I discovered I have Aphantasia after I started smoking (with a med card). While smoking, I am able to “visualize” images which is something I thought was metaphorical in the past. Am I the only one who experiences this? I anyone wants/needs further explanation, please let me know!
I have heard anecdotal reports from multiple people on this, I have no sense of frequency at all and these are just anecdotes but some experience no effect at all on THC or even other more serious hallucinogens, but some do. Although this is completely my opinion it seems to me that the people that have the more profound cases of aphantasia specifically total aphantaisics who lack the other sensor recall modalities as well are the least likely to experience any effect, where the folks that score a 2 with some minimal non-usable visualization ability may experience it more, but again that’s only my opinion from what is probably a fairly biased pool of people in casual responses.
Yes, many psycho-active chemicals have this affect for me, especially psychedelics. This visual activation and learning that aphantasia is a thing and people to “visualizing” something isn’t a metaphor led me to see if I could teach myself to visualize. I have near complete aphantasia, but over the last few years I have learned to minimally visualize. Though it was almost an accident, I spent so much time trying to understand the mechanism I used to understand the color wheel that after several years I started vaguely visualizing it. A bit annoying because it was like my brain got sick of me asking “how do I think of this thing” that it just decided to show me rather than tell me…
In reading your post, I realizes that I also have had vivid visual images when “smoking”. Usually see nothing in my mind’s eye, but I vividly saw all the rooms in a house I lived in as a child. Thanks for nudging my memory.
