I chanced upon a radio programme last week about aphantasia and was absolutely gobsmacked to find out that most people can really visualise things! All these years I thought everyone only saw darkness when they closed their eyes. It’s blown my mind. I asked my husband what he sees and he’s the same as me but when I told him what it’s like for other people he just wasn’t bothered saying that he’d lived this long without seeing things, so what?
But he’s never spent hours in the library reading books about improving your memory or reaching your goals (book - ‘visualise yourself doing the thing you want to do’, me - ‘I am vaulting over a gate’. He hasn’t been to a yoga class or antenatal class with the relaxation bit - ‘imagine you’re on a beach with the sun shining down on you’, me - I’m on a beach and the sun is shining’ thinking I could be at home doing something. He isn’t reading a book at the moment about breathing that wants you to focus on the inside of your body (?!).
I was telling a friend about it and she says she was on that beach soaking up the sun, dipping her toes in the sea (what!). I asked her to think about a horse and when I asked her what colour it was she said it was brown. Then said, ‘ And now a white one and a black one are here.’ They’re moving! I thought maybe you might see a picture of a horse and that was it.
I can’t help but feel I must have missed out on a lot ( but then at least I’ve only just found out so have been oblivious to it till now), and wonder if I would have achieved more with my life.
On the plus side I’m not a worrier and I think maybe that’s because I’m not imagining any catastrophes.
My son moved to Canada when he was 25 ( I’m in England) and my daughter has been to far flung places on holiday and people would say to me that I must be worried about them and I would say I was because I didn’t want to seem uncaring, but really I wasn’t worried because I didn’t think of anything bad happening. That might just be me though and nothing to do with being aphantasic. Does anyone else think the same?