I came across this thread via a google search and found it interesting enough to register on the site.
I'm 61 and self-diagnosed as a total aphantasaic in late '21, so extremely late in life.
My example of the condition, which doesn't seem to have been mentioned above is the most extreme end of it's spectrum, and I can visualise absolutely nothing internally, in any of the senses at all. Not even the most vague shadow or outline or smell or whatever or however it appears for hypo-phantasiacs (close to end of spectrum) and other non aphantasaics.
Because of the very significant effect it's had on me from early childhood, I'd always been generally interested in psychology, and just happened to come across a description of the condition, and realised immediately how it related to my perceptions, and it was hugely shocking to learn how different my experiences and perceptions are to most other peoples. All my life I had always assumed that comments related to internal visualisation, such as teaching techniques, relaxation techniques, etc, were metaphorical, not literal!
This has lead me on a trail across various related subjects and my own introspective examination, piecing together many of the reasons my life has been the way it has, and why I've responded or failed to respond to common stimuli that others seemed to process without conscious effort.
I honestly can't say what part autism plays in my condition, other than I've read passages by other total aphantasaics whom have been fully functional, generally lived a (neuro)typical life, and whose main comment on the discovery of their condition, is a mild curiosity, and maybe jealousy of those who can visualise. So whether my problems have been due to my condition plus my dysfunctional childhood upbringing, or whether there's something more I have that's atypical, I can't determine. I've also learned a lot about just how much peoples perceptions can vary, and the comparison with how convinced most people are that this is not the case is an eye opener! In reality, non of us can actually experience what is really out there, outside our skull, because the brain and mind have no way to actually know beyond a series of complex electrical signals, and things like colour (and in fact everything else inside your mind) is a representation that has no direct link to the reality of what's perceived (this has actually been shown to be an evolutionary advantage over a being that can see exactly what the reality is that is being sensed!)
Facial recognition, as mentioned above, for me is extremely non-functional, and depends heavily on my mind finding a feature or features it can store as a means of future recognition. For example, I may meet someone with an unusual haircut, or hair colour, and my mind will latch on to that as a unique identifier, and that works very well, until they change the style, at which point I will most likely not recognise them at all until they start to speak to me, and I then needs must find another feature I can process (their new hairstyle?). I too developed ways to work around this, mostly by finding ways of avoiding the use of names, while maintaining an appearance of familiarity (until the recognition would eventually kick in with voice and data being input). I did find I could work out that someone recognised me much better than I could recognise them! Usually someone I repeatedly see for some time will eventually become better established in my memory as I gradually find and add more unique aspects I can recognise.
Memory is also massively effected, as I'm consequently unable to access any verbatim (experiential, or sensory) memory, being unable to visualise them consciously. I'm pretty sure they are created and stored, but my consciousness is unable to access them. I have semantic (or gist) memory only - all symbolic, abstract and mostly logical contructs). I have very little autobiographical memory, I'm mostly stuck in the present, and cannot explore the past or future other than in an abstract and limited fashion. I can't even describe what someone very close (as in immediate family) to me would look like, beyond a very basic semantic description (long hair, brownish, face a little round, thick eyebrows - and here it's reaching it's limits).
In my mind I think with a dialog, but the words are neither visible or audible at all. They just come to my awareness - silently spoken, so to speak (pun not intended!).
My dreams are the only area in which the faintest imagery can be perceived, but these are extremely rare, and even then, mostly fairly abstracted, not actual things I've seen, and mostly only visible very close to me in the dream, only the very immediate surroundings, beyond, say, a room, there's nothing there, and the room may have a familiar aspect, but poorly defined - though not as in blurry or indistinct, interestingly enough, but it's difficult to describe.
I'm mainly writing this to provide what I believe is as accurate a description of one persons perceptions at the far end of the aphantasaic spectrum as I can make, to make comparison from other parts of that spectrum. But also to raise comparisons in my symptoms, some of which happen to be in the autistic spectrum too. Profound isolation, learning difficulties, relationship dysfunction, connection problems with individuals or groups, a pretty familiar raft of symptoms when reading about some types of autism.
I believe my late diagnosis also left me far more vulnerable to substance misuse issues, and other additional problems both direct and indirect, as the temptation to try and anaesthetise the pain of these factors, for which I could neither identify nor consequently find any strategy to cope with, was difficult to eshew. Having no-one I could go to who could understand any of this or have any way of helping even if I could find someone I could trust to discuss my problems with has also been a difficult issue to face. I tried both therapys and SRRI's, none of which helped, some of which made things much worse, and I don't believe the depressions are chemical imbalances, or at least not serotonin reuptake related.
I hope at least some of this may be of interest to others. I'm sorry for the extreme length but verbosity is another symptom I find very hard to avoid, without failing to communicate enough understanding (well, that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it! ;o)).
I'm 61 and self-diagnosed as a total aphantasaic in late '21, so extremely late in life.
My example of the condition, which doesn't seem to have been mentioned above is the most extreme end of it's spectrum, and I can visualise absolutely nothing internally, in any of the senses at all. Not even the most vague shadow or outline or smell or whatever or however it appears for hypo-phantasiacs (close to end of spectrum) and other non aphantasaics.
Because of the very significant effect it's had on me from early childhood, I'd always been generally interested in psychology, and just happened to come across a description of the condition, and realised immediately how it related to my perceptions, and it was hugely shocking to learn how different my experiences and perceptions are to most other peoples. All my life I had always assumed that comments related to internal visualisation, such as teaching techniques, relaxation techniques, etc, were metaphorical, not literal!
This has lead me on a trail across various related subjects and my own introspective examination, piecing together many of the reasons my life has been the way it has, and why I've responded or failed to respond to common stimuli that others seemed to process without conscious effort.
I honestly can't say what part autism plays in my condition, other than I've read passages by other total aphantasaics whom have been fully functional, generally lived a (neuro)typical life, and whose main comment on the discovery of their condition, is a mild curiosity, and maybe jealousy of those who can visualise. So whether my problems have been due to my condition plus my dysfunctional childhood upbringing, or whether there's something more I have that's atypical, I can't determine. I've also learned a lot about just how much peoples perceptions can vary, and the comparison with how convinced most people are that this is not the case is an eye opener! In reality, non of us can actually experience what is really out there, outside our skull, because the brain and mind have no way to actually know beyond a series of complex electrical signals, and things like colour (and in fact everything else inside your mind) is a representation that has no direct link to the reality of what's perceived (this has actually been shown to be an evolutionary advantage over a being that can see exactly what the reality is that is being sensed!)
Facial recognition, as mentioned above, for me is extremely non-functional, and depends heavily on my mind finding a feature or features it can store as a means of future recognition. For example, I may meet someone with an unusual haircut, or hair colour, and my mind will latch on to that as a unique identifier, and that works very well, until they change the style, at which point I will most likely not recognise them at all until they start to speak to me, and I then needs must find another feature I can process (their new hairstyle?). I too developed ways to work around this, mostly by finding ways of avoiding the use of names, while maintaining an appearance of familiarity (until the recognition would eventually kick in with voice and data being input). I did find I could work out that someone recognised me much better than I could recognise them! Usually someone I repeatedly see for some time will eventually become better established in my memory as I gradually find and add more unique aspects I can recognise.
Memory is also massively effected, as I'm consequently unable to access any verbatim (experiential, or sensory) memory, being unable to visualise them consciously. I'm pretty sure they are created and stored, but my consciousness is unable to access them. I have semantic (or gist) memory only - all symbolic, abstract and mostly logical contructs). I have very little autobiographical memory, I'm mostly stuck in the present, and cannot explore the past or future other than in an abstract and limited fashion. I can't even describe what someone very close (as in immediate family) to me would look like, beyond a very basic semantic description (long hair, brownish, face a little round, thick eyebrows - and here it's reaching it's limits).
In my mind I think with a dialog, but the words are neither visible or audible at all. They just come to my awareness - silently spoken, so to speak (pun not intended!).
My dreams are the only area in which the faintest imagery can be perceived, but these are extremely rare, and even then, mostly fairly abstracted, not actual things I've seen, and mostly only visible very close to me in the dream, only the very immediate surroundings, beyond, say, a room, there's nothing there, and the room may have a familiar aspect, but poorly defined - though not as in blurry or indistinct, interestingly enough, but it's difficult to describe.
I'm mainly writing this to provide what I believe is as accurate a description of one persons perceptions at the far end of the aphantasaic spectrum as I can make, to make comparison from other parts of that spectrum. But also to raise comparisons in my symptoms, some of which happen to be in the autistic spectrum too. Profound isolation, learning difficulties, relationship dysfunction, connection problems with individuals or groups, a pretty familiar raft of symptoms when reading about some types of autism.
I believe my late diagnosis also left me far more vulnerable to substance misuse issues, and other additional problems both direct and indirect, as the temptation to try and anaesthetise the pain of these factors, for which I could neither identify nor consequently find any strategy to cope with, was difficult to eshew. Having no-one I could go to who could understand any of this or have any way of helping even if I could find someone I could trust to discuss my problems with has also been a difficult issue to face. I tried both therapys and SRRI's, none of which helped, some of which made things much worse, and I don't believe the depressions are chemical imbalances, or at least not serotonin reuptake related.
I hope at least some of this may be of interest to others. I'm sorry for the extreme length but verbosity is another symptom I find very hard to avoid, without failing to communicate enough understanding (well, that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it! ;o)).
