I have APHANTASIA and it's INCURABLE. Or is it?

Did I overcome a condition that has no known cure? This is my personal journey from being unable to visualize images in my mind, to experiencing the vibrant world of imagination. 🧠✨ Is it possible to recover from aphantasia? Let's discuss and share experiences. 🤔 Drop your thoughts and stories in the comments below for a deeper conversation. 👇

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Video Breakdown
0:14 What is aphantasia?
1:25 My story with aphantasia
3:53 Is there a cure?
6:34 Am I just an outlier?

[StarIings]

I left a comment 6 months ago saying this is never happening, i take my word back. If you happen to read this Bobby, as of 2 days ago ive seen the first color image in my brain ever i was able to hold it long enougb to actually draw it. So i take back what i said. This actually worked for me.

[chiu-on-this]

I hope people will try what I did to see if their visualizing abilities improve. If it doesn’t improve after a couple months, then stop if you feel like it. Either way, there will be at least some that will see a noticeable difference and that’s why I wanted to make this video.

[gaggo]

I've never heard of this before but this video makes me feel like i have aphantasia, but i didn't imagined that people could really model things on top of the static of the closed eyes. When i try to visualise something before drawing it, i can see it but not "see" it, i dont close my eye, it's like the image exist in an other dimension, parallele to the dimension i see with my eyes. I can't make the image appear on top of the static of my closed eyes in the physical dimension, but i can kinda see it anyway, it's just somewhere else. The image is not clear, and sometimes i ask myself if i really see it or just kinda feel it. I've never thought people can see it with the physical eyes.

[CarinaFernandez-yj]

About 15 years ago, when I was in high school, I distinctly remember that I was able to visualize to the point where I could turn an object in my minds eye and morph it into whatever shape as it turned. It was like clay on a potters wheel. I was drawing back then and also was reading A LOT. Recently, I came across a video that said if you couldn't visualize try purchasing a physical book and listen to the audio book as you read along, so all of your senses are being used. I'm going to give this a shot in the next week or so and would like to give it a fair shake for a few months. I'll report back if my mind's eye comes back.

[JohnDoe-hqqx]

As an artist with aphantasia, it makes me really happy to see you make a video on this topic! Having aphantasia has often made me feel a little left out since I’ve always wondered what it’s like to see and have the ability to manipulate images in your mind.

[complicatedreality]

It's very cool that you were able to make a change in your ability through practice. But I spent 4 years trying daily to visualize basic shapes and never got anything more than 3 glowing dots. I put a TON of effort into this, and it caused me a lot of stress because I knew that you needed to be able to do this to be an artist, and I wanted so badly to be an artist. I was told to give up on art by instructors because I couldn't get better at this.

A decade later, I reconnected with my creativity by finding an art medium that DOESN'T require internal visualization at all, and finally began to flourish. I hope that your encouragement helps some people, but I hope that the people who earnestly try and still can't achieve internal visualization aren't discouraged by it. There's ways to make art for every kind of mind!

[nadaroule]

It was because of a YouTube video you made several years ago that I learned I could develop the ability to visualize things!!

[iCamSkiEz]

I've struggled with this all my life I quit drawing around 14 because all my friends could just come up with things like it was nothing. I couldn't draw anything out of my brain and a few years ago when I was 24 I started learning 3D art and picked up the pencil again. It REALLY is something that you can develop. I'm still in the weeds but when I lay down at night and listen to an audiobook, at times I'll get just a glimpse of what's being described before it fades again.

I can't recommend that enough really focusing on what the narrator is saying and trying to imagine it. It's a great exercise.
Now I'm 28 and I'm focusing on creatures and sculpting and although I often tend to just go with seeing whats working on the canvas sometimes I'll have an image in my head and if I can jot it down fast enough then that's enough for me.

Keep going, you can do it.

[artprentice]

I actually experienced something somewhat similar, I could not consciously imagine anything, it perplexed me because my dreams were always super vivid, after doing the exercise you mentioned myself during the drawabox 250 challenge. I really began to see the box before I drew it down, however it was more like quick flashes like a strobe, illuminating the box. It really was like flexing the brain hard just to get a flash of a box, present day I have done about 1000 boxes, and could visualize them in any lense or rotation. Since then I have found myself needing to do many repetitions of a subject to really grasp it, but on the plus side, it takes maybe 1/25 of the mental energy by the last iteration, and I'm happy to be able to visualize at all to be honest lol.

[stardustwolf]

All I see is static when I close my eyes as well. I am a glad that you have brought awareness to this condition! I am a Artist with two associates degrees in Illustration & Digital Media. I always wondered why I couldn’t visualize. This video explains it perfectly!

[isc_]

Thank you so much for this, I gave up on doing anything art related professionally because of the articles saying that it's incurable and just went with software development (which I too enjoy) and only made random sketches once per year. But recently I'm reading a lot about people that I follow that they actually have this condition but just kept going with it, and I would have never guessed they had this obstacle. Now I feel a little more optimistic and, even if I could never progress on visualizing like you did, I don't want to give it up again because is something I really love, you just have to do what you love even if the odds are against you.

[markbehm]

Funny that I hadn't imagined you also have Aphantasia. If anything, it seems MORE common among the artists I talk to than non artists. There is some talk that it may be a motivating factor among budding child artists - as a way to visualize the world by putting pencil to paper to do so. I wonder.
Either way You've inspired me (once again) to start trying to see what I can do about mine.

[sebastiandiaconu]

In the past few years I noticed a shift in the style of many artists, from the heavily detailed, textured and painterly images, to the more simpler ones, with large flat masses that are very easy to read from a distance. I wonder if the devices we view art on had something to do with it.

[cleonawallace]

This is inspiring! I realised maybe five or so years ago that I have aphantasia and have struggled with this whole 'is it or isn't it curable?' question ever since. Being married to a hypervisualiser, I do recognise that there are some benefits to aphantasia, but I would really love to have the option! I have just started looking, and found yours and a few other videos suggesting it may be possible to train our brains, so I am going to try, although I'm not sure how good i'll be at daily half hour staring practice! Here goes...

[shuinama]

I don't have aphantasia but I've always thought it was like a muscle as well, I was always able to visualize but when I was a beginner artist I didn't know how to visualize what a good artwork looks like, how the lighting works etc. But after years of learning & improvement I can much easily visualize those things now! And there are also plenty of artists out there who have aphantasia and can still draw very well, so I hope it doesn't discourage others from trying to accomplish their goals^^

Also love your room lights

[Wendy_de_Boer]

I don't have complete aphantasia, but it's pretty close. I've always wondered if I could be a stronger artist if I had much better visualization ability. The fact that you were able to develop a visualization ability from nothing is very encouraging.

[Bill-pm]

Omg! I ...I..I am without words to describe that just less then 10 minutes ago I was deep in my head trying to come up with comical lyrics for a cosmic song about God's creation of the universe... infinity, time?no time? Etc, etc. I was getting so into it then bling. A notification on my phone . So i checked it thinking it was someone sending me a message. It was a message alright! It was one of your videos about the crows in the tree and well you know the rest. I was and am blown a away!!! What!? Total God thing!! I to am an artist that has had this visualisation minds eye problem that was difficult'to explain to others blah blah blah . Anyway THANK YOU!! TODAY JUST MINUTES AGO MY LIFE IS CHANGED!! GOD BLESS YOU !! WOW!

[tinustinus]

It's really really funny. I've learnt of aphantasia thanks to your video title, a couple of days ago. Never heard of it before. So I looked for the definition, read some articles. I tried to do some tests mentioned in the articles.

Fact is: I can not visualize things or even faces of my brothers or parents. It's impossible. A couple of years ago when I started some meditation I tried a method based on visualization. Meditation is meant to be relaxing. But I was not able to visualize. At this time I wondered why some meditation forms were based on visualization since vizualization seemed to be so difficult. The opposite of relaxing. But I didn't go further to understand, thinking that it was totally normal. I didn't speak about it.

So, a couple of day ago I learnt about aphantasia. I read an article describing exactly my experience with the meditation based on visualization. Some people discover their inability to visualize during meditation initiation. That's funny to read about one's own experience.

This time, I asked around in my family if they were able to visualize my face. They say "of course we are". I explained to them that I was not able to visualize anyone's face. They wondered. They didn't know it was possible. The didn't know either about aphantasia.

It's really funny, and it all started with your video title.

[TormentedArt]

Hi Bobby,

What a great video on something I've been struggling with and actively working on for 5 years. When I was young I had the ability to visualize pretty clearly. However, when I became a teenager, and began having anxiety issues that eventually turned into a disorder, I lost my ability to visualize. I spent years with chronic nightmares that shook my entire body. I now recognize them as being so disturbing they caused me to awaken directly into panic attacks. Once I lost my ability to visualize my nightmares, and panic attacks stopped. I still dream and dream vividly. I even experimented with lucid dreaming to middling success.

I'd like to dig into the weeds on some things you stated in this video. I am under the impression, from my years of study and practice, that there are two seemingly unique ways to visualize and they seem to potentially utilize slightly different mechanics. Granted this is all self reported from other Aphantasic people. I could be very wrong but this is my current understanding.

- Standard visual imagination.

Which most have seemed to describe as a window in a window. When you're imagining something you don't see it superimposed on what you're looking at but rather see it in your mind, or rather a completely different view point. So you're not actively seeing it in your waking visual field.

- Projection (hyper-phantasia)

Seeing things, images or shadowy shapes in your waking vision, superimposed over what you're looking at or on the back of your eyelids.

I have found anecdotal evidence of other aphantasic people being able to learn to project, but I haven't found much evidence for aphantasic people learning to utilize the window in your mind imagination.

From your video it sounds like you're experiencing projection imagination. Is this correct? You're experiencing an imagined image on a surface, or projected onto the back of your eyelids.

I've been trying for years with very little success. I have experienced projection imagination several times. It now gets stronger the tireder I am. I'm unable to conjure complex things, only shadowy outlines of basic shapes. Occasionally I'll be able to produce blue or green circles or squares. I've been practicing daily while I meditate for years. I even tried image streaming for months to no success. I'm going to try an blank tv though, that's a very interesting idea as we're accustomed to random images popping up on its surface!

I have absolutely no luck imagining in my head, however, after talking with family members who can all visualize, I seem to be unique in the fact that when I try to visualize I can almost feel the shape I'm thinking of. For example if I try to think of a bowl sitting on a table I can, in a very hard to explain intangible way, feel the shapes in my mind. The little curve of the bowl edge where it curls over, and the rough grain of the unfinished wood. I can't see anything but I can imagine very clearly sensation, depth and space. Instead of seeing a cube and rotating it, it's like it's in my hands and I'm turning it with out looking. (I don't feel it in my hands, but you get the idea)

I've done the cube exercise in the past and did well. I now know I didn't do it like everyone else, but there was a sort of sensation intuitive approach to doing the drawings for me. When I was young I dabbled in 3d modeling and it came incredibly quickly and easily to me. Sculpting in person or digitally as well is incredibly intuitive for me. However in recent years my focus has turned 100% to painting as I like that it's impossibly hard for me. I don't think I would like to draw and paint if I wasn't aphantasic. For me, drawing is the only way things present themselves to me visually. Its the only way I can imagine.

Just some food for thought. Thank you for sharing your wealth of information as always. You've been instrumental in my artistic growth over the years.

[YISSELLP]

Thank you for sharing this. I'm finding more and more people who are fixing their visualization muscle.