aphantasia (there is a relationship, but it’s complicated). Instead, it’s a more general “I’m very atypical neurally (autism, ADHD, aphantasia, prosopagnosia, strabismus (resulting in no depth perception), giftedness, and probably more); it would be nice to put ALL of that aside and experience the world with a completely “average” mind. I’d be giving some stuff up that I really like, and I don’t think I’d want to stay that way, but it would be so fascinating to see how most people experience life because my experience is VERY different.
I have about the same kind of aphantasia, it's like my minds eye only sees brief snapshots. If I think really hard and can hold a bit of an invisible ghost of a scene but it's very weak.
I don't understand how people describe their imagination as looking like VR, or like able to place real looking items into their vision. I would think that would be closer to hallucinations no?
I do have pretty vivid dreams - I recall a lot of detail and in this way I feel like I'm me in another world. It feels pretty realistic in the moment, but when I wake up it's harder for me to visualize it. I know the narrative details though.
Dreams will feature in a future exploration of this topic. My own story regarding dreaming has been quite an eye-opener for me.
My mom found out I was when I was in kindergarten when she asked me if I saw in my mind what she was describing to me and I couldn’t see anything
Good Grief! UA-cam has given me so many labels for things I have discovered about myself over my lifetime. I have known that I lacked visualization skills for decades after attending classes where guided visualizations were conducted. Others would see detailed movies in their heads where I would see nothing or vague flashes of images. Aphantasia was only coined in 2015 . I ran across the term last year when an artist was discussing the difficulty she had in translating the concepts in her head onto the page. Where someone else might have a fully formed picture in their mind, she would have to draw many sketches in order to form her concept in reality. So, aphantasic (or hypophantasic), autistic (or AuDHD), SDAM, directionally dyslexic (not being able to correctly articulate left, right, north, south, east and west has caused me untold grief over the years.) Labels in and of themselves are not very useful, but being able to validate that one is not wrong or broken but simply a variation of the human experience is very uplifting. (I had a lot of trouble coming up with the word to describe how I felt here. Oh dear, is that alexithymia! lol)
I really like the visuals of how you see visuals in your imagination as this is my exact experience. I just didn't know this is the word that describes it.
I have discovered that this is not the norm somewhat around 7 years ago when I was advised a meditative excercise to train concentration. The point of the excercise was to sit for some amount od time with your eyes closed and imagine a floating number starting with 50 and very slowly imagine the numbers count down to 1. Focusing on the floating numbers was the key. And I could not, for the life of me conjur up those images. All I could get a blur of a number which cost me a lot of effort and it was gone in a blink. This is how I learnt that majority of people think in both words and images, then somewhat around 20% only think with images and another 20% only think with words. I don't know the validity of the %, however, it became obvious to me, that I am in the "only words" group. I have this constant monologue in my head... Those are my thoughts.
I also considered myself quite imaginative because my inner world is extremely rich and complex. There are simply no puctures there. It's a world of concepts, how everything relates to everything and the monologue of thoughts is a never ending attepmt at translating this world of mine to something that possibly makes sense to the world outside of me.
Interesting video, as usual, Quinn.
I am hyperphantasic, myself.
I have one question that came to me, watching this: Being aphantasic, how did you, in your own line of reasoning, make sense of other people stating that they can imagine things as vividly as real life, or stating that they can easily replay scenes like a video in their mind? How did you make sense of the phrase 'photographic memory'?
I'll answer that when I come back to this topic. There's a couple more videos to come and possibly more on the wider topic of imagination, depending on who I get to talk to in the coming weeks.
@@Autistamatic fair enough. I'll keep my eyes peeled for the next one!
I thought this video was about the opposite. I’m AuDhd, and I just discovered that I have Hyperphantasia. I see things very vividly in my mind's eye. If I’m bored, I can create and watch a movie in my mind. I can’t hear words without seeing images.
Thanks for commenting. The "can’t hear words without seeing images" part is something quite familiar to a lot of us, though it takes different forms. I'll be talking about it in an upcoming video.
I am the opposite: hyperphantasiac -- if I am aware that a situation or perspective can exist, I can "picture" it in 4-8 senses vividly... which leads people to think I am very imaginative. But I have to be TOLD that a situation or perspective can exist. I don't spontaneously generate new ideas, and while I can know that there must be more than one or two perspectives or solutions in a situation, but hit a mental block when I try to generate those possibilities. Even when I try to consider just my perspective and the opposite, which should be fairly simple. I struggle significantly.
hyperphantasia and synesthesia get you a lot of scorn when mixed with a lot of sensory stuff. i have a lot of trouble with brutal imagery, or gross body sounds, but i also think i get more out of similar positive phenomenon.
Great content
Thank you for remembering to like this video as I forget!! ❤❤
It wasn’t until last year, shortly before or after my 52nd birthday, that I became aware of aphantasia, and it described my situation. I discovered it by unintentionally grossing out someone at work with what I described watching as a kid. It seemed like his facial expression was indicating he could actually see it, and I asked.
I do have (at times) very vivid dreams while sleeping. Awake? I can’t even for a remotely useful transient flash visualize a circle. And yet, I am very good at visual and spatial reasoning.
I do have a bit of a problem with face-blindness. I also feel it negatively impacts using computer user interfaces, or anything with graphical user interfaces and icons pf any sort. Just a part of me.
However, and I wonder if this is more common with aphants as a tradeoff: I can readily do long division and multiplication in my head faster (within not too many digits) than most can get out a calculator and punch it in, and I figured out I could do this at the age of 10, though I think I had an inkling I could do it in second grade, just didn’t have a need to do so.
I can't believe I have ot too and didn't realize until now....🤯
Yes I have this, and I only learned about it 1 year ago
Thank you for an understanable description of aphantasia. I've come across it many times but the quality of the discussion has been lacking. The poor quality grainy images are very relateable. I vaguely recall, from the very dim and distant past, at school, feeling quite puzzled at being told to use may imagination when writing an essay. Even now, I still find fiction impossible and just don't go there any more, so much flowery waffle that doesn't paint a picture, for me at least.
I can think using images if i choose. However i am typically doing what i can only describe as shouting at ever increasing frequency into my mind at all times.
I do not imagine myself with a body within my mind though. I just project my awareness through my infinite construct. I've asked other people, it seems they actually imagine themselves with a body, walking around. I wonder sometimes if other people traverse their mind in the same manner as i do.
Can I just say how I gasped hearing you describe the way how Aphantasia looked for you? I did know of it through a trending post of an image of 5 apples but in different level of details, but none mentions of how it generates in the mind. How you describe it, the way an image is generated through monochromic flashes is how I see it too. As an artist I adapted to visualizing better through using my sense and spatial perception of motion, is like playing in water and moving your limbs in there and feeling the space. or think of tracing ink on water, where the lines slowly fades off as you draw in your mind.
It also makes me realize why I struggled with reading, especially music sheets when I was in band. So much of it going forward is doing side readings of the music sheet, reading in advance, but I just could not as my mind just never stores how it looks and I can't use motion to visualize. I end up having a slower learning experience and always have to resort to muscle memory (aka a lot of time and repitition)
Hm, interesting. I always have wondered why I see people I know, when I try to visualize them, as a kind of blob. Sometimes they have some fearures, like long blonde hair or feelings I have towards them are linked to it. But usually they are faceless and feel like a distant, fading memory, rather than having a proper image. And also most of the time it's a feeling, rather than I can see something.
Guess I have some research to do on this matter.
I'd really like to find out more about people without aphantasia and how it works for them.
i have all sensory aphantastia i was born this way i also have sdam and autism and adhd its a fun life
“Rapid fire associations”
I was watching a sci-fi movie with a buddy. There was a scene where someone holographically projected a scene from their mind. I thought that was the dumbest thing - who has maps and whole pictures and scenes in their brain? That's not how imaginative works, you just kinda know how the thing looks, you can't see it. The look my buddy gave me was so confused, he thought I was being absurd - as absurd as I thought the movie was
I get the freeze frame type of imaination
Blimey im aphantasic!
I really hate it when aphantasia is said to be synonymous with no imagination. It’s just not true. I am completely aphantasiac, but that does not mean I have no imagination. It means my imagination takes on a different form. Visualization != imagination.
I'm aphantasic as well. Thanks for the video on the topic!
Do you experience an inner voice? Mine is quite strong. & I dream, but they're not fantastical, more realistic.
No I don't, but that's not to say I lack interior narrative. When I go into this topic further on screen I'll dip into this & observations & stories like yours can only help improve that future work.
@@AutistamaticThat's interesting. I look forward to your future videos & seeing where our definitions for inner voice/narrative line up or don't.
I have a vivid imagination, and spend an inordinate amount of time day dreaming (in what is referred to as maladative daydreaming). However, I cannot read and imagine at the same time. I too have to pause and reread to form a picture in my minds eye of what I read -and even that can be hard for me to do-, but I cannot hold that image once I've returned to reading. Besides also being dyslexic, one of the main reasons I could never pick up a novel or a fantasy book for relaxation (or recreation) like many people do, is that while reading can be time tasking and require an enormous amount of energy on my part, I also cannot read and imagine at the same time... I'm not sure if that's related to dyslexia or something else, possibly a degree of what you are speaking to (aphantasia). I'm not sure if this information would be helpful to your next video on the subject, but I found that that part related to me so I offered it up just in case it might.
*edit* I would also like to add I have a very detailed long term memory (though my short term is a bit faulty). Though being 41, I have very detailed memories dating back before I was only 1 years old. Many of when I was 3, 4 and 5. I also have very visually detailed dreams and nightmares. Sometimes to the point they feel like real life. But they tend to be rather bizarre, strange, and fantastic more often than not. I also suffer from both PTSD and cPTSD, but I can recall all of my traumatic events in high detail, from the visual to the emotional.
I watched this video several times and tried to process it. Now on reflection I don't "THINK" I am aphantasic. However I'm not sure. I can't say I have a particularly vivid imagination, I can certainly conjure up static images of things I'm very familiar with. I can remember my late Mum and Dad's faces however, when I try this I always get the same image. One of them sitting on a bench smiling at the camera and the photographer (My wife). This picture was framed and on my shelf for years. When I try to picture them in other situations or imagine their voice or how they looked I struggle with the fine details. As you say there's no binary switch that toggles from 0 "No Imagination" to 1 "Full 8K HD Dolby Atmos Surround Imagination" it's a dial and mine, while not dialed down to 0 certainly isn't dialed anywhere near 11.
However, on the frame of reference thing I found your description of your blind friend's ability to describe a scene fascinating. As you know, but not all your viewers will, I'm a congenital anosmic. I was born without any sense of smell. I not only lack the "sensors" in my nasal cavity I lack the nerve "wiring" and even the part of the brain where smell is processed is apparently undeveloped.
I have ZERO idea of what a smell is. No, let me rephrase that. I'm moderately intelligent and I can fathom out a description. I know a smell caused by detection of molecules in the air. I equate smell to "Tasting at a distance" much as the tongue detects chemical compounds in food, the nose does the same for molecules in the air. (Oddly my tongue works fine. I just lack the extra info from smell. Aromatic foods are lost on me :D )
I can write about smells but only in a limited sense. I have no idea what perfume/aftershave smells of. As I equate smells to taste I assume Nice smells are sweet and Nasty ones are bitter. Therefore woman's perfumes are Naturally all floral and sugary and mens are.. erm?.. Engine oil , Pine cones and sweat?? I literally have no idea ;D I've heard perfumers use Ambergris. Now I may be wrong but smelling of Whale vomit sounds really wrong to me.
I can't imagine smells. When i try to I instead recall what other writers have written about them. it's odd but to me smells are a auditory thing. I hear the words I've read and get someone describing them to me. I don't/can't have a memory of them.
Perhaps my imagination has always been poor but , because of my anosmia I've never really noticed as my lack of smell was more profound. I don't know what's going on in your, My wife's or any of your viewers minds. I don't know if my imagination is poor, average, or somewhere else.
It's an interesting topic but even thinking about it makes my brain hurt. Wait? is that burning brain matter I smell???? ;)
Am I aphantastic? I thought I was not. I can picture in my mind anything. But there will be only characteristics I will force to be there. Imagine an apple. What colour is it? For me it has no colour until I would choose one. Or maybe all possible colours for apples. There is no difference between those states for me. Quite like old time character creators in games.
Our ability to imagine lies on a spectrum. In between the average and the aphantasic there is a range some call "hypophantasia" into which you may fall (at the other extreme is hyperphantasia). Only you and/or a suitably trained professional could really make an informed decision on where in the range you may lie. There's numerous online tests you can try as a guideline, though I personally look on them as a bit of fun & maybe a nudge in the right direction😉
Hmm, I'm the other way round...
I've known I was aphantasic for a few years at least, but only got my autism spectrum diagnosis last year.
A description that I've liked is that it's like the computer is running (all the information is there in some way) but the monitor is turned off - there's no visual representation.
I'm curious - do we have any idea what the suspected difference is between autistic and allistic populations..?
Imagination literally has “image” in the word. Don’t mistake creativity for imagination.
That's EXACTLY the mistake I made for over 50 years!
I envy my wife’s dreams…almost. Her vivid dreams turn to nightmares and would trigger ptsd. I seldomly remember anything I dream.
My experience is exactly the same as yours.
II have some imagination and can draw from life or photographs. I have knowledge of the texture of things, but I can't visualise an apple, say. I think about one side and before I get to constructing the other side it is gone. It is, as you say, a murky image lit by lightning. I have trouble believing that visual imagination is a real thing. I read about Temple Grandin playing films in her head and omg I never imagined that might be an experience exactly as it sounds and commonplace?!. I can't even imagine how it works. What's the real world doing as Vin Deisel is blowing away alien dinosaur bats in front of you?
(If it is any consolation, I had read about this elsewhere so you're not the first to tell me, I would say I was short changed, but honestly, I'm sure no one else in the family has an imagination like that, so it is hard to see it as deficiency in any way. It does make you wonder though.)
You imagine in another way. We are all synesthetes. You are not deficient. The labels "autistic " or "neurodivergent" only means you don't fit the norm or average. The mainstream. You have different abilities along with norm abilities, but nothing is wrong with you. The great scientists and artists and leaders don't fall in the norm category, either. Einstein would have been medicated to norm him if he's been born today. He didn't start talking until he was 4. Repeat: there is nothing wrong or deffcient with you. You have a gift to offer the world. A unique perspective
I don't feel that it makes me a lesser human when I describe my visual imagination as "poor". It's just a fact, not a judgement or an opinion. I can't walk as well as most other people, I wear glasses to supplement my vision and my hearing isn't as good on one side than the other, but none of that makes me lesser either. It's also fair to say that were those facilities to function within a "normal" range, my life would be easier. Whether it would be as rich or not is moot. Suffice to say, as I have done on this channel many a time, I'd still rather be me, than not me, so I accept everything that comes in that "me" package as part of the balancing act I refer to in the video.
I'm trying to figure this one out. I have all kinds of visual stuff in my head: imagined movies, parts of movies I've seen -- I appreciate various kinds of visual art, I've done photography, I have visual recall. But my drawing abilities are primitive. I'm a language guy first and foremost; I know how to describe things, but what most interests me in language is sort of abstract: the sound, the music, even the texture of words, the rhythm, not necessarily strict meter, but rhythm, and the associations between words and phrases -- like linked HTML text. I can, and do sometimes, write without describing anything concrete. Is there a term for that? 🤔
Hi Victor. It doesn't sound like you're aphantasic, but whether you're hypophantasic or in the majority range, only you'll be able to judge. It does sound increasingly like you may be a verbal thinker/problem solver like myself though.
I've more planned on aphantasia, including how it relates to memory, artistic expression/ability & some surprising connections that cast a whole new light on some of the mysteries & false assumptions still stuck in the dusty corners of my cerebral closet. I'll also be coming back to verbal thinking more than once in the coming months.
I'm in the wonderful position of having no shortage of material to write about, but against a disappointing shortage of time, energy & security. I'm working on it though👍💪✊
I'd like to hear your thoughts on Dr Ogi Ogas book on autism.
❤