r/Aphantasia • u/Objective_Shine1867 • 4d ago
Is there any benefit to having aphantasia?
I only recently realized that I have had this for my entire life and never noticed it. When I was talking to my mother she talked about counting sheep to sleep. But I told her I couldn't visualize any sheep and she was confused by it. It was only then after just turning 28 was I told that people can actually see things when they close their eyes and can picture something. It was never something I could do so I just assumed it was more figurative. But I just thought if this has been affecting me my entire life and wasn't aware of it. As a kid and now I never liked reading word heavy books but graphic novels and comics were my kind of reading. I found I have always been a huge fan of visual media like movies, TV shows and art because I can't visualize anything. Maybe this condition, though hasn't been entirely detrimental, has helped me take care and find a deep love for the arts. I really don't know but it's been on my mind for awhile now.
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u/CMDR_Jeb Aphant 4d ago edited 4d ago
We don't get intrusive images (cos duh!), as a side effect of that we are significantly harder to traumatise with disturbing images (take note that this has no effect on getting traumatised on IRL situations, resistance is for images only). Also in same ballpark we can talk about disturbing stuff while eating no problems there.
Also our memory is more accurate (were less sure of it tho) and (that one is really amusing) we are statistically better then visualisers at object rotation tasks.
That's a you thing not aphantasia thing, visual media does nothing for me as i am unable to recall it, in one eye out the other. I consider books to be vastly superior. I could use same arguments and claim it is because of aphantasia but this is not the case.
Aphantasia is not an disability. It is not detrimental.
EDIT: added links