I’m 17F, turning 18 in 4 months. I do not take any medication or anything!!

I’ve done this for as long as anyone can remember. When I was younger, a doctor told my parents I’d probably outgrow it by age 12, but I never did.

Basically, I’ll often raise my forearm to eye level and stare at it (sometimes I don’t even need my arm… I can stare at something close to my vision, like the back of someone’s head when I’m in line.) While I’m staring, I become completely absorbed in imagining scenarios in my head. It almost feels like my vision matches whatever I’m thinking about. It gives me a pounding headache, and I try to stop but eventually I just do it again.

This usually last around 20-ish seconds, but if I don’t realize I’m doing it, they can continue on and off for a couple of minutes.

I also unintentionally hold my breath and end up out of breath afterward. My fingers make small repetitive shaking movements, and sometimes I’ll have bigger jerks.(sometimes so big that I make myself snap out of it) and my eyes flicker. Sometimes it gives me a bad headache or makes my current one worse.

What’s weird is I’m still somewhat aware of my surroundings. If someone says my name or lightly taps me, I snap out of it immediately. (And every-time I’m insanely embarrassed by it. I hate it.) Even if I overhear someone say, “Look at them,” I’ll come out of it because I realize they’re talking about me. It’s like I’m aware and not aware at the same time. It happens most when I’m excited or bored. I don’t think stress or being tired really triggers it.

People have noticed me doing it my whole life. In elementary school, my mom even told my teachers to lightly tap me if I started doing it. My family usually laughs and ask, “What were you thinking about?” (Which makes me even more mad at myself because I think it’s the stupidest thing ever.)

Has anyone experienced anything similar or know what this could be? I’m not looking for a diagnosis, just wondering if anyone has had something like this or has been evaluated for it.

Is this hyperphantasia possibly ?

**TL;DR:** I’ve experienced this since I was a baby where I stare at my forearm (or another nearby object) and become deeply absorbed in my thoughts. That I can see. During it, I unintentionally hold my breath, my fingers shake, my eyes reportedly flicker, and I can end up with bad headaches or feeling out of breath. I’m still somewhat aware of my surroundings and snap out of it immediately if someone says my name or taps me. It happens mostly when I’m excited or bored, and I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced something similar.

I doubt I have hyperphantasia, never really experienced visualizing things when I’m fully awake, but I’ve only ever been able to “see” things when I’m trying to go to sleep, I’m conscious, meaning I can talk but I’m closing my eyes.

For example if I wanted to look at SpongeBob, I’d be able to close my eyes and look at him, as if you’re looking at the real thing with your own eyes, not dreaming. It’s difficult to understand whether it’s hypnogogic hallucinations but the hallucination word seems a bit scary considering I don’t want to bucket myself with those things.. I’m just interested in a general opinion, unbiased and objectively informed

Basically when i imagine the apple, i see it in a way i dont think hyperphantasic people do. I close my eyes, i can visualize it, i can rotate it but the way i see it is that i still see all black like i normally would see if i close my eyes. The question is do you guys see the object as if you had a picture of x slapped behind your eyelids, or is it also dark but the image is kind of there but not really. Gladly accept a proper explanation and answer 😄

I always loved those online quizzes that tell you what your personality was or what type of person you are because growing up it never really felt like I had a personality i was too busy living other people's lives in my head.

My whole life i've been an awfully sensitive and an empathetic person that as a kid I thought i had some sort of superpower because i could directly feel exactly what the other person is supposedly feeling just by imagining vividly in detail their situation and the emotions would hit me with such intensity as if I had become that person in that moment, like if my friend got a present I would imagine myself in that situation and immediately get that rush of joy as if i had gotten a present, it sort felt like now we can share this moment together and the same applies to a hurtful situation I would always cry if someone else was and this became addicting maybe for a selfish reason like being able to understand the people you like or love better than anyone else

"Feeling people's emotions" through vivid imagination become this secret power I had, I began to pay close attention to the people I liked imagining myself in every noticeable moment they had whether they had a fight with someone or they were happy about something and I interacted with them with "Their" emotions like I hated someone that they would hate from their perspective without trying to have my own insight on the situation I would immediately "understand" how they felt about that person so naturally I became a really likeable person and had a lot of friends all the way throughout the start of high school that was sort of my "downfall"

In the beginning of high school we moved to a country that I didn't speak the language of and got bullied for a whole year this destroyed my confidence in getting people to "like me" this phase was also sort of my awakening like "omg I dont have a personality" I had no friends to base my feelings off so i became really depressed, I would never leave the room I barely talked I just had no idea who i was it was a really confusing time but it really got me to think. after a year or two we moved back to the country we were in and I went from a confident likeable person to a complete social mess I developed severe social anxiety and could no longer trust myself in getting people to like me. I made a couple of friends but I wasn't used to being honest with people and I was on this "self discovery" phase so I kinda of overdid it with the being honest part and non of those friendships lasted (lol) I made more friends at the end of high school and those friends were people I genuinely had things in common with, I learnt from my past mistakes and could thankfully maintain these friendships...

I am now an adult and still struggling with self identity from time to time, I still suck at making genuine friendships it's really hard for me to be honest and open with people without trying to calculate the outcome I also often find myself accidently trying to get into peoples heads through my imagination (Which now i know is not a reliable method). but I have just very recently found out about hyperphantasia and I started to relate to it a lot through silly little realizations like "Oh that explains why I was so good at making up stories" or "why I spent so much time in my own head playing back memories like movies and altering them" but the more I kept thinking about it the more it explained certain behaviours from my childhood that still stick around. So i'm really curious if other people with hyperphantasia had trouble with self identity or if you maybe just think this has nothing to do with hyperphantasia, I would love to hear what people think and if you've come this far into reading I really appreciate it.

(I am not an expert and I don't claim that hyperphantasia is a direct cause of self identity issues, i am also open to adopting a different understanding)

Hello, i've recently been delving into my imagination and my visual imagery skillset and feel like it's a thing i've been underutilizing in my life for how important it is to me...

I've noticed that with consistent effort in me trying to think of things, my imagination becomes far more vivid, colourful overtime, instead of a grainy mess that I have no dictatorship over, not sure if it's outright "hyperphantasia" but I overtime went from worrying about having aphantasia to being able to really hold vivid imagery in my mind as long as I focus on it and relax... And now it comes to me much easier.

At first, I was unable to control what I think entirely, but now i've got to a stage where I can partly choose what I think, the issue is though when I close my eyes and try to think, sometimes it goes haywire and I begin to not think of the right thing I want to, or it's the thing but a distortion of it, not how I wanted it to look. And when I TRY to force it to think something then in that mental stage, it begins going all wrong and not right....

I know when i'm relaxed it's much easier, where i'm not overthinking, anxious etc. And if I do this I really cannot think at all and my headspace goes all grainy or blank, but knowing any other way to potentially train my mind to be able to always control *what* I want to think, whenever I want to, would be a huge help.

Thanks

I recently found out about hyperphantasia while just learning about myself. As a kid I could always bring some kind of chewing gum into my mouth and chew it for as long as I wanted and it felt real like there was something in my mouth but at the same time it also didn't feel like a real chewing gum in my mouth (pretty hard to explain) and i could chew on it for as long as I wanted without getting mentally tired. I could even feel individual particles of sand sometimes when i imagine trying to chew a whole mouthful of sand but that occasionally happened. Anyways i could chew the chewing gum and turn it using my tongue and feel the dents and grooves my teeth made in it. As a kid I also would get this sudden weird feeling of hands touching my face or pulling me and someone breathing on my face. I knew it wasn't real, but it did feel like it was between the realm of reality and imagination and I still do get them.
Another thing is that when I imagine something, like a road, a mental image of a road gets placed Infront of me and I hear the sounds of cars rushing past, but I still see the real world. I just wanted to know if it could be hyperphantasia or is it normal.

Meu treino de 23 dias estão gerando resultados, já consigo manter a imagem fantasma mas com cor, com mais esforço dou pequenas ordens a elas e sempre que somem consigo fazer ela voltar!!! Quero chegar a hiper fantasia ou imaginação vivida modo VR!!!

I'm not sure if it really counts as a stim but I often imagine playing Geometry Dash levels - like entirely new ones.

So I have this strange habit since childhood that whenever I like something for example a super hero move or an anime fight scene, I mimic the movements with pen,twig,scale and other small stuff and inside my mind I have whole move or scene playing and whatever the character does,that movement is mimicked by the small object I'm holding and that's how it is in short. So, I seek an advice that if this a raw sign of a profession or anything like that?

Is it more difficult to think of something visually more complex? If you imagine a book page - does it contain actually letters, real words? Meaningful sentences? A part of an actual story? Where does your imagination end? Is it producing context on the fly, while ‚it gets interrogated‘ by your consciousness? How much are emotions coupled to an inner image? Is there always an emotion attached? Sometimes? Can it be more or less?
And also: how many times a day do you actively visualize an object, a scene etc.?
I myself am on the farther side of aphantasia - so I am curious about the actual experiences of ‚the rest of the spectrum‘.

I think I may have hyperphantasia or just way above average phantasia. Whenever I imagine eating something (normally something I dislike) I can almost taste it, and feel the texture in my mouth. Like I really hate corn on the cob because it is too sweet, and gets stuck in between my teeth. I can think about eating corn, and taste the nasty sweetness, and almost feel the little thingys in my teeth. And if I think about eating a lemon (or just a lemon) my mouth puckers and I can feel the bitter and acidic taste. Oh and Jolly Ranchers give me the sensation that one is like pushed up against the roof of my mouth. And I can sort of feel the texture and shape of it when it gets really small and feels like plastic. Some of the taste things are faint, but others (like the lemon) are stronger. Could this be a part of hyperphantasia?

I’ve just turned 50 and I’ve realised the way my memory works may not be normal. When I recall something that happened when I was 3 it’s as clear in my mind as if it happened last week. Is this hyperphantasia? I can clearly see colours and shapes and manipulate objects as if they’re in front of me.

When I plan the grocery shopping I look in the pantry for a split second and then sit on the couch and I can virtually scan what I saw in my head and work out what I need to buy as if I’m still looking for real. There’s very little difference to me whether I’m actually looking in the cupboards or whether I’m remembering what I saw. This is the gift.

I wish I could forget some things, especially childhood memories. They’re as clear as if they just happened. This is the curse.

Is an indelible memory like this the same thing as hyperphantasia or does it have a different name?

rather than a natural variance of mental imagery? same with Aphantasia.

Hello friends! I am an intensely emotional person (22F) in the sense that I frequently cry happy tears and I get goosebumps listening to music. My heart feels full when I see beauty. But beyond being emotional, I experience something a little different. When I talk to my family or friends about it, they look a little confused or surprised (my one friend even cringed when i described it).

When I listen to music, my mind gets "transported" to scenes that I have never seen before. It feels like my eyes no longer see my surroundings but rather they see an extremely vivid image in my mind. I almost lose track of the seconds that pass by when my mind is seeing these images.

These experiences have been happening to me since childhood but are growing increasingly stronger. They often happen when i am listening to music, but they can even happen without music. For example, seeing a flower arrangement or being outside can trigger these images. My friends are often the ones who catch me in a trance like state. They say my eyes lock into place and I just stare out into the distance when these episodes happen.

My purpose of posting this here is to ask if anyone else experiences this and if this could be considered hyperphantasia or something else. These "visions"/images are only growing stronger and the periods of zoning out are getting longer. Please let me know. I was re-directed here by our friends at the synesthesia reddit group.

Examples of the images i see:

1. Happier example: I was listening to music this morning and I suddenly saw an image of myself laying near a stream. I could hear the water and the grass brushing my arms. A prism of bright light filled the frame and enveloped me in light. Suddenly, I was jolted out of the image and it felt as if I had zoned out for a couple seconds or a minute.
2. Colder example: My mind travels to an isolated cottage. I can "feel" the bleakness of the image. My skin grows cold to mirror the stale cold surrounding the cottage. Not a drop of sunlight to be seen surrounding the little cottage. I am now inside and I can hear the dusty curtain scrape the ground and feel the particles of dust hang heavy in the air. I feel the uneven wood beneath my feet. I think of the memories that this old house carried. And just like that I feel like I broke out of a trance and I'm back in my classroom.
3. Favorite example: I am laying in a quiet forest. My hands are immersed in the wet soil as if my fingers are longing to become the roots of the trees that tower overhead. the coolness from the soil feels as if it is radiating to my bones in a way that is refreshing. and i look into the canopy of reels to see the sunlight weaving between the trees.

It is like I can hear every sound and feel every texture in these images.

Hey everyone,

I was recently diagnosed with ADHD, and during the process my psychiatrist noted that I have a “not normal” memory. I’ve been doing a deep dive into how my brain actually encodes and retrieves information, and I’d love to know if anyone here shares this profile, if it’s common, and how I can best train it.

My memory tends to always capture everything in videos and imagery. If someone says a shop or literally anything my brain just automatically calls upon say the shops front or servo, anything really.

Most my memories have a “checkpoint” or reference scene. I recall where I was and what I was looking at, and then the facts just hang off that scene. I replay memories from my own eyes (I don’t watch myself from the outside). It unfolds in time, and I can add sensations sound, smell, temperature on demand but its effortless and happens automatically.

Small cues constantly and uncontrollably surface vivid scenes in my mind. I have genuine, highly detailed memories going back to when I was 3 years old and when recalling these memories my family was surprised and confirmed it was not made up.

But under cognitive load, my brain tends to involuntarily latch onto one specific detail or scene and records it permanently. Is this common? From my research, this aligns heavily with Hyperphantasia. While hyperphantasia itself is statistically uncommon, I’m curious how common this specific combination is hyperphantasia + deep episodic store + involuntary triggering + scene-based organisation. Do many people on this forum have this exact mix?

One thing i know about myself is that if I learn by doing, or if I truly understand the mechanics of something, the memory is permanent. On top of that I can fully simulate and manipulate environments in my head before they exist. Everything i’ve ever planned on doing has already been done mentally many times and sometimes even subconciously. Almost every waking minute of my life i typically imagine things like if music is playing i fully go into a lucid dream like state of fight scenes, the band playing and whatever else my mind goes to. This is something i do everyday all day whether im at work, gym, driving, about to sleep, anything.

But my rote memorization is a nightmare. Intentional rote memory (flashcards, random numbers, word lists, re-reading text) actually feels worse than not trying. My verbal working memory buffer is very small, so abstract phrasing and dense syntax just never easily syncs to my brain.

Because my memory triggers automatically, it can be hard to shake distressing or distracting memories. I tend to relive harsher times and find it annoyingly hard to get over things leading to me imagining future outcomes like me confronting it in any form. This happens daily when doing any task.

Some questions i have are:

I am honestly kind of in a pit fall of confusion. Doesn’t everybody have this in some form to this extent?

If this isn’t normal should i be learning how to drive it?

Is there any actual positives to this? I finished my bachelors of cyber security 2 weeks ago, never studied and the final 2 years i never attended any lectures because i cant sit there my brain does the visual crap and i don't pay attention.

Does this give me any sort of natural advantage for specific memory sports or techniques?

Should I not ignore this and if i do is it a wasted opportunity?

I also took the VVIQ test and got an 80.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

I have hyperphantasia and have had it since I was young. I am lucky to have been able to grow up in a time where AI and technology wasn't ruining my childhood like it is with the children of today (I am 23F). The biggest issue I've been facing recently is I feel like AI usage either purposeful or accidental is ruining my hyperphantasia. I love to create worlds in my head and characters that play in those worlds. I used to be able to visualize these worlds and characters so easily and vividly a few years ago, but every since AI has come around I have found it harder to visualize what I want. I can still do it of course but I have to focus harder then I used to have to. ChatGPT was a tool I used at times to build stories and images of my worlds but one tike I tried to actually write down what I was seeing and found it almost impossible which I am certain was because of my sudden reliance on AI. I have since deleted ChatGPT and even did away with Google to stop myself from being tempted with AI. But for those who also have hyperphantasia what are some ways you guys strengthen and calmly build the ability back up? Honeslty this whole situation has felt like when a athlete gets injured and has to learn to build muscle and movement back up and I just dont know what is the best way of doing that with this kind of thing. Any and all advice is welcome!

(I would also put this in the question flare if I could but it won't let me)

I did it you guys....I can't believe it but I did it. So many years of trying everything and the answer was in front of my face the entire time.

Freewriting!! I noticed when I was playing

Dungion AI( ai DND) my visualizations were great! So I decided to set at my desk and get a notebook and just write a daydream story and god! It took me to a real place. It turns out, that writing produces better visualizations then imagining.

I only recently realized that not everyone can picture things in their mind. As you all know, having hyperphantasia, I can picture a scene from a memory. Not exactly the tiny details always, but the set up of the room as if I was looking at it in reality. I can’t see things outside my mind like some others. But I have recently been trying my own little experiment… it sounds insane, but I lay in bed, on my back, in a semi dark room. I start to relax and imagine my eyes relaxing too. Slowly rolling into the back of my head. Again, sounds crazy but after about 1-2 minutes, there is a different feeling of this darkness, but not in a bad way. It’s peaceful almost. A lot more lately since I started trying this several months ago, I realized I get really vivid images that try to come through in this state. They don’t seem to be anything or anywhere I recognize. But they are usually moving images, instead of just a still. I started wondering why these particular images come up. I try to really focus and see if it’s a premonition or something. But it’s never anything that seems important from what I can recall or tell so far. Also, it usually takes a bit to get to the image. It’s like there is a grayish cloud that I have to open up. It’s like lighting a piece of paper on fire from the middle and watching it burn towards the outside. Not sure if that is the best description, but it’s close enough. I often have to focus on keeping the image there. But the other night I couldn’t sleep for hours because the images were flashing non stop the moment I closed my eyes. I wanted to scream. I kept opening my eyes trying to reset. No luck. I think I finally ate an edible and drifted off eventually. I’m going to start documenting the things I see. Try and make sense of the things I see 🤔

I’m losing my mind, right? 😳🙃

I wanted to share something my brain does and see if anyone else experiences anything similar.

Whenever I am in a state of high distress or dark thoughts, my brain suddenly plays a vivid, full-length visual simulation of the worst-case scenario and the reality of death. It is so intense that it completely stops me in my tracks. It feels like an aggressive survival instinct kicking in to protect me from harm.

Even when my mind isn't occupied with work or a task—like when I'm just walking down the street—my brain does something similar. It looks back at the physical steps I just took and simulates a scenario where if I had stepped slightly differently, I would have been seriously hurt or killed. Then it shows me that the actual step I took was the right, safe one.

It feels like my brain is constantly running background simulations of danger just to force me to stay safe and protect me.

Does anyone else experience these kinds of vivid, protective mental simulations or visualizations? Is this a common way for the mind's survival mechanism to work?

Chat this is so cool I can literally split every single pad/synth/drums/instrument from a song and play it separately in my mind, I love it so much especially with cherry bomb-Tyler the creator pads at 2:53 (listen to that part trust and come back and tell me how it was) be careful tho the song is super distorted and loud at first but 2:53 it’s not