#hypophantasia

[wtfcl0ud]

*according to aphantasia.org aphantasia is "is the inability to visualize. Otherwise known as image-free thinking." the same source defines hypophantasia as "low visual imagination" meaning persons may "experience flashes or struggle to create mental images" and such persons "have described experiences almost like aphantasia". below is an image from the same source to help put things into perspective

**primarily meaning which learning style you feel most aligns with your learning methods even though you may actually use more than one. click here to learn more about the three learning styles. and click here or here to take a free online quiz to determine your learning style. if you don't have a primary learning style then you can maybe choose which is your favourite to use or which one you use most.

#polls #aphantasia #hypophantasia #learning styles #visual #auditory #kinesthetic #cloud nonsense

[edenatknight]

I tried to confide in a friend about having aphantasia and now we are no longer friends.

This is what I was afraid of. Appearing so good at something to someone, they can’t imagine how you can have any difficulty or challenges doing that thing. Or that thing that I love so much has also caused turmoil and trauma at times bc ppl pushed me too hard for the results they wanted and I couldn’t work out why I wasn’t getting there. I tried to share the joy in finding some self understanding with someone who is also creative and might have some good advice for me, he didn’t listen, spoke over me, and yelled at me instead.

Here are some things he said to try and convince me I’m wrong.

“You’re such a talented artist” no it’s not Talent it’s years of skill and practice.

“You’re one of the most creative ppl I know” aphantasia doesn’t stop you being creative.

“You have a rich inner world of course you can visualise” can you prove that my inner world is different to how I’m describing it? So why aren’t you believing me?

“If I describe you experiencing X thing can you see it?” Not the same way you do it goes through concepts and memories so I can relate to what you’re describing in terms that you understand.

“You can imagine things you haven’t experienced and might like in detail.” Yes I can imagine a cake I might like but I can’t picture a cake I haven’t seen and if I like lemon sponge logically I’ll probably like lemon tart. Knowing isn’t the same as visualising.

“That thing you painted proves you can visualise” you don’t know the process behind it, what I was experiencing At the time, how I made it etc

“The doodles you do are imaginative” I’ve given this one so much thought bc I’ve not been able to make them and I didn’t know why. Ideas for me are external and contextual, not conjured from visualising. Without the context I don’t have ideas. Alone I only have a blank page.

“You read too much” how do you know what I’m reading? (Reader we speak infrequently also Nmum used to dismiss me with this one like reading is a bad thing also lol mysoginistic roots of don’t learn too much about yourself woman)

“You can’t just decided this sudden thing” it’s not sudden it feels like a revelation to accept it and work through the feelings behind it but I’ve been circling this for months to years

“you’re making/looking for excuses” it’s an explanation not an excuse and it comes with a bunch of feelings but if I know what it is I can work with it I hope.

“You just need just to do the (art) work not analyse yourself so much” I have been doing the work, I’ve just completed an art academy to do the actual work that’s how I’ve arrived here. Bc I’ve been doing art and compassionately sitting with my difficulties & talking to other artists about my process

“You’ve got an answer to everything” why is me sharing this so triggering for you?

“Because you’re already there!!” I’m not saying I’m not anywhere or being self critical. You’re the one responding to this like it’s a bad thing. I’m not. It just changes a lot about how I’ve been approaching art and I need to process this.

“You’re wrong. You’re wrong. YOURE WRONG”

Yea he said that. A lot. Increasingly louder like it was going to change my mind.

“You just don’t want to be known.” Er that’s a massive projection coming from you.

* he hangs up *

Guess he didn’t want to be told who he is either. 🙃 I should have hung up well before he got to play victim at the last minute. It was good practice I suppose, I’m more resolved that this is how my brain works.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, altho this was the most overt he’s been. I can’t share my experiences with him without him getting angry, I’ve decided I’m not his friend anymore.

Why do people want to deny others experience with such anger? Why does it matter if I am wrong? It still might yield something useful going forward and harms no one. I get to be changeable. Try new things to learn about myself. I’ve opened my heart to knowing myself in a way I wasn’t able to do as a child.

He turned me inviting him to know me into an argument, and he lost I guess. The comment about reading too much told me that.

I’m more convinced than ever I have aphantasia even if it’s technically a 1/10 on the scale. As an artist, who’s been trying to work like I’m a 10/10, that’s huge deal.

#aphantasia #artist on tumblr #i lost a friend #autistic artist #actually adhd #adhd artist #autisic #hypophantasia

[angelo-the-doctor-of-feelings]

Just found out I have hypophantasia. It's funny cause I'm a writer and I draw things but all I see in my mind is blobs. Vague shapes and colours. Sometimes even nothing.

Hiii! Wow, that is so interesting!!✨

Hypophantasia is characterized by very low imagery vividness. Hypo – meaning low.

Are you able to dream?

I've heard people with aphantasia may dream in words or just colours or nothing at all.

This is all generous btw! I'm very curious!! 🧡🧡🧡

#mikey supports #mikeys world of feelings #turtle net #hypophantasia #psychology

[the-blue-void]

Funny thing about me imagining thing, I am hypophantasic, for me that means my visual imagination is very very dim, conceptualized and incomplete

So I will use tactile imagination to replace my visual imagination

So if you want me to imagine an apple, I would imagine holding one apple, how heavy it is, what the texture of it is, and the little hole on top of it

And the tactile image would be as real as real life even a little more real, and then people would ask how vivid the imagination is, and then I realized they wanted me to imagine it with my visual imagination

#hypophantasia

[artdragon22]

Visualizing mental images

Today I learned that I very likely have hypophantasia, which basically means I get VERY brief (like a millisecond) mental images but otherwise I cannot visualize mental images either with my eyes closed or open. I do however have visual dreams (often times very vivid and life-like; like I got teleported into a movie and can now see, hear, and sometimes feel everything pretty realistically), which apparently 63-66% of people towards the aphantasia end of the spectrum are capable of. So I guess the only time I can literally see mental images is in my dreams. I read up on what "normal" people see when they visualize a mental image and apparently a lot of people can literally see what they're thinking of, at least to the point of a blurry image, like looking out a slightly foggy window. When I visualize something I don't literally see anything but black and it's always been that way for as long as I can remember. I read a comment somewhere from someone who says they basically are the same way, and they said they've always had a hard time enjoying books cuz they couldn't picture anything like a movie going on in your head and preferred actual movies and I was like "yo same! :) ......wait..." I guess it's also pretty common for people closer to the aphantasia side of the spectrum to struggle with verbal instructions and greatly prefer visuals (which I think a lot of people do, with or without this...condition?), which actually makes a lot of sense cuz we can't SEE it in our mind's eye so we need to see it with our actual eyes. Anyone else experience this or something similar? Or do you actually see what you think of? Feel free to comment, I'm curious :3 If anyone wants to take the test to see where on the spectrum they lie here's a link: boop The test/general result is free, but if you want details they'll ask you to pay.

#aphantasia #hypophantasia #information

[luvsailor]

being a neurodivergent artist with aphantasia/hypophantasia it’s ALWAYS been difficult for me to come up with ideas to draw and even harder putting them down on paper, putting so much pressure onto myself to make it look nice and presentable in case i want to put it on the internet, but lately i’ve come to realize just how toxic that is for me

rather than prioritizing “nice” drawings, i've started prioritizing making “crappy” ones that focus more on the idea being depicted rather than looking presentable, as a result, i’ve been putting more ideas on paper and keeping less of them inside my head, sure, imo they might not be decent enough to show to everyone else, but it’s way better than saying i never drew it at all

instead of using my private sketchbook as a means of simply getting better at drawing, i’ve also started using it as a visual journal for my ideas, journals are meant to get your thoughts down and it isn’t supposed to look “presentable”

i mean, that’s what a sketchbook is for afterall right? i just can’t believe it took me this long to figure out that’s what works best for me

TL:DR - drawing to get better at drawing ❌ drawing to journal my thoughts even if it looks bad ✅

#eryn talks #cleaning out my drafts i wrote this one a while back n its still relevant #aphantasia #hypophantasia #aphant #hypophant #not ss

[sgkjd]

are there people that are aphantasic but also have great photographic memory? how do these coexist for you?

for me, it's not that i see completely black when asked to imagine anything, my mind just goes straight to the last time i saw the thing in my surroundings/films/photographs/art (which i consume a lot).

and still, not the full image, just a faded version of that memory, depending on how recently i saw it. i also think it's because i naturally pick up on and absorb details of everything i see and that's how i'm able to remember 'informational stills' of what i saw, which helps me simply know the color of an apple, and know whether it has spotting etc by recollecting the details i observed about the last apple i saw.

the problem comes in when i'm asked to imagine a scenario or some thing i've never ever seen with my own eyes. i can't even make things up because i have no prior info that i picked up by observing that i could bounce off.

at least that's what i think it is for me ? o_o

#; words generated by me #aphantasia #hypophantasia

[boydykedevo]

love taz fandom cuz everyone draws the characters so different but 99% of the time u just see them and go aha yes that is them. a devo is a devo is a devo. amen.

#i have like. not aphantasia but i think it falls under hypophantasia. so i don't picture many specifics while listening. #which makes coming up w designs. difficult. #but also means every drawing of my blorbos is near equally correct in my eyes #icarus is talking #taz

[devilroute]

i wish there was a way to throw my mind's visualizations into an art piece within the span of two seconds

#INSIGHTS #INTS #^ he has visualized weird distortions and substances of body horror that he wishes to express #except i have hypophantasia so i can barely even see what the fuck i'm seeing and then i have to figure out how to draw it even? #that's so mean and unfair -_-

[cryptid-aac]

I don't think I really talked about it before on this blog but I'm a pagan witch.. and I have aphantasia... "Severe" aphantasia (or more appropriatly Total Aphantasia). This basically means I can't visualize at all with any internal senses. All of my daydreams, "visualizations", etc. are all just... Words that I'm thinking of, like I'm writing a story but in my mind.

This means that pretty much all the witchy pagan visualization shit is useful... And that (some) witches and pagans who don't have aphantasia or have hypophantasia (but not aphantasia) think that I'm still able to visualize... Just involuntarily. Or that I just .. not allowed to be a witch or pagan which is wild

#not a vent #just wanted to share random thing #aphantasia #witchcraft #witch #paganism #pagan witch #paganblr #hellenic pagan #pagan #kemetism #kemetic #kemetic pagan #celtic #celtic pagan #norse pagan #heathenry #pop culture paganism

[ndcultureis]

Autism/ADHD culture is being a writer but having a combination of alexithymia, emotional dysregulation, executive dysfunction, incurably scattered thoughts, low motivation, and hypophantasia (a reduced ability to mentally visualize) makes you stare frustratedly at your blank paper/computer screen for the majority of the time wondering “why can’t I just do this like others can?” And most of the work you get done is a chapter and a half on rare occasions, bonus points if you’re working with a likeminded co-writer then you get two or three, or maybe even more!!

Note: no matter how much difficulty you have with writing, if you consider yourself a writer, you’re still a writer, period. <3

.

#neurodivergent culture #mod milo #as a writer #yes <3

[raimi]

wait do people without hypophantasia see things in their heads as clearly as we HEAR them??????

[angelo-the-doctor-of-feelings]

Hypophantasia anon here.

Yes but I don't really remember them. I remember some and they looked as real as real life.

But when I'm thinking about something it's different. I'm not sure why. It's kinda interesting thought.

That is really interesting!!!

How different is it when you're thinking about something?? /g

#mikeys magic family #mikeys world of feelings #turtle net #asks #rottmnt #hypophantasia

[rin-and-jade]

WHY?? Ok ok fineeee…

—————

This is the kind of struggle i personally find it funny in a way, though it’s never told. So, have you ever been so confident that you’re walking towards the door without second guessing or finding the handle only to slam your face (especially the forehead..) at a wall,, that’s me right there.

Basically i am no clumsy person unless it was a slippery business, this is caused by how well i can perceive the inside world and.. i’d say its not the very best—it’s like a functional lightbulb it can light up ok, but it is the kind bulb you’ll have to deal with a huge amount of annoyance in terms of it flickering or not working as needed and i feel like i should slap it hard as how you do to tv remotes so.. mhm, that sounds annoying to me already. It’s called hypophantasia to the people who are wondering btw,, That’s where people can have problems with holding a mental image or have a good clarity and this basically means im blind + in dire need of glasses (because blurry, get it?) and its pretty close with aphantasia? Like a younger sibling version because its not fully “black” if you get it.

What made it worse? The fact that i still can’t get a guess where any hallway or door is at, i can be lucky once in a while plus i live with another person here. If you think they laughed at me, they did,, and will do every time because i won’t stop being “cute” whenever i make angry bonked noises. Dear god can i have echolocation that’ll help in stopping embarrassment.. it literally made me trip down the stairs one day because i missed the lift by a few measurements away which SHOULD be right infront of me, so now im forever skeptical and touching walls like some kind of lizard to this day (and still get bonked).

…

What a pain.

Told you it wasn’t click bait, - j

#did #actually did #did community #did system #did osdd #plural #dissociative identity disorder #system stuff #sysblr #Jsaid

[maaarine]

"Right as the web was becoming big, I self-taught myself HTML and graphic design.

So in the mid-90s, I started working in the tech industry in web design.

But it turns out that being a graphic designer was a poor choice for me because I'm borderline aphantasic, or hypophantasic.

Aphantasia is not having mental imagery in your head, not picturing things. I only see fuzzy colors, basically.

So it always took me longer to do things at work, because I can't visualize things in my mind.

I had to create things, then see them, then iterate. Other people could iterate things in their head.

I almost went into a career in proofreading, which is what I do now part-time as a freelancer.

I'm set up for proofreading, my hypophantasia actually helps with that.

Some people, when they're reading, they see movies in their head. I don't, I see the word.

So seeing a typo, or a mistake, is very easy for me."

Source: The Squarepeg Podcast: 94. S8 E2: The sensory and social challenges of fitting into a new culture as an autistic adult

#the squarepeg podcast #podcast #aphantasia #autism

[maladaptive-daydreaming-aphant]

Ohhh that makes sense. I think all my OCs are paras and vice versa in that case since I daydream about all of them in both of my worlds. My para worlds are exclusively original characters.

One more question: I keep seeing people talking about being in their own worlds as a self insert or even themselves. This isn't apart of my experiences , I am not involved in my para worlds at all. Is that normal? Is there a comprehensive place where I can read up on this more?

Not sure of any official sources for info about that (if any of y'all know some then please share!!), but anecdotally there's been quite a few polls around MaDDblr about these sort of experiences... From what I've seen, the *most common* MaDDer's situation is daydreaming through the perspective of a paraself, which tends to be an idealized or alternative version of ourselves (like an upgraded self-insert). However, due to the highly-individual nature of daydreaming itself, there's MASSIVE variety in how different people daydream.

Some people only daydream through the eyes of a non-self para (be it a fictional character or an OC), while others are only spectators/gods and don't "participate" as an actor in their paracosms at all, just like you! Most folks daydream in first-person POV, but there are many who daydream in third-person POV (or even second-person POV) or other perspectives. Some people stick to only one parame (the para they daydream through -- paraselves are also parames) and/or POV, while others switch around depending on any number of factors. Some have tons and tons of paras, while others have only a select few that they daydream about. Some have only one or two paracosms they've been visiting for years, while others are constantly making new ones or switching back and forth between a bunch of them!

Similarly, it's very common for people with MaDD to pace around while daydreaming, but there are plenty of us (including myself) who only lie in bed or do other forms of stimming! Most daydreamers like music with lyrics they can fit to their characters, while others prefer instrumental music that can act as a soundtrack for our scenes. Some of us utilize images (ie. pinterest, picrew, fanart, etc.) for inspiration or visualization purposes while daydreaming (I often need them due to hypophantasia), while others only use their mind's eye to daydream!

TLDR: There are innumerable ways to daydream, so don't feel like you're "lesser" for having uncommon daydreaming habits! Everyone's brains are wired differently and we all experience the world in our own unique way, so individual styles of daydreaming are highly varied. Unfortunately you might not relate to most of the posts about MaDD you'll come across because the posts that gain the most traction are inevitably aligned with more common daydreaming experiences, but you're just as valid as the rest of us! Welcome to the MaDD community 💕

#madd #asks