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Aphantasia... apparently 3% of the world has it. Any aphantasists in here, who've had success improving their condition? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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10 years ago, I'd have put my ability to visualise at 0 out of 10. Practice and occasional halucinogen use has got me to 2 out of 10. It causes no end of problems in day to day life, so I'm interested to hear if anyone has tips or just experiences to share so it doesn't feel such a lonely frustrating issue.

edit informative comment from @Gwaer@lemm.ee about image streaming, I did a bit of digging on the broken links, the Dr isn't giving the info away for free anymore without buying their (expensive) book, but I found some further info on additional techniques here, pages 2/3: https://nlpcourses.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Image-Streaming-Mode-of-Thinking.pdf

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[–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Yes, in fact if I look in the mirror and close my eyes, I forget what I look like in about a second, or two... maybe much quicker. Timing the brain is hard to do on yourself.

Yeah, it's not a skill issue. I am not super great at drawing, but I can get a rough sketch of someone in front of me or a picture. But I could never realistically draw myself without a picture or image, nor could I draw anyone else without that or them being right in front of me.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    That's really interesting. I don't have this condition but I wear glasses all of the time I can't see without them, but if I were to think about what I looked like I don't actually include the glasses.

    But in my case it's more that they're just not part of my mental image of myself than the fact that they don't know what I look like.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    I think it's really cool you can see yourself in your mind. I was blown away when I found out thats normal. If I want to try to picture myself I kind of have to build the image, and it comes out like a shoddy police sketch of myself than anything close to a mental image.

    So I can have glasses or not, because I am not viewing, I am creating. It's kind of like learning how to sketch for basics. First you make a generic face, then I add the facial features I know I have, and then come up with a generalization. But it's different every time I do it, and looks far more like a generic man, then it looks like myself.

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