When I found that I most likely have Aphantasia, it all clicked. As a kid when people told me to imagine... and would continue to tell stories I would be confused, but I just assumed that everyone around me was the same, as if they just knew that they were thinking of that situation, but they just saw black. However, I have recently begun to wonder if this Aphantasia is related to memory and problems of recalling memories. As a kid my parents would joke when I couldn’t remember any of the holidays we had been on and say ‘Well, glad we spent the money on a once in a lifetime memory if you can’t even remember or picture it now!’ But I could never picture that certain place or situation we were in without someone showing me a picture. And after that, I could only ‘know’ that I had seen that picture, never picture it again. Later, I would struggle in exams, especially in math's, as I could not remember what I had learnt a term ago, or the year before. I would always need a cheat sheet to remind me of formulas and even the basic things. I am struggling a bit now and I don’t know if it is related to Apantasia, or if it is a separate thing that I need to get checked, as I have not found much on this. Please let me know if you have similar problems or any answers.

Does it affect memory/recalling memory?

October 17, 20242 min readByT m

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Martha MacTavish•recently•edited

Recently, after seven decades of life, I discovered aphantasia in myself. It has been a...rattling...experience so far. However, many things have clicked into place though such as very poor autobiographical memory (most are conjured from photographs), inability to engage in guided meditation, lack of impact from ayahuasca and other psychedelics, poor facial recognition (in a profession that was very relationship driven), connecting names and faces, inability to be hypnotized or benefit from EMDR, and on and on. I suspect it also plays in my inability to learn certain things like reading music (can play most by ear), playing bridge etc. I had a counsellor insist I was repressing childhood trauma given my lack of recollections. I am also aware that adult traumas have mostly slipped away. But I also became aware of my abilities in other areas. I was involved in high level sport and competition and a big part of preparation was about visualizing my routine. I would feel it from start to finish...the muscle memory, the sensations etc. but it was always about the sensation, not the visualization. When I travel or experience new things I am truly engaged, but find it hard to share the experience with others afterwards. It can be very uncomfortable when someone insists on a memory I am part of and I have no recollection at all. I find I am very content living a more solitary lifestyle working on my second novel.

Maura M•recently•edited

This must be one of the effects of aphantasia… it all clicked for me and you are literally discribing my life. I just thought I had memory issues for real. This has to be why! Would love to connect to discuss because I have talked to people and they remember soo much since they were kids. And you really resonated with me when you said you can only recall things because maybe a picture you saw and you just “know” about it that it happened but cannot remember or really recall details and definitely can’t imagine it.. even though it was your past. I have friends tell me stories that literally are about my life and I’m listening as if I’ve never heard this before. Obviously I can’t picture what they are saying but I can listen to the story and I’m just like wow cool. They always ask if I remember and I’m just like maybe.. kinda or naw not really but kinda know…

gregory coghlan•recently•edited

I have aphantasia and no executive function; I use distraction to keep myself functioning. First Person Shooters are the best distractions for me, then reading (I skip most of the adjectives, duh! - they don't add much to my reading). I sit here reading this site knowing that I have 3 years worth of taxes to finish (I will get refunds but...). I am not sure but I don't think I ever did any homework in school (I graduated 52 - that sounds good but number 53 was held back, so I was not the worst student in my senior class of 53 ). I am 76 and retired but now I have some idea of why things were so difficult for me. I have SDAM so I only have episodic memories plus I did a lot of acid in the 1970s and my dreams are action/adventure (I used to nap a lot b/c my dreams were so exciting) - I do not know if I dream in images but I do not remember them as images. The hallucinations on acid were really cool but I have no way to express them. Sigh!

MICHAEL DORFMAN•recently•edited

I discovered aphantasia, and identified myself as that 1% who has no imagery at all, just a few weeks ago. Talk about doors opening to greater awareness and new questions! Along with no clear images I've had very minimal recall of my life's events - big, small, wonderful or painful. There's never been any discrepancy. My academic life was abysmal. Now I wonder how do we know to what degree lack of imagery affects our degree of recall? And one more thing, although I can't image the inside of my own home, I am in the top 5% linguistically! I thought of that because many of you express yourselves very, very well and IMO well above average. Interesting... Your thoughts?

Holly Mabee•recently•edited

i have the same problem. now i am struggling with a course that i have to remember detailed section numbers of regulations for recall in closed book exams. i am worried i will not be able to complete the entry to practice exam. I was looking into memory aids but most things are based on visulaization. I am looking for memory aids / strategies to build memory that would be effective for someone with aphantasia. I only found out it was a thing a few years ago. My family can visualize very well and i am jealous but i thought maybe it was a 50/50 thing. When i found out only 2-4% of people can't visualize i was shocked!

Martha MacTavish•recently•edited

Given it is considered neurodivergent...perhaps you can get an accommodation for your exam

Fraser Milton•recently•edited

Yes that is quite common for episodic autobiographical memory to be down in people with aphantasia which is consistent with the idea that this sort of memory taps into visual imagery to a greater extent than some other types of memory. I think several studies have objectively demonstrated such a pattern although the reduced autobiographical memory is definitely short of what people would typically consider as "amnesia". Your observation about struggling with maths equations or other sorts of semantic memory is interesting though as this typically is thought to rely on imagery to a lesser extent (although one could argue that imagery is used specifically for recollecting the equations. As far as I'm aware no one has looked at the ability to recollect semantic memory in the form of exam or exam like content so far in aphantasia so we don't know if it is a common trait or not at the moment.

Robert Avila•recently•edited

I have a fairly high degree of aphantasia, while my daughter is hyperphantasia, a difference that we have only recently discovered. So, we have been having interesting conversations. There are a number of consistent memory recall differences between us, in addition to her vivid images and my near lack of them. She has vivid autobiographical memory while mine is sketchy at best. I am a terrible speller while she has no problem. I have never been able to learn a foreign language. She learned French and Italian in college, and then became interested in Russian literature in her senior year and in a couple of years learned Russian (considered one of the most difficult languages) well enough to be teaching it as a grad student at Columbia University. My poor ability to memorize and remember has not hindered me as I have a PhD in Economics and I had a successful career as a corporate strategy consultant. Looking back, I remember often arriving for meetings not remembering what they were about... BUT being able to very quickly figure out what was going on. Thinking about it I was/am extremely good at figuring out all sorts of things, which I suspect is in part some sort of back door memory recall process, which some people might call intuition. And right now my intuition keeps telling me that the aphantasia flag is signalling a host of past memory/behavior issues that all seem to be falling into place.

Duncan Barrett•recently•edited

Can relate to everything you're saying there, especially when it came to Maths exams. Passed my O'Grade with flying colours as all formulae where provided, failed my Higher (Scottish qualifications) misserably as you had to commit all formulae & proofs to memory. Sounds to me that you probably have SDAM (Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory) as well.

MICHAEL DORFMAN•recently•edited

This from the an internet search: "Dominant learning method: Many researchers state that up to 80% of learning happens through the visual system, making visual memory crucial for learning and education."

Sean K•recently•edited

I relate to this... and I have been considering a causal link between previous hallucigenics usage and aphantasia. Sort of like we hyperstimulated visions with chemical substances... and that broke natural visions. I too dream vividly... starting to try writing down my dreams immediately upon waking.

MICHAEL DORFMAN•recently•edited

Maura, it's always interesting to read that others have similar issues but your post really blew me away! The similarities! And when someone talks about an event when they were say, eight I'm thinking, "How does your brain do that?" I have nearly no past, just vague thoughts which are not clear enough for me to be sure I haven't made them up over time. I love music but I've never been able to sing 20% of a song. Thanks for your post.

Daniel Newsome•recently•edited

Re: Robert Avila. Robert wrote, "I can remember ways of figuring things out far easier than I can remember things." Bingo. I teach college calculus. I can remember the stuff I use all the time... the first derivative of sin x, cos x, and tan x... or the power rule, but I still derive a lot of the other formulas. I simple cannot remember them accurately. I can't spell either. I'm pretty bad with recognizing directions in a city. Names take a long time.

Robert Avila•recently•edited

Your linguistic point is interesting. Professionally I was a business strategy consultant and economist, which sounds grander than it was, but I have also been a life long amature poet and have edited a number of books for friends. I love words: as a kid I used to read the dictionary; I am fascinated with etymology and ancient and modern Names; the sound, texture abd rhythm of language fascinate me. Perhaps this is all over compensating for my aphantasia. BUT I have never been much good at long form composition, which may be a memory function. My wife is a novelist amd remembers her entire life and every dumb thing that I have ever done. Her books and stories exist in her as complex structures. The most that I can manage architecturally is a sonnet and then I need paper to hold on to the whole thing.

Maura M•recently•edited

Yes yes yes! 100% agree I feel how u feel. There has to be a link. We rely heavily on verbal and linguistic learning ability. I can’t remember anything!

Maura M•recently•edited

Oh also want to comment that the only way I made it through school or college was like semester by semester. I had to basically store whatever I needed for an exam in my short term memory.. try to remember as much as possible just to take the tests and then it would be gone.. could never retain anything and it was so difficult if I had a class that was like the next level to a prerequisite class cause I just stuggled to remember. But making a reference or cheat sheet was soo helpful. I’m definitely a numbers and verbal learner where I can write it out and figure it out, but I hated when teachers like calc tried to always make you memorize everything. Stressed me out. But the teachers that allowed like a formula sheet, I was like thank goodness. But still not sure how this affects memory I just have a feeling it HAS too. Cause I’ve been trying to find out why my memory sucks and then I just found out I have aphantasia and that honestly instantly made me think… wow that’s why I can’t remember things.

Robert Avila•recently•edited

Michael & Holly too I don't know if this will help anyone, but I can spell words that I use everyday but words that I only occationally write I fall back on my own so-so version of sounding-it_out. Usually that gets me close enough for the spell checker to recognize it. Names I often have to resort to a Google search. In computer programming I know clearly the nature of a function that I want to use but I have to look it up to get the correct spelling and format. Even with multiplication and division, if I don't have a calculator handy I resort to rules for figuring it out that I made up as a kid. My point is that I can remember ways of figuring things out far easier than I can remember things. They tell me that it is common with aging that remembering names, actually nouns in general is what first begins to deteriorate, while remembering how to do things persists. Well I have always been terrible at remembering names but I have always been good at figuring things out. I suspect the method memory is an entirely different creature than thing memory. in the same way narratives may be easier to recall than "facts" like dates and names, types of behavior rather than who did what when and where. I realize at this very late stage in my life that I have traded heavily variations of this type of "memory" to make up for my aphantasia and I believe closely related weakness in fact memory.