I thought of you when I wrote about my father about the lack of faces of the deceased with people who see this in this completely black form (but luckily I have the photos ), but I didnāt want to go on about how that is with you. and other situationsā¦
Greetings,
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One step at a time, Helen. Impending doom awaits us all 
but I hope your worries do not become reality the way you fear. Also, it never ceases to amaze me how humans adapt to the most challenging circumstances.
Alles gute 
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@roger_holland @brianlarsen @JokuMuu Thank you all for caring about my situation 
. I try to do my best not to worry too much about tomorrow (Iāve already learned this the hard way 
). Iām enjoying the ānowā, as I have zero influence on the future. Not enjoying my life now would be like wasting the good days! I still hope for the best 
@JokuMuu
Thanks Nicole, I rather send you some 
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Apparently today is Aphantasia Awareness Day. I got this in my email from Tom at Aphantasia.com. It has links to their website with the VVIQ test to see where you are on the scale.
Tom Said.
My inbox is filled with questions from aphants all over the world.
From L.A. to Seoul, Venezuela to Madagascar, people are discovering their mind is free from images at an astounding rate.
Global data is preliminary, and Iām not a trained data scientist, but based on my analysis of over 600k VVIQ assessments taken at aphantasia.com, I do not see any notable distribution differences between the continents.
Even if this is proven wrong, one thing is undeniable: aphants live in every corner of the planet, speak in different languages and their cultures attribute different significance to the concept of visualization.
One year ago today, with the help of some dedicated members of our community, the city of Rowlett, Texas officially declared Feb 21 as āAphantasia Awareness Dayā. You can read more about that event here.
This year, weāre going global and announcing the official launch of Aphantasia Network Japan at aphantasia.com/ja.
With the help of the passionate chapter leader Mayumi Odawara, all aphantasia resources and research are available in Japanese, and in turn, all content and research generated in Japan will be translated into English, bringing us one step closer to a global community.
Spanish is currently underway, and we will hopefully have many more languages by yearās end.
The reminder that aphantasia touches people from all corners of the globe is humbling. A reminder that while our language, culture and traditions may differ, something deeper inside us can be so remarkably similar.
Happy Aphantasia Awareness Day!
~ Tom Ebeyer
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Hi Phil,
Hiā¦Iām not going to click on the link because Iām in need knowing more, but is there a revenue model behind that site that you know of? Such as courses/books or a whole storeā¦ itās starting to itch a bit and not in a good wayā¦ oh well, I wish everyone his or her day as long as no one has to suffer for itā¦ and every day is a proclamation day or celebration day of many thingsā¦
But I donāt remember everything above correctlyā¦ This
always makes me a bit alert OR or or should I read it with a big winkā¦ in that case I say āenjoy you allā
Greetings
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Thereās plenty of free information on the site, you donāt need to hand over your bank details or join a cult 
Yep I do not pay, and told the organizer recently I wouldnāt
So it is a business model and the more people who get involved with it, the greater the yieldā¦ itās starting to look like a well you say it ā¦cult ā¦
Iāll stick only with this one from JG for a while
Greetings
I know nothing about whether they have a business model or not. I do know the pages that tell you what aphantasia is donāt require you to create an account, give an email address or any such thing. That said thereās plenty on this thread that tells you all you need to know anyway.
TLDR - Some people can readily bring images to mind and some of us canāt!
Itās just one sentence from you above and I still read it a bit wrongā¦ I read that you could just join this cult without payingā¦my wrongā¦ and yes there is a revenue model behind it
Greetings
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This thread is obviously of much interest to many people given the number of responders. I have been hesitant to make a contribution, but after looking at the site noted above I feel compelled to say something.
There are some findings to suggest that this āconditionā affects some people. The numbers are probably close to or less than 1%. Of that number of individuals, the vast majority experience these symptoms as a result of some neurological event, eg stroke, traumatic brain injury, neoplastic process, etc,
1.) I spent my career in medicine evaluating and treating individuals with acquired neuro injury or disease. I have personally assessed more than 60,000 individuals in clinical settings with objective test procedures. I have never assessed someone that I could say had these specific symptoms. Certainly some individuals may have mental imaging skills more or less than others, just like all other skills. An absence of visual imaging ability is another thing altogether.
2.) The referenced procedure on the site above is called the VVIQ. It is not a test. It is a self-report questionnaire. Its had a couple iterations since first being written many years ago. It can generate interesting conversations, but as a diagnostic tool its utility is certainly limited. Donāt take my word for it: Defining and 'diagnosing' aphantasia: Condition or individual difference? - PubMed The journal Cortex is legit.
Hopefully this adds to the conversation.
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All views are welcome. The thing is thereās no scientists who know better what imagery I see or donāt see than I do. They might have a very strict definition of aphantasia that perhaps I donāt meet, but my visualising skills are so poor to basically not exist for all practical purposes. Whether I qualify as having a āconditionā is immaterial really.
I donāt know if Iāve always been this way or not. I did have some issues as a very young child that I grew out of but thereās no way of knowing if they were a factor in my life today or not so I canāt say if Iāve had a neurological event or not.
If nothing else it has stirred interesting conversation highlighting that we do all perceive the world in different ways, and as a result of that, how I learn wonāt necessarily work for someone else and vice versa.
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Thanks Dennis, I certainly cannot comment on how many people have a similar way of interacting with the world, and that was never the intention of this thread. I have found it fascinating since finding out that there was a name for this way of the mind working. I donāt see it as a condition, merely a way my mind works. I have had a very successful career as a Research Scientist with a PhD. Having lead many projects in a variety of industries. So it hasnāt held me back, but obviously my mind processes information differently than others. When people say picture this, that can have the effect of me switching off., because I have lived that frustration many times.
The counting sheep thing was my first inkling, hypnosis in 1996 after that.
It is probably every day that my wife talks about some memory or place, that she then acknowledges I cannot picture. I have never been able to.
I couldnāt describe to you the shape of the house I have lived in for 20 years. In the past I have driven into my neighborās driveway and it took a while before I realized what I had done. Their house was very different, and came into my house with my wife laughing and saying why did you go to the wrong house.
It is reassuring to find that other people have similar mental processes. I always wondered whether I could ever hope to be good at guitar without the ability to visualize. Hearing Justin mention it actually made me feel better, the fact that he even uses the visualization terms to describe to others is interesting.
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That is clearly a valid observation. That there are individual differences in learning strategies is obviously true. I have long since railed against our typical institutions of learning that have a one size fits all teaching system that our children are funneled through. Myself included. In most cases, itās not until our college years that diverse avenues of learning are more readily available.
Same with learning guitar. How can one methodology be suitable for every single student?
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Hi Dennis,
And here is the hook to bring āusā in.
This kind of self-testing (without doing it I know what it is about) is for many conditions that are in the somewhat more difficult to understand spectrumā¦ADHD/ADD and a range of brain-related behavior and feelings and giftedness issues ā¦is something that can be very serious but is also abused as a money cowā¦ ā¦and the sites where you can take these tests, especially if there are communities attached to them, sell courses and/or stuffā¦so it is important to keep the tests as vague as possible so that as many people as possible can diagnose themselvesā¦ which seems harmless at this club (but I donāt know enough about it, but recognize the pattern) but in many cases can lead to very unpleasant situations ā¦ financially and/or socially ā¦ I have lost acquaintances and friends because of this kind of selfanelyses and persisted in it and became angry and angrier without seriously seeking help ā¦ but Facebook and You-Tube stranger blindly trusted
Greetings and thanks you for making this important point for solution-seeking quiet readers
I never heard of aphantasia before this thread, although it seems patent to me that thereās an broad spectrum of our visual memory recall. I presume itās simply a trait rather than medical condition (although physical and psychological events can obviously affect it).
Healthcare practitioners are like everyone else. We find what we believe in/think we understand/are interested in/ and are paid for. I know doctors who donāt believe in chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), never diagnosing or treating it in spide of it being an accepted medical diagnosis.
Thatās an awful lot of individuals to assess, looking for specific aphantasia symptoms 
The abstract you refer to suggests you might expect to have seen up to 600 (1%).
Most folk here are just sharing their personal experiences. What do I find easy/difficult to do?
Thereās nothing wrong with a bit of introspection and trying to recognise what makes us unique 
As to Rogierās worry about folk preying on gullible individuals for monetary gain.,
When was it ever not thus?
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Not the name ā¦but that there is such thing as seeing no images at all you heard of 
Almost always, yes, certainly 
ā¦ but I hope with that little side note that a few searching and wandering people will save money thanks to my words who search on a guitar site and suddenly start doing self-help tests and buy stuff the don`t need instead of guitar gear ā¦ 
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As one of those posters, who noticed an obviously different way of imagination compared to others, I just wanted to clarify, that I didnāt do any kind of self-diagnosis to probably fit into a category of āAphantasiacsā āwannabesā . Usually, I leave any kind of diagnosis to medical professionals . And believe me, Im not keen on getting a diagnosis. The only thing, thanks to this thread, I got aware of, was the fact, that other people apparently have images close to a photograph in their minds - and I donāt.
This. Nothing more and nothing less.
I personally found it helpful to know, that imagination can be so different for all of us. I lived my whole life without even knowing about my ālackingā ability to imagine visually. Something learned again . Consequences? After all of my health struggles during the last years, this certainly is my smallest problem. In terms of learning guitar or anything else - I keep it in mind - maybe good to know, Iām no visualizer. For the rest - Iām enjoying life and my guitar playing, workarounds included!
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Just like with all skills (as I previously mentioned) those in the general population will vary in their verbal or visual memory abilities. Those with neuro injury may have specific deficits in either or both of these domains as compared to their prior level of functioning. I never said that I was looking for aphantasia symptoms. I am saying that I personally never assessed someone who had those specific symptoms in the absence of other contributing neuro factors.
For those who like to delve into the weeds, have a quick look at prosopagnosia, visual agnosia or anosognosia. Now these are some interesting things I saw quite a bit of.
One last point and Iām off to the golf course. I agree itās useful to be introspective and self-analytical. However, anecdotal experiences are just that. They canāt be solely relied upon without further objective study.
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I havenāt read the whole thread, but are you referring to Sweetwater, Guitar Center and Thomann here?
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