just came here to say that you guys with hyperphanyasia shouldn't take what u have for granted. cause holy shit you guys are lucky. i legit cannot imagine shit inside of my head however i do have an internal monologue so ig theres that. idk why im making this post tbh im just mad rn lmfao
lucky pricks
This post is out of genuine curiosity if anyone else gets spontaneous imaginary scents when they see specific images? I’m not putting images below do to copyright reasons, but I often get random fantom smells when I see images that are often associated with nostalgia.
Such as an image of a bag of childhood crayons, an image of mug with coffee stained in it, a middle school gym or gym closet with basket balls and jumping ropes, a sidewalk on a crisp fall evening, or the smell of chlorine when you see an image of a bright blue swimming pool.
I’m sure there must be some sort of psychological process that explains this, but when I say I can smell it, I mean I can vividly smell the image as if it’s right in front of me irl. This might be a neurodivergent or synesthesia thing. Can anyone relate to this?
Hi! I meet a lot of hyperphantasia criteria but I am unsure if I have it or not as I also have a really good memory. How can I differentiate if it is hyperphantasia vs drawing on my past memories?
I feel hyperphantasia creates a brilliant long term memory. Im middle age but remember being in hospital aged 2 and I can remember exactly what the girl in the cot next to me looked like, her hair style and colour, her name, what she was wearing, both our parents coming to visit, what the hospital looked like, the stairs, rocking horse etc. This is just one example and I have many more visual memories however my working memory or short term memory is diabolical.
I really wonder how do you visualize this abstract things. I don't have hyperphantasia btw.
Edit: I meant do you visualize how they work than just visualizing it by letters or numbers.
I did a visualization exercise where i tried to picture an apple in my mind. My apple was pretty vivid, the problem was it would keep moving around, change color, change size, grow skinnier and larger. I think this may be part of my adhd? Possibly anxiety issues as well. Anyone else?
Hello,
I just want to start off that I don’t think I have hyperphantasia but this looks like the best subreddit to post to. I just found out there’s levels to visualization.
I can’t visualize in great detail but I can usually picture the item or thing I’m thinking of.
What I have a question about is that I don’t typically have control over when I picture. if I think of an apple I’ll get an apple at first but it’ll start spinning or get erased and I’ll have random geometric shapes. It feels like theres no rhyme or reason to these shapes and I’ll get perspective changes or speed changes.
I thought this was normal but now im not sure, can you please let me know if you guys have something similar?
I’m 25 and as far as I know I’ve had it like this since I was a kid.
thank you!
Recently i took a break from trying to develop clear visualization. I was getting overwhelmed and felt stuck. I did rounds of deep breathing and just let my mind and body go and just "rest". To my surprise, super vivid and clear images started to form. I don't get it or understand it. Can anyone help me understand, please?? Does this mean hyperphantasia is accessible through deep rest states?
Hi I can do it all. Same story for many I’m sure. Thought everyone did it. No one around me does. No one can comprehend it.
Sadly, they smell like distrust and sour grapes.
And I kinda went ahead and lived my whole life reading body language as threats and just a general dislike for how i describe my world.
I cried for help. I saved their worlds and they tried to save mine but just kept piling on. And I broke. Today. I broke and told them all leave.
Does anyone have a suggestion for who can help “our people”?
Did everyone else have night terrors?
Or inner voices two too many too?
I’m just sorta scared I got the broken version of this new “condition” and wasn’t sure where to start.
A while ago I was locked in like never before, attempting to hone in on some intuitive thing or whatever. Next thing I know, this tiny perfectly rounded little orb of light appeared in my vision. It’s very small, and it does not interfere with my vision at all.
A very strange thing indeed, and the more I attempted to look at it with my eyes the more it would stray away. I then realized that the orb of light was not a physical thing that my eyes could see, but a mental thing that just gave the illusion of visual perception.
Anyways, this orb of light seems to appear when I lock in hard, somewhat like a “flow state” type of feel. Of course when I would I try to focus on it, it would go away, but the more I learn, the more l learn to stay “locked in” instead of trying to focus on the orb, and this seems to keep it from disappearing. Now as time goes on, I find it easier to make it appear and stay focused on it.
It seems to correspond with strong feelings of focus and whatever my consciousness is paying attention to. It’s quite a nifty thing I’d say. Anyone have any experience with such a thing?
I have very good visual memory. I once drew all our teachers from memory on the white board during lunch in high school and people seemed pretty impressed. I didn't realize until later that other people couldn't do that. I also have audio memory and hear songs clearly as they are on the radio. I have an inner monologue although I don't use it as often. I use it mainly when I want to rehearse what I'll say or work out something out for communication. I compared this experience with my gf and we were mostly alike, but on a whim I asked her if she also remembered what she was thinking in her memories.
I was surprised she said no. So I guess this might be a new kind of memory I haven't seen described in any youtube videos or papers yet. I would love to know if anyone has found anything on this. My memories almost always come with what I was thinking at the time because my thoughts are the strongest memories I have. When I remember a conversation I also remember what I was thinking between each line of dialgue.
I have exceptional autobiographical memory and most of that is tied to what I was thinking at the time. If there are no thought memories then it's usually just images, but if I was thinking something, ruminating over something I will remember it much stronger. Whenever I recount memories to other people they usually start out with "I remember that because I was thinking...and then you did this and then I thought...".
How common is this? Is my gf just weird? I looked around on the internet and I don't see much mention of it.
Hi! I want to know if my experience differs from yours. When i watch a movie, i only see whats in the screen and nothing more and the same with videogames.
When you hyperphants watch/play, are you visualizing at the same time? Or like something special/different from me? Things like giving attention to both your real vision and imagination at the same time, or switching to only imagination, i dont know haha?
My gf has a good imagination, and tried to explain me some things about her experience but i didnt understood her, like she knows she's "registering" the visuals like in another perspective different that the movie and usually maps the world and returns to that sometimes. This all started because at one time there were visual artifacts/loss of quality in the movie and i usually notice that and im super senstive, but she said she didnt even noticed cause her imagination filled the blanks. And what i dont understand is, what was she doing? like watching the movie in her head only?
That got me thinking about what your experiences are like. Im very curious
Ciao a tutti, ho una domanda strana ma sono curiosa di sapere se è mai capitato a qualcuno di voi: a volte vedo, per un attimo, l’immagine di qualcosa/qualcuno che ho appena guardato, con tutti i dettagli, tipo se la persona aveva gli occhiali o stava sorridendo, come se rimanesse impressa per un secondo o due, con i contorni un po’ sfumati. È un’immagine positiva (stessi colori di quello che ho visto davvero, non invertiti). Dura pochissimo e poi sparisce. Prima invece avevo delle afterimage negative. Ne ho parlato anche con un medico per approfondire, ma volevo sapere se è mai successa una cosa simile a qualcuno di voi. Vi prego di rispondermi, sono estremamente preoccupata.
From what i read on the internet, i'm pretty sure i have aphantasia. I can't litteraly see an objet in my mind and rotate it or anything. But i can replay scenes of my life in my head, fantasize about stuff, etc.
Today on a long drive, i was doing that, thinking about évent of the week, scenes that happened at work, etc. My eyes were open obviously. And i taught, for people that doesnt have aphantasia, whats the difference between imagining things with your eyes open vs closed? If they can see thing with their eyes closed, what do they see when they are imagining things with their eyes are open and seeing actual objects at the same time?
(English is not first langage)
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This may sound very strange and abnormal to you but I feel more "live" in my own imagination. Since I was little, I have liked to imagine, I even wrote something in the air because I felt it was fun. I used my fingers to write or make any pattern in the air, but yeaa, I was still a little at that time. But as time went by, I never did that again because I felt that isn't normal until I was around 10-11 years old, I'm starting to experience a big life change for me, and it's probably not something I can handle with a kid my age, or more accurately, for me. I was looking for an escape, and from that escape my imagination grew, not at the level of writing something in the air but more towards life. I thought it was normal at first, like yeah that's normal, but I became more and more dependent on that imaginary world, sometimes I can't even move on until now even though I live my own life, socialize with people, do other activities like other people, that's all. I always end up longing the life that only exist in my head
anyone else relate?
Whenever I relax my forehead muscles, I start to feel pain in the center of my forehead. Also, whenever I imagine something sharp pointing at my forehead, I feel the same pain. What is this actually?
Hola a todos, mi nombre es Facundo López, tengo 21 años y ayer descubrí que soy capaz de crear el famoso "Palacio Mental" (Método de Loci) de forma totalmente intuitiva y en cuestión de segundos.
¿Qué me llevó a crearlo?
Hace semanas vengo atravesando una crisis en mi relación de pareja. Mentalmente tenía un caos de ideas, dudas y miedos que me estaban provocando un momento mentalmente muy complicado y mucha ansiedad. Ayer a la medianoche, en un punto de saturación, me dije a mí mismo: "vamos a organizar nuestras ideas".
Como necesitaba analizar contradicciones, mi mente adoptó un rol de detective. En segundos proyecté una sala/oficina de policía con una distribución muy clara: un escritorio donde me siento a evaluar todo, una pizarra al frente a la derecha, una planta de hojas largas al lado y una cajonera/estante a la izquierda.
En esa pizarra ordené geométricamente las incongruencias de la situación y las dudas que planeo plantearle a mi pareja. Conecté los recuerdos con hilos y flechas. Al ver el mapa conceptual listo, logré vaciar mi cabeza. Como ya no quería darle más vueltas al asunto por esa noche, simplemente visualicé que salía de la oficina y cerraba la puerta con llave.
El resultado emocional:Realmente funciona. Llevaba semanas cargando con un peso enorme, y hoy me siento increíblemente liviano. Cada vez que mi subconsciente intenta regresar a la preocupación, me obligo a ver la puerta cerrada desde afuera y el pensamiento intrusivo se frena. Logré compartimentar mi mente.Mi consejo para ustedes:Quiero invitarlos a que intenten crear un plano así. Tómense su tiempo y elijan el lugar que mejor se adapte a su problema. Puede ser más o menos complicado según la persona, pero si están atravesando una situación que no les deja la mente tranquila, organizarla visualmente en un espacio físico imaginario cambia el juego por completo.Ojo, sé que esto no es para todos. Hay personas con afantasía (mente ciega) que no pueden proyectar imágenes, pero para la mayoría, e incluso para quienes tienen hiperfantasia (visualización de muy alta definición), diseñar estos lugares en la mente es una herramienta de salud mental brutal.
Disclaimer: English is not my first language.
I used to make up stories in my head all the time, that's how I grew up. And I took up on writing a few years ago but for about a year now it's gotten harder and harder to see anything when I close my eyes. It's all dark, as if a bulb up there just burnt out one day and I can't change it.
Needles to say I've stopped writing. I get too anxious at the mere idea of trying.
I don't even think I care about writing anymore, I just want to 'see' inside my head again. I feel like someone stole one of my arms and now life just isn't the same.
My mind was my home, now it's a scary place.
Has someone else experienced this? Were you able to visualize things again? How?
On addition to all of the above, I received acceptance and commitment therapy for eight months hoping it'd help. It didn't.