I’m aphantasic with no mental imagery at all so my inner experience could not be more different: it’s strange to explain, but I experience “unvocalized” language, which means the words are sort of just there without “hearing” them in my head—-I don’t have inner sound at all either and so the words don’t have an accent, for example. My thought moves at a speed much faster than speaking and I can read fast with high comprehension—-but it takes me incredible effort to remember the color of someone’s eyes, for example. I more or less skip descriptions in novels and prefer to read philosophy.
I’ve always found it interesting that in programming communities the two extremes of aphantasic and hyperphantasic seem to both be very overrepresented.
What do you see when you close your eyes? Just light and colors? What about when you dream?
I ask because there's done research suggesting visual hallucinations while sleeping helps maintain the visual cortex's proficiency. IIRC it was just contingent on visual stimuli. Sometimes as I fall asleep I see a very bright white light, so something like that can count.
If you don't remember your dreams it might be interesting to keep a dream journal. It might take awhile to get your first entry. I kept one a decade ago and my first entry was "I remember but color blue" and it took a week. But even though I don't keep it anymore I remember most of my dreams and they are still quite vivid. Might be a fun experiment
Like many other aphantasics below, just my eyelids. It’s ironic because I’ve always had really good (better than 20:20) eyesight, but I can only remember words.
The dreaming question is really fascinating: it doesn’t seem to be impacted in its essence by all the incredibly diverse structures of inner experience. It’s clearly a function of the brain much older than conscious experience [1] and I’ve also read research supporting its necessary role in learning (roughly equivalent to reinforcement learning on synthetic data). There are very rare periods in my life when I’ve remembered my dreams often—-which definitely suggests it’s a skill I could refine—-but generally I recall one or two a year.
One of the interesting questions is which properties of inner experience are genetic, which early developmental, and which skills one can refine at any point in life. Before I knew I was aphantasic, I had a phase studying chess and I tried so hard to “get better” at visualizing games—-one of the most frustrating experiences of my life! Knowing one’s limitations, you can then refine appropriate techniques like algebraic representations etc.
[1] GPT found some terrific papers on this question. In fact, dreaming (measured by two-phase REM sleep cycles) goes back to vertebrates — and seems to have been convergently evolved in insects and cephalopods. Jellyfish appear as the limit with only a single sleep phase. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06203-4 is fascinating.
If I close my eyes I see the inner of my eye lids. Interestingly very intense visual stimuli can trigger mental images for me. I remember that when I closed my eyes after endless hours of Counterstrike, I would still see the game, tho I couldn't control what I see. Same goes for porn. Sometimes I remember my dreams, which are visual, but I don't think that I experience any other sense while dreaming. As kid I had lucid dreams, which I was stunned of, because of the amount of details I remembered. I just looked at faces of people I knew. Lucid dreaming is still something which I want to try to train.
It’s odd, I experience aphantasia in the way that I am a words thinker, able to talk with myself, the whole 5 miles.
But I am also able to have very vivid dreams, given that I sleep at the right time, around 22:00 - 24:00 and being sufficiently tired also seems to help.
They seem very real when I am dreaming them but when I wake up I can remember the thoughts of imagery but can’t recall any real images or pictures or visual recollection except that I seem to have had them in the moment.
It’s the same for me and every other aphantasic I’ve spoken with. I go years and years without remembering dreams, but there are distinct periods in my life when I remembered them often. For me it’s essentially if I wake up in a dreaming state and can quickly “translate” them into language. Strange to describe, but I do have a very distinct experience of dejavu sometimes, which I’ve come to believe is tied to latent dream memories—curious if you have anything like that?
It’s actually something very interesting about the function of dreaming in the brain that this is the case. That there’s such insane variability in the structure of conscious experience and memory, but the imagistic quality of dreaming fulfills a necessary role for all. I’ve read reputable studies that suggest it’s crucial for learning, something similar to training on synthetic data.
I dream in images but have only once in my life seen anything but darkness or vague abstract patterns with no connection to imagery with my eyes closed in a waking state.
I don't remember my dreams longer than a few seconds after waking up. Just reaching for a pen would be too slow.
But I have a persistent inner monologue that only ever stops with effort when I sit down to meditate.
How? I've tried writing it down many times over the years, but never recalled anything by the time I've been able to pick up anything to write with. Not a word.
Focus real hard and make it a practice. You'll need to try every night. Most importantly, have patience.
I started like you. Basically it disappeared instantly. @agentcoops is right that the still sleepy state helps. Your last few sleep cycles have the longest REM, so that is likely going to be the best time. But you really need to want to do it. By turning it into a habit your brain will start recognizing that it is important, so to keep it.
I highly suggest using pen and paper. Do not write on your phone. It'll help with maintaining that sleepy state. It's okay if they are just scribbles and illegible. It's better to start writing illegible nonsense than waking up and making it readable. This is especially true in the beginning. It's okay, it'll come with time. Just write down anything you can remember. A color, feeling, emotion, smell, taste, or anything. You can help the habit by writing "nothing" in it, just as a note to remind your mind that you're trying. I cannot stress the importance of the habit. The real reason the dream journal works is because you are teaching yourself that this is important to remember. Just like taking notes in class. Even if you never read them back, the act of note taking helps build that mental pathway.
Honestly, it may take a month (or more if you're really "bad"[0]) to write your first full dream. But you should be able to get something in a week or two. Remember, it took me a week to just recall a color. That's not abnormal. If after a few weeks you still have nothing, then set two alarms in the morning an hour or two before you normally wake up. The alarms should be about 45-60 minutes from the first. What you're trying to do is wake yourself up towards the end of REM, so trial and error might help. You're targeting the last or second to last cycle. But there's 2 reasons I suggest not starting there. 1) You haven't built the habit yet, so it's going to be less useful. 2) Disrupting REM leads you to feeling less rested, even if you got enough hours. You can also get less reliable results with a single alarm and it is probably better to start there, try to time it with your normal alarm.
[0] Not that you are doing anything wrong. Just that it is harder for you, which might be a thing given your condition.
I don't "maintain a sleepy state". When I wake up, I wake up, and the dream is gone long before I'd be able to get a pen. All of it. It's pretty much like flicking a switch. I'll often make notes first thing after waking up, and they're never unintelligible, but they'll also never be related to dreams, because the dreams are gone by the time I've picked up a pen, even if it's right next to my bed.
I often set multiple alarms really early. It's never made any difference to my dreams just "switching off".
To me this feels incredibly presumptuous in assuming peoples brains work the same, which is something I'm generally extremely sceptical to given how different I've learned we actually are.
How do you know you dream then? If it's like a switch. What are you writing down? How do you know it is unrelated.
Btw, I kept pen and paper under my pillow so I could grab it right away. Even before I opened my eyes. Early on I would keep them closed for as long as I could, fighting to hold onto the memories.
> I often set multiple alarms really early.
The timing is really important. If you do the "normal" thing of seeing them 30 minutes apart then thats not going to work. A sleep cycle is 90-120 minutes and REM is the last stage. There's variance day to day, so you'll really have to iterate on what it right. Luckily the REM stage is a good portion of that time, so it gives you a decent window to hit. Try to aim for 3/4 of the way through. More than half so the intensity of the dream is high but not too close to the end because you'll be naturally winding down.
It can also help to try things that help people lucid dream. Even if you don't get control of the dream I've found that being lucid typically helps with remembering. But I never found that easy, though it was easier when I started dreaming more. My usual trigger is when I read something a second time I'll notice it says something different. My friend has a weird one, their teeth fall out lol.
> To me this feels incredibly presumptuous in assuming peoples brains work the same
I think you're misinterpreting. By the nature of the conversation I know for a fact your brain works differently. *The entire premise of the conversation is based on this fact.*
But the advice I can give you is based on my experience. It's not an instruction set that gives guaranteed results, it is a guide. It is guess work. I have to distill what worked for me and try to target based on the little information you've provided. What are you expecting? That's a typical way to share advice and try to help.
Ultimately it'll have to be up to you to fill in the details and adapt. No perfect instruction set exists unless you make the assumption you accuse me of. I'm not sure why you're suddenly dismissive. I didn't say you're doing anything wrong or accuse you of anything.
> How do you know you dream then? If it's like a switch.
Because the switch doesn't flick until a second or two after I've woken up. Too short that I've ever been able to even grab a pen, long enough for me to be left with a memory of having briefly remembered dreaming, but never the slightest hint of what. Of course, that also means I can't be 100% certain to know whether that memory is true.
> What are you writing down? How do you know it is unrelated.
Notes on what I'm planning to do for the day. I can't of course know 100% for certain it is unrelated, but I have no reason to believe it is related either.
> If you do the "normal" thing of seeing them 30 minutes apart then thats not going to work.
That's never been what I've done. I've at times worked in weird patterns because I've found I work best at night, and so when that's fit in with my family life, I've often gone to sleep for 2-4 hours before then getting up to work, and timing that to REM is critical exactly because I will certainly be extra tired if I wake up at the wrong stage. I experiemented a lot with timing to get that right, and it's never affected my recollection of dreams at all.
> You asked for help, I'm just trying my best.
I didn't ask for help. I asked a mostly rhetorical question based on what to me seems like a flawed assumption about how trainable this is. Your clarification here is much more reasonable. If you interpreted it as a request for help, there's our disconnect, and why I'm being dismissive. Sorry for our miscommunication on that.
> Because the switch doesn't flick until a second or two after I've woken up.
That sounds a lot like the "half-asleep state" being discussed before.
> I didn't ask for help.
> If you interpreted it as a request for help
You did right here[0]. You have to understand that I, cannot, read your mind. Nor can I hear any inflections in your voice. If you ask someone "how" you should expect them to answer. It is a reasonable and standard interpretation of such a question, especially as you continue. Getting upset at them is an extremely unreasonable thing to do.
It is not our miscommunication, it is yours.
You can take responsibility for yourself, no need to include others. I had more to write, but you clarified you didn't want help.
For me, it’s dependent on waking up in a half-dreaming state. Then I’m able to sort of “translate” the dream into language, which I remember—-and sometimes from there I can get back to parts of the dream I didn’t think I remembered. It’s still very rare for me and I’ll go years without remembering a single dream—-in fact, mentioning this to friends when I was younger was one of the first areas where I learned my conscious experience was so different. I imagine getting better at it would be similar to getting better at lucid dreaming.
Same—including the time I dabbled in “experience altering” compounds when much younger. I always find it so strange that many people, including in this thread, find the presence of language in their inner experience unsettling or “imperfect”—-I really wouldn’t trade my inner monologue for anything…
Not the guy you are asking, but when I close eyes there is only black. If try to imagine let's say apple, maybe it's there at opacity of 0.5% or less. But requires mental effort. No inner monologue as well.
Dreams on the other hand are very vivid, sometimes I feel like I am physically there so I can smell, feel cold etc.
I remember them for as long as I read it and then it goes away.
It always baffled me when a movie adaptation of a book came out and people were really upset that the characters looked wrong. And I was just "... you remember what the people in books look like??". It turns out they do.
I don't.
When I read a book, I kinda retain the "feeling" of the characters and maybe one or two visual traits. I can read thousands of pages of a character's adventures and I can maybe tell you their general body type and clothing - if they have an "uniform" they tend to wear.
I've read all 5 books of The Stormlight Archive and I couldn't tell you what Kaladin looks like. I have no visual recollection of his hair colour, eye colour, skin tone or body type.
I’m the same, but it can also be frustrating when I _try_ to retain that info, it constantly shifts.
I described it to my partner as one of those AI generated videos where the details are constantly morphing and shifting, even if the general idea remains the same - I simply can’t hold onto a single still visualization for more than a second.
So, to agree with you, I have also read all five SLA books, and I could imagine Kaladin right now, but in an amorphous, constantly shifting way, which is a bit unsettling - maybe like Pattern? :-)
>When I read a book, I kinda retain the "feeling" of the characters and maybe one or two visual traits. I can read thousands of pages of a character's adventures and I can maybe tell you their general body type and clothing - if they have an "uniform" they tend to wear.
Likewise. It even happens even with the people I know in detail such as family. If I try to project the image of my own son in my minds eye it is not clear and is always shifting, it's more of a feeling than a clear picture. Once, when I was a teenager, I was mugged and when at the police precinct they showed me a booklet with the common offenders in the area. After a few pages I could not remember what my mugger looked like. Always wondered how people manage to rebuild sketches of offenders not knowing as an aphantasiac it's nearly impossible.
Yeah I never understood descriptions or who the intended audience of those long winded descriptive words is, but if other people have this magical capability of getting visual imagery out of it, I guess sure. It is hard to believe, but it must be the case. It is so hard to fathom that other people process things so differently, but I guess it can also explain a lot.
Original commenter for this chain here--my mental imagery for books is so strong that I can read books two decades later and call up close to the original visual memories that I had when I first read the books. My favorite books are the Lord of the Rings volumes, and I can remember different imagery I had from each successive generation of reading the book (from before I saw the movies and the Tolkien art to after).
Well... that definitely makes me envious. But also in a way it gives me relief, because during school times I always felt some sort of personal failure or laziness that I found some of the things so boring to read, but it makes sense if there's just a processing difference that doesn't give me that no matter how I try. But it must be wonderful then for you, because there's so many different books to read vs amount of high quality films/shows on any topic you desire.
Without discussing this and understanding how processing can truly differ like that I could go a lifetime wondering how people can read fiction etc, and how is it possible that I don't get what they are getting. I wonder if some drugs might allow me to get the same out of fiction books.
Another discouraging note from school times was that whenever I tried myself to read the mandatory literature fully myself, and formed my own conclusions I got bad grades and no one understood what I was getting at or what my conclusions were about, but when I just read summaries and conclusions on the Internet it was easy to get perfect grades.
Too many of those things during school which made me feel delusional/crazy. Oh well. The rant went off-topic, but I just have I guess "vivid" memories of how school affected me emotionally in terms of self esteem and confidence. I remember just having my own thoughts, conclusions punished, while not understanding others, but still having to learn and memorize those facts even when I didn't understand how they came to be.
I’ve always found it interesting that in programming communities the two extremes of aphantasic and hyperphantasic seem to both be very overrepresented.