I have just discovered aphantasia and I’m quite sure I have it along with SDAM. I’ve always had a problem with getting lost. My explanation has always been that. I can’t hold a map in my head. I don’t visually see the route in my mind. I think this might be a combination of both not being able to see it plus not being able to remember it. Although routes do become familiar enough that I can generally find my way home although it has happened that I’ve missed my turnoff . I’ve had this issue ever since I was a kid (I am 68 now ) when I could get lost in a big building if I forgot which doorway I came in. I am wondering if this happens to anybody else and if I’m right in thinking that this is the reason why I get lost so easily.

Getting lost

1 min readByShari Morehouse

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Sebastian Beßler•recently•edited

My orientation is really bad, and I have huge problems with following travel instructions, but if I travel myself I can create verbal location anchors in my mind that can later, be used when I travel the same route again. I can somewhat use those to find my way back, but that is often flawed and very unreliable. It works way better when I create a new set of verbal anchors in my mind for the way back, that's why I most of the time take a different way when I travel there and back again. Navigating in big buildings, or buildings in general, is a issue for me and it can happen very easily that I use a different exit because I can't find the one that I used to enter again (especially in really big buildings like malls or such).

Hank Fay•recently•edited

The year is 1963 and I have the cushiest summer job ever: I get to drive a pickup truck, from the regional newspaper, to 35 or so homes each day and pick up the money from the news kids who, back in the day, delivered the paper to customers. People still read the paper to get their local news and sports news, mainly. I was filling in for the regular collectors who each got a 2-week vacation. I was told I would need a city directory to find my way. To get to 471 East Podunk St. one looked up Podunk St. on the map to get the coordinates. Each block (e.g., 121 - 243) had its own entry, in the form of the letter and number marking the map's "block" corresponding to the street's "block". So, that first morning, I climbed into the company Ford 150, looked up the first house on the route, found it on the map, and put the map down. I looked out the front of the truck, and realized I didn't know where to go. Rinse and repeat: I tried that 4 more times. With the same result. I had a choice, as I sat there perspiring -- the truck had no A/C, and I was in a desperate situation. I had no problem with going back and admitting my inability. But that would leave the company hanging, and having been raised by parents who always, without exception, "did the right thing" regardless of consequence, I couldn't leave the company hanging. So, I said to myself, I would drive on the current street and hope that I recognized when to turn left (that much I knew). And, thankfully, when I got to a certain point I "felt" the road on which to turn left. That's when I learned that the memory was there, but I couldn't access it visually -- but that it was in fact being recognized, and I could "feel" the experience of recognition. I become better and better at feeling the experience of recognition beyond words. Imagine what it would be like if you went to a psychologist and that psychologist recognized what you hadn't verbalized to him. So I was very lucky that my disability was of the variety where the image is in fact seen, but unconsciously, which then gets reflected in gut-level experience. Otherwise -- I can't imagine what I would have done. But of course, I would have done something, and it likely would have worked out. I just can't imagine it.

Neal White•recently•edited

I have aphantasia, and just discovered SDAM. I might have that too, depending how you define "vividly recall". As for maps and directions, I don't have an issue. In fact, if I draw a map to get to a place, I can usually get to the destination without actually referring to the map. That's a skill I've had to use occasionally when I've forgotten to bring the map. On the other hand, my best friend also has aphantasia and he's the most directionally-challenged person I know.

Faylene Roth•recently•edited

I'm 78 and just discovered that I was an aphant a year or two ago. I'm just now exploring what it means to who I am and why I'm the way I am. It should be interesting to learn what are the range of experiences we all have. I happen to have good spacial orientation and am pretty good at following directions as long as I'm in a place where I know the direction of north. I seem to remember directions by using common street numbers and names, not so much landmarks unless it's a major corporate name. I'm also good with left and right. My husband (who is not aphantasic) is not good with left and right.

Richard Emery•recently•edited

My fix has been to use absolute directions (NSEW) instead of right/left/up/down. That seems to be easier for me to latch onto. I only recently discovered that I had aphantasia (age 69). Up to then, I had always assumed that talking about mental pictures was just poetic license! When I explained this to my wife, she looked at me and said that now she understood better why sometimes I seemed to deliberately misunderstand her directions. She has adapted her directions to me to reflect the fact that it doesn't do much good to tell me where something is by using nearby structures, or two rights and a left...

Irma Vermeer•recently•edited

Aphantasia and a Hearing Imbalance here (affects internal GPS and orientation). Direction? What is that? Please make google maps functional inside buidings, including inside public toilets, so I can find my way back out. Been trying a new trick, I talk to myself while navigating. I remember what I said to myself and it actually seems to help despite remaining completely directionless and unable to notice if 2 routes merge later on.

Aidan Schmidt•recently•edited

I don't know much about aphantasia, but I do know that I have aphantasis and I am the most directional challenged person that I ever met.

Alice Grebanier•recently•edited

It's hard to know what traits are or are not associated with aphantasia. The most directionally challenged person I have ever known was my mother. She did not know left from right. She could get lost in her native city, New York, where the streets in most areas go in numerical or alphabetic order. She also was one of the most visual people I have ever known, and often would tell people to fix a moment in their mind by holding up their fingers to form a rectangle and taking a mental picture. I'm aphantasic, so I was hopeless at taking those mental pictures as she suggested. But my sense of direction is much better than hers ever was. But that doesn't mean there is no association. For example, the occurence of SDAM appears to overlap with aphantasia, but they are not the same thing. I am aphantasic, and my autobiographical memory is pretty good, even without visual imagery, so it's not a one-to-one correspondence.

Kristin Martin•recently•edited

I don't know whether it's aphantasia. I'm auDHD. Not only do I get lost constantly, but at 60, still can't easily discern my right and left hands (no wedding ring: sensory nightmare).

Sebastian Beßler•recently•edited

Oh yes, issues with left and right are known to me too and I often find that I have to look at my thumbs to get reminded what is left and what is right because I have a huge scar on my right thumb so I know that is the right one.

Neal White•recently•edited

I've always had trouble with left and right too. My coping skill is to imagine I'm beginning to read a book, so my eyes automatically glance to the left.

Kevin Paris•recently•edited

I’m left handed so to determine left from right I have to consciously compare the direction against my left hand. If someone is facing me I literally have to turn around to determine their left from right.