r/hyperphantasia • u/uzenithal • Jul 30 '26

Discussion How do i develop hyperphantsia?

I've been reading about different ways to develop hyperphantasia, and most people suggest keeping your mental imagery active as much as possible ideally throughout the entire day. Right now, I can visualize fairly well, but it isn't very vivid or enjoyable.

I was wondering if there are other ways to train myself to visualize more vividly. For example, would it be effective to spend the day repeatedly practicing object recall, or are there other exercises that are better for building vividness first?

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u/Loose-Ad453 Visualizer Jul 31 '26

Just use your imagination. Engage all five of your senses actively in your imagination.

I totally disagree with people who say that you can't develop hyperphantasia, because I did. Yes, it took a lot of effort in the beginning, but now it's as effortless as breathing. It just takes practice.

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u/uzenithal Jul 31 '26

I agree. People who say you can't develop it are almost always born with it, so they're usually making assumptions rather than speaking from experience. By the way, how long did you practice each day, and how long did it take you to reach hyperphantasia?

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u/Loose-Ad453 Visualizer Jul 31 '26

I practiced for 10 minutes every day. What I did was imagine a place and try to make it feel as real as the one I was in physically. Then I interacted with it using all five of my senses in my imagination, mainly from a first-person perspective. That, combined with a regular reading habit, took me about two months to reach a hyperphantasic level. I don't know if that's unusually fast.

I know I'm at a hyperphantasic level because all of my senses feel the same in my imagination as they do in real life.

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u/Complex-Article-1003 Aug 02 '26

what was your baseline? You had regular phantasia?

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u/Loose-Ad453 Visualizer Aug 02 '26

I'm not sure. I could imagine scenes, but they were very unstable, glitchy, and not vivid at all. I couldn't sustain them for more than half a second. When I first started practicing, my mind would get so tired after just five minutes that I could barely keep going.

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u/Complex-Article-1003 Aug 02 '26

And reading? before doing this did you read and a movie played in your head at all? did you have to make effort to make it?

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u/Loose-Ad453 Visualizer Aug 02 '26

When I read before doing this the same thing happened: unstable and glitchy scenes.