I’m don’t have aphantasia, but I’m pretty sure I’m worse than average at mental imagery (and far worse with faces).

Either way, seems easier to imagine not having a minds eye than to have photorealistic mental imagery. My inner-world isn’t visualization-focused.

Trying to visualize something with detail generally requires trying to back-solve for an image from what I know about it. Like, if I want to imagine a gamecube, I have a very vague cube-like structure image to start with, but I have to think about the ports and the side wings and handle and the expansion for GBA games individually and add them to that vague purple and white cube. While I know there are dot indicators for play 1-4, I can’t tell you if they’re above or below the ports since I never really physically interact with them, but I know where the eject button is and how its sorta dimpled since I directly interacted with that many of times. There’s no point to going through that effort of trying to make a mental image.

So, I’m not diagnosed with ADHD, so while I identify with a lot of things people post on this community, I don’t know how helpful my contributions would be. I still live in a part of the world where neurodivergence is still thought of as a condition of suffering so not getting diagnosed (or checked) seems like the better option.

Anyway, I’m baffled by people with aphantasia. A few of my family members claim to be like this. Personally if you tell me you don’t have six internal TV channels for your brain to constantly flip through over and over some part of me still thinks you’re pulling my leg. On top of a few radio stations full of familiar musical bits and pieces that I don’t know the name of and must find I must absolutely find where they come from wow I sure hope I don’t spend three hours on a Thursday night scrubbing through local playlists and listening/watching history and game soundtracks to find a six second earworm.

I have aphantasia, can’t visualize anything. I have an inner monologue though.

Hi. It me.

yes, i am someone with ADHD who also has full aphantasia, i am not able to imaging any senses. I do have an silent inner monologue, i know some people don’t don’t have one.

There are dozens of us! Dozens!

I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid (they just called it ADD back then!), and I have partial aphantasia, like a 3.5/5 on the scale Wikipedia has.

I think i count, I cant just see things that aren’t there. I can contextualise them, I have an awareness of what a pink fluffy elephant jumping the mcdonalds m on a skateboard, but I can’t see it the way I can hear a song in my head or the internal monologue.

I can make the visual imagination work by riding the line between sleep and wake in bed, and its fucking awesome. Im so so jealous of people who can just do it whenever.

Yes, my sibling has both