David Metcalfe

Like many here, the notion of Aphantasia was a complete surprise to me. I'm 59 and learned of it a few days ago via a pod cast. Many subsequent discussions with my wife mainly took the form of "What, really, you *actually* see images in your mind, it is not just a turn of phrase?". "Really, you 'see' a horse?". "No, seriously....all I get is black and some blotches of gray". Then it progressed to "wait, can you actually hear music?". "How about smells....". I have none of the above. Well, bummer. After disbelief passed, I went through "well, maybe I'm just interpreting what I (don't) see wrongly". But as I sometimes wake at 2am with dream images still floating through my head, that *are* actual images not blobby nothingness -- albeit not ones under my control -- I realized that if this is indeed what other see, then yes, I am missing out on a whole waking world of visualization, and other sensory options. Double bummer. My first thought was to let it go and not delve deeper as my life has been pretty good thus far (family, career -- I'm now retired --, etc) without these capabilities. But I keep getting sucked into trying to learn more. I mean, you find out everyone else on the street has a color TV and you just have B&W and well, it irked me. And for a better analogy, everyone else has a color TV and I have a black and white that I can't plug in. And the radio only picks up static to boot.... So I decided to engage a bit more and keep reading the research -- and I really appreciate forums such as this! To see where it takes me. So thank you to Tom and everyone involved. Currently, I'm leaning more towards being fascinated by the insight and hope I can learn and grow from it, although I do admit to being on edge of depressive, or envious, jealous thoughts that I hope I can keep in check.