Yeah, diagnosed with ADHD (Inattentive) in 2018, accidentally stumbled on aphantasia a year later when i was getting frustrated while doing training in hypnotherapy! It was there that I discovered that people actually "see" (smell, feel, hear, etc) when they talk about visualising... When the facilitator asked me to describe my bathroom I could in detail but it was because I "know" where everything is, like a blind person in a familiar space. The memory issue may be more SDAM though as I have an almost (for really the want of a better word) photographic memory of events in my life, and not all of them significant. Books, movies I will recall in abstract detail without imagery.
Some fellow travellers! Diagnosed at 45 with ADHD (Inattentive) first, and along a journey of learning hypnotherapy found myself frustrated with why I couldn't visualise in the way everyone else claimed to be. In searching I stumbled across this research that affirmed I was not misunderstanding what others saw. However, the lack of pictures is not an impediment to a mind of constant streaming chatter, ideas bouncing around, the inner critic often louder - that the mind can remain chaotically busy doesn't seem to need a film reel but rather constant thoughts, coherent but lacking any known Sense to give them body. I would be very curious to understand whether this could be linked to neurodivergence, and whether it forms part of the delayed neurodevelopment that affects the prefrontal cortex or its communication with the other layers that mess up our executive function?
Yeah, diagnosed with ADHD (Inattentive) in 2018, accidentally stumbled on aphantasia a year later when i was getting frustrated while doing training in hypnotherapy! It was there that I discovered that people actually "see" (smell, feel, hear, etc) when they talk about visualising... When the facilitator asked me to describe my bathroom I could in detail but it was because I "know" where everything is, like a blind person in a familiar space. The memory issue may be more SDAM though as I have an almost (for really the want of a better word) photographic memory of events in my life, and not all of them significant. Books, movies I will recall in abstract detail without imagery.
Some fellow travellers! Diagnosed at 45 with ADHD (Inattentive) first, and along a journey of learning hypnotherapy found myself frustrated with why I couldn't visualise in the way everyone else claimed to be. In searching I stumbled across this research that affirmed I was not misunderstanding what others saw. However, the lack of pictures is not an impediment to a mind of constant streaming chatter, ideas bouncing around, the inner critic often louder - that the mind can remain chaotically busy doesn't seem to need a film reel but rather constant thoughts, coherent but lacking any known Sense to give them body. I would be very curious to understand whether this could be linked to neurodivergence, and whether it forms part of the delayed neurodevelopment that affects the prefrontal cortex or its communication with the other layers that mess up our executive function?