I thought I had aphantasia — and then I saw images?

August 31, 2023 12:33 PM

I always thought I had aphantasia — I have never been able to conjure an image of a scene or face in my head.

But a few nights ago — while I was very much awake, but lying in bed — I saw images related to my thoughts… like in a movie! They were fleeting, but they were there for sure.

I have never experienced that before (I'm in my mid-50s) and it was a bit shocking — and thrilling. (I can hear (replay) music in my head however — not sure what that is called.)

What could have happened? And how can I do that again? It was frankly incredible.

posted by Lescha to Health & Fitness (15 answers total)

Have you started taking any medication?
posted by dobbs at 12:45 PM on August 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Perhaps it was a hypnagogic hallucination.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 12:56 PM on August 31, 2023

Best answer: +1 for sleep hallucinations (they can happen when coming out of sleep as well). I had them strongly when I was overtired from health issues and was dealing with sleep paralysis and various sleep disturbances, upon waking. It's a stage of sleep where you don't think you're asleep or are slowly waking up. In my case I saw faces that were made out of smoke right in front of me that would drift away as I actually woke up. Some foods, supplements, medications, health issues, and stress can affect your sleep.
posted by Crystalinne at 1:31 PM on August 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

The ability to recall or hear music in your head is called audiation, a term coined by Edwin Gordon in 1975.
posted by spielzebub at 1:39 PM on August 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

While I don't think I'm totally aphantasic (I can imagine the appearance of something without needing to be able to readily articulate that appearance, but it's not at all like looking at or watching something real?), except for when I am near falling asleep. The arrival of visual imagery is always noteworthy, and I appreciate it because then I know I'm about to conk out. So yes, my vote is also for hypnagogic hallucination.
posted by wreckingball at 2:00 PM on August 31, 2023 [5 favorites]

I also have aphantasia but I have vividly visual dreams and can sometimes conjure images while close to sleep, either before or after. Same deal with audiation. (Thanks for the word, spielzebub!)
posted by moonmilk at 2:05 PM on August 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

I have aphantasia but I dream visually and I can start to see things as I fall asleep. (In fact this is one way I can tell that I am successfully falling asleep.)
posted by dfan at 2:46 PM on August 31, 2023 [3 favorites]

Fascinating! I always wondered if other people with aphantasia experienced visual imagery while in that hypnagogic state. I also notice it right before I'm about fall asleep.

I've also experienced vividly visual dreams in the past, and can conjure those images into my mind while trying to recall actual visual imagery is practically a non-starter.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 5:08 PM on August 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yeah I also don't have a visual imagination except for every once in awhile when I'm about to fall asleep! I agree it's amazing. It's incredible to think some people can do that all the time. I'd never get anything done!
posted by potrzebie at 5:32 PM on August 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

I get those a few times a week as I fall asleep. I used to be able to create images nearly as vivid as these but I can't now, so it gives me a very good feeling when the fleeting disjointed images wander into my sleepy thoughts. They pretty much never have anything to do with what I am thinking, so I always figure they are waking dream fragments.
posted by Jane the Brown at 7:16 PM on August 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

I'm a... Low visualiser.
I figured out I was broadly aphantasic as a teenager. The word for it didn't exist, but I got interested in paganism and realised I couldn't visualise. I could 'see' in dreams, and very briefly as I woke up, before it vanished in the same way dreams are forgotten.

Therefore, I used that as my avenue to learn to visualise - I recorded any details I could recall from dreams to encourage my brain to remember dreams, and those brief wisps of imagery as I woke up, I also used guided hypnosis meditations just before I went to sleep or just after I woke up (I didn't use visual hypnotic inductions because I couldn't see, but I used inductions that used imagined senses, like the feeling of walking down a staircase in the dark).

I can now visualise. It's still not my dominant thinking style, but it's pretty cool, and has vastly increased my memory of my own life, because I now have a visual component to my memories, rather than the 'cliff notes' description-only version.


Yes, I started at a younger age, but it seems like if you have *ever* been able to imagine visually, that you have the capacity to do so and can learn to do it more of the time.
Aphantasics who've not ever, not once, not even in dreams, seen pictures may not be able to learn -
But you, you can! You just need to convince your brain to let you do it more of the time, and at will.

😊
posted by Elysum at 8:28 PM on August 31, 2023 [4 favorites]

Wait, I didn’t realize this was something other people have, although I suppose it would be surprising for me to be the first of billions to suffer it. Definitely feels like suffering, not being able to recall conversations or movie scenes in my head.
posted by billsaysthis at 8:45 PM on August 31, 2023 [1 favorite]

Another anecdote: I have aphantasia, I have absolutely no mental imagery. If you ask me to imagine a scene, or even something simple like a triangle, I get no picture in my head.

BUT, like others, I sometimes have pictures in my head just as I'm going to sleep, and when it happens I know I'm close to sleeping (according to my wife, I'm already asleep, but it's hard to know for sure.) I do have visual dreams.

It doesn't happen often these days, but when it does sometimes I'm lucid enough that I'll lie there thinking of people or places I know just to enjoy the visuals.

Also, like Elysum, I think you can learn to visualize a bit. I spent a few years learning pen-and-ink drawing, and once I spent about 3 months off and on on a detailed drawing of a bird from a photograph. During that time I could close my eyes and visualize that bird (but nothing else) and for months afterward I could still faintly visualize that. So it's probably learnable but tons of work, unlike the people who are just born with it...
posted by mmoncur at 9:52 PM on August 31, 2023 [2 favorites]

Last week I learned that my partner and half the kids are aphantastic. For more on the phenomenon, Rutherford and Fry had a BBC Curious Case on it in Jan. MetaPrev at the time - 2015! - the word was coined.
posted by BobTheScientist at 11:56 PM on August 31, 2023

Everyone here might be interested in the Aphantasia Network!
posted by ellieBOA at 4:26 AM on September 1, 2023