[mattmanser]

I have aphantasia, found out 9 months or so ago, but can meditate fine. The main point is to focus on nothing, the sound of your breath can be used instead of imagining a flame or sphere or whatever. Another technique is to tap everytime a thought comes into your head, and dismiss the thought.

I also voraciously read fiction, so I doubt you not liking it has anything to do with aphantasia, but find overly descriptive portions of text boring and will often skip them.

Also, you can almost certainly learn to visualize with your mind's eye, very few people have actual incurable aphantasia from what I've read. I did some exercises, image streaming, and it was starting to work. After a week or so I started seeing images. I had too much on my plate, so parked it for now.

[crimsonalucard]

Aphantasia gives you more control over your mind and makes meditation easier. As a person who does not have aphantasia I can tell you we have very limited control of the pictures that pop up in our heads.

If you told me to not picture a welsh corgi barking at a ball, my mind would instantly picture it. There is no control over this reflex. Literally if you had a mind reading machine and a gun pointed to my head and told me not to picture that corgi or you'd shoot me, it would be mind blowingly hard and near impossible. It's similar to the reflex that allows you to understand language. "Do not understand the words that are coming out of my mouth..." not possible.

Thus in knowing that we have limited control over it you should know that at least for some people the mind wanders... if we don't direct the mechanism to picture a flame or a sphere it will proceed to picture other things, it can't be turned off insomuch as your general ability to understand english can't be turned off. Therefore meditation is easier for you.

Also you can't get songs stuck in your head. Sometimes that part of your brain that builds these virtual scenes just decides to sing that one catchy song all the time.

[Emma_Goldman]

'I also voraciously read fiction, so I doubt you not liking it has anything to do with aphantasia, but find overly descriptive portions of text boring and will often skip them.'

As should be clear from this thread, aphantasia is a highly varied condition. It manifests in people in different ways. The fact that you read a lot does not mean that there is no association between aphantasia and not liking fictional books.

[throwawaythekey]

Could you provide some resources?

I've only ever experienced visualization once on a drunken night and thought my drink had been spiked.

[mattmanser]

I started here:

https://photographyinsider.info/image-streaming-for-photogra...

Then moved on to image streaming but it didn't add that much more:

http://www.winwenger.com/imstream.htm

There's still a lot of mumbo-jumbo feeling to it and the videos and writing, but it does work. 10 minutes a day, a little over a week, and I started to see things. I found it a lot easier to do just as I was going to sleep, first time it happened I'd forgotten to do it in the scheduled slot so did it just after I went to bed without the recorder. The recorder is useful to begin with to remind you to carry on speaking out loud.

It is frustrating to begin with.

[unquietcode]

So I have been practicing various exercises over time, but no effect. You are right about meditation though, you have to pick the ones that require an abundance of nothing. However many techniques and classes emphasize the visual types of meditation, from which I do feel left out.

[Vinnl]

> Another technique is to tap everytime a thought comes into your head, and dismiss the thought.

A bit off-topic perhaps, but: how? When a thought comes into my head, that means I'm no longer thinking of tapping...

[Broken_Hippo]

A bit off-topic perhaps, but: how? When a thought comes into my head, that means I'm no longer thinking of tapping...

That's true. But at some point, you realize you are thinking of x when you should just be focusing on the sound (or whatever object/idea you chose). When that happens, you tap. Even if you were daydreaming for 6 minutes, you eventually realize you were straying.

You can substitute physical tapping with mental notes or whatever as well.

[Vinnl]

That makes sense, thanks. Might give it another try soon using this method.