I think of it as living in the eternal now - with few or no memories of the past, it is hard to project, accurately, into the future. Mostly, I am unable to compare past experiences with current events - but there is one odor stimulus that actually triggers a memory. When I walk by a smoker who is just lighting up, that initial smell of the cigarette beginning to catch will bring up a memory of me and my brother hiding in the hopper of a combine smoking cigarettes. I was younger than 6 (at age 6 dad moved us from Roundup to Livingston MT). We stole cigarettes from the freezer where dad kept his cigs; when we were finally caught, dad actually quit smoking to keep us from them.
A couple years ago, I forgot to eat for about 8 days (fortunately, my habitual order at the coffee shop was a bagel with a mocha). on the 8th day, walking to my coffee shop, I experienced very weird sensory stimuli - I thought I was agoraphobic. I now make sure, at the end of the day, that I have eaten something that day; since I have no autobiographical memory, I don't often remember if I ate something so I tend to eat anyway so my eating might be all day one day and nothing on another day
Very interesting; I do not think I have ever heard a song all the way through - my mind wanders about 8 bars in (hell, I don't think I have heard all the lyrics to "Wild Thing" which is one of the least complicated songs). I think I am immune to 'ear worms' bc I do not hear the music in my head
I am an aphant; I did a lot of acid in the '70s - now that I think back, I am not sure what the visuals were like (also have SDAM). That is the setup - I was in Paris many years ago and visited 'La Defense'. There was an exhibit of portraits that were ugly, really, really ugly until I looked away I saw (don't know what other word to use here) the actual painting; the artist used complementary colors on the canvas to fade those colors and allow the mind to perceive the other side of the complementary colors. Since I can not see images in my head, I have no idea how my brain produced the complementary images (I am new to aphantasia)
I have a few autobiographical memories - or they are my memories of stories told about me. I begin to doubt many of my memories - I am unable to make sensory comparisons; the smell of burning leaves does not bring up memories/emotions, I can't compare the taste of this food with the same food I ate in the past. The witness comments was spot on - I would be a horrible witness (I tried to describe a scene from a prior incident but there was no coherence or stability in the memory). I have a memory of falling down a cliff (I was about 5 and we were throwing rocks at passing cars when a police car came by and I tried to run but slipped); I have the memory of a giant jumping over cars to save me and get me to the hospital (all adults were giants at the time). To add to memory issues, my mother always changed her stories to fit the situation - she claimed she was the giant but... The HEAR&NOW comment hits me right in the eternal now. I am too old to try to recreate the acid dreams so I will probably never know how I perceived what I hallucinated, sigh
Personally, I did a whole lot of acid in the 1970s - I remember visual distortions but have no idea whether or not they were images b/c when I am not high on acid, I can't recall my hallucinations
Some aphantasia is the result of an event after being born; congenital is being born with it
Arya, I believe that the %ages mentioned are statistics rather than physical count. The first time aphantasia was noticed was in the late 1800s when, in the course of an experiment with kids, the guy noticed that about 2% of the kids he worked with could not create mental images
I have aphantasia and no executive function; I use distraction to keep myself functioning. First Person Shooters are the best distractions for me, then reading (I skip most of the adjectives, duh! - they don't add much to my reading). I sit here reading this site knowing that I have 3 years worth of taxes to finish (I will get refunds but...). I am not sure but I don't think I ever did any homework in school (I graduated 52 - that sounds good but number 53 was held back, so I was not the worst student in my senior class of 53 ). I am 76 and retired but now I have some idea of why things were so difficult for me. I have SDAM so I only have episodic memories plus I did a lot of acid in the 1970s and my dreams are action/adventure (I used to nap a lot b/c my dreams were so exciting) - I do not know if I dream in images but I do not remember them as images. The hallucinations on acid were really cool but I have no way to express them. Sigh!
I learned to recognize and name people out of spite! I worked at a place that rented out rooms (I know there is a specific name for these places but it escapes me) - we rented to EST groups (Ehrhart Seminar Training - a '70s human potential thingy). They all wore name tags so I taught myself to remember and use their names even though they didn't have their badges on and they always checked to see if they had their badges on. Otherwise, I do not retain people's name well.
As per my previous post, I did a lot of acid, mesc, 'shrooms, et c. in the '70s; I have no idea any more what/how I hallucinated. I have very vivid dreams but if they are images they do not come forward when I wake even though I often remember much of my dreams. When I was in 9th grade, I was sent to a Catholic monastery - every day at 6:00pm we knelt for an hour of prayer which was just so boring that I would stare at the second hand of the clock. I eventually was able to jump from the first 5 seconds to the end of the hour w/o any idea of the intervening time - no Idea if this is related to Aphantasia or not but now, if I am not careful, I can lose hours of the day by losing attention to what is going on. I have no idea what occurs mentally when I am 'gone' or where I go.
Tamara, I am 75 and just recently realized/learned that I have aphantasia. Now I am wondering about my years of taking acid - makes me wonder about what I saw. Since it was about 40-50 years ago, there are not much in the way of memories - but I am too old to try to revisit the experience. This kind of explains why I would forget people when they were not present (lost some girlfriends this way) - even right now, there is a woman I am interested in and I can't remember what she looks like (or I can't bring up an image of her) I can remember some of my dreams - one dream I forced myself to wake up fro, was me with my back to a cliff, standing on a ledge that was only 4"; I remember the image but can not 'see' the image - I am really confused about remembering the image but not being able to see it. This is all very confusing, sigh