Was curious if anyone's found functional treatment regiments for aphantasia. Surprised to find very little. There is some evidence that it may be psychogenic in some patients, which is promising. Quite a few reports of acquired aphantasia (after eg head injury, stroke, surgery)
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I don’t really see it as something to be treated. But since I learned about it and self-identified, I’ve idly been taking note of conditions under which I can visualize more. Relaxation by whatever means seems to do something. One time I got abstract color fields on edibles.
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Interesting. I wonder to what extent there isn't much written about treatments because that's not very salient to aphantasics!
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I mean, till that Facebook post went viral, I didn’t realize I was atypical in any way.
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That’s the strangest part. I remember hearing all of these random idioms (“mind’s eye”, “visualize success”, etc) after reading ’s post and then thinking “oh shit, people mean this literally”
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I’m still not sure I believe them. Maybe it’s some sort of delusion of seeing and we’re the ones experiencing the real thing. It’s not like they all have eidetic memory of scenes they claim to visualize so richly.
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I believe them! Have clear imagery in my mind all day, and manipulating those visuals is (subjectively) an important part of my experience of solving problems!
& eg I can (and do) vividly place myself back on Wailea Beach for a quick shot of happy vibes—the sparkling waves, etc.
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Yes, I love that story. Reminds me of some of the evidence for the phonological loop as an important element of memory, e.g. the articulatory suppression effect: speaking "the the the" aloud between reading a word list and being tested dramatically reduces performance.