Sandra Douglas

Your experience is the closest one to mine I’ve found so far! Split second visual that fades to black but leaves behind an immersive ‘knowledge’ of the object/image/event. I seem to embed the emotions I was experiencing into that knowledge as well. Can be overwhelming if it wasn’t pleasant emotions.

Same! I get a flash of an image but it rapidly fades away to black.

I’m the same and I’m INFJ. I wonder if there’s a correlation.

An empty head sounds awful. And just to show you the other side of the coin, a full head is also awful. I ‘hear’ a low grade rumble of sounds/replayed conversations/music all the time, plus have a sense of colours/images/tastes/textures and emotions that form my memories, and these seem to play in my head constantly. Then add the real time sights, sounds and sensations on top. I think the best option would be to be in the middle.

Yes. Having read lots of these discussions yesterday I shudder to think how anyone could create a questionnaire that covers all the bases. Maybe a flow chart kind of approach would be more effective.

Yeah, I’m working on it. The more I think about it the more I become convinced that the aphantasia is partially responsible. If my memories are linked to feelings and thoughts rather than images then the natural inclination is to store them instead of releasing them. Then, of course, I get filled up with ‘emotional detritus’.

Thanks Neal. You write really well and I enjoy reading your posts. I didn’t realise that some people could see both the blackness and the void. Fascinating! I thought it would be a ‘ one or the other’ situation. I love abstract art. I love how it makes me feel. I haven’t been able to relax enough to create it myself though.