Are People with Aphantasia Verbal Thinkers? Dr. Julia Simner 

I am 44 years old, and I found out less than a year ago that some people think in images. I was absolutely fascinated. I always thought that when people said that they could “see” something in their head, that it was simply a figure of speech.

I’ve just found out I’ve got aphantasia, I am a very verbal thinker, my mind is full of words all of the time. I can’t hear in my minds hear but I do dream in pictures. I’m blown away to think people can see pictures in their head!

Its great to see research on aphantasia and visualisation starting to become much more common!

I'm 50 so pleased to have found this..I have no imagery, no inner dialog, don't talk to myself at all, don't hear anything 'internally', hate reading fiction and novels as the descriptions bore me but will sit with the dictionary and read words for hours. Can't remember anything/anyone/times dates places of personal experience-until I've seen a picture of that event (eg..wedding day) then that image becomes my 'visual' memory. Had a very abusive childhood so just assumed it was another torn left over from that. Everyone I've ever met tells me they can 'see' and recall things from their past..didn't have a family of my own because I feared I was a psychopath/sociopath like my abusive father, this is honestly such a relief to have found this. Actually weeping. Thank you so much.❤

This was really interesting. I'm aphantasic and have no imagery and barely any sound but I talk to myself in my head all of the time, sometimes with 2 or 3 layers of my own voice over each other. I didn't realise a) that I almost never heard other sounds and b) that so few aphantasics seem to have an internal voice like this. Absolutely fascinating!

I have aphantasia, and I have very clear dreams. Aside from that, darkness. There was one time before I went to bed when was out camping, I closed my eyes and I saw stars. It was so vivid, and the stars didn't flicker or warp, they just stayed. It was one of the most awesome moments of my life, and I had it at age 27.

I have, as a 60+ adult, tested as autistic, and learned, just yesterday, that my black imagination is actually aphantasia. That said, as an autistic, I can remind you that many, myself included, find faces, and particularly eyes, uncomfortable to meet. My personal experience is a sort of electro-magnetic shock deep in my chest. The fact that we don’t have good facial recognition probably has a great deal to do with this syndrome. If you don’t look at a face, you’re not going to recognize it. On the other hand, in high school (USA), I tested in the top 2 percentile in the nation in mechanical aptitude, and Aced biology, vocabulary/language/spelling, music and creative arts. Math was a completely foreign concept, unless it was counting/tracking real things/money; abstract equations = hard no. I remember experiences. If asked to visualize something, an experienced memory will be recalled as a sort of peripheral thing…can’t see it directly, even as a shadow….but there’s a photo off to the side as seen out the corner of the eye while looking straight ahead and attention forward, too. I can’t really see it, but it keys the memory, with the description available. It’s really weird. The first time I tried your horse image test, the pic was off to the left. The second time I tried, the pic was high and to the right. Even weirder. Very spacial. Unless I specifically make note of a color, I tend to remember a reverse color. (I got marked down in art class for getting the color wheel backwards. Tbh, I didn’t know, or see why, the direction mattered. 😂) Red becomes cyan, or blue or green. Yellow becomes purple. Etc. I see the burnout color last, I think, and that’s what is retained in my memory. My eyes are weird, though. I have astigmatism, seeing 5 overlapping images (bowling alley experience-1 pin with eye glasses removed=5 pin images). I have problems with heights/elevations, as my eyes constantly attempt to measure distance, like a camera autofocus malfunctioning because of mist, or something. This constant adjusting causes me vertigo. All that to say I used to think all my imagery problems were due to my eye issues. I very seldom remember dreaming. If I do get any images, it’s usually triggered by a chemical intolerance. Ibuprofen, acetaminophen, and prescription pain relievers, trigger a nightmare - singular - from which I can fight awake, but as soon as I go back to sleep, the nightmare starts right back up from where it left off. Every. Time. I prefer aspirin. Yeah. So, I can hallucinate when it’s chemically induced by specific chemicals relating to pain, or pain obstruction, but aspirin is okay. Liver? Does that mean anything? Also, my body works hard to remove/counteract these chemicals. Novocaine gets blocked, requiring triple application before “taking”, and any attempt to redirect my body’s attention to other pursuits, such as moving, results in “the shakes”, as if shivering in the cold. Again, pain/obstruction/liver(?) related. 🤷‍♀️ I can tell you about attending a ceremony wherein my two sons were given Good Citizenship Awards, but I can’t tell you what I wore. It wasn’t important, what I wore. What was important was my boys being recognized for doing a good thing. I don’t even remember what they wore! 😂

I have Aphantasia and only see black when my eyes are shut. However, I do have an active imagination conceptually. If I had taken that test for recalling event dates, I would have cried of embarrassment. I cannot seem to remember those things. I am an introvert. I have running internal dialogue but don’t actually hear sounds in my mind. I think in words and descriptions, but it is thinking of them being said rather than hearing them said. If I try to hear a bell, I just think, “tingalingaling.” I have a *terrible* sense of direction. I am very sensory, a highly sensitive person. I remember details about certain things, but there are whole years of my childhood that I cannot recall one memory from. It fascinates me how different people experience the world!

I just discovered I have aphantasia yesterday and it blew my mind. But your question on how we think got me thinking, lol. I find it hard to formulate my thoughts into words, and I'd hypothesize that that is because our thoughts are indeed more abstract. Yes, iconic also, but mostly abstract. Well, at least that's my observation of my own thoughts. I catch myself thinking verbally, in a kind of monologue sometimes, but mostly that results in the same phenomena I experience when reading books. I skip alot of stuff because alot of the verbal stuff is just unnecessary filler words. I can think faster than I can formulate words and as such it feels very abstract. It's more like a giant Mindmap of icons and symbols, but nothing is at all visual. It's a computer without a screen. Operated in the dark. When I never use a screen, I never learn to output the inner workings. As such I struggle with that alot sometimes. Articulating myself has always been a struggle. And when I speak I have alot of pauses and cut off sentences because I'm not used to formulating full sentences. It's very abstract. Man I still can't get over the fact that people can visualize things in their mind. I'm completely blown away at what I'm missing out on haha. I recently stumbled upon AI-based image generation software and was obsessed. Still am. Because for the first time in probably forever I can visualize my ideas. Albeit very slow and limited, because the software itself is very slow and limited. But it's like being able to see for the first time.

I was in my mid 40s when I first saw an internal mental image. I was in group meditation and a tree popped into my mind. I cried out - I thought it was some kind of enlightenment superpower! I excitedly told the group I'd seen a picture in my head, they looked at me as if I was insane and didn't invite me back 😅. Aphantasia's effect on meditation and psychedelic experiences has become a fascination for me. Thanks for the video!

Most of the time I have nothing going on in my head 🤭 I can happily sit for ages just listening to nature without thinking of anything. I’m very “in the moment” since I don’t daydream. I believe this makes me an astute driver. My hubby who is not aphantasic, lives in a dream world and often stops or hesitates at green lights. I had a traumatic childhood and see aphantasia as a blessing since I would hate to visually recall past incidents.

I have 0 mental imagery. I liken the aphantasia as a computer without a monitor (like a server). It can be accessed, it has memory, it can even output graphics, but theres no display to see.

As an aphantasic, I have non-visual spatial relatiionships in my mind. I can spell because the words look right or wrong. I can read upside down or in mirror image almost as easily as normal orientation. Given a musical note, it may arrive unbidden, I can recall a song with words too most of the time, and I can draw because the marks on the paper are in the correct proportion to the object i wish to reproduce. I need to write or talk to think, although I can think silently, but not for long. As a child I was bad at writing since the thoughts came too fast to keep up with writing them down, and I would often forget what I wanted to say. I did not realize the condition affected me until my late 60s.

One is the test on autobiographical memory: When people ask me, what happened in your 7th, 14th or 21st year of life, I can list individual events. But I often only know as much about it as I know about things in my first year of life: I was born in place X by woman Y; I was baptised in church Z, and so on. So I know about the 7th year of my life when I started school and thanks to photos I know what my Schultüte (large cornet of cardboard filled with sweets and little presents given to children in Germany on their first day at school) looked like. But I have no actual memory of that day. Sometimes I only know a few facts about events and often these are not original memories but generated with the help of photos.

I'm 63 and discovered I have Aphantasia only a year ago. I have zero mental images except for a few faint images representing some very strong memories. I do have sound, and I am very much a verbal thinker. I have a constant internal dialogue, and I think by applying verbal logic and reasoning in my head. I cannot describe a scene or person in any detail even if I just saw them minutes before UNLESS I made a conscious effort to verbally note their features. For example, I would not be able to tell you what colour the eyes of a person I just met unless I made a mental note of it. I could not describe my wife's or my parent's faces to you. Again, I have a hard time associating names with faces unless I make a conscious effort to remember. The same goes for when we went to visit houses. At the end of the day, my wife would ask me about the house with the pink kitchen, for example, and I could not remember. My wife can also go to a store and buy something that perfectly matches the colour of our sofa or something. I couldn't do that to save my life, even though I am well-colour-coordinated. I am highly analytical and logic-driven, and most people who know me describe me as highly intelligent. My first career was as an Air Force pilot, and my second as a successful Software Engineer. I do not feel mentally deficient in any way except, perhaps, for emotional intelligence. I always thought that people talking about mental images were exaggerating, so I was stunned when I first read about Aphantasia.

So does that mean that people who don’t have aphantasia can close their eyes and see a vivid picture as though their eyes are open? I find that impossible to believe. How did I get so old and not realise it?

I can't remember ever to have mental imagery. I didn't even learn that "mental images" were a real thing until 2019. And that was a fun time in our house, as I went from my husband to my three children - repeatedly - asking about their ability to "actually SEE an image in your mind... like SEE it? Not just 'imagine' it, but SEE it???" Come to find out, both my daughter and I are complete aphantasia. Total blackness. No imagery at all. When I was 15, I decided I wanted to be an author. That was my life dream. I struggled for decades on why what worked for others did not work for me. Ironically, I learned about aphantasia in a Nanowrimo writers group in 2019... And, even more ironic, my daughter is artistically inclined, as well. She loves to draw. She's been drawing since she could hold a pen. Neither of us lack creativity or an imagination. But, we don't have "images" or pictures. I don't "hear" voices of my characters. I can't speak for my daughter, as she has her own process, I'm sure. But, my memories, of my life... are tied to emotions. I am 100% an "out of sight, out of mind" person. Once something triggers the memory, I can recall it fair enough. The stronger an emotion to that memory is, the stronger I can recall it. I do dream in images, weirdly enough. My daughter, too. Though mine sound like they are clearer than hers. I can see things in my dreams, as they look in real life, but it's not LIKE real life in the sense that I don't see the ENTIRE scene. Only what my mind is focusing on. And people - even people I know and dream about, like my husband and kids - are never more than an emotion I'm seeing. I'll "see" an person there - no face, just an impression, but my heart will know who it is. And I've never had "bad dreams"... not how others describe it. I've never dreamed of a monster, or a weird morphing type dream. My bad dreams are when I'd dream my middle son was crossing traffic and got his by a car, or my oldest got kicked by a donkey and crushed his bones. Haunted houses are a big "bad dream" for me but I never even "see" the ghost or anything, it's only what I "feel" inside the house. I have sit down, in the last year or so, and really focused on trying to draw up an image. And I did have semi success, in the fact that I was able to vaguely pull up the corner of a incredibly ornate fireplace. No idea WHY a fireplace is what my mind wanted to draw up. But it's too mentally taxing to sit at that level of concertation, so I haven't focused on it. I have no problems with me - as I am. I also have to wonder how "rare" it truly is. I did not learn I was aphantasia until I was 44. And would have went my whole life without know if I had been ideally curious what an "aphantasia writer" was. While I do agree, we are the minority - for sure - I have to wonder how "rare" since in a family of 6, 2 of us are aphantasia (1/3 of us) and if aphantasia is hereditary. Just a lot of unanswered questions. I've went my whole life speaking and behaving as everyone else, "You have to imagine it." "Imagine you are on a beach..." That's what everyone says... I just always thought it was "hypothetical" and I have "imagine" all day... there is nothing wrong with my imagination. It is just a black screen. (My husband and I have went down the "no audio" inside my mind, too rabbit hole... lol)

30 yrs ago I heard a talk by folks from a child development center who were discussing understanding "how" your child thinks. (for developmental reasons) They ran a short "test", in which they asked us to "visualize" a cube, etc. I was shocked when they then asked what COLOR it was. My brain was saying "huh? what does color have to do with cubes?". So, I fit in a category they labeled as "conceptualizer" rather than "visualizer". I'd never heard of aphantasia until a week ago, when I took the VVIQ, and was shocked to find that most people actually "see" thoughts. I was interested in this video that they use the term "iconic". I'm assuming it's the same as "conceptual"? Now that this has become a conversation between myself and other "normal" visualizers, I think "concepts" is the way to describe how I think, but also would like to hear more about the "spatial" side of it, as I believe my clearer than normal spatial perceptions are the reason most people who know me would say I have an extremely GOOD "memory", and recall.

What I find fascinating is that people have this ability to create mental imagery and they don’t really use it at all. They dwell on the past, but don’t seem to use it to any great advantage.

I'm 56 and only recently got an autism diagnosis. I had been diagnosed as having PTSD and complex anxiety disorder, but when my brother's children and other cousins on my mother's side started getting diagnosed with ASD it spurred me on to get tested. But before this when aphantasia was coming up in comments I realised for the first time that I fit the bill. In my case I can't voluntarily create images in my heads. The only time I can almost do it is in recalling memories of things seen. It's like having a fleeting sense of an image. The exception is falling asleep. I know I'm falling asleep if I get an image in my head. And I'll sometimes have an image as I'm awakening out of a dream. But once I'm conscious I have no access to images. I love art, but could never understand why I couldn't create designs beforehand. I could take a piece of clay in my hand, or a piece of metal and just let my hands do their thing and pieces just emerge. Or I have to draw from life, but can't just draw from imagination. I'm also great at learning languages. I'm still exploring the implications of being autistic, and at times I'm at a loss to know where the differences in my processing styles come from. Is it more from autism or because of the aphantasia.

I feel seen. Finally someone who understands me.

I have very poor visual imagery, but I have a strong internal dialogue, and I could definitely "hear" a dog barking when you said. I'm also a good speller, but my facial recognition is very poor. Sometimes I fail to recognise someone I've known for years if I meet them in a different context.

I found out about Aphantasia only a couple of days ago from a colleague at work, who recently discovered he has this trait. I'd never heard of it before, but as he was describing it to me I couldn't help but think "that's me - isn't everyone like that?" I've had a sense that I think/see things slightly differently for a long time, and the thought was born from the strangest of places; the 1980s movie The Karate Kid. In the movie there's a scene where Mr. Miyagi is helping Daniel clip a Bonsai tree he gave him. Daniel doesn't know where to start, so Mr. Miyagi asks him to close his eyes and make a perfect picture in his mind, down to the last pine needle before he starts. I remember thinking this sounded like a big ask, as I was literally unable to form any kind of image in my mind when I tried. A lot of the points discussed in this presentation ring true for me. Additionally though, I find that I learn best visually. I'm not sure how common this is with Aphantasia. For instance, if someone describes a complicated concept to me I personally find it difficult to comprehend and hold all of the information in my head. This is possibly because I'm unable to build a picture in my minds eye of what's being discussed. However, if I'm shown a picture or diagram explaining that same concept, the process becomes incredibly easy. I wonder if other people with Aphantasia also learn better through visual means because their brain is unable to provide the images for them? The mind's ear is very interesting too. I don't really have one of those either, but I can recall the "concept" of the sound and I know what it sounds like, even though I can't hear it. While writing this I'm thinking of a tune in my head, but I can't "hear" that tune. I know all of the notes though, and if I tried to play it on the keyboard I'd have a good idea of whether I got it right or not by comparing it to what's in my head. It's incredibly hard to articulate or compare against the alternatives when it's all you've ever known. I'm also "in my head" a lot when I need to work out complex software problems or algorithms for work. I literally have back and forth discussions with myself, discussing the merits of one approach over another sometimes. Again, I don't know how common this is. If anyone else is like this, please let me know. I'm just starting to get some awareness of this.

I found out I was aphantasic in the middle of DMing a session and someone found a book. I said "I don't know why people say they vividly halucinate while reading" and then my player said... "Wait, can you imagine an apple?" and I can imagine an apple, but not see it, and she went to describe how she could see the apple, rotate it, split it, and we had a 20 minute conversation about how I have aphantasia having never heard the word before! I'm a life long artist, animator, I'm a terrible reader but a few books still grab me, but I have a vivid voice in my head, and when I remember dreams they're so vivid I feel like I am living them. I was 37 when I found out how different my imagination was from other peoples : )

One part that frustrates me about the iconic thinking part: There is a difference between being able to think in sounds and having a constant inner voice. I can vividly imagine voices and music, but I do not narrate my own thoughts whatsoever.

Hi. I’m 62 and have never been able to create images in my minds eye. However, occasionally, when falling asleep, or meditating, a brief one second image, often very vivid, will pop into my mind. I do dream, but the images are very vague, more a sense of movement, though again rarely a very vivid image will pop into my dreams, often startling me awake. I’ve never had any auditory imagery while awake or sleeping. I think the aphantasia extends to all five senses. As a very young child one of my parents told me to try counting sheep when I complained of not being able to fall asleep. The idea that I should see sheep would never of occurred to me. For years, whenever I couldn’t sleep, I would lie in bed with my eyes closed silently counting saying the word sheep after each number. Fortunately, just counting is tiring to a little kid. In my 20s and 30s I began to understand that I was experiencing the world differently than other people after listening to a couple of guided imagery tapes, and reading how memory champions used memory palaces to keep track of things. My question was how do they build the palace. I do think that the lack of a minds ear has been more of a learning difficulty for me. I have the worst time picking up new names, or technical terms. I often pronounce things incorrectly regardless of how many times I’ve heard the proper pronunciation. I thought your experience with the peas was interesting. If I go pick weeds in my lawn or garden, even if it’s early in the day, that night when I go to bed images of weeds will rapidly flash in my minds eye. The images are quite vivid, each lasts less than a second, they are in color (or at least various shades of green), and this will usually continue until I fall asleep. This has happened to me many times, and weed picking is the only activity I’ve found to ever elicit this response. It use to scare me a bit, but it’s happened so often by this point in my life that I just lay there and relax and eventually I fall asleep. Weird.

Thank you for enlightening the world on aphantasia. I can see from your study, aphants do not all fit neatly into groups. I am extroverted and talk a lot in real life and in my head. I am also left handed, which I think influences verbal skills. I also put more weight on emotional connections, as I "feel" the world in my mind (as opposed to seeing or hearing it) and can often know how others feel, before they even do. I now get why my ability to "just know" winds others up, they can't do what I do and I can't answer explaining how I know what I know a lot of the time, especially where instinct and intuition are concerned, I can get these feelings very strongly. They "burn" in my mind, even though my mind has no concept of temperature (like it doesn't conceive imagery)

I'm a doctor and I only recently learned of this and that I have it, can't believe it's not common! I always assumed it was the other way around. Interestingly I might have wrongly deducted this due to photographic memory not being common, and I have quite good memory, I've even been asked if I possess photographic memory, but I'm highly aphantasic.

Thanks for making this! I have aphantasia. I can recall visual images from memory in about a 3 on your scale, but cannot conjure them. You’re totally right! I have no mind’s ear! I don’t have any inner voice, which is why I end up talking out loud to myself occasionally when I can’t afford to get distracted by my surroundings.

I'm 37 and just found out I am like this. I see extremely dim, squidgy, outlined images in general; I cannot recall faces, they are pixelated, but I can tell you the "metadata" of what a person looks like. I can though recall a face if I think of a photo of the face. My realtime senses are all quite good. My audio recall is, I think, good (I'm a lifelong musician and found learning by ear extremely easy). I don't have taste or smell recall, but I remember the data of what I like and enjoy doing those sense activities in a routine way, because it's the only way I can really recall the sense data. I have a LOT of touch input, like I have an inner sense of touch. Like there are hands on my heart. It's like I do not store sense data, just my emotional reaction and thoughts about that data. I have really good spatial memory and sense. I'm ENFP, always attributed my crappy relationship to my senses as being very, very high intuitive and low sensing. I'd describe it like my realtime vision is 20/20 but ambient. I'm not attaching as many meaning cues to sight memories. I have very, very, very acute and tight links between sound, touch and emotional memory. I have almost no emotional connection to visual memory. When my parents divorced and took down my childhood photos it was devastating, the worst part (and I have an ace score of 9/10) ... because it was like they were literally erasing my childhood, my life, my existence before age 8. I know I lived obviously but I can hardly recall any specifics or images. I found out they both saved all the photos in their respective basements and wept when i saw the photos again ... my whole life came back to me. I see my memories in 3rd person, behind my head like one of those birds-eye views in an arcade rally game. Learning is like building with lego in the dark. Strategy is like playing battleship, lights and touch connections.

Just realized people see actual images! Blows my mind! To me, it's like on a computer, I don't see the image but the programming that creates the picture. Its like the program runs through my brain, so I know what the image looks like.

I hope that researchers consider the impact of Aphantasia on guided meditation or using imagery to create a “safe space” etc. I think people should be screened for aphantasia if they aren’t finding guided imagery useful & other strategies should be explored

When people ask me how I think without the ability to picture things, I don't understand the question. I need the ability to visualize to think as much as I need the ability to read sheet music to walk.

Splendid. Thank you, Dr. Simner.

I recently realized people actually have pictures in their minds. I do not. Lived 77 yrs believing minds eye was metaphorical . Today I am thinking everyone else is limited by pictures in their minds. I am limited by nothing, no societal accepted pictures. Memory seems better on subjects I feel connection, psychology, animals, fashion. In my past I was good at decorating living space but realized I was good at moving existing things around ;not so good at imagining decorating an empty space. Have been an introvert as I don’t converse well. Since this categorization is new to me at 77 I don’t feel I lacked in my youth. No reason to meditate as I got tired of black. Somewhat fascinated by other’s ability to picture in mind. What is that like ?

Thank you for this! I've been aware I am aphantasic for about 2 years but have always been fascinated how people think. Although I love learning languages I noticed many years ago that I do not think in language, even for complex philosophical questions. When I have asked other people how they cogitate such involved concepts, the majority state they use words inside their minds. I tend to move through quite abstract concepts at breakneck speed, often alighting upon a conclusion in a split second. Even checking and double-checking my results is very rapid. If I deliberately use verbal stepping stones, it takes longer. My learning preference is visual-kinaesthetic, and I need a fair amount of repetition. Once I get the desired lesson internalised I find I can then improvise and tweak things within it very easily. Although my mind's eye is a rather featureless haze, I do occasionally have extremely vivid dreams, and have had a handful of instances where I have become aware I am dreaming and then try to experiment with altering the dream. For example, I enjoy trying to fly in dreams or try placing my arm inside what appears to be a solid object in the dream. I light-heartedly consider myself as a failed polymath, as I seem to be interested in a multitude of subjects but prefer to be a participant in these rather than an audience member.

I am very definitely a verbal thinker. I "hear" in my head when thinking or reading, and have a extremely strong association for "thinking" = "language" to the point I have a very hard time accepting any "non-verbal" processing as "thinking". "Visual thinking" = imagining. (I don't have any particularly strong association between "imagination" and "creativity", which some obviously do.) While I have very limited mental imagery, I do have a very strong spatial sense, but when exploring or playing with a mental spatial model I do not apply either of those labels.

I talk to myself, when I want to verbalise my thoughts. But in my head there is no voice, if that makes sense. The thoughts just exist. Out loud, when I talk, is the only time I can have an actual conversation as my mind does not have that conversation.

I always have the radio playing in my head. Right now, it's Olivia Newton John's "Have You Ever Been". It is calming to me and being AuDHD, repetition is soothing. My mental imagery seems to come from memory.

That’s fantastic. Oddly, I can’t visualize anything, but I have an extremely strong/persistent inner dialog. (Most of my dreams are narrated). Other than that I’m guessing I fall into the middle of the pack as far as the characteristics you mentioned. Great talk and thank you for sharing.

I think the autobiographical memory test should have had a much larger time allotment for each event. Like, if I only had 90 seconds to describe a specific camping trip I took 6 years ago, I would probably just give some facts about where we went, how far we had to walk on the trail to get to the campsite, how cold it was, and that it was a fun time with friends -- all of which I believe an aphantasiac would have no issue recalling, as they're bits of data you can consciously remember without needing to refer to a mental image -- I think anyone could cut out the proverbial visual middle-man in that case. Given a longer time to describe it, on the other hand, I would be able to walk you through the day from my point of view: the layout of the campsite, the fire and how it changed throughout the night, the silty gray sand at the creek's bank, the ginkgo growing under the laurels next to the clearing, the trees and their unique characteristics, and how all of those played into the events of the evening and the emotions and smells associated with them. Not because I took note of and can recall those facts in a discrete format, but because I can play back the day like a video in my mind and describe things just by watching that 'replay'. The potentially interesting results of a longer test like that being if the aphantasiacs are able to walk through events in a similar manner, minus the visualization. What would that mean? Are they taking in data in a similarly deep manner, but simply unable to reverse that data into a visual image; instead just accessing the data itself? To use the metaphor of "cutting out the proverbial visual middle-man" again: a picture is worth a thousand words, but instead of getting the picture, they just get the thousand words. Something like that.

I have never been able to create visual images in my head. But I do think in words. I do have really loud inner monologues though. Sometimes it gets too loud that I get confuse and I actually answer out loud. I do sing and I can play musical instruments but I suck at reading music/music sheets so I learn songs and music, in general, by ear. I can also sing acapella because I can hear the melody of the song in my head. So I definitely can hear sounds in my mind's ear but here's the catch: Every sound I can hear in my mind's ear are all in my voice. So for me to be able to remember a song or a piece of music I first have to hear myself sing it out loud or hum the music out loud. Sometimes, when I sing a song multiple times, I can actually hear musical accompaniments in my head but of course my voice is still and had to be there. That's why I have a hard time tuning musical instruments without the help of a tuner. If I don't have a tuner, I play an entire song that's very, very familiar to me and just listen for off-sounding keys or strings and adjust it until it sounds perfect to me. Even for different sounds, like animal sounds, I can only hear it in my head if it's in my voice. So for me to be able to hear the sound of a screeching pig in my head, I've realized that at some point in my life, I must have imitated the sound of a screeching pig out loud. 😂

Wonderfully presented and as far as I can ascertain, solid evidence and rationale. I am myself a ‘type 1’ RE the initial slide and have been all my life (to my knowledge). Much of this presentation aligns with my personal experiences, I would also like to share that I score persistently high on the AQ (avg= 45), though the AQ featured heavily in my dissertation so I’m somewhat primed to ‘know the right answers’. I wrote this before the section RE ASD traits. That said, I also scored highly 20 years ago before I’d even thought about completing a degree. Thank you for an engaging presentation, you are most appreciated.

Very interesting! I realised just a few months ago that I have Aphantasia...and now after watching this video I find out I also don't have audio! I do struggle very much with recall about my life (this kind of make's my life feel shorter) which offends people close to me who have strong memories that include me. Contrary to this video, I have a very strong internal voice...much to the detriment of my sleep! Lol I am almost constantly hearing my internal dialogue. Surely there must be an evolutionary adaptation for Aphantasia?? I've heard that we suffer less from PTSD as obviously the visceral recall of images, sounds and emotions play a significant role in PTSD. I hope there are lot's more studies to follow.

Aged 61 and only just realized that this is a "thing". As far as I knew, everyone was like me, with maybe the odd freak or two here and there who claimed they coould actually "see" a thing in their mind's eye. I am totally unsurprised that you didn't really find any deficits in other fields because I have gone through life with excellent verbal communication skills and have never felt I was short on any of the abilities you have mentioned. I dream in full colour, and there is more often than not a musical soundtrack to accompany this - so much so that, when I wake up, I am keenly aware that the music has stopped, as if someone has turned off the player (I'm also a fairly good keyboard player). Always had a bit of a problem with memorizing faces though. Fascinating topic.

There has been some recent research in Australia that demonstrated pupil dilation responses based on level of internal non-visual concentration in a afantasiacs. When conceptualizing a basic dark or light object there is no response like a normal person who is visualizing the same thing, but conceptualizing more complicated objects then caused people dilation like a normal population. It's an early study with a small sample, but they took it as proof that people with a afantasia are trying to visualize but can only manage a concept. I'm in a aphantasiac, and I wouldn't describe my thought as anything but verbal. I'm constantly talking in my own head. To myself, holding hypothetical conversations with people I know to work through issues etc. My greatest difficulty in falling asleep is stopping the internal monologue. I have found that simply saying the words "in" and "out" as I breathe stretched to the length of the breath helps me relax enough to fall asleep.

great presentation, very useful for someone with this condition, many thanks

An amazing bit of info thank you, at 51 I am just realizing that I may have this Aphantasia thingy. Absolutely felt like I took a huge shot of sugar the other day when I literally fell into this and started to research it, to the point that I have forwarded this on to my doctor like somebody who has had an eureka moment. From here I see him on the 30th, but not sure if I will be taken seriously. He is only a GP and here in Canada it is near impossible to see anyone in the mind sciences that even if he does want to further my gut feeling, I'd likely be waiting years to see anyone.

Thank you Dr Simnur, most enlightening. Incidentally I’ve managed very nicely for 80 years without a trampoline!

I never heard of this until lately. I always thought I thought in concepts not pictures. I remember thinking in pictures when I was five or six. I have poor facial recognition. I remember voices and music well. I have always been a bookworm and loved to draw. I have good color memory. I just never knew people actually "saw" and "heard' things in their mind. It is hard for me to understand doing. I just thought as you matured you thought more efficiently. I have a terrible memory for my life events but I can remember world events well. Life events seem linked to emotions. Now in my 70's I learn it is Aphantasia and not practice thinking.

I think that it aphantasia is far more common than estimated. After I found out about it, I questioned friends, neighbors, casual contacts...clearly not on the level of a "study, survey, etc." but almost everyone who I mentioned it to, said that they also could not visualize. I now know of more people who do have the condition than I do know people who can visualize imagery.

I'm an Aphantastic , Twice Exceptional Neurodivergent and I can say 1000% I am a verbal thinker. Constant voice, always conversation in my head. Trying to think things out and analyze. Think of it this way; If you can call a mental image, and an image is worth 1000 words, then what would I have in my head for the same image? Well, I could tell you the physical characteristics WHEN PROMPTED. But I don't have the ability to assemble them into an image. Basically, I have a list of parameters akin to computer code that are as yet undefined, until they are called for. So, for my brain, the Analytical portion comes first. Break it down into however finite detail you want, and describe it. This is why planning is so hard. Also why starting ANY project is hard. Neurotypical people usually start with an image, then pull detail from it and go from there. They have a starting point. Something to reference that is assembled. Now start with no image, and just a list of characteristics, whose details are undefined until you ask for them ( Schrodinger' specification I suppose lol) . Remember now, 1000 words. Where do you start? how do you assemble them into something cohesive? How do the characteristics fit together? Suddenly " A WILD THOUGHT APPEARS! " HEY look; A distraction brought to you by our good friends over at the ASD spectrum. No doubt, a distraction that will provide a dopamine hit instead of just verbal gymnastics in my head to try and figure out WHERE to start this project. A venture that gives my ADHD brain NO dopamine. The two things are very closely related tho, Aphantasia and 'Attention Deficit" Your 'Minds eye" as it were, is an executive function of the brain. Executive function impairment has to do with the different segments of your brain talking to each other. As such, someone who exhibits 1 executive function that is impaired will always have multiple. They are a SET of functions , that rely on input from each other. This courtesy of the Weill Institute for Neuroscience at USCF. : Damage to the executive function system often leads to: Difficulty organizing Difficulty in planning and initiation (getting started) Inability to multitask Difficulty with verbal fluency Trouble planning for the future Difficulty processing, storing, and/or retrieving information Mood swings Lack of concern for people and animals Loss of interest in activities Socially inappropriate behavior Inability to learn from consequences from past actions Difficulty with abstract concepts (the inability to make the leap from the symbolic to the real world) Unawareness or denial that their behavior is a problem So, How can one plan for the future, when they can't visualize it? Where to start? It all goes to explain why I favoured language as much as I did growing up. I loved new words. I had a vocabulary leaps and bounds ahead of my peers. My children benefited from that for sure. Also explains why I am where I am.

Smell and emotion is what I bring up in my memories strongly. I can read with much pleasure because I can feel the emotions and my other senses are feeling, just not my vision. I lived in the moment as a child and have always been very empathetic. I can listen to people because I can feel their emotions so strongly. I became a nurse as an adult.As a mom, I am totally into hearing all about my children’s days and experiences because all my senses kick in except my visual. I love seeing pictures because it fills in that sense for me.I have a huge verbal dialogue in my head just with myself and have always loved to speak out loud to myself or others. To learn, I need to see it and do it, and if it is not a concrete subject (math concepts) I struggle because I cannot see it. I had a severe concussion at the age of 7, but do not recall visualizing before that.

When my family ask me where something is, I very often can't tell them. I know where it is, but the knowledge seems to be stored in my muscle memory. I have to walk to the correct room, and bend or reach or turn around to wherever the thing should be, and there it is! I may not even be able to say what room it is, I have to follow my muscle memory. I also have very, very good short term memory for audio input. If I say a phone number out loud, I'll be able to recite it five or ten minutes later without effort. But if I just look at it, I'm lucky if I remember two digits. And I talk to myself out loud ABSOLUTELY ALL THE TIME.

This distinction between iconic and abstract is very subtle. In a conversation, I have a sense for how the other person feels and thinks. It's hard to tell how this realization comes about and changes or what exactly it is, as the mind doesn't provide an explicit affordance in a form of articulate modal patterns. Still, somehow I can tell the conversation took place and get an impression of its potential impact on the future. I would look at "symptoms" of an ongoing emotional ebb and flow as a gateway to "iconic non-imagery".

Love this video, just discovered I have Aphantasia yesterday and my mind is blown (in the good way). I want to point out something in the video, and it is that all "ways" of thinking were either visual, spatial, or verbal. Have there been studies of something like "kinetic" thinking? I say this because with the question "How many windows are in your house/apartment?" My process of thinking is something along the lines as if I'm a black fog of static moving through a black space with objects that are black on a black backdrop (I definitely can't see anything) where I know if the space has a window or not. I then roll/glide to a different room until I cover all the rooms (No teleportation from room to room). I was a CrossFit trainer and when I think of movements like a clean or snatch I move in my mind and experience the weight and how my body feels going through the motion but I never see myself doing the movement. I am a software architect now and I build very complex distributed systems that I can "map" in my mind, but when I imagine their interactions or what happens I feel myself again as a black fog of static moving through a series of pipes/circuits and the fog gets transformed and moved at different steps until it comes out the other side. When I can't figure an idea out, it feels as if there is another black fog of static blocking my path, when I solve it I feel like I can move unhindered through the pipe/circuit and it feels so satisfying. I imagine processes not by visualizing flowcharts but I feel as if I'm a mutable entity moving through "something" that represents the process and how it changes me if that makes any sense. PS I only create visual aids so others can understand a system architecture with better ease whereas my colleagues make visual aids for their own understanding and present them just as a byproduct. On the flip side, I do very heavy text/narration documentation of everything for myself but I never create a visual aid in this process.

Whenever asked to visualise something, I just imagine it instead. I've found that my imagination, is as good, and sometimes far better than most people's visualisations. I spend a lot of time in my imagination, playing with concepts, designs and scenarios, and yet my mind's eye is blind, and my mind's ear completely deaf. I have been thinking about this for my entire adult life, ever since I first found out, as a teen, that when others were talking about seeing something in their heads, it wasn't a metaphor. I still haven't worked out how my mind thinks, but it sure does a lot of it. Sitting and thinking is one of my favourite pastimes . . .

I just found out about the no inner ear issue! I've just realised, whenever I recall music or sounds in my head it's just me recreating them poorly in my internal voice. Like if I think of a dog barking it's just myself saying woof, or if it's music, I hear myself badly singing the words or humming the tune, not the actual music. Even with me humming a song in my head it's very flat with no vibrancy.

I am 50 years old and I just realized people can think in pictures! I just have complete darkness.

i'm 42 and i have it. i kind of felt like i might be "weird" as a kid because i never could do what my art teachers in elementary school were tell me - picture an apple, move it around, spin it, make it bigger... like wtf lady? 9 years ago i found the name for it only because my husband had a TBI and aphasia was written on a poster and i was like "i have that when i get migraines!" and i went to google it later and got to aphantasia instead accidently. what's incredibly weird to me, is i read tarot cards now, and THAT is the only time an image will actually pop into my head. one time it was an image of a different card in a different deck and it was so vivid!!! doesnt happen often, but i know it's spirit showing me something because i cannot do it for myself to save my life - oh and i'm a graphic designer by trade haha my husband still thinks thats an odd job for me :)

Wow! A few hours ago I happened across an old RU-vid science video about aphantasia which talked about visualizing an apple. I thought: "Of course I can do that." And then they asked what color it was... ? Like many people have mentioned, I always thought everybody was like this; that those images they talked about were metaphorical. 😁 So, of course, I went down a mad rabbit hole and eventually ended up here and much enjoyed your descriptive, well-thought-out presentation. I'm continually (and delightfully) amazed that even at the age of 76 I find out something simple that I probably should have known since I was 12. Though I know the topic is complex, it does seem like something that is simple enough to be obvious. How different we all are! Well, I'm certainly experiencing a discovery high that will be good for more than a few days. Thankyou for the effort you and your associates put into all this research. For this precise moment in time, you did it especially for me. 😸

An interesting aspect of my own ability to visualise faces (always poor) is that, the closer/more familiar I am with a person, the harder it is to visualise them. My theory is that one part my brain "proposes" images and another recognizes or filters them and that the recognition part is keener to reject images of people whose faces I know well because it is aware of more discrepancies whereas for less familar faces I suspsect that all I really have is a caricature. Possible support for this idea, in the auditory realm, comes from listening to music, My auditory recall of my own LP collection was never great but I could always tell when it was played on my brother's system because his record deck was slightly slow. He could never hear this. In summary I think that aphants may produce images but reject them before they become conscious or, in other words, "I don't know what it looks like but it's not that". A possibly related phenomenon could be that of blind sight.

Professor Simner, your experimental subjects are people with aphantasia, not people who report severely deficient autobiographical memories. It seems fairly clear (anecdotally!) that not all people with aphantasia have bad anecdotal memories. Your experiments seem to support that observation. Have you considered testing a group of people with bad autobiographical episodic memories for aphantasia? I think that be interesting, and tell us a lot about the nature of both SDAM and aphantasia.

I just learned about 3 years ago (I'm 46) that I have aphantasia, so many things make so much more sense now. I never understood guided visualizations, and I didn't think that other people could actually "see" things! Crazy. I am an introvert, but score just over 50% on introversion on the Myers Briggs test. I also cannot "hear" anything in my mind. I can recall the music and lyrics of a song I know well and can hum or sing it, but no internal sounds. Words have always been my friend and I am a poet and above average speller. I have a very poor autobiographical memory. I only remember bits and pieces of my past and not in great detail. I used to "talk to myself" in my head almost constantly (without audible sound, of course). Over the last couple of years my mind has quieted down a lot. I still have so many questions about it: What causes it? Are we born with it or do we lose the ability at a young age? Has anyone with aphantasia ever been "cured" or spontaneously been able to see in their mind at an older age? What is the relation between seeing images while awake vs asleep? Is there an ideal type of learning that is better for people with aphantasia? Interesting video, thanks. 😁

I have aphantasia and have no inner voice at all. I obviously talk to myself but don't actually hear a voice at all (I assume some people actually hear something). When I think about my wife taking or a song I like, all I have in my mind is me verbalising silently, it's really hard to explain. For a song, it's like me reading the lyrics to the right rhythm if that makes sense, I hear absolutely nothing. Imagine what a gunshot sounds like, I get nothing. Additionally, I can't imagine touch, smell, taste, or motion. Unless recalling something that really stands out in my life, I can't imagine emotions either. In general, there seems to be no emotion attached to memories at all. I can think of a serious car accident I was in or the death of a loved one and don't feel anxious or sad. It's weird. I heard someone describe aphantasia as a computer with a broken monitor. Mine is like a computer with no monitor or speakers, yet somehow it still functions.

I have aphantasia too and I'm quite glad that I do! It got multiple advantages imo.

I have profound aphantasia. I have had a career as both a writer and a graphic designer. The data here chimes with my experience; the color picker could have been more granular, to choosing shades of a single color one has seen, and I think you'd find aphantasiacs scoring highly because, while I have no mental imagery, I have extremely strong recall of visual information (not as pictures, obviously, but the ability to know what was seen). Re my autobiographical memory, I have almost none at my disposal unless I prompt it in some way, but it's not possible to put things in any order and there are entire periods blank. Instead my mind is full of knowledge of what I have read/studied, to the point where I know much more about the lives of those I study. Where I have an active surplus is auditory imagery, being able to mimic precisely others' voices, reproduce accents, etc., replay my favorite music, etc. My own experience is that my mind has stored all this visual imagery in the normal way, but there is something broken re the stage on which others view these images. I am into art and have no trouble naming pictures, but in the absence of the pictures have no ability to visualize them, just as I have no mental imagery of my own face/body. I am also laughably bad at drawing, having no more ability than an elementary school student.

I didn't know aphantasia was a thing until about a year ago, and I am 63 now. I thought references to your "minds eye" were a euphemism. I have absolute aphantasia across all senses. But also, I am not a "verbal thinker", but rather think in concepts. They have no language, form, or substance, just pure idea. My IQ was tested years ago at 185. I always new I was "different" from most people in how I think, I just never realized that I was missing a capability that was likely a contributor to the differences.

I don’t see images, but I have a constant running monologue in my head, a good memory for autobiographical events, faces and people, and I’m very verbal. I’m also good at painting images, even from my mind, but I don’t see the image…I “think” it. I also have vivid dream imagery. I just discovered what aphantasia is. I’ve always had difficulty when asked to visualize for meditation…or anything. It seems like the spectrum is much more complex. I find this fascinating, and it explains some things about myself. I wish I could visualize…didn’t know that I couldn’t until now.

I love that when I close my eyes I am in a place of dark calmness and rest. Once eyes are open my mind races analysing reality. I can read anything but have always assumed not being able to reinforce the memory of what a word looks like has left me with writing dyslexia, recognising a word when reading is a completely different process. Inability to remember faces I have always attributed to not being able to constantly revise what people look like, very embarrassing when not recognising my mother!

I didnt ever know I had aphantasia until last year age 42. I just learned today people actually hear thoughts as well. The thought is terrifying.

I just recently learned about aphantasia, and my first thought was 'how can you think about something visual without seeing it?' But, then I realized that those of us who do not have aphantasia can also think & imagine concepts that have no visual objects. Such as an 'expectation'. I have an expectation that employees will react a certain way to the upcoming changes at work. That expectation has no color, texture or shape, but I can understand it. So I don't know why non-aphants continue to not understand how an aphant can think without seeing imagery. We do it too. I think aphants have more clarity when talking about a subject because they're not distracted with unnecessary details of imagery popping up in their mind.

I'm completely aphantasic across all senses when awake but have incredibly vivid, frequently near realistic and sometimes quite lucid dreams. The feeling I get when thinking during waking hours is all the imagery is there it's just I don't have conscious access to it. It's like there's someone else in another room that's somehow passing me the bare bones facts about things silently and in the dark. I can't manipulate the sense data. I can think but I think slowly and I go wrong, lose my thread easily and have to loop back over and over. Easier if I write things down or sketch things out. Makes social interactions difficult and I dislike them.

I never knew of this but it is fascinating. I am opposite. I see so much that it is helpful to me in many ways. To have brain types like this give me pause. There are fewer introverts than extroverts. And new we learn, most people can visualize, but not all. These would be evolved characteristics that helps the group survive before we emerged as a dominate species. The different brain qualities would create different perceptions in a group that needs to see more than one person alone can see. Hmmmmm I am struck by metaphor. I use it extensively and have been frustrated at some people inability to follow my visualizing of the past. Now I think this is a window into doing things differently.

I'm just learning I'm aphantasic, but I also have really strong ADHD. I think incessantly. My mind always feels busy and cluttered with thought. I can barely see shapes or colours when trying to visualize it. Everything is blurry and dim. And I don't actually hear sounds when thinking about them. I know I'm only thinking of the sounds but I can replicate them very well in my head. I've actually learned to play songs on the piano by listening to them and finding the notes. But recalling past events of mine and what the day was like, the feelings of things I experienced, the visuals, etc is all pretty much lost on me

My aphantasia does not allow me to manipulate objects my mind. I always failed the Visual-Spatial part of Intelligence tests. I simply cannot assemble a three dimentional object in my mind. Because I do not visualize images these tests are impossible for me. This is a serious issue if you are relying on these tests as an indication of intelligence. I used to get both the highest score in my class and the lowest score on the same Iowa test of basic skills. Highest in verbal ability, lowest in math/spatial intelligence. My six grade teacher said, "if you just picked your answers randomly you should do better than this." She was perplexed.

I think that is very plausible that there is an invisible trampoline :). The recall in memory of image, touch, taste, smell and sound maybe in foreground or background with infinite combinations. Sensors are there and they are connected to the brain. If you are asked how many windows and doors where in some house or apartment you lived it maybe some years ago. You either memorized numerically for some reason or you can count from visual data. I can do a virtual tour in my mid of any old house or apartment that I lived in and I can count the windows and doors then give an answer. I do not see how else such a question can be answered unless you intentionally count and memorize this as a fact. Some that can not form a mental image still have dreams that are visual (at least that is what they claim).

I was amazed that there are people that can see images and I see nothing. One thing I do have is music running through my head all the time.

My visual mind's eye is a 1, inner ear, taste, and smell is about a 3, but I can bring back the memory of touch along my body very clearly by imagining it. I am very easily touched out and the imprint of a hug will live on my body for a long time. I can't wear turtlenecks or tight collars/necklaces because it brings back a horrible memory and I can literally feel it happening all over again. I dream in concepts, ie if I'm dreaming about driving in a car, I can't see the car but I can feel it around me and know it exists. I've never had a picture in my head and would really love to experience it at least once, preferably with my son's face as I've never seen him in my head before. I can feel the heavy weight of his body in my arms though, as real as if I was actually holding him.

The way that I would describe visualising a picture of something is more like an intuition. If I was to ask you “why” you thought of that picture and not another, you wouldn’t be able to give a fundamental answer to that question, it would regress to a statement like “because that’s what I thought of” and then retrospectively try and say why you might be influenced to think of that. So the only real difference then if you can or can’t visualise the object is each person gets the intuition, the idea so to speak, and one person colours in the intuition and the other one does not. I could imagine a coloured cube in my head with a green top and blue bottom, and rotate it, however I never see it in the way that some people suggest they do. I just know that it’s in my head, as an intuition. I keep track of it no problem. This is likely the same as someone who reports to actually see it, the difference would be they have coloured it in but it’s generated exactly the same way as someone who doesn’t see it. With that said, I find it very unusual if someone is conscious and able to generate vivid images at the same time, that sounds like psychosis. So if someone could “see” images in their head but had their eyes open, they still could walk backwards through their house while watching the face of someone else, they are using the intuition im referring to, not an actual photograph in their head that they are navigating around. If I think of a cat, I could think of a black cat, white face, sitting looking at the right towards me with orange eyes. I can think of the shape, size, fur or whatever and it is basically like looking at a blank piece of paper knowing what I’m about to draw, but it’s still blank. The same as someone who reports to see that image vividly, first they have to image it blank, have the idea of the cat and features, and then colour it in, but if they don’t colour it in, they still have the intuition of what it should look like. Otherwise their mind could not generate the image at all. Other useful information. I dream just fine as far as I’m aware, I talk a lot to myself, but if a voice ever answers back that I can’t tell the difference between reality then I’m getting some medication, I am an introvert, but I’m in social settings a lot and talk a lot. I don’t think I have a problem with memory at all outside of periods of depression (rough life). I personally think the majority of people who say they see images clearly in their head are just unable to explain what they mean by picture, otherwise I don’t know why they would ever bother watching a movie or turning the light off to go to sleep because their head would be like a carnival all the time. I’m good at predicting people, I recognise voices pretty well, I notice small changes with people, such as if they have had a hair cut or not, small changes in detail with people, I notice tone changes very well. Im terrible with names, however I place more value in what someone says rather than who says it. I’m good at “visualising” verbal debates in my head and what responses would be etc - I can imagine visual things and situations similar to daydreaming, but I don’t see any images unless I’m between the lines of lucid or not. Occasionally when I’m in bed, I can close my eyes in the dark, and only then can I create a dark image of the room and layout enough to forget if my eyes are open or not, but it has to be very very dark, then the minute I do open my eyes I can see the outlines of things and realise my eyes were closed as I suspected but I have to be exhausted and dark room.

I have aphantasia (I always thought visualizing was a figure of speech). I don't exactly thinking words all the time but rather the concepts that come before the words. For example, when you are hungry you don't have to consciously think the sentence "I am hungry", you just know. I'm also able to think and kind of a three-dimensional way; Like imagine a cube and you can throw concepts in there that float around until you reach back into that section and grab it again. I was always really good at math because of that. I could solve part of an equation than hold on to that bit while I do the rest

I'm highly aphantasic, about as extroverted as typical tests measure, and from what I can tell a highly verbal learner/thinker. I'm love poetry and I'm great at memorizing it, although learning about my aphantasia has shed light on the purported aspect of good poems called "imagery", which has always seemed absurd, and also on my general dislike of hearing poems read aloud. (I perceive them abstractly, as if they had multiple physically incompatible intonations existing at the same time.)

This was very interesting with some counterintuitive results (I thought). I don't have very clear visual recall (as I discovered talking to some artists) but I do have something, which is sort of cobbled together between words and images. I find it very hard to absorb information from graphs and images and cartoons or graphic novels, but on the other hand I have a kind of deep recall for pages of text, especially equations, but the equations and text are physically located in my mind not as images but as semantic meanings. Sometimes I search for a long time to find a partocular passage on a particular page in a book, because it is relevant, but I don't know the details, I find it by searching with google text search, with keywords which I may have recalled. Anyway --- good talk.

This was a very interesting video. I only clicked on it because I stumbled across a video yesterday about aphantasia and thought that I probably have a form of it. Your video clarified to me that I do, in fact, have aphantasia. As others have mentioned, though, mine is different than anything you mentioned. You see, I think in color and emotion.

I am not a native english speaker, but I guess, not bad in understanding,. My thoughts are usually in my native language, but sometimes some new english words are popping out from depths of my brain into my mind . It happends only when I do not know i'ts EXACT meaing in my native language, so my brain demands the answer. I found out ,that I am aphantasiastic, with all symptoms including face recognition, avoiding eye contact, but I d like to share with you my experience with dreaming. I have always had a vivid, colourful dreams, very often lucid dreams, so beautiful and detailed :lanscapes and towns , buildings so elaborated and colourfull. But I am allmost unable to imagine any object. Yet, when I am falling asleep , a blurred picture appears and than the image becomes more sharp. Almost always it is a face, a fragment of face, or an animal. In my mind I am able to trasform this obeject, just to change its 'shape , size or particular detail. Sometimes the object changes by itself. The colour of this projection is always green or light brown and it is detailed and perfect as Leonardo Da Vinchi f ace sketches. For me it is absolutelly stunning experience ,particullary becouse I am not able to imagine any object, hardly to draw an object ,so who is the author of theese marvells? For sure not me. Perhaps when we are falling asleep ,the gates to subconconsciousness open.. Maby those who do not have aphantasia have theese doors allways slightly open?

There is nothing in my mind that resembles actually seeing. My mind truly is black. I have vivid dreams and just like the lecturer here just once, I sometimes (rarely) access to very vivid imagery while I'm falling asleep. It does not happen often, but for me it has happened more than just once. The difference between having and not having mental imagery really is astounding. But my mind is not silent, on hearing side I can imagine sounds from dog barking to complex music with quite a bit of detail, even though I don't have formal education in music. Imagined sounds can be realistic but they also feel fleeting and distant / faint. I can think in words, but I would never say that my mind's content is "just words" and I don't think my inner monologue is particularly strong. I could easily accept this "iconic" thinking idea, without imagery. I have always felt that visual information is somehow very accessible for me, although there is no visual reference in my mind. I'm also doing "visual thinking" by seeing and interacting with the world. I'm quite creative and even done visual work quite a bit in my life. A lot of that work is rather iterative and "participatory" from my side, I'm shaping the world to the state I would like it to be. I'm also aware of the side of my thoughts that is rather abstract, relations, some sort of "process information", the way how associations are sparked. I've done rather well in both spatial and verbal tests. Learning from reading is easy for me. After I found that I have aphantasia (oh that sudden realisation that other people actually HAVE images in their mind, "minds eye" is not just a saying of thinking specifically about something) I have felt bit crippled, this lecture was actually a relief to listen to. I would also describe my experience in a way that I'm often very present. I'm filled with my surroundings, with what I see and sense. I do have quite a bit sensory sensitivity, to a point I have been thinking I might have some autistic traits (there might be some other evidence of that, too). I don't spend much time in my memories - not saying that I NEVER do that, but present is so vivid to me that usually it is more than enough.

I am in the range 5 shown of the horse . I also, say with an apple: I can smell, taste, feel the temptation, how solid and heavy, it's texture of its surface and how the texture if I where to bit into the apple. I do however, have a verbal component, when I think. But I can also silence my mind when I am thinking. It depends if this internal verbal thinking pattern is relevant or beneficial.

I started asking people if they think in words or pictures over 30 years ago... found it very strange that most people "think" in pictures. Seems so... wasteful. Me, words yes, but very much shortened to concepts. By way of example, I hear words when I read except for those I don't know how to pronounce. I still read it, it just goes in as a concept without sound. If I push myself, I can read without any sounds, just pure concept, and with high comprehension. Thought for me is conceptual, often keyed to language but not necessarily. These individual concepts are often very large groups of thoughts put together in a package. It works for me. I'm the problem solver, the person that people come to for ideas. I design physical objects in my head, and then build them. Designs are based on constraints... has to be this big, that strong, move this way and not that. Those intelligence test questions that ask how something would look mirrored or rotated... easy for me. I don't see the rotation, I just understand the concept of it and where things will have to end up. I write essays in my head. I write computer code in my head and have no issues stepping through that code to see how it will function... in my head. I think in systems and understand how various parts need to work together, again entirely on a conceptual basis. That's how I fix things... I understand how and why they work, and can just know what part is broken when the system fails. It's obvious. About the only thing I'd say I struggle with is moving parts in relation to other parts when designing. Sometimes I miss that one part will hit another part at some point in its range. But, for that there's CAD. I use that a lot. Oh, poetry... completely useless to me. And, oddly enough, I never got into comic books. Early on I realized I just read the words... never bothered looking at the pictures. I have read a great many books though, many genre, but never actually bothered "thinking" about what that spaceship looked like, it was all about how it worked. Oh, in my questioning about how people think... some people think in music. No idea if they've invented a word for that one yet, but it's out there. I've no idea how actually thinking in music could work... but then I'm surprised people can actually form coherent thoughts with images bouncing around in their heads all the time. Must be really hard.

One day I was thinking... I wonder what would happen if I were to interview people and asked them exactly how they "think". Like, maybe we take for granted that everyone does it the same way. That's the day I googled and learned I had aphantasia lol. That picture from the Guardian was pretty grim btw. Anyway, my daydreams are full of hope on any day! Maybe just more in concepts than pictures.

I font see images but I remember things well. I can remember exact colours but I don’t see colours. I remember colour formulas.

Thanks for making this informative video. I can relate to what you said here a lot. I have vivid imagery when I dream and can’t really imagine what it would be like to have what would seem to me the equivalent of a waking dream. I think 🤔 I get what you mean at the end. It is like having a dress pattern which you retain over time. If you want to make a dress a pattern is essential but other aspects are changeable. Depending on the context this could be a strength or weakness.

I have never seen imagery or heard voices when thinking or reading. No internal dialogue. I have often wondered if this is why I have always been able to make independent decisions for myself quickly without questioning. My brain doesn't go through all the "but what if..." dialogue - I just make a decision and move forward. I don't feel compelled to ask others' opinions and I rarely find myself wavering about any decisions. It's quite different from most of my peers, who seem to seek counsel from others to validate their own decisions. No idea if it is related, but I am curious to know if this is typical for aphantasics.

A guy on RU-vid today told me I'm not conscious and I don't think. Ironically, I _thought_ that was very rude.

I really don't relate to this. I have aphantasia but I'm a very verbal thinker. Everything is words. I can't hear in my "minds ear" either.

I have just discovered that I am Aphantasic, at age 73, and am amazed that most people can see images in their minds. I have never had this ability. My thinking is mostly by way of a silent conversation in my head though I have no difficulty reading a map or navigating by memory and do suduko or kakuro in some non verbal manner , but can't do those puzzles that ask you to choose which of several images is the mirror image of the original. Regarding the Milton tests the control group showed better autobiographic memory, but was it possible to tell how accurate these memories were ?

It's funny, I thought no one else had pictures or anything in their heads. I surprised. But I don't think it matters anything. But now I understand why I talk to myself out loud at times :D

I have never found any point of using meditation. My mind is always quiet. I fall asleep very fast as my head hits the pillow and I sleep very deep and do not wake up for thunder storms or other loud noises. I'm perfectly entertained looking at a tree swinging in the wind. No need for a plot or a story. I'm always in the present. I actually listen to what people say when they talk and do not try to impose my own imagery on them. I rarely get the feeling of having been heard by other people, though. Good conversations are rare.

I have known for the past two years that I have aphantasia. But yesterday I found out that most people are able to hear sounds coming from the mind. If I'm told to picture the ocean and listen to the waves. I'm unable to see or hear it. It's weird because I do have dreams with images and sound

I found out last week the existence of aphantasia and that I have it. It's been interesting. I'm a painter and have been drawing since I had access to pencils - so really, really young. A thought occurred to me as I watched this very interesting video: do I draw/paint because I have aphantasia? People who can conjure up an image of what they're thinking about have that image, right there, in their mind. I don't. If I want to conjure up an image, I have to do it externally. If I want to see a horse, I either have to look for a picture of one or I have to draw one. I imagine that people with good mental imagery, enjoy mental images for all sorts of things - memories, views, places, people, etc - whereas aphants don't. I think my lack of mental imagery has been compensated by a 'sense' of things. For instance, I cannot image a horse in my head, but while I draw the horse, I have a sense of a horse which means that as soon as that drawn horse looks like a horse, I know it is a horse. "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" springs to mind. When finding my way around, I cannot have a mental map of where I am going, so I use markers in my surroundings for places I have already been to and remember my way as I go, without any idea of how to get there until I find the markers. I have got lost a great many times because if a marker is gone or a road is deviated, then I'll have to hope I recognise some other feature of the landscape. So, my sense of direction is much less pronounced that my sense of things probably because location is more abstract. When painting, I very rarely copy a picture but much prefer to see what is going to happen. I recognise 'things' in the shapes I create and take it from there. I see aphantasia as an advantage for me as a painter because I am not tied to any mental image of what I am drawing or painting. I am free to go where I want with the images I produce... externally. I also write - working on a novel based on my ancestors - and I write pretty much like I paint. In the case of what I'm currently working on, I have researched extensively the people, their dates (births, marriages, etc) and looked for any documented (newspapers, for instance) events in their lives. That's the solid stuff, reality. Using that as a basis, along with geographical locations, I 'meet the people'. They are my ancestors and therefore there must be some commonalities between them and the family members I know, so I base a lot of their traits on ones I'm familiar with. I am not trying to write any great novel, just really enjoying living in the 18th century from the safety of the 21st. I mention this only because if I had mental imagery, I probably would approach writing in a very different way. I get a sense of the people in the story, not an image. If I want that, I will have to draw them - which is something I am actually considering, hahahaha! If I want to know what they're thinking, I give them conversation and find out what is going on. I lost one person for about a week. I had no idea where she went. She eventually turned up, safe and sound. I know, it sounds crazy, but it is like being in a movie. Anyway, that is my experience with a lack of mental imagery, which up until about a week ago, I did not realise actually existed. When people said stuff like 'picture this in your mind', I thought they meant 'think about this'. Wild to think that they can actually picture it! I'm not sure I would like it... I already have the occasional moment of anxiety thinking about unpleasant things and it would be a lot worse if I could actually see them.

I have aphanstasia. I cannot see or hear anything, though if I hear something if I hear it enough repeatedly (like my phone alarm) my mind will play it back to me at times it is expecting to hear it, this has been clear enough to trick me into thinking it is actually going off. I would describe myself as a verbal thinker and I do talk to myself in my mind a lot; though there are words, there is no audio.