Christina West

It was kind of an odd situation that I realized I was unable to “visualize” things in my mind— a very good friend of mine is certified in reiki & hypnosis and when I agreed to do a session with her, she was asking me to visualize a red cardinal in my mind, as this was the area of the brain that we would be working with. I was fairly confused in her asking me to do this because I had always assumed that “picturing something in your mind” was not actually something literal that people could do. Needless to say I was unable to continue the hypnosis, but I kind of put it out of my mind & just thought it was sort of strange… lol I started asking others recently about their ability to visualize things in the mind & the reaction that I was getting from people was that they could easily see things in their minds eye & they couldn’t believe that I’m not able to form visualized thoughts. & I never have been able to, my entire life. Ive always felt quite a bit different than most people, that’s never really bothered me, but I do struggle with my other senses being very heightened & intense… especially sound for some reason. I’ve tried many times to do therapy for my sound sensitivity & nothing has ever helped. Learning of aphantasia is all very new to me so I’m still trying to really absorb all of it, but I’m also glad that I’m learning something new about myself & other people, it may open some doors to understanding it (& myself) better. I’m so thankful for this group to be able to share our stories & not feel so alone in this journey. It’s really fascinating.