Aphantasia is a condition that prevents people from creating mental imagery
. It is rare, affecting only about 4% of the global population…
My visual memory is like looking through a frosted window. I see some colors and blobby shape and that’s about it.
4% is a pretty big chunk of the population. That’s 1 in every 25 people. Which makes it all the more insane that nobody realised it existed as a condition until just a few years ago.
It really depends on how you define aphantasia. Often the VVIQ score is used, a vividness score ranging from 16 to 80.
About 0,8 % of people have a score of 16, and 3,9 % have a score <= 32. The figures are from one of the more recent studies. Other studies report similar figures, for example one study by Zeman found 0,7 % with a score of 16.
About ¼ of all people with visual aphantasia also have multisensory aphantasia (all classical senses and emotions).
Any mental imagery in general? Like through mind’s eye? Dreaming? I had a mind palace (like no joke) it took me years to build into something I could use, and I had a few seizures in relatively quick succession and I cannot imagine images with nearly the same clarity. My dreams are like trying to swim in molasses while wearing scuffed scratched glasses, and I haven’t been able to access my mind palace in years. Any time I close my eyes I just see vague blurry shapes and colors, there’s an environment there but I can’t see it. Now, I can still see faces and remember them, but imagining in my head kissing my girlfriend is impossible. Her face warps and melts and my mental vision goes fuzzy.
Aphantasia is not actually a real condition btw, the whole “imagine an apple” discourse is completely lacking in rigor. It’s like the online ADHD discourse, or MENSA. It’s a way for boring people to talk about themselves to each other. (Like most of Reddit and Wikipedia.)
No, everyone can imagine an apple. This is stupid. Even this guy admitted he can remember things, he’s just not satisfied with the quality. A cup of coffee would make him see an apple.
Lol wtf are you on about. It’s realistic to you that people can have PTSD, hyperphantasia, photographic memory, schizophrenia, bipolar, blindness/deafness, multiple sclerosis, and all these other otherworldy experiences which most people wouldn’t believe without being educated on it, but not realistic that a portion of people have deficient or non-existent mental imagery? Or even that a portion of people have ADHD?
I seriously doubt that you know better than neuroscience&psychology researchers and people who have the disorder but alright.
Also aphantasia isn’t “no remember thingies”. Memory is complex and it isn’t reliant on your ability to project images into your vision.
I have never been able to actually mentally visualize something, I always thought “imagine being in your happy place” was a metaphor and not that you’re actually supposed to visualize a place. I have always took “visualize” to mean not literally putting it in your vision, but just thinking about the fact of a situation. The closest I have to actually being able to picture an image/object is dreams and sleep paralysis hallucinations lol. No amount of caffeine or concerta could possibly change that. You’re crazy if you think because you can’t imagine it that there’s a conspiracy of “so-called aphantasiacs and medical researchers” who are lying about the existence of lacking mental imagery.
I’m curious as to where you allegedly saw aphantasia being “debunked” because all there seems to be is crazies on internet forums (specifically, Reddit and ycombinator) who notably aren’t psychology researchers, have no qualifications regarding the matter, and are just random people who want to feel like they cracked the code. Often times it’s people who have never been able to visualize who think their deficiency of mental imagery is the norm and that most other people have never been able to visualize either.
I’m also curious as to whether you think developmental/congenital prosopagnosia is fake or if it’s just a phase like you think aphantasia is.
“Neuroscience researchers” but you don’t post a source, just an essay on how invested you are in this being real. Keep huffing that Quanta magazine, buddy. MBTI testing is also horseshit. I didn’t see it “debunked” on Hacker News and Reddit, those are the #1 aphantasia and ADHD havers in the entire world.
It’s hilarious you think something less rigorous than IQ testing is on the same level as PTSD
These are by Rebecca Keogh (and others), an actual cognitive neuroscience specialist/psychology researcher who has a PhD from one of the most well-regarded universities in Australia. Here they establish that there is real evidence that aphantasiacs lack mental imagery, and finds that there is no evidence backing the claim that “aphantasiacs have mental imagery”. Keogh also has some works that delve deeper into mental imagery and how it’s a spectrum, including aphantasiacs and hyperphantasiacs.
I shouldn’t even have to give sources because I’m not the one claiming an abnormality in visual imagery is fake but here you go anyways.
It literally comes up immediately when you search for aphantasia research. You clearly have not even tried to find research on aphantasia. Now where are your sources? I notice you didn’t link any, at all.
MBTI testing is also horseshit.
??? Where in the god damn fuck did I mention MBTI or personality tests in general in my original comment?
I didn’t see it “debunked” on Hacker News and Reddit, those are the #1 aphantasia and ADHD havers in the entire world.
And yet you don’t mention where you “saw it debunked”, just stating that you totally did bro.
It’s hilarious you think something less rigorous than IQ testing is on the same level as PTSD
Again, you are being crazy, you are quite literally making up arguments to attack out of your ass.
I don’t know why you decided this is the hill for you to die on despite you clearly having no idea of what you’re talking about and most respected psychology & neuroscience/cognition researchers who have tackled the subject clearly not being aligned with your views on the matter at all, and what makes you think you have any authority to just call a scientifically measured and agreed-to -exist phenomenon fake, but go ahead and have a tantrum and pretend you know anything about the subject I guess.
If you respond with internet magazines or a shitty YouTube video essay as your source I’m gonna laugh myself to asphyxiation
Does Aphantasia also cause the development of superhuman levels of patience? Because my dude, i don’t know how you managed to entertain this troll for as long as you have. This whole thread was highly entertaining though, so thanks for that, lol.
(I know it goes deeper but i didn’t want to bury my comment that far down)
It’s extremely funny unblocking his profile once and seeing him on other random posts and replying to random comments threads I’m in, calling video game players mentally deficient, saying the people that are replying to him and downvoting him are bots (people obviously being extremely confused as to wtf his rambling has to do with the thread and scolding him for following users and harassing them), spam replying some random German dude and calling him my alt for no apparent reason, just in general being extremely obsessive/delusional over the comments. His meltdown alone was worth this comment thread lmfaooo. He’s paranoid as hell of everyone on the site now and lives in fear that all the users he interacts with may just be me in disguise, it’s glorious
Psychology Today has done a number on you, what a frantically googling moron, the first study has N=15, it’s entirely based on self-diagnosis and surveys. They want to come up with a neurological basis for it based off fifteen people self-reporting fuck off lmfao.
Oh wow she has a PHD??? We have to listen to her obviously. I hate pseuds and their credentialism hahahaha you’re full of it
Can’t wait to see the second one.
This is like when my sister decided she was a super taster and that cilantro tastes like soap.
I never said I was particularly impressed with the rigor of ALL NEUROSCIENTISTS, they are as bad as physicists involved with string theory. Unfalsifiable nonsense. This is the kind of shit I’m talking about when I trash the entire field of “smart science” that’s been picked up by TPOT and Lesswrong and other pseuds.
saw it debunked
Oh you want me to prove aphantasia isn’t real lol, no wonder you have trouble with things like this where people play word games, you’re completely devoid of logic. The onus is on you, and neuroscientists, to prove it exists.
What you did is go pull every paper you could possibly find which reinforces your identity.
Buddy you’re coping so hard. You said you saw a reliable source debunk aphantasia, and now you’ve been caught in your lie and you’re trying to weasel your way out. Some of these papers also have pools of various phantasiacs in the hundreds to thousands. A few of the sources clearly state (and give a source for) tens of thousands of people having been diagnosed with aphantasia.
Where is this “debunking” you said you saw? Is your angle now just “scientists are wrong and bad and having actual evidence on different levels of mental visual imagery is fake news, even though I am saying it’s wrong with no knowledge of neuroscience or psychology at all”?
This is the problem with the I Fucking Love Science crowd, your fun facts quickly turn into barrages of narcissistic gibberish whenever someone doesn’t give you validation. There’s no rigor, there’s no questioning, there’s no meta-analysis.
Just TRUST THE SCIENTISTS, LOOK AT THE STUDIESESS nevermind whether they’re any good. Go post about the Stanford Prison Experiment or something you irritating pseud.
Oh so your actual stance is “science isn’t real”. LMAO. You’re so pathetic, you actually think there’s a conspiracy by dozens of some very well-known and trusted neuroscience/psychology researchers on the subject, even specialists in the field (some of which have aphantasia themselves) to make up aphantasia?
“If I don’t like the ocean of sources and independent research, I’ll just disregard it, even if I have no evidence myself for my claim.”
If there is anything keeping people from having solid visualizations throughout the day, it’s not sleeping enough. It’s a night-and day difference in mental imagery. None of these studies control for anything like that or sleep, which really just shows you how hard they are fishing for something which isn’t there.
A lot of sleep issues are totally incurable without switching to back sleeping, getting rid of lint (people refuse to do this), and eliminating a sedentary lifestyle.
Now if you tried to do studies on people like that you wouldn’t be able to find any. But I can tell you I’ve experienced “aphantasia” and it’s cured by getting a good night’s sleep. A lot of people never get a good night’s sleep ever.
Keep evading and making BS claims that you said you had sources for, despite you not having sources. Nobody’s buying your pseudoscientific anti-science drivel, go huff some minerals or something.
You said you had sources for “aphantasia is real”. Where are they? You think you can lie that easily and wiggle your way out of it? Clearly they’re very established in your memory since you’re so confident that it’s a total debunking of aphantasia.
This happens to me periodically and I seriously think it means we just need more potassium, less sleep disruption, and more time in nature to absorb green colors (soothing in memory, gives you good dreams) and exercise the eye muscles with long distance focus.
Are you sheltered or something? Looking at verdant green spaces has been proven to have a positive psychological effect. You should wear crystals over your eyes if you are nearsighted to help. 👓 Aphantasia is just a difference in language games people use. It’s been debunked.
Aphantasia is a condition that prevents people from creating mental imagery . It is rare, affecting only about 4% of the global population… My visual memory is like looking through a frosted window. I see some colors and blobby shape and that’s about it.
4% is a pretty big chunk of the population. That’s 1 in every 25 people. Which makes it all the more insane that nobody realised it existed as a condition until just a few years ago.
It just doesn’t come up all that much. Folks live without knowing they are different.
And it is on a spectrum. Some folks is nothing others are can force a few pictures if they have to but aren’t clear. I dunno.
Case in point: The much easier to explain condition of colorblindness, which takes some people many years to find out they have!
It really depends on how you define aphantasia. Often the VVIQ score is used, a vividness score ranging from 16 to 80.
About 0,8 % of people have a score of 16, and 3,9 % have a score <= 32. The figures are from one of the more recent studies. Other studies report similar figures, for example one study by Zeman found 0,7 % with a score of 16.
About ¼ of all people with visual aphantasia also have multisensory aphantasia (all classical senses and emotions).
I don’t see things in my head, it’s still blank but i can imagine the concepts. Do i have aphantasia? My dreams are vivid tho
Probably! Aphantasia isn’t binary, it’s a spectrum. And like you, I can dream, I just can’t visualise stuff in my head while awake.
Any mental imagery in general? Like through mind’s eye? Dreaming? I had a mind palace (like no joke) it took me years to build into something I could use, and I had a few seizures in relatively quick succession and I cannot imagine images with nearly the same clarity. My dreams are like trying to swim in molasses while wearing scuffed scratched glasses, and I haven’t been able to access my mind palace in years. Any time I close my eyes I just see vague blurry shapes and colors, there’s an environment there but I can’t see it. Now, I can still see faces and remember them, but imagining in my head kissing my girlfriend is impossible. Her face warps and melts and my mental vision goes fuzzy.
Aphantasia is not actually a real condition btw, the whole “imagine an apple” discourse is completely lacking in rigor. It’s like the online ADHD discourse, or MENSA. It’s a way for boring people to talk about themselves to each other. (Like most of Reddit and Wikipedia.)
We got a no-apple-seer over here
No, everyone can imagine an apple. This is stupid. Even this guy admitted he can remember things, he’s just not satisfied with the quality. A cup of coffee would make him see an apple.
Lol wtf are you on about. It’s realistic to you that people can have PTSD, hyperphantasia, photographic memory, schizophrenia, bipolar, blindness/deafness, multiple sclerosis, and all these other otherworldy experiences which most people wouldn’t believe without being educated on it, but not realistic that a portion of people have deficient or non-existent mental imagery? Or even that a portion of people have ADHD?
I seriously doubt that you know better than neuroscience&psychology researchers and people who have the disorder but alright.
Also aphantasia isn’t “no remember thingies”. Memory is complex and it isn’t reliant on your ability to project images into your vision.
I have never been able to actually mentally visualize something, I always thought “imagine being in your happy place” was a metaphor and not that you’re actually supposed to visualize a place. I have always took “visualize” to mean not literally putting it in your vision, but just thinking about the fact of a situation. The closest I have to actually being able to picture an image/object is dreams and sleep paralysis hallucinations lol. No amount of caffeine or concerta could possibly change that. You’re crazy if you think because you can’t imagine it that there’s a conspiracy of “so-called aphantasiacs and medical researchers” who are lying about the existence of lacking mental imagery.
I’m curious as to where you allegedly saw aphantasia being “debunked” because all there seems to be is crazies on internet forums (specifically, Reddit and ycombinator) who notably aren’t psychology researchers, have no qualifications regarding the matter, and are just random people who want to feel like they cracked the code. Often times it’s people who have never been able to visualize who think their deficiency of mental imagery is the norm and that most other people have never been able to visualize either.
I’m also curious as to whether you think developmental/congenital prosopagnosia is fake or if it’s just a phase like you think aphantasia is.
“Neuroscience researchers” but you don’t post a source, just an essay on how invested you are in this being real. Keep huffing that Quanta magazine, buddy. MBTI testing is also horseshit. I didn’t see it “debunked” on Hacker News and Reddit, those are the #1 aphantasia and ADHD havers in the entire world. It’s hilarious you think something less rigorous than IQ testing is on the same level as PTSD
One
Two
Three
These are by Rebecca Keogh (and others), an actual cognitive neuroscience specialist/psychology researcher who has a PhD from one of the most well-regarded universities in Australia. Here they establish that there is real evidence that aphantasiacs lack mental imagery, and finds that there is no evidence backing the claim that “aphantasiacs have mental imagery”. Keogh also has some works that delve deeper into mental imagery and how it’s a spectrum, including aphantasiacs and hyperphantasiacs.
Paper by Liana Palermo, PhD in cognitive neuroscience and specialist in mental imagery research, who very bluntly accepts the existence of multiple types of aphantasia & hyperphantasia
This paper by CJ Dance addresses the prevalence of aphantasia and how it is, again, a spectrum, and discredits the idea that it isn’t simply an impairment in metacognition, rather it is an isolated deficit in visual imagery.
Here’s a paper involving MANY medical, psychology, and neuroscience researchers which goes over aphantasia and hyperphantasia research, and has many citations to papers that affirm the existence of aphantasia.
A paper by a STEM/IM researcher finding evidence for deficits in mathematic visualization in aphantasiacs.
Paolo Bartolomeo is a highly accreddited neurologist & researcher, and Jianghao Liu is a cognitive neuroscience researcher (PhD) with specialization in visual mental imagery and consciousness. The paper clearly states the existence of a disorder causing absent or nearly absent visual imagery called aphantasia.
Here’s Cleveland Clinic casually affirming its existence too.
I shouldn’t even have to give sources because I’m not the one claiming an abnormality in visual imagery is fake but here you go anyways.
It literally comes up immediately when you search for aphantasia research. You clearly have not even tried to find research on aphantasia. Now where are your sources? I notice you didn’t link any, at all.
??? Where in the god damn fuck did I mention MBTI or personality tests in general in my original comment?
And yet you don’t mention where you “saw it debunked”, just stating that you totally did bro.
Again, you are being crazy, you are quite literally making up arguments to attack out of your ass.
I don’t know why you decided this is the hill for you to die on despite you clearly having no idea of what you’re talking about and most respected psychology & neuroscience/cognition researchers who have tackled the subject clearly not being aligned with your views on the matter at all, and what makes you think you have any authority to just call a scientifically measured and agreed-to -exist phenomenon fake, but go ahead and have a tantrum and pretend you know anything about the subject I guess.
If you respond with internet magazines or a shitty YouTube video essay as your source I’m gonna laugh myself to asphyxiation
Does Aphantasia also cause the development of superhuman levels of patience? Because my dude, i don’t know how you managed to entertain this troll for as long as you have. This whole thread was highly entertaining though, so thanks for that, lol.
(I know it goes deeper but i didn’t want to bury my comment that far down)
It’s extremely funny unblocking his profile once and seeing him on other random posts and replying to random comments threads I’m in, calling video game players mentally deficient, saying the people that are replying to him and downvoting him are bots (people obviously being extremely confused as to wtf his rambling has to do with the thread and scolding him for following users and harassing them), spam replying some random German dude and calling him my alt for no apparent reason, just in general being extremely obsessive/delusional over the comments. His meltdown alone was worth this comment thread lmfaooo. He’s paranoid as hell of everyone on the site now and lives in fear that all the users he interacts with may just be me in disguise, it’s glorious
I just witnessed a murder lol
Psychology Today has done a number on you, what a frantically googling moron, the first study has N=15, it’s entirely based on self-diagnosis and surveys. They want to come up with a neurological basis for it based off fifteen people self-reporting fuck off lmfao.
Oh wow she has a PHD??? We have to listen to her obviously. I hate pseuds and their credentialism hahahaha you’re full of it
Can’t wait to see the second one.
This is like when my sister decided she was a super taster and that cilantro tastes like soap.
I never said I was particularly impressed with the rigor of ALL NEUROSCIENTISTS, they are as bad as physicists involved with string theory. Unfalsifiable nonsense. This is the kind of shit I’m talking about when I trash the entire field of “smart science” that’s been picked up by TPOT and Lesswrong and other pseuds.
Oh you want me to prove aphantasia isn’t real lol, no wonder you have trouble with things like this where people play word games, you’re completely devoid of logic. The onus is on you, and neuroscientists, to prove it exists.
What you did is go pull every paper you could possibly find which reinforces your identity.
Buddy you’re coping so hard. You said you saw a reliable source debunk aphantasia, and now you’ve been caught in your lie and you’re trying to weasel your way out. Some of these papers also have pools of various phantasiacs in the hundreds to thousands. A few of the sources clearly state (and give a source for) tens of thousands of people having been diagnosed with aphantasia.
Where is this “debunking” you said you saw? Is your angle now just “scientists are wrong and bad and having actual evidence on different levels of mental visual imagery is fake news, even though I am saying it’s wrong with no knowledge of neuroscience or psychology at all”?
Bro was so mad he had to respond 3 times
This is the problem with the I Fucking Love Science crowd, your fun facts quickly turn into barrages of narcissistic gibberish whenever someone doesn’t give you validation. There’s no rigor, there’s no questioning, there’s no meta-analysis.
Just TRUST THE SCIENTISTS, LOOK AT THE STUDIESESS nevermind whether they’re any good. Go post about the Stanford Prison Experiment or something you irritating pseud.
Oh so your actual stance is “science isn’t real”. LMAO. You’re so pathetic, you actually think there’s a conspiracy by dozens of some very well-known and trusted neuroscience/psychology researchers on the subject, even specialists in the field (some of which have aphantasia themselves) to make up aphantasia?
“If I don’t like the ocean of sources and independent research, I’ll just disregard it, even if I have no evidence myself for my claim.”
If there is anything keeping people from having solid visualizations throughout the day, it’s not sleeping enough. It’s a night-and day difference in mental imagery. None of these studies control for anything like that or sleep, which really just shows you how hard they are fishing for something which isn’t there. A lot of sleep issues are totally incurable without switching to back sleeping, getting rid of lint (people refuse to do this), and eliminating a sedentary lifestyle. Now if you tried to do studies on people like that you wouldn’t be able to find any. But I can tell you I’ve experienced “aphantasia” and it’s cured by getting a good night’s sleep. A lot of people never get a good night’s sleep ever.
Keep evading and making BS claims that you said you had sources for, despite you not having sources. Nobody’s buying your pseudoscientific anti-science drivel, go huff some minerals or something.
You said you had sources for “aphantasia is real”. Where are they? You think you can lie that easily and wiggle your way out of it? Clearly they’re very established in your memory since you’re so confident that it’s a total debunking of aphantasia.
This happens to me periodically and I seriously think it means we just need more potassium, less sleep disruption, and more time in nature to absorb green colors (soothing in memory, gives you good dreams) and exercise the eye muscles with long distance focus.
Absorb green colors haha. How many crystals should I carry while I do the absorption?
You do realize that when people are confined entirely to urban spaces they report having anxiety dreams about interior spaces?
Are you sheltered or something? Looking at verdant green spaces has been proven to have a positive psychological effect. You should wear crystals over your eyes if you are nearsighted to help. 👓 Aphantasia is just a difference in language games people use. It’s been debunked.
Downvoted for telling you how to dream more, stay salty!