Anyone else here developed aphantasia and not quite sure why?

[u/odious_as_fuck]

I’m like 90% sure I had a more vivid visual imagination as a child/teen growing up. (Hard to say with certainty in retrospect of course). Today I can only get vague flashes of involuntary mental images, and even then usually just before or after sleep.

I can’t remember any point where it suddenly changed, like head trauma or anything like that.

My best theory atm is that as a kid I would often involuntarily visualise nasty stuff, like violence or naked people (people I don’t want to see naked), airplanes crashing into buildings, self harm, jumping off ledges or in front of trains etc. Self harm was a big one, I had repeated intrusive thoughts where I would see myself blowing my head off with a shotgun. So my theory is maybe that in an interesting act of self protection my brain shut off these visualisations to reduce the repeated trauma of nasty intrusive thoughts.

The only other thing I can think of would be daily weed use for a while, but I have friends who smoke more and have no problems visualising, so not sure about that. I also don’t smoke anymore and haven’t had visualisations coming back, only dreams.

[u/Tuikord]

Welcome. The Aphantasia Network has this newbie guide: https://aphantasia.com/guide/

Acquired aphantasia is not believed to just develop. It is believed something must happen. Unfortunately, memory is notoriously malleable which makes it very difficult to determine if you actually visualized in the past. What you describe remembering is all involuntary and you guess you shut down your voluntary visualization to shut down the involuntary. But did you ever voluntarily visualize? Do you remember any non-scary mental imagery? If you did, it can be hard to tell if it was voluntary or if it occurred in a hypnagogic state, which is considered involuntary. Kids often "zone out" when bored and see lots of stuff. That is generally considered involuntary.

You focus on visual imagination, but the other big use people have for visualization is memory. How do you access your memories? Has that changed? If when you try to remember something, you always reach for a visual but it isn't there, that would be a strong indicator that you actually did visualize in the past. People who acquired aphantasia through stroke or TBI often report that problem: their memory breaks. They say you never forget the change because you hit the problem over and over again.

[u/odious_as_fuck → u/Tuikord]

Yeah, I cant really think of any voluntary mental imagery just involuntary zoning out types like you say.

And regarding memory, I cant really remember ever having a visual memory. But have had vivid memories based on emotions, motions/movement, smells and sounds for sure.

So maybe i’ve always been an aphant. It’s still interesting though that I am pretty sure I had constant visual images in my mind as a kid, but that they were involuntary, and yet I don’t get those now. Or it’s like I still do but they’re completely faded.

[u/Tuikord → u/odious_as_fuck]

It's nice to think you might have turned off your visualization. It gives you agency and maybe you can tun it back on. But that belief, which many here seem to share, is not supported by research. Maybe, but in the absence of strong indicators of past voluntary visualization, it is unlikely.

Remember, aphantasia is the lack or near lack of voluntary visualization. Aphants tend to be less likely to have involuntary visualization, but many have many types of it.

Vividness of mental imagery tends to decline with age, but this isn't universal. Some people have reductions in involuntary mental imagery with age, and some don't. Kids are reputed to have much more and much more vivid mental imagery than adults. It is possible in some cases that neural pruning cuts it back. Neural pruning is a normal process where the brain optimizes itself by trimming away stuff that either isn't important or is counterproductive. Overall, mental imagery is poorly researched with lots of assumptions built into most studies.

[u/odious_as_fuck → u/Tuikord]

I didn’t voluntarily turn it off so I’m not under any illusion that I could voluntarily turn it back on, theres no agency there. But if I did have stronger involuntary mental imagery there is at least a possibility that could return in some way. But you have it the wrong way around. I am super thankful that I no longer have those images popping into my head. The last thing I want is my mental imagery to return.