I am not sure I have aphantasia, but I definitely have difficulty with images.

The best way I can describe it is like I have mental impressionism.

I can see my wife’s face, but it’s like I am seeing it out of the corner of my eye and not in focus. If I try to focus on the details, it falls apart like zooming in on the detail of a Monet.

She can remember the conversation we had a month ago, on a date. Like play it back almost word for word. Meanwhile, I barely even remember the date itself.

But I can remember feelings, smells, and sounds. I can look at an image and I can imagine what it smells, or even feels like. Very vividly, the feel of a sunny country day. How the sun and breeze feels on my skin, the smell of the field, and the sound of the insects. I can close my eyes and almost feel like I am there. But ask me to visually describe it, I would have a hard time. (I have a terrible sense of smell now too).

I have a talent for recognizing voices, even if I can’t understand the words. I can hear an actor and usually place them pretty easily, but I also can’t understand conversational audio if there is any competing sounds. It is so frustrating sometimes and hearing aids don’t really help that much.

Photo is unrelated, but Lemmy made me post one, so enjoy my torty.