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How do I… there are so many questions

I am reposting a response in another thread:

I am 75 and just recently realized/learned that I have aphantasia. Now I am wondering about my years of taking acid – makes me wonder about what I saw. Since it was about 40-50 years ago, there are not much in the way of memories – but I am too old to try to revisit the experience.

This kind of explains why I would forget people when they were not present (lost some girlfriends this way) – even right now, there is a woman I am interested in and I can’t remember what she looks like (or I can’t bring up an image of her)

I can remember some of my dreams – one dream I forced myself to wake up fro, was me with my back to a cliff, standing on a ledge that was only 4″; I was looking down at a drop of over 1,000 feet and I am afraid of heights (played havoc with sky-diving, only made 3 jumps before I just could not get into another plane) I remember the image but can not ‘see’ the image – I am really confused about remembering the image but not being able to see it. This is all very confusing, sigh
End repost

Expansion of LSD reference – I spent most of the 70s doing psychedelics . I vaguely remember animated visuals (once I was so stoned that I saw a John Philips Sousa brass band march across the dance floor (I can no longer tell if this was a real hallucination or or a story but I was bar-tending in a dance club when someone dosed my drink – it was his way of thanking me for helping him find some acid, sigh). Does anyone else have experience with psychedelics and aphantasia?

I have very vivid dreams; I think I dream in images but when I recall them I only know that I saw images but can't bring them up. I enjoyed my dreams so much that I would nap often so I could have them – they were action/adventure dreams that often included some D&D games I played. Some were science fiction, some were swords and sorcery – I even dreamed I was flying (but not too high as I am afraid of heights).

I am unable to plan too far into the future b/c I have no images and I am really, really bad at predicting how people will respond to me – unable to correctly understand people. I think that I live in an eternal now – can't remember much of my past and can't conceive of the future

Sorry babbling but I am still trying to wrap my head around this – I am unable to bring up any other of my senses, taste, hearing, smells, and, thankfully, pain

Rodger

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Total Comments (4)
Isabel González Torrado
on June 14, 2024

I also have many questions, I am 45 years old and until now I didn’t know how people imagined. I thought it was a metaphor. I haven’t tried drugs, but I wouldn’t mind trying them if I know I can images.
My mother passed away a few years ago, and I cannot see her face except through photos. I only have one description in my brain. I think it affects me in my personal relationships. Well, I lose contact because I don’t imagine them with a person who has fantasy.

Naz Martinez
on June 18, 2024

Hey! Sounds like you have some fun stories to tell!

I don’t have any experience with any psychedelics besides 5MeO-DMT. I inhaled a heroic hit, braced myself to meet God, and…nothing. I blacked out completely for 10 minutes straight.

I fully attribute this to aphantasia (which I had never heard of at the time). That 10 minutes that I spent with zero conscious experience or memory is usually when visualizers are having a colorful and vivid heart-to-heart with Jesus, Anubis, or whatever other take-your-pick deity deigns to show up.

My experience was a void.

Super bummer.

Miles Collins
on July 8, 2024

Hi, I’m 60 and also did a lot of psychedelic substances in the early 1980s, so I can relate.
I only recently found out that aphantasy is a “thing”.
I have always wondered why the acid etc. never worked for me like my friends regarding optical hallucinations.
It was never more than slight perspective shifts when moving my hand and looking at it. Maybe steps having slightly different heights, small things like that. Very rarely, I had acoustic hallucinations.

The effects were mainly different thought possible thought processes, but I was always able to bring myself back to HERE & NOW.

As it was so long ago and many drugs back, I don’t remember much very clearly, but as I have recently learned, this may also be connected to aphantasy.

I have only rudimental autobiographical memories, the earliest from the age of about 7. Also I have great trouble visualising my possible future.
As I have been in a perpetual HERE&NOW for my whole life, I have always wondered why so many people make such a “to do” about the concept.

I’ve always felt to be the worst possible witness in regards to having to describe a person.
My other sense remembering is also quasi non-existent. As you say luckily pain is also affected.
Thanks for your insights.
I believe our drug induced sensory experiences were similarly bland.

Mike McElhany
on August 3, 2024

I see no images while awake eyes closed or not but I met The Beastie Boys in a truck bed camper in the desert outside Mesa AZ. They were 4 inches tall. I think it’s very possible that hallucinogens allow neural connections that we don’t normally make.
I also can’t seem to look to the future deliberately. I have sudden involuntary memories or flashes of possible future outcomes. Oddly though, I’m more than pretty good at predicting logical outcomes to other people’s decisions. Weird world man and brains are the weirdest.