As a person with lifelong complete and total aphantasia, I am so thrilled by my new experiences. Since beginning to commune with the divine via psilocybin earlier this year, I've had at least half a dozen visual images in my mind when I'm sober.
Tonight I had another, during lucid dreaming.
For over 10 years, I've been hoping something might give me a connection to my mental imagery, since I first discovered this difference in my experience. And now I'm averaging once a month! 🤯
@macronencer I first learned about lucid dreaming about 20 years ago. I was having constant nightmares and sleep paralysis at the time.
I tried it then, and was able to a few times. But the experience was always flying. At night. So I couldn't see anything, I just felt the physical experience of the air and pressure drops. No visuals.
I've also written code in my lucid dreams but those had no visuals either. I can't explain that one. Lol.
(cont'd)
@macronencer I haven't tried to lucid dreaming for a decade, and I pretty well stopped dreaming around 2012, not long after brain surgery.
When I started having these visuals earlier this year, I've snapped out of the dreams immediately when I realized it was happening.
I think this is only the 2nd time I've been able to lucid dream with visuals. But yes, I absolutely think the visuals and lucidity are a result of psilocybin use, plus conscious attempts to induce visuals.
@macronencer yes, exactly! It's like I can almost interact with the objects in 3D, I can feel like I'm reaching out to touch them but I'm just blind about it.
I've been so determined to gain my mind's eye, since learning it wasn't a metaphor. I've often felt so lost for not having one.
I think some of us were just too powerful, so our visual imagination was impaired. 🤔🪄
@Lucaas I like that theory, haha!
I tried exercises to gain visualisation but it never worked for me. I have written a story in which it happens to someone, though it will be a while before I publish it as it's part of a larger book.
Have you looked into the brain areas involved, by the way? I'm no scientist but I have some ideas about what's going on. The parietal lobe seems like it might be important, as it deals with spatial relationships.
@Lucaas From what I understand, when you look at a real object the information goes through a chain:
retina -> occipital lobe -> parietal lobe -> frontal lobes
Visualisation works the other way around, so when somebody imagines something it goes:
frontal lobes -> parietal lobe -> occipital lobe.
I believe the "mind's eye" happens in the occipital lobe. So I speculate that maybe the connection from the parietal lobe to the occipital isn't working in aphantasia.
This could explain the experience of "feeling the shapes" but not seeing anything, because if the imagined object passes into the parietal lobe the spatial relationships are triggered, but without the occipital lobe there's no image.
All this is pure armchair science, and I'm not qualified! :)
Lucaas ✍️👖🦄
Mike Torr