Here we are in Nov 2024 and I have just found this thread. Its so interesting to hear what you all say on t he topic. I am also an āAphantā - i have the condition named Aphantasia. It was mind blowing to me when I discovered that people can really SEE stuff in their mind, in their head! WOW! You mean some folks can SEE loved ones - I canāt 
and that makes me sad.
When I heard about this condition (if thatās the right word) and told my family they said - is that why you like to have so many photoās around the house mum! I guess it is. I look at the photo of my handsome dad and remember his gentle nature, his kindness. I love scrapbooking - collecting photographs into collections or series that belong together and trigger memories for me.
I see NADA/NOTHING in my head - its a blank canvas, an empty page that leaves my imagination free to wander and play with words. Iām a descriptive person when speaking (but hate books that go into detail about scenery, does nothing for me!).
I can remember events that raised big emotions, but its the emotional aspect that is remembered, nothing else. I can even remember verbatim what was said at those times. I was involved in a serious, life changing car crash some years ago - I remember it but I donāt have to relive it which is great!
I was never much good at maths and blame the teaching because as an adult I am much better. I have a logical brain and worked successfully as a computer programmer for 25 years, love logic puzzles too.
I donāt hear music in my head (did someone say something about a musical memory - not me) yet I āfeelā music in my body. I love dancing, I love āthe beatā, I really feel music. So i guess that helps my guitar playing and learning licks is terrific because I donāt have to make them up, I copy what Justin gives us and them somehow my body feels how to make it my own.
Its rather cathartic writing all this and might bump it up so that someone new to the community can find it and realise they are not alone and will be able to learn somehow. Our style of learning may not be as easy as it is for those who can actually visualise and/or hear but we aphants have developed our own methods.
Enjoy your guitar journey everyone- I am totally jealous of those of you who can see and hear an inner world that is invisible to me. In many ways I am quite content with my lot!
Hi Lin ,
Nice read and this
is the only thing that really counts ā¦ 
have a fantastic life and live it with music
Greetings
Iāve been fascinated by people recounting their own experiences with aphantasia ever since I found out that itās a thing, and other people do, in fact, see things in an actual ābrain cinemaā (Kopfkino as we say in German) style. I do not. I donāt see an apple in my mind, but I still could describe one because I know the words we use to describe it, like āround, red, shiny, with a stem at the topā. But when someone mentions an apple, I donāt āseeā it in my minds eye, I feel its weight and shape in my hand, or remember what itās like to bite into one, that brief satisfaction of cutting through the intact outer layer with my teeth, maybe thereās some tiny drops of liquid scattering out from the force of my bite, and then I have all that freshness and acidity exploding on my tongue while my mouth is filled with soft, juicy pulp.
Iām terrible at following directions, I always have to align a map with the actual street Iām standing on, and trace my way over it with a finger while Iām actually walking those same streets irl to get any use out of it. For shorter directions, I memorise the turns as a string of worded instructions (āfirst left, then third right, straight along until the pink house, then turn right and itās fourth on the left sideā), and I have to learn these words as words, because I do not see them visually, so Iām muttering them to myself when Iām going somewhere unfamiliar, and woe betide if the instructions are too long, or Iām not 100% on my game, and a āleftā gets mixed up with a ārightā. Mostly, I end up asking someone again anyway half-way there^^
Iām very creative with stuff I have in front of me, like creating flower arrangements, or wrapping gifts, or franken-sewing stuff together like putting a hood from an old coat onto a new one, sashiko mending, patches, etc. And when I do it, I can usually imagine the things its still missing. Same with decorating a wall. If I have two picture frames already hanging, I know if a third is missing, and the shape and size it needs to be to complete the decoration successfully. So pattern recognition and imagining whatās missing is no problem.
For guitar playing, I donāt have much of an issue playing with eyes closed or in the dark, but visualising the fretboard works only in such vague terms that itās not helpful at all. I am quite good at remembering chord progressions or whatās next in chord melodies, the way I can also remember what someone said a few days ago, or when I read a certain turn of phrase in a crime novel, I instantly recall that Iāve read this before, and who the murderer was, even though Iāve read that book 20+ years ago and had forgotten I did so until then.
What shocked me most about the first video that was linked here was that they made a connection between not having a visual imagination and re-living emotions while remembering something. Is this connection between visual memory and emotions actually neurologically proofable, or is it conjecture from experience accounts? Iām trying to pin down how it is for me, and Iām having a hard time.
Eva, interesting to hear your experiences. One thing I think that has come up through this thread is that we all experience things a little different, and our brains have figured out ways of navigating life with the inputs that we have.
For guitar, my initial learning of a shape, scale or melody seems to be very labour intensive, but once I have memorized it, recalling it after some time seems fairly easy. Like ānormalā people, remembering Justinās lesson on how to learn songs and then recall and refresh after different lengths of time.
I can sit in the same room as my wife while she is watching TV, not paying attention to what she is watching but know that she has seen it before from a few moments. I could not have described it without the trigger though, or have a recollection of what is coming next.
I canāt answer your question about re-living emotions and whether they proved it. I suggest the best way is trying to talk with other people and comparing your process to theirs. It does take some explaining, to get others to understand.
Also I would say that how we process and recall visual images just our way. It doesnāt really matter whether others do it differently, we have to find our own way.
I am trying to do more songwriting, but some of the techniques that people use like sense writing describing your senses of a different memory, sight, smell, sound, taste, touch etc really donāt work for meā¦ As I think I said above, I donāt really enjoy fiction books as all the descriptions to set the scene are a waste. Songwriting for me feels a little disingenuous as it is describing things that are only very loosely based on an idea, and very made up, not a ālivedā experience for me.
Sorry I rambled off your point, this does all intrigue me. Your comment about getting directions, and giving directions is interesting. My navigation skills are pretty good, but giving directions is hard as I know the landmarks when I see them, but canāt recreate to route in my head.
I donāt know if this will answer your question or maybe just add to it but here goes anyway!
I just finished reading a book called The Body Keeps The Score, which is all about people who have experienced trauma in their lives, whether that be soldiers with PTSD or people who were abused in some way or another. The book makes the case that we carry a lot of implicit memories that when they are triggered by an event at a later date, we can get intense physical reactions to situations without necessarily understanding why in that moment. In the case of people who have flashbacks (like soldiers with PTSD), itās not just them seeing terrible images in their mindās eye, their body is re-living the experience again because itās unable to determine that the flashback is only an image from the past. That said you can have similar emotional reactions without the visual imagery. The doctor who wrote the book has done all sorts of studies over the years - heās a psychologist(?) whose job has been to try to treat people with past trauma and has sought to do so without resorting to pharmaceutical means.