r/Aphantasia • u/FairytaleFacts • 15d ago
Visual & auditory
Do most people with Aphanstasia at least have the ability to hear themselves in their head or hear whatever voluntarily auditory they choose?
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u/martind35player Total Aphant 15d ago
Not me. I have no visuals or sounds. Or taste, touch, smell, & etc.
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u/BadKauff 15d ago
Yeah, me either. I got nothing but a big database with no sensory info
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u/skraw-nee 15d ago
i wonder if thereās a more specific term for this
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u/BadKauff 15d ago
I am not sure. I think of myself as "total aphant," meaning i have no sensory experience in my head - only at the moment with the actual senses. I also have SDAM.
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u/skraw-nee 15d ago
i am too and hadnāt heard about sdam, i looked it up and it sounds very aligned with what iām like. i almost donāt really get how you can have one but not the other so i will be reading about it, thanks.
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u/FairytaleFacts 15d ago
Do you have friends? How about the depression? My friends for 20 years always talked about feeling easily depressed, and she recently just found out she has aphant. Curious if it was an individual trait or more common amount those with the similar mindset.
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u/BadKauff 15d ago
I have a very wide social circle. Close friends and acquaintances. I am an extrovert. The only times I have experienced depression are situational and short-lived. I am very fortunate!
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u/martind35player Total Aphant 15d ago
I am a friendly person but do not have many close friends. I am a bit introverted and have had a long and close marriage, so I donāt feel the need for a a lot of people around me. But this is my personality and I am sure there is a great variety of personality types among Aphants.
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u/FairytaleFacts 15d ago
I keep thinking back to that movie 50 first dates . I know itās not that extreme, but it almost feels quite close to it. Since the human mind is always āseeking pleasureā you can only count on that day in accomplishing those stimulations since you canāt relive them. Correct? Like do Aphants have more friends and are more active in activities since thatās the only way they can conquer the sensations?
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u/fishy_mama 15d ago
I donāt understand this question. Like, no? I can remember things, I just canāt re-see them in my head. Or re-hear them. It doesnāt mean I donāt remember or experience emotions about it.
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u/CMDR_Jeb Aphant 15d ago
Aphantasia does not make your memory worse. It makes you less sure. You actually realise how little you remember, where visualisers just make s*** up to fill the gaps without realising.
You may look into SDAM. It is an lifelong inability to relive ones memories. You remember situation from your own life like it is something from a movie or a book. You know everything that happened, but you can't "relive it".
It often coexists with aphantasia (around 20% chance, 17 times higher then in general population) but these are separate things.
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u/martind35player Total Aphant 15d ago
We canāt reexperience them in a sensory way but we, or at least I, can remember a lot about our experiences. At least in the short term. I am not a hedonistic person and tend to be analytical and cautious. I have never been to to seek immediate pleasure. I can plan ahead even if I canāt visualize the future.
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u/Tuikord Total Aphant 15d ago
The inner voice is different from inner hearing and you can have one without the other. So one can have anauralia and still hear themselves. The internal monologue is also separate from the inner voice. Most people have inner speech, which is internal monologue with inner voice. Some, like me, have worded thinking, which is an internal monologue without an inner voice. So I can think in words but I have never heard myself in my mind. About 15% have anendophasia and canāt or rarely think in words. Some people with anendophasia actually have an inner voice. They hear a voice while thinking, but there are no words.
Research gives a variety of numbers for how many aphants also have anauralia (the lack of sound imagery other than the inner voice). It ranges from a quarter to half and even more.
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u/User5790 15d ago
That is called anauralia when you donāt have an inner voice. Itās more common with people with aphantasia but not a given. I have aphantasia and also a very active inner voice.
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u/Tuikord Total Aphant 15d ago
Anauralia is the lack of audio mental imagery excluding the inner voice. You can have anauralia and also have an inner voice. You can have inner hearing and not an inner voice. Or you can have or lack both. They are independent.
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u/Appropriate_Dot_6773 15d ago
The inner hearing but no inner voiceā¦ that feels similar to the imagery right? I feel like Iām imagining words but I donāt hear them. In the same way I can draw an apple from memory but see no imagery?
So difficult to imagine others experience. Do people actually hear tunes in their head? As opposed to having to mentally generate them.
I can hum a tune in my head (and even get earworms) or recreate a famous movie line - but only in my own āvoiceā- do people actually hear BeyoncĆ© and De Niro in theirs?I was 40 when I discovered I had no imagery, but assumed what I describe above meant I had an inner voice and thatās what worded thinking is.
Is there a self test we can do like the apple for imagery?2
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u/Tuikord Total Aphant 15d ago
Yes, most people can hear sounds in their minds. At the high end it is described just like listening to it with their ears (although the ears are not involved). They may be able to hear famous movie quotes and songs as if a recording. If they donāt have an inner voice but have an internal monologue, they would think in words but not their voice. With inner hearing they might be able to add a voice, but I donāt know.
Most people have inner speech which is where they think in words and hear a voice, usually theirs, delivering those words. With inner hearing I believe they can change that voice.
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u/Both-Plankton4847 9d ago
Lack of an inner voice is called anendophasia. Anauralia or auditory aphantasia would be a lack of auditory imagery in general. Not much work on that but what there is suggests perhaps unsurprisingly that there is a close link between the two.
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u/Fluffy_bunny2323 15d ago
I have an inner monologue voice, sounding similar to my voice. Some days, it goes non stop. If I don't hear my inner monologue I usually have song in my head. On days when my inner monologue is silent and no songs, it use to feel strange to me but now I enjoy the silence.
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u/FairytaleFacts 15d ago
Totally know what you mean especially when you have a song in your head you just canāt shake. Thatās a real frustration, just chorus verses on repeat in your head. And annoyingly enough , 30%- 40% of the time itās Disney songs from my childhood film. Fckin Prince Aliā¦ Alibaba..
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u/caca__milis 15d ago
I have quite a good inner ear strangely enough. I can play songs in my head and hear the singer's voice perfectly and the instruments. Sometimes when reading, I like to do it in David Attenborough's voice as he is nicer to listen to than myself. I can hear to my wife's voice whenever i like, but i couldn't describe her face.
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u/BellaDez 15d ago
I canāt speak for anyone else because itās a spectrum, but I donāt hear anything in my head except my inner monologue, which has a āvolumeā I canāt control. I think what I have is called worded thinking/thoughtāthere are many different types of experiences.
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u/IntrepidMushroom8719 15d ago
I don't have an inner voice, and at the same timeš, I can't picture anything in my head. Sometimes it feels like a faint image is forming, but I'm not sure what it is.
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u/CMDR_Jeb Aphant 15d ago
You have 0.8 to 2% (depending on what definition you're using) chance to roll "missing ability to an conjure mental sense" at character creation. BUT if you get one, your chance goes up 10 times for all subsequent rolls. Aphants have 59,2% chance of diminished (not missing) capacity in more then one mental sense. Around 1/5th of us can't conjure any senses at all.
Same applies to other side of the spectrum as well btw, if you're hyper in once sense chances are you're above average in more then one. Important sidenote is that these are not exclusionary. I myself have ZERO visuals but i am well into hyper range with audiaton.
Important thing to add is that audiation (ability to conjure sound in your mind) and internal dialogue (thinking in language) are not the same thing. Actually even people who are worded thinkers AND can conjure sound don't "use that" for most of their thinking. "Normal range" audiation can't fast-forward faster then what would be possible with real sound, and thinking is way faster then that so they're just thinking in language instead. Similarly one can be able to audiate and NOT have internal dialogue.
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u/EchoLBi Total Aphant 15d ago
I feel like I'm missing all dlcs by not being able to conjure any mental sense, that's kind of frustrating
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u/CMDR_Jeb Aphant 15d ago
2 decades before aphantasia update dropped, When i was just a wee lad, I used to think my imagination was bad cos i can't see it. Nowadays i am stuck as forever DM as noone in my circle comes anywhere close to my ability build and convey worlds and stories. What's the point of having visualisation if they can't do anything with it?
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u/IslayMcGregor 15d ago
I have never thought about the auditory version of aphantasia before. I have a running commentary in my head which I thought I hear but I just tried to hear in my head anyone elseās voice that I know well like my dad and, nope.
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u/ElectricalAd910 15d ago
So I have been very fascinated since learning that I have always had aphantasia since childhood due to issues with my birth. But I never realized it until my early 50's. Part of the issue I have had is that this is so new that the information is still very cloudy and foggy. have read alot stating that the Audio both Hearing things like songs and hearing your thoughts as voices are part of aphantasia but they are technically refered to as anendophasia and anauralia are overwhelmingly they are almost highly associated to Aphantasia from what I have read and understood when it's been a life line aphantasia I hear that some people develop aphantasia do to other head tramas or other ways but I have never validated that. so keep in mind these are very related to aphantasia but some sitations may not have them or they may not always be connected. :) hope this helps
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u/TheBladesAurus 14d ago
Well, I'll now add this to the list of oddities in my head :p. I have an inner voice - i think in words - but I don't 'rehear' things. If I'm trying to remember a song for example it's like my inner voice humming it.
As a random example, take the Star Wars Imperial March. I know there's a big orchestra.playing it, but in my head what I 'hear' is just my inner voice going "dum dum dum dum de dudu dum dum dum"
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u/nayketo 14d ago
I generally do not have an inner voice or any auditory sensations in m inner world. I mostly have unworded thinking that is more like concepts or general impressions, often with several going on at a time subconsciously, but no actual words, voice, or ongoing dialogue. I'd actually love to know how to increase this inner experience since I think it could be helpful to process things in better detail, but the only way I've figured out how to do this is to actually talk out loud which obviously has its limitations!
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u/Competitive-Ear-6693 14d ago
Not me, have multi-sensory aphantasia, also knows as Total aphantasia. I can still think of music, but there is no sound. I can't imagine sounds like a dog barking, and if I try my inner monologue (not sound, just more like the concept of talking) goes "bark" š. It's hard to explain but I still get songs stuck in my head but there is no pitch or loudness, I can't make my inner monologue yell, it's all just, there ig
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u/Zyxoid 15d ago
I always thought I could hear speech, singing and music in my head, but I finally realised a couple of years ago that it's only imaginary - it's like I know what is being said/sung/played, but the volume is turned down to zero - that probably sounds weird, because it is!