Conversation

Notices

1. Embed this notice
   Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:24:56 JST Adrianna Tan

   Here’s a really interesting thing about having #aphantasia: I legitimately don’t know / remember what I look like.

   I can’t recall what my parents look like, my wife, my dog, my cat. It doesn’t mean I don’t recognize them (I’m also rather face blind), but it means I can’t make an image of them (or me) in my head. I can’t make any images in my head at all. Not even a faint outline.

   Apparently this is unfathomable to many people.. but it also means, I think, that I don’t get any visual intrusive thoughts. I don’t know what that’s like. So the idea of triggering thoughts that are primarily visual is.. a totally intellectual concept to me, not a visual one.

   Brains are so weird.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:27:49 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     And because I’m #actuallyautistic, I don’t ever look at myself in the mirror.

     It’s not a dysphoria thing. I simply don’t because of eye contact (with self!)

     I also can’t dress myself easily because I can’t hold an image in my head of what clothes I own, or what they are. I can see a photo of myself from a month ago and go, I had that shirt?

     Fashion is very challenging when you can’t imagine what you look like (and your clothes).

     #aphantasia

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:29:57 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     I had great difficulty reading fantasy. I need to look at images of fan art to help anchor my fantasy reading

     My experience of reading is primarily conceptual.

     When I read I don’t have a single image in my head. I describe the way I read as, almost like the way I write.

     I feel a *blob* of text.

     #actuallyautistic #aphantasia

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:36:32 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Martha Bridegam

     @MBridegam music is good, but i have classical training. i 'hear' fine. music is very similar to what i'm describing about the 'feel' for words, like a kind of synesthesia (not visual, not color) but around rhythm and patterns, that's similar to verbal language for me.

   • Embed this notice
     Martha Bridegam (mbridegam@federate.social)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:36:34 JST Martha Bridegam

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte
     Curious: how do you interact with music, e.g., melody vs. harmony? Do you get earworms, in the sense of tunes stuck in your head?

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:42:33 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Colin Burgess

     @colinburgess I keep almost getting into the wrong cars when friends pick me up no matter how many times. I don’t even remember what my mum’s car looks like or what color it is

   • Embed this notice
     Colin Burgess (colinburgess@mastodon.nz)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:42:34 JST Colin Burgess

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte baggage services person: Oh, your suitcase is lost? Ok, what does it look like?
     Adrianna: ???

     :-P

   • Embed this notice
     josh buermann (buermann@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:44:12 JST josh buermann

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte

     So when you watch a movie your memories of what just happened are a network of ideas with no visual center, because your processing what is happening normally but without the flicker of the images connecting them? I wonder how that discontinuity shapes experience.

     Like I suspect my smell-blindness has stolen some texture from my emotional life the same way my stereo-blindness flattens a hike, but they are subtle disabilities until you ask me to smell the gas leak or catch a ball.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:44:12 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • josh buermann

     @buermann I mean I can process them as they happen and I can even randomly remember or identify specific images

     Like when I saw a place in LA that I recognized in Bosch

     Like I remember snippets of conversations in movies or in everyday conversations that are completely disconnected from the visuals

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:48:38 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Martha Bridegam

     @MBridegam no perceptible difference in an orchestral setting, although in daily life if there is a very strong ‘solo’ like one person talking loudly or one source of music blaring loudly, I tend to not be able to hear anything else at all

   • Embed this notice
     Martha Bridegam (mbridegam@federate.social)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:48:39 JST Martha Bridegam

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte

     Thanks for explaining. And when you think of a piece of music, I'm wondering if you tend to hear the harmony as a whole structure, or, when there is a single strong solo line, to focus more on solo separately from accompaniment?

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:49:58 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • The Sleight Doctor 🃏🍉

     @ApostateEnglishman possibly. My sense of smell is also pretty good, which I guess complements that. I have been able to ‘smell’ in my dreams but not ‘see’

   • Embed this notice
     The Sleight Doctor 🃏🍉 (apostateenglishman@mastodon.world)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:49:59 JST The Sleight Doctor 🃏🍉

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte Do you think this may explain your love of food? I mean, has taste become your primary sensory modality?

   • Embed this notice
     Perrin42 (perrin42@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:52:08 JST Perrin42

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte

     For instance, I could not stop imagining this character:

     A monstrously muscled humanoid body... inherited its body from a Deepwalker Ape... Crusher’s fur was thick and shaggy, taken from the blood of a bear dreadbeast... The spines that rose from his back and the claws on his long fingers came from the diamond dragon... The wolf’s muzzle and tall, rabbit-like ears must come from the other, more common blood samples that were mixed into the spirit for balance and tempering.

     ...

   • Embed this notice
     Perrin42 (perrin42@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:52:08 JST Perrin42

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte

     ... As this:

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:52:08 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Perrin42

     @Perrin42 hahahahaa yeah

   • Embed this notice
     Perrin42 (perrin42@mastodon.social)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:52:09 JST Perrin42

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte

     I hate to say it but this is one area I've found AI to be useful. I've used it to create images of characters and scenes from fantasy novels based on the author's text. What's weird is sometimes it corrects my... I don't know, can I say "image" of the character or scene with aphantasia? Like, oh, that's right. Other times there's a conflict that I can't quite express, maybe because I've latched onto some other character image I've seen somewhere.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:54:07 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Sepideh

     @sepdroid yeah those are the hardest. I tried so much to read the Arkady book

   • Embed this notice
     Sepideh (sepdroid@androiddev.social)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:54:09 JST Sepideh

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte I have the same problem with far future science fiction. I really need to know what these weird aliens look like, and I struggle.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:56:03 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • 🔥Cassandra🔥

     @Cassandra people who visualize can’t imagine anything else. They ask what’s it like to not be able to do it and it feels like asking me something I don’t know and can’t imagine

   • Embed this notice
     🔥Cassandra🔥 (cassandra@ottawa.place)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:56:04 JST 🔥Cassandra🔥

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte Same. I got very angry at a books podcast that said it only counts as reading if you're imagining the visuals in your head.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:56:10 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Chris Cantrell

     @ChrisChris I can’t follow along at all with high fantasy unless I do this. It’s all gibberish otherwise like reading highly technical documentation in a domain I know nothing about

   • Embed this notice
     Chris Cantrell (chrischris@theforkiverse.com)'s status on Sunday, 23-Aug-2026 05:56:11 JST Chris Cantrell

     in reply to

     the fan art as an anchor point makes sense — gives the text something to orient around. does it change the reading experience or just make it possible?

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 24-Aug-2026 03:25:31 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     Aphantasia like everything else is a spectrum

     Not everyone experiences it exactly the same way

     #actuallyautistic #aphantasia

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 24-Aug-2026 04:33:56 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Chan Chan

     @squaremoon I don’t have visual dreams, but many who have it can dream visually as it comes from a different place in the brain

   • Embed this notice
     Chan Chan (squaremoon@sfba.social)'s status on Monday, 24-Aug-2026 04:33:57 JST Chan Chan

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte Do you dream? I am assuming you don't see the way we who can visualize do.

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Aug-2026 00:41:29 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • Henrik Pauli
     • 🔥Cassandra🔥
     • Lily

     @Cassandra @lilyyllyyllyly @phl i have no visuals and no monologue. it's not particularly quiet, it's just not noisy in that exact way

   • Embed this notice
     🔥Cassandra🔥 (cassandra@ottawa.place)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Aug-2026 00:41:30 JST 🔥Cassandra🔥

     in reply to

     • Henrik Pauli
     • Lily

     @lilyyllyyllyly @phl I find it hard to believe there are people whose brains are quiet sometimes, but apparently so.

   • Embed this notice
     Lily (lilyyllyyllyly@mastodon.gamedev.place)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Aug-2026 00:41:31 JST Lily

     in reply to

     • Henrik Pauli
     • 🔥Cassandra🔥

     @phl @skinnylatte @Cassandra wait... some people dont have an inner monologue???

   • Embed this notice
     Henrik Pauli (phl@mastodon.social)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Aug-2026 00:41:32 JST Henrik Pauli

     in reply to

     • 🔥Cassandra🔥

     @skinnylatte @Cassandra Just as people with inner monologue can't imagine not having one. How do those people think!? :D

     (as a phantasia'er and a headnoise'er, I have trouble imagining both)

   • Embed this notice
     Adrianna Tan (skinnylatte@hachyderm.io)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Aug-2026 00:45:54 JST Adrianna Tan

     in reply to

     • James Ravenscroft

     @jamesravey my worst fear is to be the sole witness of a crime.

   • Embed this notice
     James Ravenscroft (jamesravey@social.lol)'s status on Tuesday, 25-Aug-2026 00:45:55 JST James Ravenscroft

     in reply to

     @skinnylatte I always enjoy hearing about other people's experience of #aphantasia I can totally relate to most of this. My wife always jokes that if she went missing I wouldn't be able to describe her to file a police report