Greg Smith

That's an interesting question. I suspect that people who can retrieve memories using their senses would have more vivid memories and the emotions associated with those memories would be easier to tap into. This would go both ways of course. An Aphantasic is probably less likely to suffer from PTSD because of the inability to visually relive the traumatic experience.I don’t believe that Aphantasics are cold. The memories are still there along with the related emotion. You may just need a way to trigger that memory such as a picture.For example, I have a memory from my childhood of being up late at night, it being real quiet, as my family packed the trailer on the driveway to go on vacation. I can trigger that memory simply by going outside my house, late at night while it is real quiet. The original memory is from southern California but I could trigger it in Alaska in the winter. There’s no visual component to the memory, I am not back in a different place or time. But the (very pleasant) feelings are there. That’s the emotion.

Corrine:I'm certainly not an expert. But based upon my experience of not knowning I am aphantasic until I was past 60, finding out at such a young age will be a great help. She will have the advantage of knowning that there will be certain activities that will be more difficult and she will need to develop compensation techniques. At the same time, she will find activities that she excels at. I spent the majority of my childhood believing that I was below average in intelligence. It beat up my self confidence (along with some other things about me) so much that I didn't even try until college. You have the opportunity to avoid that by helping her understand how her mind works. Your husband can be a huge help in this. Gather as much info as you can. Just by being here, you are giving her a great gift.

I’m 67 years old. I really don’t remember when I realized that the majority of people could visualize in their head. It was probably less than 5 years ago or so. Of course, I knew about those people who had “photographic memories,” the ones whose tests in school were virtually “open book.” But, I just assumed that they were the minority and the majority of people were like me. My wife has a photographic memory as does my son who is a chess player and can play blindfold chess and I just figured he inherited it from her.With Google, I found the term Aphantasia and discovered that I was the exception rather than the rule. A lot of things in my life suddenly made sense; poor spatial skills, difficulty learning to read, the extreme torture of spelling bees, difficulty with anything mechanical, anything involving memorization. On the other hand, I am pretty good at tasks involving logic. My Aphantasia is virtually complete. I can see absolutely nothing in my head. If I want to describe something I have to first verbalize the description while I have it in front of me. Since a “picture is worth a thousand words” that’s a lot of words to carry around with you all the time. Nevertheless, I have quite a few memories of growing up. But they are verbal descriptions of things that happened, people I knew, etc. They have no visual aspect to them.Having a name for the way my memory works has been a big help in developing coping mechanisms such as multiple computer screens. If I’m going to take something apart, I take a picture of it before so I can put it back together. I know that I’m going to have to give up my man card and actually read those directions, carefully, and compare the physical object to the pictures. If I really need to remember something, I will create a verbal description in my mind. Having a name and better understanding has made life less frustrating because it has led to understanding, acceptance and adaptation.I hope Aphantasia becomes better known and researched so that teachers understand it and are able to adapt their teaching mechanisms for those students with it in much the same way they have done with dyslexia.