[ourguile]

https://archive.ph/iMdvd

I have aphantasia and it always astounds me when I see an article like this, or hear a friend talking about it (about not having it) and realize that their experience of the world is so fundamentally different than my own.

[tekacs]

Have you seen the Aphantasia Apples?

https://lianamscott.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/f4c55-1_b...

As in: if you look at this image, can you place yourself on a scale of 1 - 5 of with what kind of fidelity you can picture an apple if you try to imagine it?

I'm a 5 for example, and in asking many people this question I've gotten a solid spectrum of answers from 1 - 5. Generally in a single group of a handful of people I'll get several different numbers.

[ourguile]

I have seen it and unfortunately, I'm a 5. I quite literally cannot picture an apple in any form. I understand what I'm supposed to be picturing but when I try there's nothing that appears. It's fascinating to me too, since I typically have quite vivid dreams and I've been able to lucid dream on a number of occasions.

Now, I've chatted with friends, and my one friend is close to a 2, or maybe a 1 from how he described it (being able to visualize the apple and rotate it 3-dimensionally).

[seneca]

I fully believe this to be real, but I struggle to internalize that there are people who genuinely can't picture an apple. That is a very useful simple tool. Thank you for sharing it.

Even this feels like only a partial scale. I can picture what an apple looks like, rotate it in my, and see how light would reflect off of it as it moves.

How about smell? Can you call you mind what it would smell like to slice open an apple and experience that in some sense? Or what it would sound or feel like? I'm curious if it's literally "seeing" or if it's the entire experience of imagining an event.

[Xiol]

I'm not the person you're replying to, but I'm also a 5.

I can do none of the things you describe. I know how an apple looks, smells, tastes and sounds when you cut into it, but I can't visualise or hear those sounds at will. I cannot call to mind any visual image of an apple.

I also can't visualise my wife or children's faces, although again, I know what they look like (so it's not face blindness).

I do think I also have SDAM as well, which I think quite often goes hand in hand with total aphantasia.

Hasn't really affected how I go about in the world. I don't feel deficient in any way. It was only a few years ago I found out my experience isn't what the majority experiences.

[seneca]

This is incredible to me. I wonder if you have some other mechanism of "knowing" or recalling that I don't that substitutes in. It's entirely possible, given that so many people report not being aware their experience is atypical.

I find this absolutely fascinating. I appreciate you sharing.

[hyperbolablabla]

I'm 4 at a push. When I read, I see _very_ vague images in my head, but that's about it.

I'm very adept at conjuring up sound, though. Maybe it doesn't apply in the same way, but I can hear full symphonies and pick out individual instruments and harmonies and the like.

[AndrewKemendo]

Is there a 0 where you can make the apple into anything you decide?

For example I can picture infinite combinations of apples, large, small, one with bites, one with orange inside, one with glass skin etc…

[nogha]

I also have it I’m in my late forties and only found out last year. It blew my mind people saw, heard and smelled things in there mind.

I barely ever dream.

Guided meditation has never worked for me.

I have a crazy good sense of direction. My girlfriend doesn’t understand how that works if I can’t see it in my mind.

I do have vivid recall of what things look like but I don’t see them at all.

It all made so much more sense when I figured this out.