[bondarchuk]

>the (sometimes subliminal) states of confusion, frustration, shame, and inadequacy aphantasics feel when asked to visualize

Wow, take it easy.. This whole pathologization of "aphantasia" really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

[LordGrey]

Right. I have aphantasia and I've never felt bad about it. Maybe confused a few times, but that happens a lot anyway for any number of reasons.

I posit, without evidence, that the people who feel "confusion, frustration, shame, and inadequacy" about something like aphantasia are simply attention-seekers. If it wasn't for lack of mental imagery, it would be for something else.

[technothrasher]

Hmm, agreeing that the pathologization of aphantasia is distasteful but then immediately positing that people who might feel shame and inadequacy about having it must be "simply attention-seekers" seems counterproductive. Not treating aphantasia as a disease and also acknowledging that people may suffer mental illness triggered by it are not mutually exclusive.

[mrob]

For me, learning that normal people go about their days constantly hallucinating had the opposite effect. I think it could partly explain some problems in society, e.g. people's susceptibility to advertising.

[astral_drama]

I think your implicitly getting at something here. Both are dealing with an inferiority/superiority dynamic. The suggestion of a group you identify as being less, causes a predictable reaction to characterize the other (non-aphantasia) as problematic/hallucinating (i.e. broken/lacking). This ties back to the post where the author speaks of feelings of inadequacy (shame, etc...) about being unable to visualize, again signs of an inferiority complex. While such complexes may be traced back to particular memories or events, they're also habits of thought which are common place and culturally reinforced, so much so that they seem quite normal. For example, the culture of idol worship, like raising up of tech heroes while implicitly lowering your own self worth, which happens often on this site.

The fact that the author doesn't mention the details of the memory or events of the day also suggests shame and concerns of being judged for them.

The good news is they are writing about their struggles which suggests their willingness to work with these fears.

I think the answer probably isn't about pretending you're not better or worse, but accepting that being better or worse at something doesn't change your inherent self worth. Accepting that your not in control of many of your conditions and conditioning can free the mind from a sense of guilt and the fear around judgement of yourself and others. Hopefully this helps the author and those who struggle with notions of identity and self worth.

[t-3]

> The suggestion of a group you identify as being less, causes a predictable reaction to characterize the other (non-aphantasia) as problematic/hallucinating (i.e. broken/lacking).

No, it's not a defensive/counterattacking reflex. The thought of people hallucinating all the time is terrifying to me, because hallucination is a sign of something being very wrong, like schizophrenia. After getting past the language barrier and finding out these were "mental hallucinations" rather than "visual hallucinations", it's slightly less scary, but still unsettling for me to think about. Finding out that visualization was actually a thing meant that idioms that I thought were metaphors or superstition were suddenly something the majority of the population takes literally. People who have "invisible friends" talking to them all day long scares me though.

[bondarchuk]

Also, the metaphorical "little voice in the back of your head" that tells you what you're about to do is a bad idea.. Apparently people really hear that too? It would be nice to read about the differences between genuine hallucinations and mental imagery or sound from someone familiar with both. Obviously there are differences but people just get offended or simply weirded out most of the time when you ask.

Also you might find it interesting to read Jaynes' Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind. It's evidently controversial and not a viewpoint to uncritically adopt wholesale, but it does get you thinking about mental visualization/audiolization vs. hallucinations etc... and contains some intriguing historical anecdotes.

[t-3]

> It would be nice to read about the differences between genuine hallucinations and mental imagery or sound from someone familiar with both. Obviously there are differences but people just get offended or simply weirded out most of the time when you ask.

I thought the same, but after reading this I'm beginning to wonder whether or not there is actually a difference: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/01/260122074033.ht...

It seems like the "voice in the head" is distinguished from real voices by a mechanism similar to how tickling yourself doesn't cause the same sensation as another doing the tickling. People with inner voices and visualizations might actually be hallucinating all the time, they're just aware of it and not being misled by their senses like a schizophrenic would be.

[ben_w]

Regardless of current mechanism, susceptibility to advertising would still be present even if all currently exploited cognitive pathways were removed or deactivated across all human minds, as the advertisers would keep experimenting until they found another one.

[shaunxcode]

I will say it was a mind blowing experience to learn after decades of buddhist practice other people were LITERALLY seeing things (and in some cases trying not to). I never found it detracted from my experience as learning to NOT get distracted by that stuff is half the battle for a lot of people. So it can be a warp whistle in some ways. It is also why I am probably more interested in playing/listening to heavy doom music as it is hypnotic in its monotony. I reckon it is why I am fixated on genera lisp, smalltalk, self esque environments as they are more tangible for creating scenes on the screen that match how I am thinking about code (inside out and all that).

[agentcoops]

I agree with you as an adult with aphantasia, but I think it's a relatively common experience as an undiagnosed kid in grade school etc.

[bondarchuk]

Well, even the idea of "diagnosis" in this case implies that there is something wrong. I saw the whole idea of aphantasia/variations in mental imagery enter the mainstream over the past ~decade, it's really disheartening how people just can not ever accept that there are differences between people without immediately branding one type as good and the other as bad.

[fileeditview]

So true! I was well into my thirties until I learned that people actually can "see" images. I was totally perplexed by this revelation. After some research I realized that this also applies to taste, smell, sounds.. and none of them I can "imagine".

In hindsight this explained a lot of things. One example would be that I always was bad at blindfold chess even though I was a decent chess player. Before, I never understood how people can do this.

Still I am absolutely fine. I can recognize all these things. I can describe them. I just can "imagine" them.

After the first shock you understand that everything has pros and cons. E.g. I never have trouble sleeping. I close my eyes and turn the world around me off. My wife can see images very vividly and always has trouble going to sleep.

In the end we just need to accept that the brain is very complex and each of us has developed / adapted the best way, allowed by our biology.

[agentcoops]

That's so funny: I also first started to realize I had aphantasia during a period when I was taking chess very seriously during university. Unlike even lesser skilled peers, it was so difficult for me to understand games written out in chess books without playing them out on the board and I couldn't understand why...

Experiences like that are how I understand the question of 'shame' relating to aphantasia and the importance of 'diagnosis'/understanding how your mind actually works. 'Diagnosis' just helps you understand how to adapt and prevents you from slamming your head against approaches that won't work no matter how hard you try.

Similarly on sleep, I can sleep anywhere anytime with little effort and always tell my wife, who often has insomnia, "just close your eyes until you sleep" to her frustration.

What's really remarkable is how similar the life experiences are of most who have aphantasia...

[mewpmewp2]

I don't see any images, but I have trouble sleeping because of my inner monologue or not feeling calm etc.

[dyauspitr]

Interesting. So that trope of smells being strongly connected to memories never really happened to me. I didn’t know this was also part of aphantasia.

[t-3]

I definitely have memories linked to smell, but I can't imagine or remember and pull them up on demand, I am reminded of them when I detect that scent. I can make myself imagine/remember sourness though, but not other flavors. Just thinking of lemon, citrus, pickles, etc. makes my mouth water and start tasting sourness.

[Traubenfuchs]

They are missing an aspect of the human mind that the majority of humans have. It's defined as the "inability" to do something most humans can do. Research on cognitive performance shows it's most likely connected to worse memory. Some studies show reduced social skills. Then there are the deficits in autobiographical memory. It's progressive form is indicative of dementia.

How exactly is this anything but a pathology?

[bondarchuk]

I think it's weird to call an aspect of mental functioning a pathology simply because it's not the majority, regardless of any impairment in normal functioning. Depending on how you slice definitions many many things are in the minority.

Those studies, well, I'd have to see them. There's the risk that people for whom (e.g.) memory is accompanied by imagery automatically assume that imagery is required for memory. Vague correlations with social functioning can be drawn for nearly anything.

Regarding dementia: obviously the disappearance of imagery in someone who used to have it is very different from someone who never had it.

[musicale]

That sounds more like a disability than a pathology.

However, there may also be benefits; for example, it seems to be associated with stronger conceptual imagination.

[ryanjshaw]

He described his feelings, albeit as a generalization of all people with aphantasia. How can somebody describing their feelings be pathologization?

[bondarchuk]

When the negative feelings are described (interpreted!) as resulting from a supposedly pathological condition, for example. Also, when negative feelings result from the idea that a certain issue is pathological. And when you put these two together in a loop you have a pretty clear dynamic of pathologization, I'd say.

Of course it's hard to argue with the bare fact of someone feeling something, but everything surrounding that such as the attribution of the causes, potential solutions, and the terms in which feelings are described are all open to debate.

[slibhb]

Yes. Please don't turn aphantasia into yet another marginalized identity...