How have you learned to describe aphantasia?

I often describe my aphantasia as a 'black void of nothingness'. Although this isn't exactly correct as I have an incredibly active imagination, it seems to help people understand that I don't see anything in my head and instead only conceptualise. I'm an actor and a lot of people ask me if having aphantasia hinders my ability to act, to which I respond that I think it often makes it easier. I don't need to see something in my mind's eye if I can still have a strong emorional response to the idea of it. I've been told often that I have an unusual and beautiful connections to what I'm saying in a scene and I put this down to thinking in emotions rather than images. I think it also helps me stay in the present as I don't have images to distract me from what's directly in front of me in the moment.

I first discovered I was aphantasic almost 69 years ago, aged 11, when in my first art class, the master asked everyone to draw a cow from memory. My protestations that I couldn't "see" a cow in my mind's eye fell on deaf and incredulous ears. My father's family were mostly dairy farmers, so I had been up close to cows and could describe their attributes accurately, but simply had no visual image of the animals... so drawing from memory was just impossible. I have always used this experience when trying to describe to people what it's like to experience the condition. Fortunately in my lifetime, the world has become more digital and less analogue, so aphantasia hasn't hinder my life. In fact I think it has probably aided my analytic and problem-solving capabilities. My only regret is not being able to remember what my wife and kids and grandkids look like without actually seeing them. For those no longer with us, I have to rely on photographs.

I discovered that I am a complete Aphant when I was 60. My daughter was describing a dream in great detail - I said wow sounds like you dream in HD and she replied yes, why don't you? From there came teh realisation that I don't see pictures at all. Yet I am an engineer and I 'see' flow charts, diagrams, mindmaps - I create good ones too on paper/electronically. But I realise I don't see them at all - I just have a good relationship mapping capability - I know where everything else is in relation to everything else I think - I store metadata I assume and then build what I need to from that.I can picture rooms in my house and rooms for years ago - but not as pictures, more as concepts with the details in them, the bed over there, cupboard there, etc - no colours, no drawings, just relationships.I did a two year world tour 17 years ago and I am remembering elements now - teh wide open vistas of Africa, the ball court of a Mayan temple - I can remember them, but again I think it is relationships - it certainly isn't the actual pictures in my photographs.I do think this has been a super power for me - looking back. I have often created new systems, concepts in my career that come from ;nowhere' - that far exceed what my colleagues and staff have been thinking. I think this is because they are constrained by teh diagrams they have before them - teh system maps, the architectures, etc. Whereas with no pictures, just metadata/relationships, I naturally roam wider, can 'see' (feel?) relationships that aren't already there, that maybe would be prohibited by the existing diagrams (sort of round teh back or connecting left and right edges or just off the map altogether). It is hard to describe this all as it is of course natural for me and I am having to describe it unnaturally.What I find most interesting is that for years I would describe my thoughts visually "I see this being connected to this there", etc - adopting teh natural language of others because I must have assumed everyone was teh same as me, rather than realising I was teh outlier, and using 'see' mentally meant a whole different thing!

I only recently found out about this. Even though 28 years ago during my nurse training a lecturer asked us to close our eyes visualise a corridor at the end theres a door through the door you'd see a blackboard on which you should write all negative things you feel about yourself. At the bottom you'll see a tap turn it on those negative things will disappear. Leave the room walk back along the corridor and out the other door. After the exercise I burst out laughing and the lecturer asked why are you laughing? My reply was. I didn't even find the corridor never mind the blackboard. I travelled home later believing the rest of the class had made it up to please the lecturer 😂

the best analogy I have read is....imagine just learning you are color blind....nothing was out of place until the reality hit then you realize you are missing out on a huge part of our visual existence...1/3 at least i think

Visualizers call up actual images .I have data mapped in a personal binary code which provides all the information I need to "see" that juicy crisp apple or the gleam of a freshly groomed horse.

I thought maybe if I said an abstract concept, that it would be clearer for those who do visualize to understand how I deal with things. So I told my husband, "When I say 'philosophy.' What happens? Do you see things?" He said, Yes. I see my first philosophy teacher, the classroom (he can visualize classrooms from when he was in collage?!?!?!) my first philosophy text... and more" I was completely stunned. He visualizes for an abstract concept?! Wow.. people who visualize are WEIRD! LOL!

I've only recently realized that I have aphantasia. I've been excitedly "testing" friends and family ever since. I've discovered that one of my grown children has it as well and I can tell you that she is pretty freaked out about it. In trying to explain it to others, I've run into a few difficulties, the main one being that I don't even fully understand how I retrieve information. I've been saying that I have a data bank that I draw from and I can list in my mind the traits that I recall. I'm extremely verbal and write creatively. I also hold a degree in mathematics. Occasionally a visual image will appear in my mind in quite a bit of detail, but I have no control over when and what and for how long. I do dream visually. When I was a young child I wondered how we know that we're all seeing the same things. For instance, I asked my mother, "How do we know that when I see the colour red and you see it, too, that we're seeing the same thing?" She thought it was a stupid question. But now I know that I must have been at least a little aware that I "see" things differently. I have emotional connections to colours, days of the week, months of the year. I rotate 3-D objects mentally in a kinesthetic way that I can barely explain, even to myself. I think having aphantasia helps me to get to sleep faster than my husband who has trouble letting go of the visions in his mind when he wants to rest. I'm only beginning to learn about this. I hope to have a better grasp on how I imagine things in the future.

When asked to think of the apple, I think about what I know about an apple. Round but not perfectly round. Some slightly elongated with a few indents around the top. I think of a single leaf, but I have rarely seen that leaf in place; it's just a classic apple image. When I explain my aphantasia, I say that I experience a flood of information tumbling in at one point in my brain, letting me know that I know what an apple is. I know that I have seen an apple and that I know what an apple looks like and in that knowing and remembering I don't have any regrets about not re-seeing the apple. It's not how I perceive or have ever perceived my memories. It's interesting that you mentioned the crunch and the sweetness. I think my recollection of all my senses are aphantasic--smell, hearing, touch. So, you'd have to ask me about those characteristics specifically.

No, not at all. And I read about other people, and I am sure I have it, but mine is a bit different, but I don't know how to explain it exactly. I can't 'picture' tastes, or smells, only whether or not they were pleasant.I can bring up pictures, in my minds eye, but they are fleeting. I can't hold an image, nor can I really pull up an image of something specific, like a particular year of mustang. When I think of a mustang I get a flash of a late 60's model.When I try and picture something a picture pops up, then fades almost immediately. if I concentrate I can hold it for a millisecond or tow then other pictures, or fog or swirly colors or whatever cover it, kind of like looking at a film when it melts.I think I dream fine with pictures and everything. Some very vivid.When I close my eyes to sleep I either get nothing but black (not ready to sleep) or a black background with a darker black (blue, purple) 'cloud that comes from the outer ring to the center every few seconds (reminds me of Star trek when they shoot a 'cloud' of something at another ship) Or a radar sweep circling around a dark background with slightly lighter area behind the sweep.Even though both foreground and background are dark, the moving part is even darker and makes the other part seem bright!