Anyone else unable to fantasize about anyone or anything?

[carbomb]

x

[firebird8]

On 8/3/2019 at 7:18 PM, Marlow1 said:

Yes, me too, not crazy about Jung, wife is LOL. She admits herself that she lives in La La Land. She is a born romantic, me, I am clearly the Mr Spock in this relationship, logic and facts please 😁

 

I gave that particular example because there is so little research in regards to how the mind plays a role in attraction, yet, if we ask a person that can visualise how they think they are doing it many do say thry have types and that when they see their type they attribute characteristics onto that person that they already hold in their mind about that type etc

 

They swoon around all lovey dovey, even lustily, in a cute kind of way, about a person they know nothing about, as if they have known them all their lives, only to split with bitter resentment soon after. I am not having a dig here, I am always chuft to bits when my friends or my family find a new love, but apart from me and my brother (the one with Aphantasia), all of them do tend to jump right in at the start, with oodles of excitement, only to find a short time later the person they thought they were with is actually nothing like the person they are actually with

 

I have been thinking a bit more today about how I became attracted to my wife. I think I became attracted to her in a similar way that a blind person becomes attracted

 

https://www.upworthy.com/10-things-to-learn-about-dating-a-blind-person

When I was a teenager, a couple of times I picked kind of randomly a guy I didn't really know to be in what I used to call "stories". They were fantasy, in the sense that they were made up, but they were about the story, not the visual/sensory experience. They weren't exactly romantic and certainly not sexual; I had a terrible home life and wanted to escape so my stories were all about getting away. But where usually it might be completely unrelated to my real life, the couple of times I brought in the name of a person that actually existed, it was a fantastic but technically possible escape story (I think in one of them somehow a 16 year old proposed immediate marriage and I went to live with his family right away. Literally, escape, and I wasn't thinking about romance or sex.) 

 

Anyway, the point is, I discovered very quickly that it was jarring to find that as I became acquainted with the person who had been assigned a role in a story that they weren't that character and were instead, naturally, themselves. And so I stopped doing that, after only a couple of times. It just makes me wonder why that lesson is so hard to learn. Maybe because for me it was a mental process where usually it's an emotional/attraction process that's not so controllable?

[KoiFishShoes]

OP, I sometimes make up fantasies, almost always involving fictional characters, that I watch in third person, but I'm very rarely in them. Recently, the fantasies I am involved in made me question if perhaps demisexual would be a more accurate identity for me, but I realized I don't feel sexual attraction in that person's presence. What I do absolutely know, on top of feeling romantic attraction, is that I can trust that person to not tell me I'm broken, that they are big on consent, and generally know what they're doing. They would be safe and fun to have sex with, so that's apparently worthy of a fantasy.  

 

On 6/29/2019 at 2:46 PM, Nima said:

I do have difficulty recognizing people after not seeing them for years. One of my former classmates and friends (we went to school and swimming for 6 years growing up) saw me like 10 years later at a street fest and called my name. I couldn't place her. No clue who that woman was. Totally embarrassing!

People I see often, no problem. Couldn't do the detailed description for a police phantom image though.

I have this experience, too! It really offends some people.

I usually remember people in relation to a location rather than in relation to other people, so if I bump into them in a place I don't associate with them, I might not recognize or notice them! For example, I have encountered some of my church people in a former workplace and in a coffee shop, which was very jarring. If it is something that is going to begin happening on a regular basis, like the younger church people who now attend my college, then that will become one of the locations I associate with that person, and it stops surprising me.

[WanderingKate]

I'm sorry your feeling badly about this...it's not your fault that you don't fantasize, you can't force yourself to fantasize, and no there is nothing wrong with you. When I've tried to force myself to be a "normal" sexual person, I tried fantasizing about me and a random hot person, but it never did anything for me. I would get bored and my mind would wander elsewhere. I hated that I couldn't fantasize like everyone else seemed to be able to, but at the end of the day there's no way to force yourself to sexually fantasize because there's no way to force yourself to have sexual desires. 

I would just stress to your boyfriend that you still love him and that you don't fantasize about *anyone*, so you not having dreams specifically about him doesn't mean you're not attracted to him and in love with him. It sounds like you've already done that though, and that's about all you can do. He's probably hurt and that's understandable...all you can really do is continue to reassure him and try to be supportive, but don't let him make you feel bad for not fantasizing either. 

[Karst]

I can come up with scenarios, but that's very different from wanting them to happen to me.

[coelacanthiformes]

On 8/7/2019 at 7:06 AM, WanderingKate said:

When I've tried to force myself to be a "normal" sexual person, I tried fantasizing about me and a random hot person, but it never did anything for me. I would get bored and my mind would wander elsewhere.

same i did that and it just made me really uncomfortable

[Ferly]

On 8/7/2019 at 3:06 PM, WanderingKate said:

I tried fantasizing about me and a random hot person, but it never did anything for me. I would get bored and my mind would wander elsewhere.

Exactly the same! I would get really into creating a long and complicated 'backstory' of the fantasy, but when it came to the actual taking the clothes off part, my brain was just no longer interested. 

[DragonSpirit]

I don't fantasize or masturbate. It just seems...more than a little strange. Even disturbing. That's just me, though. I'm kinda weird; I wouldn't judge anyone else for it. Guessing it came with being non-libidoist.

...There's just no good way to word this post.

Edited August 19, 2019 by DragonSpirit

[Marlow1]

On 8/19/2019 at 1:12 AM, DragonSpirit said:

 

@DragonSpirit

 

https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/kwkway/what-its-like-to-instantly-forget-what-friends-and-lovers-looks-like

[DragonSpirit]

Since the topic was sexual fantasy, I was referring to that, but I've never really been a fantasizing in general person either. I don' have aphantasia, though.

[Zagadka]

I feel like my imagination nosedived lately. i used to go to sleep writing a story in my head every night. Now i can barely force myself to think up a character. Having a fantasy hasn't happened to me in years, much less a sexual fantasy, which I don't think has ever happened. My brain just doesn't want to go there. Even when it comes to masturbation, it is a forced procedure, I can't really relax and imagine a scenario or whatever. I'd like to be able to, though. It is rough being kinda trapped.

[Marlow1]

39 minutes ago, Sophia Grace said:

 

Sophia, one of the moderators will help you delete this. Don't worry about it at all. 

[Sandra B]

Yes, I don't tend to fantasise or have any fantasies. I have high arousal levels all by myself. Without any physical touching either, which is a pain. Literally! I miss kissing, but don't like sex ever the days. 

[Libby9889]

Same. I consider myself asexual. But I have to make myself fantasize, say, if I want to masturbate and am in the mood to orgasm (which is rare) but I have to think of a scenario that’s usually from an observer POV and involves multiple women … IDK it’s weird but just normally like everyday do sexual images come into my mind of other people? Never ever. Even if I see an attractive person, I never ever think “what would he/she look like naked?” Nope. Since I was in puberty. My mind never thought like that.

[Philip027]

Hello, another old ass necroed thread that I actually did post in way back in the day.

 

I feel like I should have added something to what I posted back then -- not only do I not "fantasize" about anything, I'm not sure I even can.  I legit don't understand how.

 

Something is probably broken with regard to my imagination in general; I've gotten that impression since childhood.  Kids are so often pushed to imagine things [insert Spongebob meme here] but it never worked for me.

[jesus dario]

Hello, I am asexual. I do not experience sexual attraction to men or women. I am 22 years old and sometimes I have fantasies but I am incapable of having them. Sometimes I would like to have or reach the climax of the fantasy but I no longer have that. It is another sign where one could be asexual. They have doubts. I don't know. 

[Theoryal]

Don't feel bad.  When I was your age I imagined all kinds of stories and characters and other worlds and but never sex, I knew the basics but never felt any need to mentally picture or play it out.  I have tried imagining things that would turn me on when I was a little older but... I'd really rather not.   And I don't really imagine real people, I mean I think about memories with people, and I might rehearse a conversation here or there and imagine how they might respond, but it's kind of wierd to me to think about imagining doing things with people I know, even just like imagining going out for a coffee together or anything seems strange. I have never mentally undressed anyone, it just... no, nope, don't have any need for that.  I can enjoy conjruing a sense of yearning and closeness between imaginary characters, but sexual actions or naked bodies don't need to be a part of that.