TIL of aphantasia a condition where people are unable to form mental images in their head. People with aphantasia are also less likely to have an inner monologue.

I can picture exactly what I want to, move around through it and manipulate it. I would say it's like playing minecraft in my head in real life resolution and detail, if you could rotate and scale stuff instantly and build as slow or as fast as you want to and drop in any premade models that youve seen before or can spin up in your head. Sound as well, close to correct pitches but not perfectly unless i hear it and then i could probably get exact for a small period of time. I can speak in my inner monologue with half decent accents and imagine conversations between multiple copies of myself like watching them from the audience. People take some concentration, and I can't remember names for shit. I generally remember other things by picturing it. Like if I had to remember a useless fact from a book in school for a test, I would remember what the page looks like with the fact where it's general location was on the page like if it was a grid and then remember the fact because I would have trouble trying to study to memorize things or just remembering the words. it all kind of has to be spatial or I won't be able to remember it. My brain also weaponizes this against itself sometimes with rumination because I can basically replay traumatic experiences 100% fully, if my memory hasn't blocked them out or forgotten them, and this manifests the emotions i felt at the time which leads to a lot of anxiety and depression. One way I combat that is by imagining really complex things and scenes like kind of imagining an entire movie or video game to take back some of my brainpower, but that can lead to mental exhaustion if I don't have it already. Medication also helps. Often, I'm imagining fun or random stuff or maybe some activity I would like to do and practicing the movements or imagining it happening before I even try it, or just the most random BS will force itself on me so I have trouble focusing on what I need to or want to sometimes which is probably ADHD manifesting.

/r/todayilearned Thread Parent Link - frontiersin.org