this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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I have a friend at work who openly confessed to not being able to mentally create images when discussing why he wasn't into reading books.
I was like "Wow, I can't really imagine your reality for myself, that sounds strange."
he said, "Now you're getting it, as I can't imagine it, either."
Video games and film though? 1000X more entertaining for him via his testimony. He can't conjure those images so seeing someone else's interpretation is often thrilling.
I can't really do that either and I read books.
I also do have an inner monologue which might be a part of it.
Wait are there peopele without inner monologue?
I don't think I have an inner monologue. Also I have full Aphantasia. I can't visually imagine an apple let alone rotate it in my mind.
Do you have dreams?
I do! I visualize when I dream. But I can't do it on command. This is how I realized I probably have aphantasia. I can never consciously visualize. I can think and conceptualize, but not 'see'.
I also have aphantasia. I only learnt about it a year or so ago. It was eye opening when I realised. People used to say "picture this or that" and I thought it was a figure of speech! Turns out there are people who can picture shit.
it's absolutely wild! I still struggle to imagine how other people can picture things.
Waiiiiit. It's not just a figure of speech?!
welcome to the rabbit hole!
I realized after reading about people with aphantasia that what I do is kind of a combination of visualization and conceptualization. If you ask me to imagine a cow, I'll tend to visualize the cow itself, but it doesn't come with a field for the cow to stand in. The cow is just in the concept of a place. That is, until I concentrate on visualizing details of the place, at which point I'll probably lose the visual of the cow. Like, it's still there, it's just become the concept of a cow.
That's interesting that your brain is capable of it but it just won't. It sounds like it could make a lot of things difficult for you. I spend a lot of my idle time "working" on different problems with projects I have going on and a lot of that involves "constructing" things in my mind. I don't know what I'd do if I couldn't do that.
I do, too! I guess in a different way though. A lot of aphants like to compare it to a computer that does not have a screen or GUI. The computer is there - also the graphics card, the images, the data - but nothing visual appears in your mind's eye. I would say there are several things that are more difficult for me to do - but surprisingly people with aphantasia function just fine. Otherwise I would have known something is different with me way earlier.
I have the exact same experience, from lack of inner monologue to aphantasia. Funnily enough, when I'm on the verge of falling asleep, I can sometimes conjure images, but that's the only way I'm able to
yess when I read that this is a common experience for aphants, I became pretty certain I'm an aphant too. crazy how people can do that on command
Yes, it's quite wild but I guess I can't really say that as someone without the ability to imagine things.
Yeah! I don't think I do in the sense some people do, in the sense that some people describe having a narrator or something like that. If I am to think in words or sentences it takes a little more effort and happens when I'm thinking about talking to someone or putting things into words, whereas my passive thinking is generally wordless, and more conceptual/spacial/tactile.
I remember what it was like before I had one.
On the other hand, I also can't create images in my head and prefer reading.
I often find myself getting distracted from whatever I'm watching because my brain takes over and starts making up alternative scenarios.
I've noticed my brain lately has been doing this thing where I'm watching something cool and it goes, "hey, wouldn't it be cool if <exact thing I'm watching>?"
Well, yeah, but why are you activating the "I have a cool variant idea related to this" pathways and distracting me instead of just watching how this one plays out?
Edit: corrected "largely" to "lately"