Does the aphantasic mind still store visuals when making memories?

September 1, 20241 min readByEthan Solomita

I'm curious about the distinction between whether my brain is capable of visuals yet my conscious mind finds it inaccessible, versus whether no part of my brain has access to visuals. So, for example: does my brain store visuals as part of its memories, but when the memory is triggered I am not consciously aware of the visual? My question is inspired by the realization that some of my dreams generate strong visuals of which I am consciously aware (for a few minutes after waking), but others have no visuals and I merely have a conceptual awareness of who is where. I wondered whether all my dreams have visuals, but there is a barrier that keeps my conscious mind unaware. Thanks! -- Ethan

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Kate McCaffrey•recently•edited

I have never had the ability to visualize except for some bright geometrics on LSD and while dreaming. It's just plain black in there. However, I had an experience that I think proves that it is possible to store visual memories, at least in some circumstances, even if you can't pull them up. Many many years ago I had an extremely traumatic experience. It took several months to recover from it. After that, I hardly ever thought about it. If asked, I would not have remembered the details and I certainly could not have pulled up a visual memory. But something happened a long time later that brought back the memory. I relived the entire thing, every single detail, for several months. And the past came back with a flood of pictures. I could see what everyone was wearing, people's faces, how they moved, buildings, every detail, even things like street signs. I could recall every word spoken, every smell, every physical sensation, every emotion. Especially when I was trying to fall sleep or when I was alone, the images would take over, I couldn't make them go away. They were shocking vivid. I had no experience with visualization, and I experienced panic attacks, even screaming once or twice without being aware that I was screaming. I am not an emotional person, so this was very unusual behavior for me. When I finally recovered, the details faded away and so did my ability to visualize. Life went back to normal. My takeaway from that experience is first that the ability to visualize has a downside. Also, that I seem to have a lot of visual memory stored somewhere that I can't consciously access and that is okay with me.

Sophie Bernkastel•recently•edited

Also not an expert here, I have some knowledge in neuroscience tho, so let’s see how I can explain this.. Easiest question to answer is, if you're able to remember visuals from dreams, then your REM should generally be in picture. Not always remembering dreams is normal, cause you have to wake up during REM still running for the dream to be retained into short term memory. If you’re remembering dreams that have no visuals, that could be psychological. Your conscious experience lacks the ability to see through your “minds eye”, if you feel any way about that, your subconscious will want to process it. As for the other question, we do have the ability to process and store visual information, although our neurons responsible for recall might not be able to fire strong enough impulses so the data gets lost. They don’t know it either for sure. So yes, the data is in theory there, you just can’t access it.

Robert Avila•recently•edited

As long as Julian has identified himself as definitely not an expert let me add some thoughts based on the same qualification. As I understand it the the brain does not store memories of any kind in any thing like a closet full of VHS tapes. Instead there is some sort of data disagregation process and what is stored is the ability to reconstruct something for the conscious mind to consider. Supposedly, much of what we think we are seeing everyday is reconstructed, which is why occasionally we see something we don't recognize for a moment and then we realize it is an old sweater on a chair and not the cat we no longer own. Aphantasia may have something to do with the degree or situations in which the brain can do this reconstruction process. My dreams sound a lot like yours. And thorough I have spent my life at a keyboard writing I still cannot spell with out a spell checker. But I have found this idea of memory as a disagregation/reassembly process a useful crib for thinking about what is going on in my head. But like the man said: I am not an expert.

Julian F•recently•edited

Definitely not an expert, but the ability to visualize and dream vividly but not visualize _while conscious_ is the case for some people with aphantasia. As far as all dreams having visuals, that could be the case, there is not a lot of understanding around sleep, but last I remember the consensus is that when you go into REM sleep you "always" dream, but you don't always remember what you dream. I would say that that is the case whether you have aphantasia or you don't. I have the same case you have where I dream very vividly but have aphantasia and I remember about 10x more dreams than my wife who does not have aphantasia. Sleep happens in cycles that move from light sleep, to deep sleep, to REM that happen in roughly 1.5 hour cycles during the night so roughly 5 on a good night sleep. (Cool article on sleep stages https://support.ouraring.com/hc/en-us/articles/11752397946003-Sleep-Stages) I believe if you are woken up in REM you are way likelier to remember dreams, also, you usually wake up for some period of time between cycles where you will likely remember what you were dreaming last.

Joseph Dana•recently•edited

Just a comment. I am what I consider a complete Aphantasia.. No dreams with pictures (any more), no pictures with my visualization. I can reconstruct a memory and "remember" fine details without pictures. Its like my memory is looking at a picture I cannot see. So yes, I think there is some sort of data disaggregation process and what is stored is the ability to reconstruct something for the conscious mind to consider. Otherwise there must be a a closet full of VHS tapes.