Aphantasia & Hyperphantasia

Chronesthesia (Mental Time Travel)…

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During the writing of my recent book, ‘Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere’, i fully believed I was investigating my husband. We had discovered after a year or two or marriage that we weren’t quite on the same page about a great many things and this led me to ask a lots of questions. I like to know the why’s and how’s for things. I don’t mind people thinking differently or having another view, but I like to know why.

But once we discovered the why, Aphantasia, it was a snow ball effect thereafter. The more we learnt, the more it changed how we saw ourselves rather than each other. And in learning more about Aphantasia, I stumbled across Hyperphantasia. It fit, a little too perfectly. Like him, I thought my brain was just like everyone else’s. I thought everyone else had to contend with constant imagery, internal monologue that won’t shut up, with past thoughts coming back from nowhere. That everyone had dreams and was afflicted by thoughts, ideas and life all jostling for position, in their head. Apparently not. It was my turn to be shocked and a bit taken aback.

There more I learnt, the more there was to learn, but it felt like things were finally finding their place in mind. One chapter in the book is dedicated to Chronesthesia, what they call mental time travel. It sounds very silly to someone with Aphantasia it turns out, but not me, because it was exactly what my brain does and what I had been trying to explain to my husband. Unfortunately this process seems to go hand in hand with anxiety so it’s got to be managed like all the others. Once you know what your brain is doing, it can be easier to keep it in check!

MITMON LEAF

So you see pictures in your head?…

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When we realised there was a difference in how we thought and general processes of the mind, I had no idea what it would lead to. It seemed like a small thing at first, he didn’t visualise anything in mind, or dream, or imagine. Anything. At all. Aphantasia. I do, almost constantly in fact. Hyperphantasia. Both at either end of a newly termed spectrum. It explained a lot. And so I found my way to understanding this difference a bit more and to write about how it affects us, how our perspectives of life differ more than we ever thought, and just how it has impacted our understanding of each other.

MITMON Front Cover

Sounds like witchcraft…

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Excerpt from Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere by K L Wicks

It was through fiction though this all came about. I write horror fiction novels and short stories as well as nonfiction, I have always wanted to and have been writing and reading since I was a small child. I don’t mind that other people may not like the same genres or even reading fiction at all. Each to their own I would like to say. But my husband didn’t just not like fiction, he saw it as pointless and felt the need to tell me this.

I was dumbfounded at first, how could someone not see the benefits of fiction? Of being able to escape into a world of make believe and have a break from reality. Even if it is not your thing, why be dismissive of others getting enjoyment from it? I thought this was quite mean.

I tried to explain the merits of having an escape if you have a shitty life or reality might be a bit hard to process. He didn’t understand the concept of being able to escape reality.

It took many hours over a number of days for me to finally ask the right questions (trying not to make him feel like a test subject), coming to the conclusion of what was going on. I put forward the concept he had not considered or realised. I explained that when I read a book, my brain makes pictures up to accompany the words. Or that I can replay movies or television I have seen.

“You see pictures in your head! That sounds like witchcraft to me. I can’t think of anything more alien than that”.

We had it. We had found the difference that explained why he thought fiction was pointless. But that was the tip of iceberg of what was meant to be a simple explanation of why he didn’t see or like things the way I did. With a little bit of internet research I found the name. Aphantasia.

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(c) K Wicks

Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere –

What do you see when you close your eyes?…

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If you don’t have any visual imagery in mind, it seems life is a very different experience compared to someone who does. It’s been a big learning experience to discover my husband is Aphantasic and along the way worked out I am hyperphantasic. I have written a book to try and describe what the differences are like, how they affect day to day life, and how they can give you a new perspective on everything you thought you knew.

Meeting in the Middle of Nowhere.

 

A Sense of Self

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Excerpt from WIP looking at #Aphantasia #Hyperphantasia

Another question that I felt I should approach, was to ask if he had a sense of self. He didn’t know what I meant and I explained the term. This is something that has taken much of my thought. How the world views me, how I view myself and the world, all the things I feel this encompasses and can affect about a person. Being able to do this has helped me with each identity crisis I have gone through (and possibly caused some of them), helped me make friends, improve my career and assisted me generally in life.

So if someone were to not have a sense of self, I felt this would lead to feelings of a complete lack of identity. But without the concept of self and therefore identity, it seemed there was nothing to lack. It is only when I explained how much the sense of self affects ego and people’s motive and actions, he began to understand. And I was wrong, there isn’t a lack of identity at all, in fact, there is a person who knows what they want and who they are without the need to question it. I envied this slightly.

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(c) K Wicks photography

 

 

Hyperphantasia…

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I have recently been writing about the differences between two people living together with Aphantasia and Hyperphantasia (myself and my husband), but just wanted to do a small piece focusing on how it feels to have Hyperphantasia.

Visual imagery has been a big part of my life, for my learning, experiences and memories. I didn’t know there were varying degrees of this and now wonder how much this has affected my general interactions with people. For a start I have more hobbies than anyone I know, I need constant stimulation or thoughts to have as my brain feels like it is going ten to the dozen all the time. I never understood why so few people if any had the same mental rate of processing and interest in things as I did. I thought I was neurotic, people told me I was neurotic.

Now I suspect differently. From learning about various things I believe I come into the category of mild hyperthymesia, full hyperphantasia and chronesthesia (capability of mental time travel). All these labels actually well describe why there is so much going in on my head. Like doing a days work, while writing a book, and watching multiple movies, and having conversations – all at the same time as trying to engage in what is actually going on. Occasionally it gets very crowded and jumbled in there, but I have worked on systems, methods and mechanisms to live with it and try and make the best of it. But understanding it is helping. And some things calm and focus my brain to minimize it – like my job, singing and watching a good program. The downside of that is, if the program is that good, it will stay with me after and forever, getting logged in the giant filing room I have inside my head. It’s the same with songs or lyrics (or sometimes just an average phrase), they can get stuck on repeat in my mind, even if I haven’t heard them for an age.

I have had to make a big effort to dissociate emotions from these visuals though, for some that may sound odd, why wouldn’t you want to feel? Somewhere along the line, I felt having traumatic memories or invasive thoughts with imagery disturbing and didn’t want it, it wasn’t productive or helpful. I can’t stop the pictures, but I could work on how they are then processed in mind.

The constant visualization isn’t only confined to my waking hours though. Dreaming is something I have come to see both as an affliction and a welcome escape. The vividness and memory of these dreams is very intense, sometimes following me through the day. Sometimes my dreams are anxious, tiring and stressful, so I have to ask myself, do I feel anxious because of my dream, or was it an anxious dream because of my subconscious trying to tell me something? Or are they just directly influenced by what you see and watch and there is no hidden meaning at all? I am on the fence on that one, either way, they aren’t very settling but are great for fiction writing and ideas, just not for having a restful nights sleep.

For now I am just trying to keep up with my brain and will continue to work on the hows and whys of it all…

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Here is the full book that came of writing about this subject, if it happens to be of interest.

(c) K Wicks

Different Futures…

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Another excerpt from my work in progress…

Before we knew of Aphanstasia we decided to move to Spain. It was a leap of faith, we hadn’t been married long and tried to think of the best way to use our resources to have a good life. We discussed everything and we moved. It was hard and there was a lot to organise and sort out, but because he functioned great in the moment, it seemed a breeze really.

Only a small hiccup of a drunk taxi driver at the last hurdle trying to get to the airport to leave. But another one saved the day and we got there. The drama that unfolded when we were there though couldn’t have been anticipated and was caused mainly by a long list of shoddy agents and bad neighbours. We didn’t really have a chance to settle down and find our feet to plan anything. Instead going from one idea to another and having to change it every other week because of what we had found out, or how we had been treated. It was extremely frustrating. And it was in these frustrating times that we stumbled across this major difference in our thought process. He wasn’t planning ahead at all, he had no concept of our future in Spain and never had. That kind of explained why he always seemed to have objections to things, he speaks his mind at the time, there’s no saving it for later. It can make him seem quite outspoken, but it really isn’t on purpose I now know.

I have to be honest though, when I realised I was on my own with planning our future, it sealed the deal for me. I was already struggling and had thought I wanted to come home, I just didn’t want to ruin it for him. But deep down I must have known we weren’t going to be staying in Spain. I was grossly under prepared going there anyway (I can’t even speak the language), and knew this was the right thing to do.

I couldn’t do it for us both not on home soil. I had spent over thirty years working out how to function in this society, it sounds awful to say, but I actually felt too old to go through it all again. I needed the support of familiarity – not people, or friends as they are thin on the ground, but where I recognised. I realised that was my reference point, my safety zone. I felt like a duck out of water and wanted to correct it as soon as possible. I don’t often live with my mistakes once I have acknowledged them.

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(c) K Wicks (Photography taken in Spain)

Aphantasia – a difference in mind

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Sometimes you discover something which changes the very way in which you think about things, it may be a new idea, information or a different viewpoint. Or you may find that things are not what you thought they once were. Reality, truth and perspective are and can be very personal, and while we try and untangle the workings of the human mind, we are finding there is much to learn along the way

This is now also a published book available on Amazon –

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(c) K L Wicks

Aphantasia #2

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It’s been nearly a year now since I learned of this and have been trying to understand Aphantasia, i now know it is in varying degrees across the board for the people who have it, partial for some, full for others. I try as best i can to understand what it is to not have visualisation, to not imagine at all and to not picture anything in ones head, its a concept i had not considered but now makes perfect sense.

For full Aphantasiacs, the difference from partial seems to be startling too ( i can only comment on full as that’s been my experience). There is no escape from the stark reality before you, what you see is all there is – without dreams and mental pictures to carry you away, what you see really is all there is. I have the ability to replay movies in my head, run through what i saw mentally, recall faces, remember looking at lists, posters, people, i can see it all in my mind. But trying to explain that to someone who doesn’t, well, i have been told it sounds like the most alien thing in the world.

“You can play movies in your head?!” Yes. I can retrieve almost anything i have seen in my life, whether i remember it correctly is another matter, but i have something there. I can picture all of my family, past and present, i can imagine i’m looking in the fridge when i am trying to remember what i need to buy (when i forget my shopping list). I use it for so much, and also i realise, for escapism. Even just standing in line or waiting is assisted by my mind wandering, occupying itself with either something i want to do later, of something i might have watched the night before.

So, looking backwards and forwards is natural for me, spending possibly very little time in the present. Reviewing what was, and speculating on what might be. But not for one who doesn’t imagine – there is nothing to ‘look’ back on, and the future doesn’t exist. So living in the now takes on a whole new meaning, and seems that it can lead to immense impatience and frustration with the world and people. Mostly the people who seem to be ‘in a different world’. It’s because they actually are – which was quite a terrifying revelation to one who doesn’t ‘drift away’ in mind – while driving, cooking, walking, and everything else we do, most of us probably are mentally somewhere else. “So no-one is really in reality or sees the world as it is?” And that was the terrifying bit, the reality of that question.

I’m still learning on this and will keep at it.

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(c) K L Wicks