While a prevalence of 0.8% may seem like a tiny amount but when applied to a large population it’s a significant number of people. Let’s say a city has a nice round 100,000 people, a small city by any measure. That’s 800 people, not such a small number anymore. The lives of those 800 people are worth thinking about. Granted in the context of a larger population but it’s still something.
Comment on Handy tip
Telodzrum@lemmy.world 1 month ago[deleted]
InputZero@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
For actual refence it’s estimated that between 1% and 4% of people have either complete visual or auditorial aphantasia.
With a much larger percent of the world’s population, having some sort of partial aphenasia. And a smaller percent having complete aphantasia of both types.
The disorder was only officially recognized in 2015. Has basically had no real research put into it outside of the last 10 years as well.
It’s non-life impacting so rarely goes diagnosed if ever. And because it’s so new, very few people know about it and go most if not their entire lives not realizing they have it.
I’ve seen some estimations putting it as high as 8 to 10% have complete of one type or the other. It’s a lot more common than people realize. Especially because it’s considered a gradient. The majority of cases are not complete lack but more commonly a middle ground. Such as the inability to picture, color rotation, shape, distinction. All audio typically is more along the lines of knowing or monologue or the inability to recall sounds in their head.
I’m one of the lucky few who has complete aphantasia of both types. I am unable to visualize anything. I have no inner monologue and I cannot recall sounds.
There’s no static. There’s no fuzz. There’s no darkness there’s nothing. It’s just sort of empty. I recall most things through a conceptual connection to other things is the best way to describe it.
The only reason I even know that a inner vision is possible and what made me go down the rabbit hole to look into it. It’s because I still dream. I understand that I have full visualization in my dreams but when I wake up it’s empty. It’s gone. I know I saw something but I cannot recall it. There’s a complete lack of any visual memory.
It’s very weird feeling. I tried to learn to lucid dream at one point as well and I came to the realization. The moment I realized I’m dreaming. Everything goes from visualize to pure darkness and then nothing. Exactly as if I’m awake. It’s very trippy.
flandish@lemmy.world 1 month ago
representation matters.
DragonOracleIX@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
It’s always worth considering people who function differently, even if it’s just a passing thought.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Its estimated that almost 95%+ of all cases of it go unnoticed or diagnosed. It was only officially recognized 10 years ago.
Its estimated that 1-4% of the population have complete audio or visual aphantasia. 1-2% have both and roughly 30% of the population has some level of partial. And these are conservative numbers.
And that’s just based on the last few years of study of somethingt that most people don’t even know exists, is non life impacting in a way to get people to speak out assistance. And thus goes mostly untalked about outside a few online circles for the most part.
Either way, if you just include people with complete visual alone that’s still a fuck load of people.
jaggedrobotpubes@lemmy.world 1 month ago
How many people don’t have any <1% conditions?
KairuByte@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I’m with you, blindness has a prevalence rate of 0.2%, fuck them no more image descriptions on Lemmy.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 1 month ago
0.8% means I encounter roughly 1.5 - 2 people like this every two weeks. That’s actually crazy.
Caesium@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I mean, it’s a pretty hard thing to understand if you don’t know about aphantasia. Since we can’t know what other people experience in their mind, what we perceive is considered ‘normal’ because that’s all we know.
I didn’t realize I had aphantasia until I was 18. Doesn’t mean I suddenly became aphantasic at that same time.
drone678@piefed.social 1 month ago
I was 48 when I discovered that I had Aphantasia. I was blown away that when I learned that people could imagine pictures in their mind’s eye.
blargh513@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Same here. I think it was actually this meme that did it. I saw people commenting that they could not and I’m like “ha yeah, of course you can’t, who can do that?”. The lots of people are like, yeah, I can create a complex 3d shape in my mind and manipulate it, turn it, get closer, etc. I’m like WTF who are these megamind savants who can do this. Turns out, most people.
I felt very alone and very incapable after that realization.
Dzheyk@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Man…same. Had no idea people could actually picture something in their mind until I was well into my 20s. Wasn’t until that point where I felt like I was at such a major disability at work compared to everyone else…the amount of times I was told, “picture this…” not realizing they meant literally.
fartographer@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Anton Chigurh looking suggestively menacing
count_duckula@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
I am curious about this condition. What goes on in your head and how did you figure out you had aphantasia? Now I am trying to imagine a rotating cow after reading the comments (didn’t imagine it when I saw the meme), and I can only recreate in my head the gif somebody posted in one of the comments.
Doom@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It’s like knowing a cow is the room next door. You are aware of the cow but you can’t see it. If someone says the cow is brown, you are now aware the cow in the room next door is a brown cow but you can’t see it because it’s in another room. Except the other room is your mind.
I don’t need to see a cow to imagine it in the next room. Same concept.
It’s easy to figure out if you have aphantasia. Think of a cow. Do you see a cow?
It’s not a condition or a disability, it’s just a different way that some brains work. Don’t fall into the trap of - it’s outside the majority so it must be a deficiency. Most people with aphantasia don’t even know they have it.
Also, strangely I can rotate a cow in my mind, but there is no visual feedback. I “feel” the cow rotating. I choose where in the physical space to project the imagined cow and there is the imagined “physical” sensation of the cow spinning as if it’s an extension of my mind. I can imagine sound as well. But I don’t see anything.
pseudo@jlai.lu 1 month ago
I have an easier time feel it moving that seeing it. But I can see it and I doesn’t rotate on the same axe than all those GIF. The legs goes up until it is on its back then back where I can’t see them and on its leg again.
Caesium@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I got recommended a video that introduced the term to me and it was a very jarring realization.
Personally I’ve always struggled with expressing my thoughts in general. Before I learned about aphantasia I had started saying it was like I think in concepts instead of words or pictures. I know what I’m thinking and it’s not like it’s a vague idea, but for whatever reason actually translating it into a real language is really hard for me. I have an easier time writing out my thoughts than I do speaking them at least.
The most I can visualize are a few ‘vivid’ images that I spent a lot of time curating, usually from listening to music or remembering a dream I wrote down. Even then, When I try to think about those little exceptions, it’s still only a tiny fraction of the whole image that I can really come up with. Thinking about it now, it’s super weird to describe! I got super intro writing after I figured out I had aphantasia (shattered my hopes of being able to draw. But that doesn’t mean aphantasic people can’t draw. I just learned how to draw incorrectly and it screwed me over) and I like to think I’m decent at describing visuals despite all this.
To use the gif as an example, I can really only imagine the frame, moving images are practically impossible for me. And it’s really only the sillohuete I can make out.
I also realized I’m face blind too, and part of me wonders how much that correlates to aphantasia
count_duckula@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
I think I understand what you are saying. I have a hard time imagining scenes, especially when I am reading, and definitely not in any vivid detail. For example, there is a kitchen scene in a book I am currently reading. I vaguely picture the kitchen of the house from my childhood but that is pretty much all I can come up with. I don’t think that is aphantasia, though.