Aphantasia - Could you have this little known condition too?
- Replies 19
Aphantasia: Missing my Mind’s Eye
It happened quite by accident. My husband was driving along a country road late one afternoon last year and started counting how many kangaroo were in the paddock we were passing. I told him to keep his eyes on the road and he assured me he was. “Well you can’t be if you can count the kangaroo at the same time” I said. His answer floored me. He told me he just glanced at the paddock and then looked back at the road and counted them from the mental image.
I know now that most of you will just shrug and say “so what?” but this was something I had never heard of before – a mental image? What mental image? We discussed it at length for the rest of the journey and hubby became quite proud of his “special power”, however when he mentioned it to family and friends it turned out that he wasn’t so special after all, it was actually me who was the odd one out.
A few months later he came across an article about Aphantasia , the new name given to little-known phenomena of lacking a so called “mind’s eye”. He thought it sounded like me and he was right. As I read through the test and answered the questions, hundreds of seemingly inconsequential incidents over my 60+ life span suddenly fell into place.
After my parents died I realised I was unable to visualise them and this upset me greatly. I realised that I could only remember what they looked like through photos of them. The test asked me to visualise someone I knew really well, I chose my husband – and I could not ‘see’ him. I realised that this applied to everyone I knew, whilst I can recognise them when they are in front of me, I do not have a visual image of them in my head - I could not describe them or draw them.
It explained a lot, all my life I had been accused of not paying attention to people around me because I didn’t recognise that someone I knew well had grown a beard (or shaved it off), or the girl who had just served me at the supermarket had long hair or glasses. It makes life so much simpler when they have name tags – names I can remember!
The test asked me to visualise a sunrise, being at a beach, seeing a rainbow. Unsurprisingly, this was also a total fail. I had attended many relaxation /pain management sessions in the past where this technique is an integral part of the process and I had never been able to take myself to a ‘happy place’ in my mind where I could just relax. While everyone was visualizing and relaxing I was thinking about the shopping I had to do on the way home.
My children have always laughed at me because when asked what sort of car it was I would say it was a red one or a blue one because I just don’t recognise the difference between them. An embarrassing fact borne out by the time I got into a stranger’s car mistaking it for my husband’s, which was the same colour and parked close by. I don’t know who was more shocked – me or the man whose car I got into. I had made myself comfortable, put my seat belt on and started quizzing him about tile samples he had sitting on the console before I realised my mistake. My husband (although highly amused) was astounded that I didn’t recognise that the other car was not the same make or model as ours and the inside was totally different.
I can’t visually recall events. I have watched crime shows on tv where they take a person’s memory back to a certain event to elicit small details they may have missed at the time…..like hypnotism but the person is awake. I had always assumed this was a bit of poetic licence but apparently it can be done. Even the main details elude me. Just a few months ago, the police came to the door to explain a hot water service had been dismantled and removed from the vacant home across the road. Had I seen a ute or tradesman’s van over there recently? I said I had, but then they wanted more details – what colour was it? - White (I think), did it have a canopy? – maybe, Did it have a hard top over the back or canvas? – can’t remember, did it have a name on the side? Not sure. I was really regretting ever saying yes and they were clearly thinking I hadn’t seen it at all. I won’t make that mistake again.
I can’t look at an assortment of parts and visualise how they would fit together. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a household implement or a jigsaw puzzle – I have to take each part and, by trial and error, place it in various positions til I get it right.
I can’t visualise how a house would physically look from looking at the plans. Many times while we have been renovating, my long suffering hubby would run chalk lines or tape around a room, or line up chairs to help me see how a change would look.
I can’t visualise how colours and aspects would go together in interior decorating. I’ve lost track of the money I’ve wasted and the amount of times I’ve had to return things to stores, or give them away, simply because I can’t see how well they match or complement each other until I can physically see them in situ.
I can’t draw or sketch from real life because the memory of the image disappears before I can get the pencil to paper. I even have the same problem with taking photos. I can see a bird in a tree that I want to zoom in on and photograph, but when I look at the trees through the lens, I cannot work out which tree the bird is in. I have to try to remember a sequence – three trunks close together, up the middle one, third bough on the left – often by the time I get there the bird has given up posing for me and flown the coop.
I enjoy doing craft work but whilst my daughters can make exquisite designs from images in their heads, I can only look on in amazement, then go back to the instruction book and follow patterns from someone else’s imagination, step by step. They still turn out nice, and I can add little extras to make them more personal, so it’s not a total failure.
I can’t look at an article of clothing and visualise how to make it. I can follow a pattern if it has written and diagram instructions but have found, to my frustration, that they often leave out bits they think are just plain common sense. It IS common sense if you can ‘see’ how it will end up but when the instruction says “match up and sew the leg seams” you end up with something resembling a skirt. The first time it happened I figured they had forgotten part of the instructions so tried cutting the ‘skirt’ down the middle to make legs…. epic fail.
The same applies when making up a box. You know – those cardboard flat pack things. Judging by the screams of laughter and the tears rolling down their faces, I think my family actually enjoy watching me struggle to get all the parts folded in the right order. I am forever grateful to the thoughtful person who provided instructions that say fold this flap first, fold this flap second.
There are so many things that cannot be visually recalled – geography (can’t visualise a map), signs, logos, flags to name just a few. I can memorise them verbally – e.g I know the Union Jack is red, white and blue, I know it is made up of crosses but if you showed it to me and asked me to memorise certain parts then took it away – I may be able to tell you the things you had asked me to memorise, but not necessarily anything else about it.
There are other things that seem to be connected to my Aphantasia but I have yet to see any confirmation in researcher’s findings. One is the use of mirrors. I just cannot correlate the image in the mirror with actual placement. This made driving quite hazardous, I couldn’t work out where things were, or where they were approaching from - left or right, or how far away they were, and after a couple of (minor) accidents, it was decided it was safer for everyone if I stayed off the road.
Another curious one is that if I cross my hands behind my back and one hand is touched or something is placed in it, I cannot tell whether it is the left or the right. It reminds me of one of those maze puzzles where you have to follow wiggly lines to see which path leads to the prize. I try to mentally follow my arm back to see if it is the left or right. The same thing applies if my feet are crossed and covered then touched.
So, you may ask – why did it take me into my sixties to discover that I had no “Mind’s Eye”?
I guess the simple answer to that is – I didn’t know that everyone else had one.
At 11 they discovered that I was very short sighted and I got my first pair of glasses. Suddenly the world didn’t exist just in the few feet closest to me. It didn’t just sneak up and jump out in front of me, it was there all the time with crystal clarity. I hadn’t realised until the moment I put my glasses on that I just couldn’t see the same as everybody else. It is like that with Aphantasia.
Although I didn’t know why, I have always had a need to take lots of photos, even in the days when it cost a fortune to develop them. These are my missing mental images, the only way I can see my parents, friends that have gone their own way, holidays, family times, changing buildings and landscapes. My camera goes everywhere with me.
I rely heavily on written and illustrated instructions. I avoid any fitting jobs but if I have to do them, I do them by trial and error, and I gain a fantastic sense of achievement when I finally get them right.
My employment was in the clerical/customer service field, you obviously work where your strengths lay. I would have failed miserably as a structural engineer or interior decorator.
The initial exasperation or amusement of family and friends when they encounter my various inadequacies is eventually just accepted as normal and despite good natured ribbing, we’ve never considered it problem, everyone is different.
I have seen stories of people being absolutely devastated to discover they have Aphantasia. I have to admit, I do feel a cheated, but in reality it is the same as any other difference. Just adjust your life to allow for it and no-one need ever know that your Mind’s Eye is missing.
It happened quite by accident. My husband was driving along a country road late one afternoon last year and started counting how many kangaroo were in the paddock we were passing. I told him to keep his eyes on the road and he assured me he was. “Well you can’t be if you can count the kangaroo at the same time” I said. His answer floored me. He told me he just glanced at the paddock and then looked back at the road and counted them from the mental image.
I know now that most of you will just shrug and say “so what?” but this was something I had never heard of before – a mental image? What mental image? We discussed it at length for the rest of the journey and hubby became quite proud of his “special power”, however when he mentioned it to family and friends it turned out that he wasn’t so special after all, it was actually me who was the odd one out.
A few months later he came across an article about Aphantasia , the new name given to little-known phenomena of lacking a so called “mind’s eye”. He thought it sounded like me and he was right. As I read through the test and answered the questions, hundreds of seemingly inconsequential incidents over my 60+ life span suddenly fell into place.
After my parents died I realised I was unable to visualise them and this upset me greatly. I realised that I could only remember what they looked like through photos of them. The test asked me to visualise someone I knew really well, I chose my husband – and I could not ‘see’ him. I realised that this applied to everyone I knew, whilst I can recognise them when they are in front of me, I do not have a visual image of them in my head - I could not describe them or draw them.
It explained a lot, all my life I had been accused of not paying attention to people around me because I didn’t recognise that someone I knew well had grown a beard (or shaved it off), or the girl who had just served me at the supermarket had long hair or glasses. It makes life so much simpler when they have name tags – names I can remember!
The test asked me to visualise a sunrise, being at a beach, seeing a rainbow. Unsurprisingly, this was also a total fail. I had attended many relaxation /pain management sessions in the past where this technique is an integral part of the process and I had never been able to take myself to a ‘happy place’ in my mind where I could just relax. While everyone was visualizing and relaxing I was thinking about the shopping I had to do on the way home.
My children have always laughed at me because when asked what sort of car it was I would say it was a red one or a blue one because I just don’t recognise the difference between them. An embarrassing fact borne out by the time I got into a stranger’s car mistaking it for my husband’s, which was the same colour and parked close by. I don’t know who was more shocked – me or the man whose car I got into. I had made myself comfortable, put my seat belt on and started quizzing him about tile samples he had sitting on the console before I realised my mistake. My husband (although highly amused) was astounded that I didn’t recognise that the other car was not the same make or model as ours and the inside was totally different.
I can’t visually recall events. I have watched crime shows on tv where they take a person’s memory back to a certain event to elicit small details they may have missed at the time…..like hypnotism but the person is awake. I had always assumed this was a bit of poetic licence but apparently it can be done. Even the main details elude me. Just a few months ago, the police came to the door to explain a hot water service had been dismantled and removed from the vacant home across the road. Had I seen a ute or tradesman’s van over there recently? I said I had, but then they wanted more details – what colour was it? - White (I think), did it have a canopy? – maybe, Did it have a hard top over the back or canvas? – can’t remember, did it have a name on the side? Not sure. I was really regretting ever saying yes and they were clearly thinking I hadn’t seen it at all. I won’t make that mistake again.
I can’t look at an assortment of parts and visualise how they would fit together. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a household implement or a jigsaw puzzle – I have to take each part and, by trial and error, place it in various positions til I get it right.
I can’t visualise how a house would physically look from looking at the plans. Many times while we have been renovating, my long suffering hubby would run chalk lines or tape around a room, or line up chairs to help me see how a change would look.
I can’t visualise how colours and aspects would go together in interior decorating. I’ve lost track of the money I’ve wasted and the amount of times I’ve had to return things to stores, or give them away, simply because I can’t see how well they match or complement each other until I can physically see them in situ.
I can’t draw or sketch from real life because the memory of the image disappears before I can get the pencil to paper. I even have the same problem with taking photos. I can see a bird in a tree that I want to zoom in on and photograph, but when I look at the trees through the lens, I cannot work out which tree the bird is in. I have to try to remember a sequence – three trunks close together, up the middle one, third bough on the left – often by the time I get there the bird has given up posing for me and flown the coop.
I enjoy doing craft work but whilst my daughters can make exquisite designs from images in their heads, I can only look on in amazement, then go back to the instruction book and follow patterns from someone else’s imagination, step by step. They still turn out nice, and I can add little extras to make them more personal, so it’s not a total failure.
I can’t look at an article of clothing and visualise how to make it. I can follow a pattern if it has written and diagram instructions but have found, to my frustration, that they often leave out bits they think are just plain common sense. It IS common sense if you can ‘see’ how it will end up but when the instruction says “match up and sew the leg seams” you end up with something resembling a skirt. The first time it happened I figured they had forgotten part of the instructions so tried cutting the ‘skirt’ down the middle to make legs…. epic fail.
The same applies when making up a box. You know – those cardboard flat pack things. Judging by the screams of laughter and the tears rolling down their faces, I think my family actually enjoy watching me struggle to get all the parts folded in the right order. I am forever grateful to the thoughtful person who provided instructions that say fold this flap first, fold this flap second.
There are so many things that cannot be visually recalled – geography (can’t visualise a map), signs, logos, flags to name just a few. I can memorise them verbally – e.g I know the Union Jack is red, white and blue, I know it is made up of crosses but if you showed it to me and asked me to memorise certain parts then took it away – I may be able to tell you the things you had asked me to memorise, but not necessarily anything else about it.
There are other things that seem to be connected to my Aphantasia but I have yet to see any confirmation in researcher’s findings. One is the use of mirrors. I just cannot correlate the image in the mirror with actual placement. This made driving quite hazardous, I couldn’t work out where things were, or where they were approaching from - left or right, or how far away they were, and after a couple of (minor) accidents, it was decided it was safer for everyone if I stayed off the road.
Another curious one is that if I cross my hands behind my back and one hand is touched or something is placed in it, I cannot tell whether it is the left or the right. It reminds me of one of those maze puzzles where you have to follow wiggly lines to see which path leads to the prize. I try to mentally follow my arm back to see if it is the left or right. The same thing applies if my feet are crossed and covered then touched.
So, you may ask – why did it take me into my sixties to discover that I had no “Mind’s Eye”?
I guess the simple answer to that is – I didn’t know that everyone else had one.
At 11 they discovered that I was very short sighted and I got my first pair of glasses. Suddenly the world didn’t exist just in the few feet closest to me. It didn’t just sneak up and jump out in front of me, it was there all the time with crystal clarity. I hadn’t realised until the moment I put my glasses on that I just couldn’t see the same as everybody else. It is like that with Aphantasia.
Although I didn’t know why, I have always had a need to take lots of photos, even in the days when it cost a fortune to develop them. These are my missing mental images, the only way I can see my parents, friends that have gone their own way, holidays, family times, changing buildings and landscapes. My camera goes everywhere with me.
I rely heavily on written and illustrated instructions. I avoid any fitting jobs but if I have to do them, I do them by trial and error, and I gain a fantastic sense of achievement when I finally get them right.
My employment was in the clerical/customer service field, you obviously work where your strengths lay. I would have failed miserably as a structural engineer or interior decorator.
The initial exasperation or amusement of family and friends when they encounter my various inadequacies is eventually just accepted as normal and despite good natured ribbing, we’ve never considered it problem, everyone is different.
I have seen stories of people being absolutely devastated to discover they have Aphantasia. I have to admit, I do feel a cheated, but in reality it is the same as any other difference. Just adjust your life to allow for it and no-one need ever know that your Mind’s Eye is missing.
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