Thank you! I’m just figuring this all out late in life and relate with a lot of what you said. Would be nice if you were still on TH-cam. I like how you talk it through which is exactly where I’m at right now. Great video
Pretty good description Alan. I like the bookcase 'theory' I am a total 'aphant' discovered in later life - in a method acting workshop - where the use of 'emotional memory' is VERY important. I couldn't do the exercise. What troubles me however Alan, is how did I get through the 1st 56 years of my life not knowing this. Having I been lying to myself (& others) that I am 'normal'? That recollections of past events & emotions are not the same as everyone else's? Still trying to work it out!
i really relate to what you’re saying! When i think back to sad events in my life, i don’t really 're-feel‘ the emotions i felt, no matter how strong they were. But when i think about the loved one i lost (for example) i can feel sad again, in the present. Does this make sense? I find it very difficult to articulate my experiences especially because i obviously don’t know many other peoples perspective.
Hi Alan, love your videos!.. I personally find that the experience of emotions is the most intriguing thing about my aphantasia. I believe that because I am unable to draw images when recalling a memory, I'm not able to have a strong emotional connection to the memory. So when recalling a memory where I felt an intense emotion eg. happiness, sadness, anger etc. I'm unable to re-experience those emotions, or even a watered down version of the emotion. It feels to me as though memories are just facts. I draw no experience/emotion from them.
I think I recreate the emotions too. It's like a faint copy of the original emotion. The thing I notice is that I still have the effect of that experience on how I see myself.
I find it that my past feelings can be restored if they are related to a specific song, a painting or even food. If this is true (and it is in my particular case), the only thing that's wrong is the absence of visuals, audio or taste imagination.
I can't believe that I can still find something new about aphantasia STILL after all these years...the way @chrisophBackhaus below described your Harry Potter analogy (bc no offense, you had me a bit lost haha) but they say that the way non-aphants "can use their memories to [fend off /defend] bad experiences like using the Petronas" now I see what you mean...and OMGGGGGG that pisses me off. That is a literal tool that I not only don't have and have never had, but that I didn't know people were using this whole time while I wasn't. It's as if that tool, that Petronas, is invisible to me...wow...unfair...but if it ain't one thing it would be a-...-nother, so 🤷♂
Memories are the drugs you turn to when you can't handle reality. Don't feel bad guys, we're a step ahead in evolution. Or you can spend the rest of your lives thinking you're lacking and trying to feel emotions that are completely irrelevant to actual reality. Normal isn't always good or natural. Growth happens by using information from past experiences, not by clinging to past experiences and reliving them constantly.
I'm there with you I have memories that are descriptive vocabulary I also have physical memories of locations but not emotional that's the best way I can describe it I know a thing happened I can tell you what the surroundings were for the thing and the action how it made me feel as far as emotional depth yeah I can guess but I don't have that
In the last 3 days I just discovered I have Aphantsia. I've always had it but I just discovered it is a thing. Many years ago I studied NLP. Why Aphantsia might cause A disassociation of emotional Memory. At the time NLP showed how By changing the image of a memory it will change the emotional level. For example a person who experiences trauma and has a vivid first person memory of it. They can lesson the severity, By changing the image to a third person image. At the time I didn't understand why NLP never seem to work for me. I did not understand What I was viewing was different than them. So in other words the emotions are tied to visual memories. That can be manipulated if you have them in the mind eye. NLP was called neurologistic programming.
I think we do store the memories at the time but we cannot access them, and certainly not in connection with the emotions. It’s they’re in a vault and we don’t have the passcode. I was in therapy for years and I’m sure I was a puzzle to my therapist.
Hello everyone, before I found out I had aphantasia , I tried to explain to my husband how my brain works this way ….: I live today and toward the future but I do not feel there is a past. Also with people it is a bit like out of side out of mind ( I need to make real efforts to stay connected, I need to look at pictures etc to be reminded of a relationship) can only be descriptive about emotional events without feeling the emotions but can be triggered by music ……hearing the song from my mothers funeral definitely triggers something in me but not so much memories of the event but more the feeling of missing her
Great explanation. I often wondered about my “out of sight “ thing. Everyone else seemed to be able to keep connections, I didn’t and it didn’t seem important to me to do that. Combine that with the fact that I’m an introvert.
When you imagine something vividly like a memory, and you then have an emotional reaction, then that's your subconscious confusing imagination with reality. Because the subconscious doesn't differentiate between the two. And if memories are saved data, information, for problem solving and learning. Then why would we want to have an unconsciously induced emotional reaction everytime we look at saved information? It's a downside of imagination and a lack of ability to handle our own intellect. As aphantasiacs we're lucky tbh
Thank you! I’m just figuring this all out late in life and relate with a lot of what you said. Would be nice if you were still on TH-cam. I like how you talk it through which is exactly where I’m at right now. Great video
Pretty good description Alan. I like the bookcase 'theory'
I am a total 'aphant' discovered in later life - in a method acting workshop - where the use of 'emotional memory' is VERY important.
I couldn't do the exercise.
What troubles me however Alan, is how did I get through the 1st 56 years of my life not knowing this.
Having I been lying to myself (& others) that I am 'normal'? That recollections of past events & emotions are not the same as everyone else's?
Still trying to work it out!
i really relate to what you’re saying!
When i think back to sad events in my life, i don’t really 're-feel‘ the emotions i felt, no matter how strong they were. But when i think about the loved one i lost (for example) i can feel sad again, in the present.
Does this make sense? I find it very difficult to articulate my experiences especially because i obviously don’t know many other peoples perspective.
Hi Alan, love your videos!.. I personally find that the experience of emotions is the most intriguing thing about my aphantasia. I believe that because I am unable to draw images when recalling a memory, I'm not able to have a strong emotional connection to the memory. So when recalling a memory where I felt an intense emotion eg. happiness, sadness, anger etc. I'm unable to re-experience those emotions, or even a watered down version of the emotion. It feels to me as though memories are just facts. I draw no experience/emotion from them.
Hi! I experience the same and would like to chat with you, is that possible?
@@JerryMetal I’d love to chat with you about this! Do you have twitter? or instagram? Message me privately on either of them @jameboyy!
😊
@@jameboyy Hi! Thanks mate, I have followed you on Twitter but it seems you have disabled sending messages? My handle is: @JellyMetal
@@JerryMetal Hello! Didn’t realise this?. I’ve just followed you back and DM’d you! 😊
I think I recreate the emotions too. It's like a faint copy of the original emotion. The thing I notice is that I still have the effect of that experience on how I see myself.
I find it that my past feelings can be restored if they are related to a specific song, a painting or even food. If this is true (and it is in my particular case), the only thing that's wrong is the absence of visuals, audio or taste imagination.
I can't believe that I can still find something new about aphantasia STILL after all these years...the way @chrisophBackhaus below described your Harry Potter analogy (bc no offense, you had me a bit lost haha) but they say that the way non-aphants "can use their memories to [fend off /defend] bad experiences like using the Petronas" now I see what you mean...and OMGGGGGG that pisses me off. That is a literal tool that I not only don't have and have never had, but that I didn't know people were using this whole time while I wasn't. It's as if that tool, that Petronas, is invisible to me...wow...unfair...but if it ain't one thing it would be a-...-nother, so 🤷♂
Memories are the drugs you turn to when you can't handle reality. Don't feel bad guys, we're a step ahead in evolution. Or you can spend the rest of your lives thinking you're lacking and trying to feel emotions that are completely irrelevant to actual reality. Normal isn't always good or natural. Growth happens by using information from past experiences, not by clinging to past experiences and reliving them constantly.
I'm there with you I have memories that are descriptive vocabulary I also have physical memories of locations but not emotional that's the best way I can describe it I know a thing happened I can tell you what the surroundings were for the thing and the action how it made me feel as far as emotional depth yeah I can guess but I don't have that
It perfectly fits what I experience....
In the last 3 days I just discovered I have Aphantsia.
I've always had it but I just discovered it is a thing.
Many years ago I studied NLP.
Why Aphantsia might cause
A disassociation of emotional
Memory.
At the time NLP showed how
By changing the image of a memory it will change the emotional level.
For example a person who experiences trauma and has a vivid first person memory of it.
They can lesson the severity,
By changing the image to a third person image.
At the time I didn't understand why NLP never seem to work for me. I did not understand What I was viewing was different than them. So in other words the emotions are tied to visual memories. That can be manipulated if you have them in the mind eye.
NLP was called neurologistic programming.
I think we do store the memories at the time but we cannot access them, and certainly not in connection with the emotions. It’s they’re in a vault and we don’t have the passcode. I was in therapy for years and I’m sure I was a puzzle to my therapist.
Hello everyone, before I found out I had aphantasia , I tried to explain to my husband how my brain works this way ….: I live today and toward the future but I do not feel there is a past. Also with people it is a bit like out of side out of mind ( I need to make real efforts to stay connected, I need to look at pictures etc to be reminded of a relationship) can only be descriptive about emotional events without feeling the emotions but can be triggered by music ……hearing the song from my mothers funeral definitely triggers something in me but not so much memories of the event but more the feeling of missing her
Great explanation. I often wondered about my “out of sight “ thing. Everyone else seemed to be able to keep connections, I didn’t and it didn’t seem important to me to do that. Combine that with the fact that I’m an introvert.
I agree with some but I’m able to feel emotions if I think something in the past
I have one very vivid memory of my childhood, which I can see, in a descriptive way. Which I now know is not the norm.
dude??? are you related to agent coulson? what happen to sheild?
When you imagine something vividly like a memory, and you then have an emotional reaction, then that's your subconscious confusing imagination with reality. Because the subconscious doesn't differentiate between the two. And if memories are saved data, information, for problem solving and learning. Then why would we want to have an unconsciously induced emotional reaction everytime we look at saved information? It's a downside of imagination and a lack of ability to handle our own intellect. As aphantasiacs we're lucky tbh