I recently discovered that I had aphantasia (age 69). When I tried to explain this to some grandkids by asking them if they could see a Christmas tree in their mind, one of them (age 11 and scary smart, started using multi-syllabic words correctly by 3rd birthday), said that he couldn't see it either. Then he made what I think may be the most insightful comment on teh subject, saying that while he couldn't visualize the tree itself, he could visualize the concept of a Christmas tree. I told you he's scary smart...

I have been thinking of it like a database of pictures that somehow slowly get clumped together in the background but the only index into the database is the individual pictures. So people I see from every angle for hours upon hours (ie. Long running TV shows) I can recognise as the _character_ and might recognise in other things, but even the people I live with I never end up seeing or studying or memorising that much... Really old hand painted computer game backdrops (like original Baldur's Gate) I played so much and saw the same EXACT areas so much, that I can ALMOST bring up a picture of them in my head, but I could never do that with 3D ones because I'm not seeing the EXACT image over and over and over. People with a very specific feature (like Crispin Glover's cheekbones), I might think, "Hmmm, those are Crispin Glover's cheekbones, I wonder if this is actually him?". And I only remember his name too because it's a weird name! Voices I recognise a lot better.

Yup, me too. I feel like there have to be stored images, or else how do I recognize people or notice that they had a haircut. I just lack a "memory viewer" to replay those images. Instead, I feel like what I have is a "transcript", including descriptions of a scene and stage direction. I can examine the transcript and extract information, but I sense that this is a different process that picking a detail out of a mental image

As someone who cannot see images at all, even in dreams, I still believe that the images are stored, it is just I cannot access them without a visual prompt. One of the interesting things (albeit a bit useless) is that I can see the first 10 or 20 seconds of a movie or TV show I haven't seen in years and can them immediately tell you all about the particular episode and exactly what is going to happen. But I need the initial image to trigger the detail memory

I think that we must store visual memories because most people immediately recognize images that they have seen before. I would immediately recognize a picture of my husband, even though I can't bring his image into my mind voluntarily. I would also recognize him in a lineup of bearded men with glasses who were all about the same age, height and build. That has to mean that the image is stored somehow although I can't produce it in my mind.

The only reason I think there's actual image storage is that we dream in images. (Or at least most aphantasics do.) And although dream-logic can be nonsensical, dream images aren't complete fabrications completely unrelated to things we've actually seen in life. The dream images are bits and pieces of things we've actually seen, or at least close enough to extrapolate off of. We'd have to stock our files somehow.

I recently discovered that I had aphantasia (age 69). When I tried to explain this to some grandkids by asking them if they could see a Christmas tree in their mind, one of them (age 11 and scary smart, started using multi-syllabic words correctly by 3rd birthday), said that he couldn't see it either. Then he made what I think may be the most insightful comment on teh subject, saying that while he couldn't visualize the tree itself, he could visualize the concept of a Christmas tree. I told you he's scary smart...

I have been thinking of it like a database of pictures that somehow slowly get clumped together in the background but the only index into the database is the individual pictures. So people I see from every angle for hours upon hours (ie. Long running TV shows) I can recognise as the _character_ and might recognise in other things, but even the people I live with I never end up seeing or studying or memorising that much... Really old hand painted computer game backdrops (like original Baldur's Gate) I played so much and saw the same EXACT areas so much, that I can ALMOST bring up a picture of them in my head, but I could never do that with 3D ones because I'm not seeing the EXACT image over and over and over. People with a very specific feature (like Crispin Glover's cheekbones), I might think, "Hmmm, those are Crispin Glover's cheekbones, I wonder if this is actually him?". And I only remember his name too because it's a weird name! Voices I recognise a lot better.

Yup, me too. I feel like there have to be stored images, or else how do I recognize people or notice that they had a haircut. I just lack a "memory viewer" to replay those images. Instead, I feel like what I have is a "transcript", including descriptions of a scene and stage direction. I can examine the transcript and extract information, but I sense that this is a different process that picking a detail out of a mental image

As someone who cannot see images at all, even in dreams, I still believe that the images are stored, it is just I cannot access them without a visual prompt. One of the interesting things (albeit a bit useless) is that I can see the first 10 or 20 seconds of a movie or TV show I haven't seen in years and can them immediately tell you all about the particular episode and exactly what is going to happen. But I need the initial image to trigger the detail memory

I think that we must store visual memories because most people immediately recognize images that they have seen before. I would immediately recognize a picture of my husband, even though I can't bring his image into my mind voluntarily. I would also recognize him in a lineup of bearded men with glasses who were all about the same age, height and build. That has to mean that the image is stored somehow although I can't produce it in my mind.

The only reason I think there's actual image storage is that we dream in images. (Or at least most aphantasics do.) And although dream-logic can be nonsensical, dream images aren't complete fabrications completely unrelated to things we've actually seen in life. The dream images are bits and pieces of things we've actually seen, or at least close enough to extrapolate off of. We'd have to stock our files somehow.