Images that aren’t my own

I recently learned of aphantasia , approximately 4 months ago . I was always confused by my artist friends saying "Just put the picture from your head on paper". I am unable to conjure up images of my own volition . With this being said , for a micro second i can make this image in my mind , however it disappears almost instantly. Often times when i close my eyes it looks like black and grey smoke or fog . Whirling and wisping creating not images but patterns and geometry .I have read a few discussion saying it was pure darkness but that is not the case for me. Does anyone else have a similar experience in their mental imagery?

Share this post

You must be signed in to comment
Total Comments (5)

My age is 28 ,i will be 29 next month .

when i try to recall faces i can, with luck, conjure up a two dimensional black-and-white image that quickly flares and dissolves, like a solarized black and white photo …… i don’t get patterns and geometries, darn it …… i can access and retrieve two dimensional images i’ve looked at, paintings and photos ……

I am new to the term aphantasia as well. I always thought people were just using a phrase “picture this” in the abstract, not that they were actually visualizing an apple or a sunset or whatever. In yoga The instructor will always talk about images, and I never realize that the other people in the class probably were seeing a beach or clouds or something. Anyway, I am an artist and I can not visualize things so I draw everything I think about in order to not only capture it, but to also work out the facets of construction, etc.

My question to you pertains to this geometric thing you are describing. I think I have a similar mode of imagining. I also have a way of making things in my mind that is really hard to describe, but it is as if I have dark gray/black powder/dust/chalk and I am not touching it, but my mind is moving it in 3 dimensions as a feeling, not an image. I never knew this was not how everyone thinks until recently. At first I thought it was like dark smoke, but as I concentrate I feel it has dimension/substance. I wonder if anyone else knows what I am saying. In reading posts I see a lot of different ways of conceiving things in the mind that does not involve an image, but my particular variant does not seem to be described by anyone else.

Hi, I´m new to aphantasia maybe 2 months, for me it´s actually really frustrating.
it´s the same for me. It´s like standing in a dark room and the light turns on for a micro second. The picture is unclear and disappers like fog in a second. When i close my eyes in also only see “clouds”.
Sorry for my english, it´s not my first language.

There is a certain amount of visual stimulus such as the blood going through the veins in the eyes, the pressure of the eyeball, and other physical things. Those can look like black smoke on a black background possibly combined with the old school tv static, I think.