Mark Howard

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.