Ron Bierman

Seven or eight years ago I was reading a magazine, obviously I can't picture which one, with an article that asked readers to picture a green ring. I tried for about five minutes and saw nothing but black. I asked my wife if she could see one. She closed her eyes and a second later said, "Yes." That caused me to do some research, and I found that I was in a small minority that had no mind's eye. A little later I realized I couldn't mentally reproduce any of the other senses either. I'm an amateur musician, and can't "hear" the chords and notes in familiar music, much less the instruments. Interestingly perhaps, (I'm new here) my vocal chords and fingers do remember, so I can hum them, play them on multiple instruments and improvise on them, somehow sensing what the next note needs to be rather than hearing it in my mind. I do sometimes, not often recently,"see" when in the hypnagognic state, usually in color, sometimes black and white, never in great detail. I suspect the capability is more likely to come the more I need to sleep. I also dream and hear in color, but only remember what a dream was about, without images, and only for a few groggy seconds while waking up. I'm here because classical musicians who've never had aphantasia have told me they can hear more detail when they play back pieces mentally if they practice doing it more, so I figure I ought to be able to see a lousy green ring and hear chopsticks on a piano. I think aromas are out of the question. PS, it'd be a good idea if the "enter" directions mentioned that ⌘ is an Apple Mac command symbol and ctrl + shift is needed on a Windows PC. A button that says "Submit" is an even better idea.