How do people with aphantasia imagine and emotionally connect with their future?

9 November 20265 replies

Hello everyone,

I am from Japan, and I recently discovered that I have aphantasia. Learning about it has helped me understand many things about myself that I had struggled to explain for years.

I cannot voluntarily visualize faces, past experiences, or future situations in my mind.

I can think about the future logically and describe possible outcomes in words. However, words alone do not make those possibilities feel real to me.

For example, many books about personal development encourage us to vividly imagine our successful future, feel the excitement of achieving our goals, and use those feelings as motivation.

I have studied these ideas seriously, but I have never been able to experience that kind of vivid mental imagery or emotional realism.

I also find it difficult to imagine situations I have never experienced before. I wonder whether being unable to visualize limits the details or possibilities I can consider.

I would love to hear about your experiences.

1. How do you imagine a future you have never experienced?

2. Can you feel excitement, anticipation, or emotional realism about that future without visual imagery?

3. If you can, what actually creates those feelings for you?

4. Have you found ways to make your future feel more real without relying on visualization?

I am especially interested in your actual experiences, rather than general advice about planning or goal-setting.

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts.

Wondered this too?

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How do people with aphantasia imagine and emotionally connect with their future?

Hitoshi

9 November 20265 replies

Hello everyone,

I am from Japan, and I recently discovered that I have aphantasia. Learning about it has helped me understand many things about myself that I had struggled to explain for years.

I cannot voluntarily visualize faces, past experiences, or future situations in my mind.

I can think about the future logically and describe possible outcomes in words. However, words alone do not make those possibilities feel real to me.

For example, many books about personal development encourage us to vividly imagine our successful future, feel the excitement of achieving our goals, and use those feelings as motivation.

I have studied these ideas seriously, but I have never been able to experience that kind of vivid mental imagery or emotional realism.

I also find it difficult to imagine situations I have never experienced before. I wonder whether being unable to visualize limits the details or possibilities I can consider.

I would love to hear about your experiences.

1. How do you imagine a future you have never experienced?

2. Can you feel excitement, anticipation, or emotional realism about that future without visual imagery?

3. If you can, what actually creates those feelings for you?

4. Have you found ways to make your future feel more real without relying on visualization?

I am especially interested in your actual experiences, rather than general advice about planning or goal-setting.

Thank you very much for sharing your thoughts.

Wondered this too?

5 replies

DC
David Clark58 minutes ago
This is quite fascinating. I am 70 years old and have just recently learned that I have aphantasia. I had to laugh a bit when Jon mentioned his boss saying he wasn't ambitious. That's me, I never realized how little ambition I've lived my life with. I was not able to visualize the future when I was younger, where I wanted to go or be. The question "Where do you see yourself in five years?" didn't make sense to me. It was always more about where I was/am. That said I've had a successful life, career and relationship-wise. It has always been more about what piques my interest and I've had many interests in my life. I can get very excited about current projects. At present I'm building a ukulele just because I thought it would be fun. I don't expect to become a professional luthier, but it gives me a good bit of joy at present and who knows where it will lead, I don't.
JD
Jon Deeks1 day ago
I learned about aphantasia 3-4 years ago, I have no visual imagery, your opening paragraphs are spot on for me too.
I would simply say I don't imagine the future like that. I was working with a performance coach for the last year and it's come to an end by mutual agreement, I think in large part because I don't/can't make (meaningful personal) goals and visualize, and so as a source of motivation it's absent. We just ran out of runway together because I wasn't identifying goals that he could support. I can have future targets for work, for output, deadlines etc. no problem, but I struggle to imagine and define goals in a personal distant future. I just don't plan goals or spend time thinking about possible future scenarios of the kind I think you're describing, certainly the kind of thing I've read in business/personal development books. I interpret my personal internal perspective as entirely in the present, I don't spend time thinking about future roles or directions or goals, only my current role and trying to do it as well as possible.
I don't feel an emotional response when trying to imagine a future event or goal either.
It doesn't make me sad or anxious though, I can now appreciate that it's just how I've always been. A couple years into my now 30 yr career just out of university, I remember a boss saying to me, "you're not very ambitious, are you?" I had no idea yet that I wasn't neurotypical, no understanding that other people did imagine future outcomes, but now in hindsight I think he was likely observing that lack of goal-making.
1. K
  karasuyama01c6dt1 day ago
  Hi Jon,
  Thank you very much for sharing your experience.
  I was surprised by how closely your experience matches my own, especially your difficulty imagining long-term personal goals and finding motivation through visualization.
  I have also spent a lot of time studying personal development and success philosophies, but I could never understand how people could vividly imagine their future and feel excited about it.
  Like you, I can set specific goals for work, but imagining my personal future and feeling emotionally connected to it is much more difficult.
  Since discovering aphantasia, I have started to understand why so many things that seemed natural to others never made sense to me.
  Your story about working with a performance coach was particularly interesting.
  May I ask one question? Have you found any other way to feel excited or motivated about your future, without relying on mental imagery?
  Thank you again. It means a lot to hear from someone who has had such similar experiences.
2. JD
  Jon Deeks11 hours ago
  Replying to karasuyama01c6dt
  You're welcome - I've learned so much from reading others' experiences here, to help me understand more about the way that I think.
  I don't mean to flip off the question, but to some extent I struggle to know how to answer it. It seems to presuppose that there is a single kind of motivation and our problem is that we don't know how to get it/find it/tap into it. But does the absence of it means a person is unmotivated? I don't feel unmotivated. From reading personal development books, I'd say I'm very intrinsically motivated - my own sense of achievement, enjoying a challenge, seeking opportunities for creativity - rather than classic extrinsic motivators like recognition, visibility, status or power. I could say that my working style means I'm not distracted in the present by my own future goals. Maybe that's a way to find the upside in the way I think?
  So I'm afraid I don't have any good suggestions for alternative routes to 'conventional' motivation, but I don't feel unmotivated. I'll admit though I don't yet know if that's just me or a characteristic of aphantasia :)
3. K
  karasuyama01c6dt11 hours ago
  Replying to Jon Deeks
  Thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences.
  Your perspective helped me realize that motivation can take many different forms.
  I was particularly interested in what you said about focusing on the present and finding satisfaction and enjoyment in what you are doing, rather than being driven by future goals.
  I also find it difficult to vividly imagine my future success, and I've often felt that traditional self-help advice about visualizing goals doesn't quite work for me.
  Your response helped me understand that being unable to visualize the future doesn't necessarily mean lacking motivation. Perhaps we simply experience motivation differently.
  I don't know whether this is a common characteristic of aphantasia, but hearing from someone with a similar perspective has been very meaningful to me.
  Thank you again for sharing your experience. I truly appreciate it.

Have a question of your own?

Ask the community what you wonder about, or share what it’s like for you.

Start a discussion

Guidelines

Be kind, and assume good faith.
Share what it’s like for you.
Ask anything you wonder about.
Help newcomers feel welcome.

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Image-Free Insights

A short note from our founder, Tom Ebeyer, every other week, plus occasional news and invitations to take part in studies. Change what you get from any email.

5 replies

DC
David Clark58 minutes ago
This is quite fascinating. I am 70 years old and have just recently learned that I have aphantasia. I had to laugh a bit when Jon mentioned his boss saying he wasn't ambitious. That's me, I never realized how little ambition I've lived my life with. I was not able to visualize the future when I was younger, where I wanted to go or be. The question "Where do you see yourself in five years?" didn't make sense to me. It was always more about where I was/am. That said I've had a successful life, career and relationship-wise. It has always been more about what piques my interest and I've had many interests in my life. I can get very excited about current projects. At present I'm building a ukulele just because I thought it would be fun. I don't expect to become a professional luthier, but it gives me a good bit of joy at present and who knows where it will lead, I don't.
JD
Jon Deeks1 day ago
I learned about aphantasia 3-4 years ago, I have no visual imagery, your opening paragraphs are spot on for me too.
I would simply say I don't imagine the future like that. I was working with a performance coach for the last year and it's come to an end by mutual agreement, I think in large part because I don't/can't make (meaningful personal) goals and visualize, and so as a source of motivation it's absent. We just ran out of runway together because I wasn't identifying goals that he could support. I can have future targets for work, for output, deadlines etc. no problem, but I struggle to imagine and define goals in a personal distant future. I just don't plan goals or spend time thinking about possible future scenarios of the kind I think you're describing, certainly the kind of thing I've read in business/personal development books. I interpret my personal internal perspective as entirely in the present, I don't spend time thinking about future roles or directions or goals, only my current role and trying to do it as well as possible.
I don't feel an emotional response when trying to imagine a future event or goal either.
It doesn't make me sad or anxious though, I can now appreciate that it's just how I've always been. A couple years into my now 30 yr career just out of university, I remember a boss saying to me, "you're not very ambitious, are you?" I had no idea yet that I wasn't neurotypical, no understanding that other people did imagine future outcomes, but now in hindsight I think he was likely observing that lack of goal-making.
1. K
  karasuyama01c6dt1 day ago
  Hi Jon,
  Thank you very much for sharing your experience.
  I was surprised by how closely your experience matches my own, especially your difficulty imagining long-term personal goals and finding motivation through visualization.
  I have also spent a lot of time studying personal development and success philosophies, but I could never understand how people could vividly imagine their future and feel excited about it.
  Like you, I can set specific goals for work, but imagining my personal future and feeling emotionally connected to it is much more difficult.
  Since discovering aphantasia, I have started to understand why so many things that seemed natural to others never made sense to me.
  Your story about working with a performance coach was particularly interesting.
  May I ask one question? Have you found any other way to feel excited or motivated about your future, without relying on mental imagery?
  Thank you again. It means a lot to hear from someone who has had such similar experiences.
2. JD
  Jon Deeks11 hours ago
  Replying to karasuyama01c6dt
  You're welcome - I've learned so much from reading others' experiences here, to help me understand more about the way that I think.
  I don't mean to flip off the question, but to some extent I struggle to know how to answer it. It seems to presuppose that there is a single kind of motivation and our problem is that we don't know how to get it/find it/tap into it. But does the absence of it means a person is unmotivated? I don't feel unmotivated. From reading personal development books, I'd say I'm very intrinsically motivated - my own sense of achievement, enjoying a challenge, seeking opportunities for creativity - rather than classic extrinsic motivators like recognition, visibility, status or power. I could say that my working style means I'm not distracted in the present by my own future goals. Maybe that's a way to find the upside in the way I think?
  So I'm afraid I don't have any good suggestions for alternative routes to 'conventional' motivation, but I don't feel unmotivated. I'll admit though I don't yet know if that's just me or a characteristic of aphantasia :)
3. K
  karasuyama01c6dt11 hours ago
  Replying to Jon Deeks
  Thank you very much for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences.
  Your perspective helped me realize that motivation can take many different forms.
  I was particularly interested in what you said about focusing on the present and finding satisfaction and enjoyment in what you are doing, rather than being driven by future goals.
  I also find it difficult to vividly imagine my future success, and I've often felt that traditional self-help advice about visualizing goals doesn't quite work for me.
  Your response helped me understand that being unable to visualize the future doesn't necessarily mean lacking motivation. Perhaps we simply experience motivation differently.
  I don't know whether this is a common characteristic of aphantasia, but hearing from someone with a similar perspective has been very meaningful to me.
  Thank you again for sharing your experience. I truly appreciate it.