Okay, so I had aphantasia before my TBI and afterwards I could literally picture things in my mind. It's wild. You don't hallucinate the picture per se, but the imagined sensation really is like seeing a picture in your mind.

Imagine the feeling of seeing something. You get the same feeling when imagining a picture of it. You can examine the picture and look at it from different angles and perspectives, but like, there isn't literally a ghost image floating around your head like a cartoon. It just feels like seeing.

It's almost like lucid dreaming while awake? You know it's in your mind and not real, even if you also feel like you see it.

idk you'd think having lived on both sides of the fence I could explain it but this probably sounds fucking bizarre to you lol

[–] [email protected] 14 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

Well, it's famously kind of impossible to explain a sensation of any kind to someone who has no frame of reference for it, e.g. "red" to someone who has never seen.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Or even to describe it to someone who has seen it!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

True, but the common reference makes it easier to ellide that issue

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I mean, reading over your comment a few times, I think there's a 50% chance you're describing exactly the same thing as my perception, but it's so hard to tell.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Okay well before, when I had aphantasia, I did not experience things I "pictured" in my imagination as a visual sensation. It was as if my imagination was 100% linguistic, so if I imagine something I would just describe it to myself. I could describe something with a lot of detail, even! However, it only ever felt like I was providing a literal description of an image, rather than feeling like I was able to picture something.

I really do think it just comes down to how you feel your imagination.