I’ve read tons of these and still have no idea if I have aphantasia or not. I can’t understand whether people just have different ways of describing what’s in their minds eye or if there’s really a fundamental difference.
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“So you can really see things in your head when your eyes are closed?”
Yeah!
“And it’s as though you’re seeing the object in front of you?”
Yeah, you don’t have that?
“So it’s like you’re really seeing it? It’s the sensation of sight?“
Well… it’s kind of different. I’m not really seeing it.
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…and around we go.
Personally, I can see images when I dream, but I don’t see anything at all if I’m conscious and closing my eyes. I can recite the qualities of an object, and this generates impressions of the object in my head, but it’s not really seeing. It’s vibe seeing.
For me, not only was the color, variety, lighting, and texture crystal clear, but I noticed that when I mentally "cut into" the apple, I could see where the pigment from the broken skin cells had been smeared by the action of the knife into the fleshy white interior of the apple. This happened "by itself", I didn't have to try to make it happen. It was at a level of crisp detail that would be difficult to see with the naked eye without holding it very close.
That was the first time I had paid attention to the exact level of detail that appears in my mental imagery, and it hadn't occurred to me before that it might be unusual. Based on what other people describe of their experience, it seems pretty clear to me that there is real variation in mental imagery, and people are not just "describing the same thing differently".
I can't _imagine_ an apple in my hand if you defined the colour, size or weight (for example, purple, 50cm diameter and 100Kg).
In my mind I am recalling a _memory_ of holding an apple in my hand - not imagining the one according to your specifications.
One example I can give is being tasked with rearranging desks in an office. I can't for the life of me _imagine_ what the desks would look like ahead of physically moving them into place.
I can make an educated guess based on their length/width but certainly not "picture" how they would look arranged without physically moving them.
It's like my brain BSODs when computing the image!
The same applies to people - I can only recall a memory of someone - not imagine them sitting on a bench in front of me. I might remember a memory of the person on _a_ bench but certainly not the one in front of me.
I can't imagine it being at all interesting to just think about it the way you are talking about it, like it would just be a sort of description of what the other person looks like, without the multifaceted sensations. Touch, smell, visuals.
And if you can't imagine it, how do you go about ever doing anything about getting it? It's like saying you want a juicy burger without imagining yourself eating it. Like a paper description of an experience, rather than a simulation of it. It doesn't seem motivating enough that you'd bother washing yourself, getting nice clothes, and going to chat with women.
The best I can do: do people with aphantasia only get aroused if the stimulus is present? Can't they not get horny just imagining things, like I imagine most people can?
Does steamy literature do anything for them? I imagine it doesn't, since if you cannot imagine things then words on a page just have no power.
In my opinion, the fact erotic literature exists is proof aphantasia is not normal. Words cannot be arousing if you cannot imagine things "in your mind's eye".
Aphantasiacs often cannot imagine sensations either (at least, my friend doesn't. He cannot imagine the smell of coffee either).