Colin Coltrane

I feel like you've expressed something that I have always felt. While I am very empathetic, I've always felt conscious of the individuality of experience and somewhat isolated by the understanding that all experience is filtered through each person's senses and past experiences and therefore cannot truly be completely shared. In terms of empathy in relation to aphantasia, I am suspecting that I personally have a much easier emotional empathetic reaction in person, whereas my inability to visualize remote suffering leaves me more reliant on logical consideration and makes empathy more muted.

I am stunned that is actually good output, and I feel like all of those apply to me. I agree with Duncan, mindfulness can be another benefit of aphantasia. The other main one that the AI seems to have missed (I consider this distinct from the sort of freedom from reliance on experienced images that can appear as 'creativity' or 'out-of-the-box-thinking) is an increased ability for abstract thought and mental organization/categorization.

Yes! I can easily feel like I am physically located in a space that I am unable to visualize. I cannot see the ball on the table, but I feel the space around them somehow and the motion of the ball were the table to be tilted in different directions; I cannot see the horse but I can move around its body and consider it from all angles and each individual body part. I feel like this is experiencing the abstract conjugation in 3-4 dimensions rather than just 2. This is a spacial and positional sense of the objects over time instead of the images (still) or slideshow/movies that some people see (this was surprising to me when I started asking people if they saw an image and they would respond as if that were silly because they saw multiple images over time or related to different concepts adjacent to an object).

Thank you Charles, I think your experience is similar to mine (except for dyslexia/bad spelling) and I agree with your approach on this. I just realized I have had aphantasia all my life, but I prefer to think of it as an inability and a superpower, not a disability. Just think, you and I can't do what most other people can (visualize images), but instead of considering it that way, I try to instead highlight all of the benefits I gain. Without being burdened by an abundance of imagery, I am more freely able to make abstract connections and categorize information. Instead of feeling like I cannot do what others can, I am realizing more and more ways that almost noone can do what I can.

I have total aphantasia and have always struggled with artistic expression. While I was able to develop some drawing skills when young, have some untaught aptitude at graphic design, and enjoy construction-type creation like DIY projects, woodworking, and masonry; I've now realized the approach that works for me for all of these activities involves no visualization or even in many cases pre-planning. Instead I have good results finding a starting point or form in the project and then adjusting physically. This is more a process of letting the finished product emerge rather than first knowing how I want it to look and then working toward that. Time to take up chainsaw sculpting!

Recently realized complete aphant. I recall having much better success with body-focused meditation techniques like sequentially focusing on or tensing and relaxing muscles, or breath awareness. I was frustrated with guided visual meditation and generally very present and mindful anyway, which is probably why I have avoided or not felt the need to participate in group meditation activities.