I recently found out that I have aphantasia and I am 20 years old. I could have gone my whole life without finding out and I am curious if it is more common to find out when you are younger.
I recently found out that I have aphantasia and I am 20 years old. I could have gone my whole life without finding out and I am curious if it is more common to find out when you are younger.
I just found out last year, and I am 24 years old.
I always knew I was different and that I couldn’t picture things but I didn’t have a word for it until reccently. So previously I never told anyone out of fear, thought I might be broken, misunderstood, or called a liar.
Rarely I can picture a simple outline, like a stick man or a couple lines but thats it.
I found out just a few days ago and I’m 13. It was…surprising.
honesty, I found out tonight!
I had no clue but was asked to visualize an apple and I couldnt. I can think of it as a concept. but not actually see it. I am 24.
Found out last week. I am 53
I imagine it’s more tied to the expansion of awareness rather than age?
Hi Ben, I am 42 years old and found out I have aphantasia yesterday. I was always perplexed when people would say, ‘don’t think about a purple rhinosoros’ trying to get you to do so. I would be ‘ok, no issue there’. I also found it annoying in meditation when people would get you to visualise stuff and nothing would come, just blackness. I honestly thought everyone was just faking the experience. For me, I was astonished to find out that most people CAN visualise things.
I learn about Aphantasia while doing random online searches for some project I was working, that was around 2014, I was 55 at the time and it stunned me especially after I read about the "counting sheep" example. That was me, I never got the reference just count sheep and you will fall asleep; I thought how does anyone do that? After reading the article I was overwhelmed with a profound sadness about my life which always seems to go sideways and how difficult it is for me to connect socially. I am still affected by that sadness/weirdness to this day.
Five years ago when I was 22 and heard it on a podcast where they were like "Get this, some people can’t picture that red bucket" and I was like, wait, why are they saying that? Then I called everyone I knew and demanded them to explain the way their mind worked when their eyes were closed, if it was just black with thoughts, etc.
Today at age 51.
I never knew that people were actually seeing things literally vs. conceptually that I have always done.
It was brought up last March, but it was this week that I knew for sure. I’m 39. I could have gone my whole life without finding out.
Third grade 47 years ago. I was chatting with a girl I liked and she said something about picturing something in her mind. I said, you don’t really mean that do you.
She said she could picture anything clearly. I didn’t believe her. So I asked if she could picture a blue car. Sure. Can you make it red? Of course. Can you flip it upside down? Easy.
I did not know what to think. What she was saying seemed impossible. And then I had an idea.
Can you picture a book? Yes. Can you open it? Yes. Can you see the pages? Of course. Is there writing on them? Yes.
WHAT DOES IT SAY? I really wanted to know, but she said it doesn’t work that way. I could not figure out of she could really visualize things or just wouldn’t tel me.
We were friends through high school and I never quit asking her what the book said.
