r/SDAM

Which of these do you have? Tick all that apply.

1. Visual aphantasia — no pictures

2. Auditory aphantasia — no sounds in the mind

3. Tactile aphantasia — no imagined touch or texture

4. Gustatory aphantasia — no imagined taste

5. Olfactory aphantasia — no imagined smell

6. Kinesthetic aphantasia — no imagined movement or bodily sensation

7. No inner voice — no inner speech, monologue, or narration of any kind

8. Inaccessible autobiographical memory — facts but no re-entry into past events

9. Automatic worded thinking, without sound — words arrive whole, silent, unconstructed

10. No spatial imagery — can't build, rotate, or manipulate an object in the mind

11. No scenario-building or forward projection — can't construct or simulate an imagined situation, whether about the future or anything else

12. Out of sight, out of mind — no mental presence of absent people

I have all twelve. I'm trying to work out how rare that combination is.

A bit more detail. My autobiographical memory isn't just impaired, it's inaccessible. I know the facts of my life, but I can't re-enter any of it. I don't have an inner monologue or any kind of internal narration — no sound, no voice, no pictures, no sensory imagination of any kind.

I do feel real pain and real bodily states. I know when I'm hungry, when my throat is dry, when something hurts. What I can't do is generate those sensations in my mind when they aren't happening.

My thinking is worded, but it's automatic and silent. Words arrive whole, in the present, without prevarication or construction. There's no voice producing them, and I don't hear them. They're just there, as content.

I'd be interested to know whether anyone else has a similar profile, and how you experience memory, reading, and thinking. I've found that the standard descriptions don't quite fit, and I'm trying to work out what does.

Saturday, I promoted to 5th degree blackbelt in Hapkido. It was part of an international seminar that had been announced in the works for a year. When it became clear that we would be using the presence of high-level people to do a bunch of upper-dan promotions, it was not clear to me that I would promote. Some others were obvious to me, but my promotion was not.

Afterwards, a couple of the leaders of my school told me about the decision to promote me. I was one of the first persons they knew deserved promotion. Evidently, many people had told them that my welcoming them to the school made the difference in them staying. And many commented on how important my work with them was to their progress. That same day, one of our 1st-degree blackbelts who had come for the promotions gave me a card expressing how important I had been to her.

What is the point to this? I continue to underestimate my impact on people.

Why am I posting it here? I won't say that SDAM causes this misperception, but I do think it sets it up for me. My base understanding of memory comes from personal experience which is SDAM. I don't expect people to remember the person who made them feel welcome. I am always pleasantly surprised when someone remembers me. I had met one of the event teachers at a previous seminar and done some practice with him. He is as far above me in skill (equivalent of a 9th degree blackbelt, although his system is different) as I am above a white belt. But he remembered me and warmly congratulated me on my promotion.

I figured this out 5 years ago when I learned about SDAM, but it seems I still underestimate my impact on people.