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Coping with everyday life when you have aphantasia

Radgieplays

Hi everyone,

I’ve recently been reflecting on how aphantasia (not being able to picture things in my mind) affects my day-to-day life. I sometimes find it tricky with things like remembering faces, visualising directions, or recalling past events in detail — and I’m curious how others experience it. I find that it can affect my creative hobbies in weird and wonderful ways, such as my story writing and poetry as well.

If you also have aphantasia, what kinds of strategies, tools, or little workarounds do you use to make everyday life easier or more enjoyable? It could be anything — from practical tips to creative approaches, or even ways you’ve reframed how you think about it.

I’m really interested to hear how you all navigate it — whether it’s something you’ve figured out over time or you’re still experimenting with. Feel free to share as much or as little as you like.

Parents

  • I was so upset when I realised I had aphantasia. I was in my 40s when someone told me they would enjoy revisiting the 'pictures' in her mind of the bluebell wood we had just walked through. I felt cheated as I have never been able to visualise anything. When I close me eyes all I can see is blacknesss, however hard I try. Over time, I have worked out that memories tend to be fixed in my mind through mapping and emotion (not expressed outwardly to anyone). I can usually recall my position in an environment in relation to someone else and a broad idea of what the siutaion was e.g. death of my father. However, I can't fix memories in linear timelines very well. 

    I was always bad at art when at school, but in later life I managed to produce some reasonable drawings and watercolours by copying from online resources. As soon as I started to understand how pictures can be created I lost interest in that subject though! I have tried various hobbies, mostly just because I enjoy finding out whether or not I am capable of doing them; but I find that once I have cracked a winning formula (usually after instense research and practice) I tend to lose interest and move on to something else that will challenge me. 

    Strategies for me to deal with aphantasia are: sat nav, writing down directions in my own code, taking photos of special occasions (when I remember to do it at the time), enjoying memories of past homes and places by mentally walking round them using mapping instead of visual images.and recalling activities that happened there - not in any chronolgical order. I'm really tempted to get an AI headset so I can enjoy seeing images as though they are generated by my brain - one day I might afford one!

    On the plus side, I saw some pretty terrible things when I was a nurse, so at least I can't relive them visually.

Reply

  • I was so upset when I realised I had aphantasia. I was in my 40s when someone told me they would enjoy revisiting the 'pictures' in her mind of the bluebell wood we had just walked through. I felt cheated as I have never been able to visualise anything. When I close me eyes all I can see is blacknesss, however hard I try. Over time, I have worked out that memories tend to be fixed in my mind through mapping and emotion (not expressed outwardly to anyone). I can usually recall my position in an environment in relation to someone else and a broad idea of what the siutaion was e.g. death of my father. However, I can't fix memories in linear timelines very well. 

    I was always bad at art when at school, but in later life I managed to produce some reasonable drawings and watercolours by copying from online resources. As soon as I started to understand how pictures can be created I lost interest in that subject though! I have tried various hobbies, mostly just because I enjoy finding out whether or not I am capable of doing them; but I find that once I have cracked a winning formula (usually after instense research and practice) I tend to lose interest and move on to something else that will challenge me. 

    Strategies for me to deal with aphantasia are: sat nav, writing down directions in my own code, taking photos of special occasions (when I remember to do it at the time), enjoying memories of past homes and places by mentally walking round them using mapping instead of visual images.and recalling activities that happened there - not in any chronolgical order. I'm really tempted to get an AI headset so I can enjoy seeing images as though they are generated by my brain - one day I might afford one!

    On the plus side, I saw some pretty terrible things when I was a nurse, so at least I can't relive them visually.

Children
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