closing tag is in template navbar
timefactors watches



TZ-UK Fundraiser
Results 1 to 37 of 37

Thread: Aphantasia - Blind Mind’s Eye

  1. #1
    Master
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Finland
    Posts
    2,481

    Aphantasia - Blind Mind’s Eye

    Anyone else ”suffer” from Aphantasia?

    Noticed some time after my dad died that I couldn’t imagine his face or remember what his voice sounded like.
    I know and remember what he looks like, but just can’t see an image of him.
    Last edited by EJL25; 29th April 2021 at 11:12.

  2. #2
    I have this and only discovered it existed about 5 years ago (I am 58). Until reading about it, I hadn't realised that most people could REALLY form a vivid mental picture of something from memory. I cannot even describe my wife other than in very general terms unless I am looking at her!

  3. #3
    i was diagnosed with this a few years ago as part of a sleep study when i told them i dont see pictures in dreams (it just feels like someone is there and i #know' who it is) , ive never been able to visualise anything - all i see is black when i close my eyes , it was weird as i always thought i was 'normal' and everyione was this way - when someone says they can still 'see' a relative etc i never thought that they really meant they 'could ' actually see them in their minds eye.

  4. #4
    Grand Master wileeeeeey's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Location
    N/A
    Posts
    19,005
    This thread is a bit concerning - I can't describe anything without actually seeing it and when I close my eyes all I see is black. I thought this was normal and the same for everyone else. Hmm...

  5. #5
    Master vagabond's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2006
    Location
    Here and There....
    Posts
    6,432
    Blog Entries
    1
    I wonder if this affliction is related to a fondness for watches?

  6. #6
    Grand Master GraniteQuarry's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jun 2005
    Location
    Aberdeen, UK
    Posts
    27,868
    In my head all my former girlfriends looked like a young Monica Bellucci.

  7. #7
    Craftsman ziphos's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2017
    Location
    Warwickshire
    Posts
    757

    Quote Originally Posted by pugster View Post
    i was diagnosed with this a few years ago as part of a sleep study when i told them i dont see pictures in dreams (it just feels like someone is there and i #know' who it is) , ive never been able to visualise anything - all i see is black when i close my eyes , it was weird as i always thought i was 'normal' and everyione was this way - when someone says they can still 'see' a relative etc i never thought that they really meant they 'could ' actually see them in their minds eye.
    Pugster: that exactly describes how my mind works as well. I knew I had this condition (though not formally diagnosed), but this shows me that others are the same as me. Nice not to be alone - thank you!

  8. #8
    Master Christian's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    London
    Posts
    9,876
    Never heard of this before and just googled/wikipedia’d it.

    Those that believe they suffer from it, can you visualise stuff or is it a problem describing what you internally “see”? For example, if someone said visualise a famous person like David Beckham, would you have trouble imagining his face? How about if someone said visualise a Speedmaster or a Rolex Sub…does complexity of the image matter?

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Christian View Post
    Never heard of this before and just googled/wikipedia’d it.

    Those that believe they suffer from it, can you visualise stuff or is it a problem describing what you internally “see”? For example, if someone said visualise a famous person like David Beckham, would you have trouble imagining his face? How about if someone said visualise a Speedmaster or a Rolex Sub…does complexity of the image matter?
    personally i cant visualise anything -all i see is black whenever ive tried .

    *when i say anything i really mean anything - i cant even visualise something as simple as a circle or square shape , as an example as a child like most i was told to count sheep to help me sleep - i always thought it was just an expression- i didnt think that ppl could actually see the things.
    Last edited by pugster; 29th April 2021 at 13:54.

  10. #10
    Master
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Finland
    Posts
    2,481
    Quote Originally Posted by Christian View Post
    Never heard of this before and just googled/wikipedia’d it.

    Those that believe they suffer from it, can you visualise stuff or is it a problem describing what you internally “see”? For example, if someone said visualise a famous person like David Beckham, would you have trouble imagining his face? How about if someone said visualise a Speedmaster or a Rolex Sub…does complexity of the image matter?
    I can’t visualise faces.
    I know how they look, but I can’t see anything.
    Here’s couple tests:



  11. #11
    Master Christian's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2008
    Location
    London
    Posts
    9,876
    Wow. Really interesting…learn something every day! Appears quite a common thing too.

  12. #12
    Grand Master jwg663's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2004
    Location
    21.5 km From Moscow
    Posts
    16,881
    There are lots of conditions like aphantasia.

    Oliver Sacks wrote an interesting book about some of them. It's called 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat'.
    ______

    ​Jim.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by pugster View Post
    personally i cant visualise anything -all i see is black whenever ive tried .

    *when i say anything i really mean anything - i cant even visualise something as simple as a circle or square shape , as an example as a child like most i was told to count sheep to help me sleep - i always thought it was just an expression- i didnt think that ppl could actually see the things.
    I had exactly the same epiphany regarding counting sheep!

  14. #14
    I 'suffer' from this too. I know what things look like, but when I close my eyes it's just black.

  15. #15
    I think my wife may have a mild form - she often mistakes one actor for another when we are watching tv, when they only have vague similarities, whereas I have a good eye for faces and find it very odd how bad she is at recognising people!


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

  16. #16
    Master subseastu's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    Ashby, uk
    Posts
    2,223
    Interesting stuff. I realised a few years ago I suffer with "face blindness" (Prosopagnosia) and can really only recognise really familiar people who I see a lot of. I can only conjure up a vague memory of them though and can never fully describe someone. Most people are instantly forgettable to me which can be embarrassing when people come up to you in the street and I walk past them not recognising them and I come across as ignorant / stand-offish. Having read the posts here and just done some googling It looks like I have Aphantasia as well, no surprise as they seem to be connected. When trying to visualise something in my minds eye its at best a hazy grey indistinct form in a black back ground. I can describe things but only because I know what they are like say a blue dinner plate. I've seen it so I know what it is but I can't picture it. It honestly feels like a plug or blockage in my head thats not allowing things to come through.
    Last edited by subseastu; 30th April 2021 at 01:25.

  17. #17
    Master TKH's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    North West
    Posts
    3,858
    Interesting indeed....

    I have the opposite.....

    I close my eyes and vividly see an AD’s window full of Submariners / GMT’s / Daytonas and SD’s...

    I then open my eyes and just see empty space.....its only started happening gradually over the last few years...

  18. #18
    Master
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Finland
    Posts
    2,481
    Quote Originally Posted by TKH View Post
    Interesting indeed....

    I have the opposite.....

    I close my eyes and vividly see an AD’s window full of Submariners / GMT’s / Daytonas and SD’s...

    I then open my eyes and just see empty space.....its only started happening gradually over the last few years...

  19. #19
    Master unclealec's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    Manchester
    Posts
    6,342
    I'm in the TKH camp.
    I often wonder where all my dreams come from. Whilst asleep I visit lovely pubs that don't exist, with thousands of people who also don't exist.
    I spent most of Wednesday night making walking sticks out of rhubarb. I do make the occasional stick, but not from rhubarb.
    I fish rivers that don't exist, or at least that I have no recollection of ever seeing.

    It doesn't bother me at all apart from wondering where all these people and places come from. There must be a medical term for this but I don't view it as being of any concern. They're only dreams.

  20. #20
    Master subseastu's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2012
    Location
    Ashby, uk
    Posts
    2,223
    Quote Originally Posted by unclealec View Post
    I'm in the TKH camp.
    I often wonder where all my dreams come from. Whilst asleep I visit lovely pubs that don't exist, with thousands of people who also don't exist.
    I spent most of Wednesday night making walking sticks out of rhubarb. I do make the occasional stick, but not from rhubarb.
    I fish rivers that don't exist, or at least that I have no recollection of ever seeing.

    It doesn't bother me at all apart from wondering where all these people and places come from. There must be a medical term for this but I don't view it as being of any concern. They're only dreams.
    Ease off the strong cheese before bed?

  21. #21
    Master unclealec's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    Manchester
    Posts
    6,342
    Quote Originally Posted by subseastu View Post
    Ease off the strong cheese before bed?
    No cheese involved, but maybe the Heck's Vintage Dry?

  22. #22
    Master TKH's Avatar
    Join Date
    May 2009
    Location
    North West
    Posts
    3,858
    Quote Originally Posted by subseastu View Post
    Ease off the strong cheese before bed?
    Does cheese do that ?....that explains many many worrying visions and things ...specifically “Gorgonzola & Roquefort” washed down with Jamesons....

    But i have become dreadful with names where i was previously very good at name and faces...

    Music questions from 30+ years ago or Rolex dial variations on point....what i had for dinner last night or what film i watched = errrr..
    Last edited by TKH; 30th April 2021 at 09:43.

  23. #23
    I have a recurring dream that I cannot put into words. I simply cannot realise it into a tangible image.
    It's big and it looms in my mind when it gets started.
    It is mathematic and I get stuck in an endless loop of repeating mathematic functions/operations that all have irrational numbers as the output.
    But it's physical, there is an object of sorts. There is folding, of the mathematics or the object. It traps me.

    It is really unpleasant and I've had it about 3 times a year for 30 years and I still can't describe it.

    Yes I'm special.

    your aphantasia? Pffffft! You should try my dream :) :)

  24. #24
    This has really shocked me, I see nothing when I try and visualise a face or the red star. The image I have in my head of mum is that from a photograph and I can see that as well with my eyes open as closed, although now I'm trying I can't.

    I had no idea this wasn't normal.


    How strange.

  25. #25
    I have the oppersite problem, i can visualise people like they are standing in the room. Not just the face, the whole person, multiple people, whole landscapes, being somewhere, a time or place from memory. Like video, but the older the memory the more is imagined or made up rather than accurate.

  26. #26

    Aphantasia - Blind Mind’s Eye

    Quote Originally Posted by The Doc View Post
    I have a recurring dream that I cannot put into words. I simply cannot realise it into a tangible image.
    It's big and it looms in my mind when it gets started.
    It is mathematic and I get stuck in an endless loop of repeating mathematic functions/operations that all have irrational numbers as the output.
    But it's physical, there is an object of sorts. There is folding, of the mathematics or the object. It traps me.

    It is really unpleasant and I've had it about 3 times a year for 30 years and I still can't describe it.

    Yes I'm special.

    your aphantasia? Pffffft! You should try my dream :) :)
    Maybe you’re onto something there - perhaps the proof of an important unsolved mathematical problem.

  27. #27
    I hope so
    It troubles me.
    I don't want to be famous 150 years after I'm dead though.
    Hagey's Last Theorem

    You lot think I'm joking, I am tormented intermittently in my sleep by an enlarging set of non rational answers that are spiky and fold over me. Things fall apart, The centre cannot hold.

    Anyhooo,
    Happy Bank Holiday weekend all.

  28. #28
    Master
    Join Date
    Jun 2007
    Location
    Berkshire, UK
    Posts
    4,331
    Quote Originally Posted by kace View Post
    This has really shocked me, I see nothing when I try and visualise a face or the red star. The image I have in my head of mum is that from a photograph and I can see that as well with my eyes open as closed, although now I'm trying I can't.

    I had no idea this wasn't normal.


    How strange.
    Same here, had no idea that others could visualise things differently to me.

    My wife is 6/6 on the visualisation front, my son 5/6. My wife says she also sees colours with people (I suppose what some would could aura). Apparently I am blue whatever that means!

    My dreams are pretty vivid though. And sounds I am ok with.

    All very interesting!

  29. #29
    Journeyman
    Join Date
    Nov 2017
    Location
    Bristol, UK
    Posts
    135
    Same here! I just assumed it was the normal state to not see images in your head. Just discussed this with MrsG and she's looking at me a bit odd now, she was a 6 on the image test, for me nothing, just blank, and those retinal after images and light shifts.

    I have imagination and can contruct the idea of something in my head, I design my woodworking projects mentally, but it's more like a list of object properties, no visual aspect until I put pen to paper/whiteboard.

    There must be some visual aspect deep down, because one morning, shortly after Dad died, I woke in dispare, I couldn't see his face anymore, was my description at the time, but its more - I can't form the mental construct that was his image in my head

  30. #30
    Master unclealec's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2011
    Location
    Manchester
    Posts
    6,342
    Taking a step back; I can now thank TZUK not only for my buying things that I never knew I needed but also for alerting me to medical conditions that I never knew existed but suffer from.

  31. #31
    Very interesting thread this one.

  32. #32
    I rarely speak of this (although several members here know of it) but I have a 'memory' disorder and one aspect of it that is loosely connected to this topic is that I cannot recall any dreams that I have.

    This came about after a head injury as a result of which I ended up with executive dysfunction/dysexecutive syndrome.

    It's not that I don't have dreams but rather that I have total non-recall of them, be they nice or nightmares. I've never decided whether that's a good or bad thing, though other aspects of the condition are rather disadvantagous to daily life.

    Fascinating things, brains.

    R
    Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.

  33. #33
    Master Harry Smith's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2017
    Location
    Wolverhampton
    Posts
    4,227
    I find it difficult to visualise from someone else perspective or description. Typically my Wife derides this deficiency when she is trying to describe a refurbishment, even when she draws pictures or plans. She can recall interior design features from houses we lived in or even visited years ago. I have a good memory for numbers and am proficient at mental math. My dreams are often spectacular mini dramas, better than real life lol.
    Nice to be able to give it a name anyway.

  34. #34
    This is very interesting; I cannot see pictures of things I am trying to recall when I close my eyes however I am able to momentarily pull images from what seems to be a deeper level of consciousness, faces etc, it seems as though these are on elastic and fall away very quickly.
    I have quite vivid dreams, although not in colour. I am able to tell when I am about to fall asleep because I begin to visualise things properly. (I wish there was a way of switching this on permanently :))

  35. #35
    Grand Master magirus's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Up North hinny
    Posts
    39,473
    Quote Originally Posted by ralphy View Post
    I rarely speak of this (although several members here know of it) but I have a 'memory' disorder and one aspect of it that is loosely connected to this topic is that I cannot recall any dreams that I have.

    This came about after a head injury as a result of which I ended up with executive dysfunction/dysexecutive syndrome.

    It's not that I don't have dreams but rather that I have total non-recall of them, be they nice or nightmares. I've never decided whether that's a good or bad thing, though other aspects of the condition are rather disadvantagous to daily life.

    Fascinating things, brains.

    R

    If you can't recall your dreams Ralph how do you know when you've had them?
    F.T.F.A.

  36. #36
    Quote Originally Posted by magirus View Post
    If you can't recall your dreams Ralph how do you know when you've had them?
    SWMBO tells me.

    R
    Ignorance breeds Fear. Fear breeds Hatred. Hatred breeds Ignorance. Break the chain.

  37. #37
    Master
    Join Date
    Jan 2013
    Location
    Finland
    Posts
    2,481

    Aphantasia - Blind Mind’s Eye

    Just to give some update.
    I have found out that I also have SDAM.
    Some/Many people with aphantasia also has SDAM.

    **What is Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM)?**

    Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory, otherwise known as SDAM, is the inability to vividly re-experience past events (episodic memory). It is characterized by the profound impairment of episodic autobiographical memory, despite normal recollection of facts and general knowledge (semantic memory)

    **How Does SDAM Relate to Episodic and Semantic Memory?**

    SDAM is characterized by deficits in the recollection of episodic autobiographical memories; however, it does not have an effect on semantic memory. This means that patients may be unable to vividly relive experiences from their past, yet are still able to recall factual information about it.



    Just realised that almost all of my memories of my life are something that someone else has told me that has happened. They are stories that I have basically just memorised. Also the actual memories I have I remember as a spectator in 3rd person point of view.
    Seeing photos reminds me of places I have been but I don’t actually remember being there.

    Anyone else who doesn’t remember their life?
    Last edited by EJL25; 15th September 2021 at 17:19.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

Do Not Sell My Personal Information