Aphantasia: How It Feels to Be Blind in Your Mind

This is fascinating. I have to test every single person in my life. I know my wife already has synesthesia so I'd assume she also can conjure up images at will, but who knows. I've heard of people who have no inner monologue, but never people who have no mind's eye! I wonder how common it really is? Thanks for this article.

I get 30/40. I have very good visualisation of places and landscapes but have poor visualisation of people's face (especially relatives, it's much easier to recall the face of celebrities or people that are unknown to me or to recall imaginary people from books).

I'm also good at visualizing writing. When I was a student, during tests, I would see in my mind's eyes the place on my notes or in the book related to the question.

To go to sleep, I quickly imagine a lot of beautiful landscapes repeatedly, spending maybe a few seconds in each landscapes.

When I remember a book, I usually remember how I pictured the scenes of the book. Even 12 years after reading the dune books, I can remember the gom-jabbar pressing on Paul's neck, I can remember Alia's tapping her finger with the same rhythm as the baron Harkonnen. I can remember Siona running from the wolves.

I think my visual imagination is quite detailed (I am a graphic designer) but I assume my aural imagination is pretty average. I can usually only imagine very basic melodies. However on many occasions, in the half sleep before waking, I have been able to aurally imagine multi layered music at a very detailed level, and it somewhat carries over for a few minutes after fully waking. I wish there was a way to tap into this during the day.

As a child, my dad had the "Mega Memory" tapes around the house and I remember listening to them. Very early on in the lessons, the instructor talks about using basic association because we "think in pictures." As an example, he noted that if he said the word elephant, people picture an elephant, not the word "e-l-e-p-h-a-n-t." I must have been eight or nine at the time and remember being terribly confused because I couldn't really picture of an elephant in my head. I suspect I do have aphantasia to a certain degree.

Unlike the author, I do dream visually (in fact, I tend to have very vivid dreams; the most vivid ones are difficult to separate from reality, even if the subject matter is something fantastic like being part of an interstellar military or something). If I'm in a state between waking and sleeping I actually do have much more of a mind's eye, but when I'm fully awake I don't have pictures in my head...but I remember what it's like to visualize things mentally because of my dreams.

I have at least something of a "mind's ear" in that I can hear music in my head (the detail is usually not as rich; it's often just the melody with lyrics). Additionally, I have a very good memory for song lyrics and when I listen to music the concept of tuning out or not being extremely aware of the lyrics is something that friends I have described but that I rarely experience. I can usually only tune out lyrics in music if it's a song that I'm already very familiar with.

One aspect that I find interesting is that although I can't really picture places I still have spatial awareness in my mental concept of them. For example, if I remember one of the houses we lived in as a child I can "place" various objects in and around the house in their correct spatial relationships without picturing the objects themselves. Do other people with aphantasia also have this experience?

My experience is closer to yours than to the author of the original post.

1) I have a phonological loop and can easily imagine music.

2) My visuospatial sketchpad (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baddeley%27s_model_of_working_...) is almost entirely spatial. I don't know the color of the floor in my kitchen, unless I paid attention to it specifically and verbally in the past. But I can use memory palace successfully.

3) I wonder if for me it's just an undeveloped habit which could be improved: I have dreams with pictures and colors once a few months, and sometimes I see pictures when I'm half asleep, but it's really hard to put myself into that state intentionally.