I have this, and I know a couple people who discovered they have it too. I think it’s likely more common than people expect. Radiolab did a fantastic podcast about it: https://one.npr.org/i/1254201231:1254201233
I don’t see images or hear a voice. Everyone who’s one way (sees or hears or both or neither) usually thinks everyone is the same as them but there’s a ton of variance. When i learned that some people see or hear, i started asking everyone. It’s funny how many people think the voice is god.
It’s funny how many people think the voice is god.
That thought didn’t occur to me, and it’s absolutely terrifying how much that could explain some people’s behavior.
Interesting, I’m not sure if I can hear exactly… it’s very different from a spoken voice. I can sort of play music in my head though if I have a song I want to hear but I’m not sure if it’s “hearing it” or just a kind of ephemeral knowing how it goes.
I can “listen” to music in my head, and distinctly make out the specific tone and pitch of the instruments, but I have to concentrate to really hear more than one instrument in the “foreground” if that makes sense. I also have ADHD and probably ASD, so I’d be curious to know if those play a factor in being able to hear your own voice and such in one’s head.
The apple test is very poorly communicated. The middle of the spectrum isn’t a greyscale/washed out image, it’s an image where the details only exist if you actively focus on them. Obviously that’s very difficult to communicate with a real image, but I think the test leads people to conclude they have aphantasia when they’re really in the middle.
My fiancee is like this.
I have this. I have zero visualization, in the little visual on the wiki I’m a 5. For the most part, I don’t really notice any downsides. These are the things that I’ve noticed are difficult for me that I have attributed to it.
- I can’t remember directions based on visual landmarks.
- A mild case of face blindness. I recognize people with distinct features pretty well, but it’s common for folks to be going for a handful of trendy looks, and anyone with the same trendy look might as well be the same person to me.
- A pretty strong case of “out of sight, out of mind.” Like, I kind of forget about people, including family and loved ones, if I haven’t seen them in a while. Kind of a hard one to explain.
- I can’t see my wife’s face in my head, which makes me sad.
- I have to be the jerk tourist who takes pictures of all the cool stuff I see, because if I don’t I won’t remember them in a few months. My travel memories are mostly tied to how I felt in the area.
- Not sure if it’s actually tied to aphantasia, but I don’t dream. Like, not just visually but at all. When I sleep there is nothing. I can still tell that time has passed once I wake up, but I don’t have any mental activity that I can even remotely remember happening while asleep. I’m sure there is some, it just doesn’t make itself known to me.
There are a handful of perks that it comes with as well though:
- I can watch scary movies and then sleep immediately as no images of scary things can haunt me
- In that same vein, I am able to deal with gruesome stuff, and bounce back quickly since there is no “image burned into my head”
- Along with no dreams, I have no nightmares, so that’s also a plus
- It appears to aid in an understanding of abstract logic; I have attributed my success in the software engineering field to it, at least partially.
this was a big thing on Twitter a few years ago I think John Green posted about the fact that he can’t see images in his head.
I can see very clear crisp images, but if you tell me to imagine an apple, I can only hold that image for an instant before it zaps away
