I have kinda always known that I don’t really work the same way as some others do, but the more recent discussions on just how well some people can visualize things led to me reevaluating myself.
I think a pretty big tipper for me was in how different my dreams are in comparison to my waking ability to visualize. Total night and day difference. When asleep (or just after waking) I have vivid and lucid dreams. While awake I can’t conjure a stick figure or a simple apple.
+1
Wanted to add that once I had some drug- and sleep-deprivation-induced hallucinations at a hospital, and I was shocked that I could ‘visualize’, in a similar way to how I dream, I guess. I had never had a comparable experience before.
So, do you have visual dreams? I saw the other thing you posted that stated that dreaming experiences (among other visual phenomena) tended to be muted amongst aphants. Do you find that to be the case for yourself?
Dreams (or, at least, recall) tend to be rare for me. Although melatonin (but not very reliably) tend to make it more likely for me to have vivid dreams (melatonin gave me the most vivid dreams ever too). But when I do [remember?] dream, they can be pretty vivid, I guess.
Which is a mind fuck for me, because I cannot prove it, as that would result in a paradox (I can’t visualize anymore while conscious).
Anecdotally, I’ve seen quite a lot of aphants saying they allegedly have vivid dream; the community seems split on this though.
What’s your experience? edit: I saw you said you have vivid dreams, but are they frequent?
