La_Fleur Posted August 18, 2016 Share Posted August 18, 2016 Recently, research has started to blossom about aphantasia. It is a brain difference in which you cannot visualize pictures in your head. When I try to visualize, it is just blank, I have no mind's eye. I cannot picture my mom, friends, or house even though I know them well. It does not affect my ability to perceive visual stimuli in front of me. Anyway... I was curious if anyone else here has aphantasia. I am curious if the ability to visualize is related to sexual attraction in any way. I cannot visualize and have no sexual attraction, so I was wondering what other people's experiences have been. Thanks! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
La_Fleur Posted August 18, 2016 Author Share Posted August 18, 2016 Recently, research has started to blossom about aphantasia. It is a brain difference in which you cannot visualize pictures in your head. When I try to visualize, it is just blank, I have no mind's eye. I cannot picture my mom, friends, or house even though I know them well. It does not affect my ability to perceive visual stimuli in front of me. Anyway... I was curious if anyone else here has aphantasia. I am curious if the ability to visualize is related to sexual attraction in any way. I cannot visualize and have no sexual attraction, so I was wondering what other people's experiences have been. Thanks! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
RazorEddie Posted August 19, 2016 Share Posted August 19, 2016 I have aphantasia but I don't think it has any real effect on my asexuality. Having said that I did find this poll on an aphantasia forum that has 6 asexuals out of 35 respondents. There are too few samples for this poll to have any real statistical significance. It is probably also biased as it was started by an asexual. In my opinion there are a heck of a lot more people with aphantasia than most researchers think. Most people just assume everyone else thinks and visualizes in the same way they do. In practice visualization ability is on a spectrum. For instance I know someone on the opposite end of the spectrum who has no 'inner voice' at all. All of his thought processes are pictorial. He literally has to translate his pictures to words when he talks. This came up one time in a random conversation and he was quite shocked to find out most people don't think like that. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
WhenSummersGone Posted August 19, 2016 Share Posted August 19, 2016 It seems like it could when thinking about things. I'm more in favor of the desire based definition but even if you saw someone in person you could tell if you experience sexual attraction. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Chook Posted September 11, 2016 Share Posted September 11, 2016 I actually came to the forum for the first time in a long time to ask exactly this question. I didn't know aphantasia existed until a year or so ago, and it completely freaked me out that all of this 'visualisation' and 'picture yourself on a beach' talk actually made people see pictures of stuff that wasn't there. I thought it was entirely figurative.I'd be fascinated to see if there is a correlation. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Marlow1 Posted March 19, 2017 Share Posted March 19, 2017 I have aphantasia and I think it must be related to my demisexuality. I do not feel sexual attraction to strangers nor porn, I do jot have crushes on celebrities. I do not like nightclubs, or other sexually charged places. I am attracted to my partner only. I also cannot remember much of anything to with sex, not even stuff on tv if I see it. Everything just disappears from my mind very quickly. I think folk might struggle to identify with Aphantasia because it is a brand new subject, less than two years old. But I do think it is worth some consideration from folk that are on the asexual spectrum. It is mind blowing how many folk have no idea they have it Quote Link to post Share on other sites
MomentsWrath Posted March 20, 2017 Share Posted March 20, 2017 I don't have this, but I have face blindness, which I think is similar. I can look at someone's face, but I can't really "see" it or visualize it in my head. I don't feel like it has anything to do with my asexuality, though, but who knows? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Busrider Posted March 20, 2017 Share Posted March 20, 2017 No clue. I looked at this test and yes, it felt ++nasty; I struggled with 7 of 8 questions. - Odd bit on the side: I am apparently compensating. There are pictures I took and worked on anchored in my mind by now. I guess I am doing a shoot think re-shoot approach to get to know folks or semi randomly nail their portraits. Face recognition apparently works semi consciously for me. I struggle a lot with faces outside their usual environment. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Marlow1 Posted March 21, 2017 Share Posted March 21, 2017 Yes indeed. I too have some trouble with face blindness when I meet somebody in an unfamiliar place. But for me it is more a kind of body blindness that I have. When I look at a person I focus on the face. Obviously I cannot see them in my mind once they have gone. But when I see them again I do frequently recognise them and I can say some of what they look like when I am not with them. But since I concentrate so much on the face the body recall is always minimal. This is even for people that I know really well. And I have noticed that if somebody does ask me about the characteristics of a persons body and I try to recall, the memory of the face goes away. I cannot think of both things at once. It has to be one or the other and recall of the body is always very weak indeed. Again, this aspect of Aphantasia suggests there could be a link with my demisexuality Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Inmotus Posted March 22, 2017 Share Posted March 22, 2017 I definitely don't have this. I'm a visual artist so I have a problem with visualizing too much. I sometimes have problems remembering faces even though I have no problems visualizing anything else, so I'm not sure what that's about. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Marlow1 Posted March 23, 2017 Share Posted March 23, 2017 hello Inmotus You might want to check out Prosopagnosia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Inmotus Posted March 24, 2017 Share Posted March 24, 2017 On 3/23/2017 at 3:56 PM, Marlow1 said: hello Inmotus You might want to check out Prosopagnosia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosopagnosia Thanks for the link, this is interesting! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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