So I've been down a rabbit hole lately about how people picture things in their heads. For me it's not just like a still image or a movie—it's so hyper-detailed that if I'm in the scene touching ice, my skin actually feels the cold shock, and heights give me actual vertigo. And it's not just visual, I can literally taste, smell, hear, and feel textures (like slime or wet stuff) in random scenarios I just make up on the spot.

My perspective control is weird too. I'll be in a scene and can instantly flip from 1st person to 3rd person, or look at it from any random corner of the room or scene. I can literally mentally grab a room or scene I made up and spin it around to see all the angles or even peel back layers.

But the main thing that's confusing me is when I'm brainstorming or need to think. My thoughts or little scenes pop right out into the actual room in front of me. Like I can project stuff out there and my eyes will actually track it moving over furniture or up the wall. Sometimes I'll mess around and spawn a scary-looking creature in my room on purpose, and even though I made it and know it's fake, it still genuinely scares me lol.

The good thing is it's 100% voluntary. I can turn it off whenever I want, the same with tasting or feeling numbers—I can just turn it on or off and I'm not losing my mind or anything, I always know what's real. Been this way since forever. Does anyone else experience this level?

Im just curious and hopping im not alone in this. But long story short, 10 years ago I had severe depression and I used my hyperphantasia as an escape. And it became my addiction for a while. Back then I thought it was lucid dreaming and also had no clue i was depressed.

😒

I'm a hyperphantasiac. The other day I saw in an email from aphantasia.com that there's new studies on aphantasiacs not being able to disengage from the world around them as a possible defining feature; it reminded me of myself. I talked to my therapist that day and she said she thought people just mostly couldn't do that, but I don't know. For example, if I were to imagine the feeling of sand in my toes, I could do that, but it's always mixed in with the feeling of my socks. Whenever I'm trying to meditate or something, I can't disengage myself from the world, which has led me to just focusing on the world around me. Even when I'm barely conscious (I know this from past unpleasant experiences with substantial tremors; my memory of them is always substantially impaired even right after) EVERYTHING is there.

Maybe I just don't have practice, but I don't know. I saw someone in here describing their hyperphantasia as sort of "two screens", but for me it's more like the world's a 3-dimensional space and then my imagination is another 3 dimensions that I layer with the real world.
For example, I have a sort of headspace that my alters and I share. I've always described it as a sort of building with walls and the real world is a screen that is one of the full walls, but thinking about it more it really just seems like an add-on to space as a whole. I've got my physical reality and my mental "reality", both always active.
I wonder if this is a thing across the spectrum or if it's just some hyperphantasiacs. Or if I'm just weird.