Zack Evans

So aphantasia has been known to be caused by physical trauma (Look up Adam Zeman, and his patient "MX" https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-the-minds-eye-is-blind1/).It's worthwhile to note that even though its largely genetic (as far as we know), its not always from aphantasic parents (think of it like being left handed, if your parents are, you're more likely to be, but if your parents aren't, you still can be).Additionally I thought I might take some time to suggest some things from my own experience. I'm completely aphantasic, with a possibly hyperphantasic father and a phantasic mother, and although it does limit me slightly (my ability to do wierd tasks like solve rubiks cubes is diminished), its not caused me huge problems in my day to day life.There is actually some advantages to aphantasia in every day life (although what they are may not be obvious). From people I've talked to aphantasics almost always (I haven't met one who doesn't) has amazing spacial recall and memory, and if you take the time to become aware of it, you can use it to do things better than most people (I worked this out after learning to navigate New York City, above and below ground significantly faster than my family, when I was only 12). You also have to be willing to ask people to give information to you in a way that works for you though, find a friend and experiment with having them tell you different things that are normally hard for you to understand, find a way that makes sense to you, and apply that to other things that you do.The last thing I find many (but again, probably not all) people with aphantasia have is a very good sense (and even imagination) of propreoception (positioning and movement of body). Personally this makes me a good martial artist, and I've seen others on this site talk about how they've used it (such as learning to memorise the movements in processes instead of the steps to better learn things).While I have wondered what I'm missing (who hasn't), in my mind aphantasia actually makes me better at a variety of tasks, if I just take the time to identify them.

Personally I have noticed having very good spacial recall, to the point where my family has me navigate when we travel as I'm always able to retrace my steps, and often optimise a return path. I don't have tactile memory though, but do have good proprioceptive (body position and movement) imagination and memory, which lets me learn physical tasks quickly.My best guess as to why I'm good in these areas are from video games for spacial learning (started very young), and martial arts for proprioceptive (started at 9).One other coping mechanism I've learned more involves training your friends/family to descibe things differently when giving information, for example instead of saying "Turn at the 3rd light", which uses a visual indicator, say "Take the (xth) turn", which uses spacial indicators. The hardest part of doing this is when you have someone who cannot wrap their head around what language works and doesn't so it takes some practice to get them comfortable with what they could be saying differently to better help you understand.The memory techniques I only began to understand my need for after I learned about aphantasia, even though I was doing them for years before, but the language change was something I worked out with a friend of mine who I described aphantasia to, and in trying to better understand it, worked with me to find language and concepts that were easier for me to retain.One tip I have if you have a hard time reading a map is ignore the visual indicators listed on the map. Instead count turns and imagine yourself moving through the space (which if you're like me with spacial and proprioceptive imagination), more than makes up for the lack of visual indicators. Personally to make this easier I do things like never look at the satilite view of a digital map, instead I always use the bland map view because theres little to no visual noise.Hope this is intersting to you, and maybe even gives you or someone else some ideas,Ryo