Do you dream visually?

I don't dream, or at least I never remember them. On the plus side I've never had a nightmare either. Volunteered for a long time at my county Medical Examiners Office so with all the stuff I've seen it's probably a blessing I never dream. Anyone else never have nightmares?

I’ve aphantasia and I lucid dream. the setting of where my dreams are, are all things of this world that I know. Trees houses buildings clouds ect ect in my dreams I control most of what’s going on. If I don’t like whatever is happening I can instantly open my eyes to get out of it. I can also wake up to use the bathroom come back and continue where I left off. I also laugh a lot, like out loud in my dreams. This hasn’t always been the case. I remember as a child going all the way up to my early 20’s i kept having this reoccurring dream that was nothing but pitch black darkness and a bunch of silver like spikes n hard edges. I could never get out of it and when I would wake up it was always in a distress.

I m 61 and have been an aphant all my life. Although I just discovered the word Aphantasia last month! My dreams are quite sporadic, but they often feel like "anxiety dreams", like one I had last week was of about my daughter being lost and I'm calling to her and following her in various scenarios. The last ended with her treading water in a rapidly moving river and heading to a waterfall and I'm trying to save her. Recently she has not returned my calls in months, so that made sense. I'm flying in some dreams which happened before and after I learned paragliding. I have had dreams of being chased, a few were quite the bond thriller, inducing fear. They feel real until the cut scenes get super weird. Sometimes I wake up sweating. More often in the past months I "wake up" simply thinking about some issues, and realizing I've been thinking pretty coherently for what seems like a half-hour... and I may just stay in bed with my eyes open and continue to ponder it for a while. I have had severe insomnia since I was about 27, so I think this happens when I'm not getting REM sleep and I use medication. Perhaps I am not really sleeping.

I’ve always said i dont dream, but have twice in the past just don’t remember them, but ive been questioning it for a while now actually. I daydream, typically more of think of a situation and play it out but don’t actually see what’s happening, and will end up doing that as i fall asleep and lose consciousness as im still daydreaming and it becomes unclear as to whether it continues as a dream or if I’m just not asleep yet. I cant even say whether i have control cause i don’t really feel like i have much control even when I’m definitely awake, like it just happens how it does and if i don’t like it, tough.

I dream vividly and can only remember my dreams if I turn them into words very quickly when I wake up. I've never had a lucid dream...no matter how fantastical my dreams are, I believe them completely. I rarely dream about people I know, and when I do, I'm not sure if it's accurate. I don't think I've ever dreamt about a real life location. A lot of my dreams are about being at a party with a lot of friends, but when I wake up I realize that I made everything up, the house, the friends, their names, etc. The rest of my dreams are usually about having to go to the bathroom or having to get somewhere, but there are always weird, strange problems. I had one dream that I can barely describe in words cause it involved trying to go to the bathroom in a wide hallway with sort of porta potties, but every time I tried to go in to a one, they changed into backpacks hanging on hooks. There were a lot of other people that had no problem going in and out, and I finally figured that if I went into the one that my late husband had gone in and out of (he was six feet tall, so I thought if he could do it, I'd be able to), but as soon as I tried, they all turned into backpacks and I couldn't get in. I described that dream because it's a very typical type of dream that I often have, but never with the same situation or the same people.  

I am 56 years young and have slowly come to realise, over the last twelve months or so, that I have complete aphantasia. I always believed that I experienced vivid visual dreams, but do I? I often remember having incredible dreams in which fantastic and wonderful things happen in fantastic and wonderful worlds. However, I can't replay any of these dreams - but I can remember them. It's as if I've watched a film, say one of those wildly imaginative and intense Marvel films, and can remember what I saw and experienced but cannot re-visualise any of it. I've never had the ability to lucid dream: in fact, on the rare occasions when I have realised I'm dreaming I always wake up immediately. So, while I seem to remember dreaming visually, usually quite intensely and with much detail, I cannot be certain that I actually do. Am I dreaming in concepts, the same way that I think (and I can happily spend hours "daydreaming" in concepts), and imagining that I must have been dreaming visually - or am I actually dreaming visually? I honestly can't tell for sure but it feels like I dream visually. It's hard to explain, but memories of my dreams are like the rest of my memories, which I explain thusly: my memories are like detailed photographs or short films, I know what's in each of them but it's like all the originals are locked away in a drawer to which I do not have a key and so I can never see them again.

Funnily enough, I have very vivid dreams so it really baffles me how my mind can just shut that part of my brain off when I'm awake haha ^^

Very vivid, detailed dreams. So often almost precognitive. Also worth pondering for whatever message being sent from subconscious.

I have not had a dream experience that I remember upon waking in decades. In the early 80s, I used something called 'rebirthing' to visit every memory deemed an upset.  There were many, but as I relived the experience, all in living color and total senses while watching from another point of view, they disappeared along with decisions I made that day about me, it, or them.  I discovered a lot about myself and verified the early until then forgotten memories with my parents, who provided another point of view and their context.  15 years later, I met with another rebirthing practitioner and visited the birth canal experience again... just a whole body warm fuzzy without any pictures.  Since the completion of the rebirthing the first time I cannot remember having a visual dream while sleeping. Just a black canvas. 

I’ve never dreamed much. I see figures/action but poor definition and usually immediately forgotten. On first taking Vit B6/P5P some years ago I could sometimes see very clear pictures (of eg. strangers ) when dropping off to sleep.  But the moment I mentally recognised them they blinked out and I could not stop this. This ability soon disappeared. My Aphantasia is lifelong, but I’ve wondered if I ‘turned off’ visualisation aged 3-4 as I recall that for a long time I was frightened to go to bed and close my eyes. Because I would immediately see rolling waves of changing colours.  They would be so strong that I felt like I was drowning in them. It was terrifying. However, I’m well experienced at Mind/Body internal communing, and I get a definite ‘No’ to that question. 😊

I dont experience visual imagery in my head or while dreaming

no, i don't dream.

I do see visuals and hear sounds when I dream. It's not exactly like "real life" always. But some dreams are more vivid and lifelike than others. While I'm dreaming I don't know that I'm in a dream. Oftentimes I wake up from a bad dream and, once I realize I was asleep, I'm relieved that what I dreamed about didn't really happen. (Like losing my dog off a cliff or all my teeth falling out..)    

I don't have visual dreams.  I experience a story in my head with zero visuals. I rarely remember much from my dreams, just the last pieces before I wake up. During that phase, I'm sometimes confused if I'm dreaming or if I'm just thinking about the event that's in my head.  /Simon

I never really remember my dreams, but just the other day I remember looking at a full colour flight ticket in my dream and then immediately waking up and I couldn't see or bring back the image of it, but what really struck me was that in my dream I actually visualized it as if I was physically holding it!

Full, vivid. plot, characters. But as soon as I roll over the whole lot disappears unless I make serious effort to remember details. Often finding my way from one point to another over terrain which has changed over time. Used to be mountainous bush tracks until bulldozed and opened up ease of travel. For many years, while itinerant and to some extent while stationary, many dreams turn out to be precognitive in that the morning will bring options and my waking steps chooses to follow one of these. No longer experience deja vu but have the sense of being in the right place at the right time. Meeting for the first time someone met in a dream takes a bit of explaining unless quite comfortable with Jung and collective unconscious.

I dream visually, but dreams that lack such imagination ...my dreams are various repeats of my everyday life with subtle changes that indicate my hopes and fears. I think I posted elsewhere that I once awoke with a smile on my face because I dreamt that the bathroom had been retiled ...

Yes. Now that I am settled, most dreams are mundane but ass if reading a book - plot, characters and am interested but when I turn over the dream disappears and I cannot recall details. When details are available, I make a detailed note in Note and look back with interest trying to interpret what was going on at the time. When my life was as a raging stream over which I felt little control, many dreams were precognitive and life worked out if I literally followed my dream. Until finding others day-dreamed their images I thought my version is what they meant, but could never get anyone to confirm whether they were day dreaming or night dreaming.

I go through periods of time where I regularly recall vivid dreams, and then periods of time when I either don't dream or don't recall it at all. I have, on a couple of occasions, been able to make a dream lucid, which is a trip, but it doesn't last long. Some of the most vivid dream states I get are the ones when I'm only just dozing off - these are the ones where I'll sometimes literally jump awake in response to something in the dream. (It's weird to me that the sleep threshold is like flipping a switch on mental imagery: Zero capacity to visualize while awake, but as I cross into sleep I suddenly [sometimes] get this vivid imagery.) But aside from that, my REM sleep dreams have visuals, semi-coherent storylines, etc. I don't have any reason to think they're much different from what other people describe. I consistently have 'disjunctive cognition' - where I know that a person in the dream is person x, even though they look nothing like person x. (I gather this isn't just an 'aphantasia' thing, but I wonder if there are different trends for it among aphantasics.)

Yes. My dreams are very visual. Nick Lore