(If I try really hard, then I might see an extremely faint wire-frame outline, if for a brief moment). I'd never heard of it until now, and I'm sure many of you wouldn't have either. This lack of mental imagery was described as early the late 1800s, yet it has remained a relatively unstudied phenomenon. Basically, an aphant's imagination is thought oriented and when we are asked to "imagine a horse" - we are aware of the thought of a horse and what a horse is, maybe even observations about what a horse looks like, but we cannot see the horse in our mind. I'm an artist that can't see pictures in my head... Weird, huh? Icon by /u/SlippingStar, People without aphantasia are welcome & encouraged, Looks like you're using new Reddit on an old browser. It only received a common name in 2015. /r/Aphantasia is a place to discuss your discovery stories, issues or questions, and any news coverage or research about Aphantasia, which is the inability/difficulty in creating voluntary mental images. Aphantasia is thought to affect between 2-3% of the population (about one in fifty). Memory palace? Essentially, when people with aphantasia try to count sheep or imagine all the people living in harmony or whatever, they come up blank. I've found that I begin to automatically visualize things with my eyes closed after playing a video game for a few hours. Having Aphantasia does not make it so you cannot be in a creative field - there are several aphants that are writers and artists! According to an informal study based on ~2,000 survey responses, about 1/2 people with Aphantasia are able to dream. Additionally, if we ever see something disturbing to us - we likely only need to experience that one time. There is currently no confirmed "cure" to having it. No, there's nothing wrong with you! The phenomenon was first described by Francis Galton in 1880 but has since remained relatively … This means that I cannot see images in my brain! Did you recognize the person that got on the horse to ride? (NOTE: you do NOT have to have visualizing skills to be a good animator, take for example the Disney character designer Glen Keane who designed Rapunzel and Tarzan … The term "It's burned into my mind!" While people without Aphantasia probably think of imagination as seeing whatever they are thinking of and manipulating the object with thought - we can do something similar with our mental awareness of the object. In the comments were people talking about how they tried it and how fun it is or whatever, and someone else said they can't see a thing and neither can I? Ask questions and share perspectives. If that is the case I definitely have aphantasia, but I am just skeptical no one can really "see" anything in their minds eye and people are just bad at explaining … Chances are you know at least one other person with Aphantasia, but you might never know because it is such an internal process. Our day to day life probably doesn't look that different from people that don't have Aphantasia. Keep in mind that visualizing is … So, if I were to approach memorization, I would start with categorizing the subject, then perhaps determining a sub category within that subject, then trying to think of a description for a pattern within the formula. What are some positive things about having Aphantasia? The following numbers are based on an informal study from ~2,000 survey responses of people that have Aphantasia. If I had known that there is a ‘condition’ called aphantasia while I was college I would have asked to be tested for it. Not how most people might consider "imagination" - but we can imagine! Dreaming works with a "bottom-up" mental process. You could argue that Aphantasia is simply a difference in thought process. I can make an image but unless i focus, it's more like i'm feeling, rather than seeing it. 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