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0 pointsseneca4mo ago0 comments

I fully believe this to be real, but I struggle to internalize that there are people who genuinely can't picture an apple. That is a very useful simple tool. Thank you for sharing it.

Even this feels like only a partial scale. I can picture what an apple looks like, rotate it in my, and see how light would reflect off of it as it moves.

How about smell? Can you call you mind what it would smell like to slice open an apple and experience that in some sense? Or what it would sound or feel like? I'm curious if it's literally "seeing" or if it's the entire experience of imagining an event.

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Xiol4mo ago

I'm not the person you're replying to, but I'm also a 5.

I can do none of the things you describe. I know how an apple looks, smells, tastes and sounds when you cut into it, but I can't visualise or hear those sounds at will. I cannot call to mind any visual image of an apple.

I also can't visualise my wife or children's faces, although again, I know what they look like (so it's not face blindness).

I do think I also have SDAM as well, which I think quite often goes hand in hand with total aphantasia.

Hasn't really affected how I go about in the world. I don't feel deficient in any way. It was only a few years ago I found out my experience isn't what the majority experiences.

senecaOP4mo ago

This is incredible to me. I wonder if you have some other mechanism of "knowing" or recalling that I don't that substitutes in. It's entirely possible, given that so many people report not being aware their experience is atypical.

I find this absolutely fascinating. I appreciate you sharing.

hyperbolablabla4mo ago

I'm 4 at a push. When I read, I see _very_ vague images in my head, but that's about it.

I'm very adept at conjuring up sound, though. Maybe it doesn't apply in the same way, but I can hear full symphonies and pick out individual instruments and harmonies and the like.

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