Hyperphantasia.
Sounds like something out of a sorcerer’s spellbook, doesn’t it?
Well, let me ask you this:
What would it be like if your ability to visualize completely blew you away?
I’m talking about a mental experience like stepping into a movie theatre every time you close your eyes.
It’s that kind of “cinematic” experience that has led to hyperphantasia being called “extreme visualization.”
Some don’t go quite that far, however. They prefer to call this kind of imagination by a tamer term, like “photorealistic.”
But if there’s one thing all researchers agree on, it’s that this form of visualization involves an abundance of mental imagery.
So, how do you know if you have it?
Can you develop it if you want to imagine better?
Should you?
We’ll get into all the details and answers to these questions in this in-depth article.
What Is Hyperphantasia?
To really understand the foundations of imagination, we need to step back and think about visual imagery.
As Adam Zeman and his co-authors put it in Phantasia – The psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes:
“Visual imagery typically enables us to see absent items in the mind’s eye. It plays a role in memory, day-dreaming and creativity.”
We should add to this definition how visual imagery also helps us with reading, planning, navigation and many other daily activities.
Can You Visualize What You Ate For Breakfast?
Interest in visual imagery began when Sir Francis Galton sent out a questionnaire to a wide range of participants.
In it, Galton asked a variety of participants to recall various scenes from memory.
For example, he asked people to remember the appearance of their breakfast table and what was on it.
In one of Galton’s original studies from 1880, he asked his test subjects to reflect on their experience of recalling the mental imagery. His main questions boiled down to:
- Illumination — Is the image dim or fairly clear ? Is itsbrightness comparable to that of the actual scene?
- Definition — Are all the objects pretty well defined at the same time, or is the place of sharpest definition at any one moment more contracted than it is in a real scene?
- Colouring — Are the colours of the china, of the toast, breadcrust, mustard, meat, parsley, or whatever may have been on the table, quite distinct and natural?
Although Galton’s conclusions about his questionnaire data have since been invalidated, he laid the groundwork for a process of investigation that has continued ever since. It has led to a scale of terms:
- Aphantasia, which means a complete lack of mental or imagery or no “mind’s eye”
- Phantasia, or a “normal” ability to visualize in your imagination
- Hyperphantasia, mental imagery that is said to be as “real” as seeing with your actual eyes
The Problem With Defining “Extreme Imagination”
Does this mean that hyperphantasia is linked to synesthesia, eidetic memory or so-called photographic memory?
It’s possible, but according to Zeman and his co-authors, not enough research has been done. It’s also a problem that the studies have to be based on people who identify themselves as hyperphantasic. There aren’t enough external ways to measure its presence, so we currently have to rely on self-reporting.
What Zeman and his team did discover is that people with hyperphantasia tend to report better memory abilities than those who don’t.
Definition By Counter-Example
For now, one of the best ways scientists have to try and understand this phenomenon is by looking at individuals who have lost their ability to visualize.
For example, in chapter 15 of the Handbook of Clinical Neurology, Rebecca Keogh and her co-authors discuss the case of MX.
A professional who used to visualize well suddenly found himself a-visual. He could no longer “enter” the novels he read, experience dreams visually, or visually recall faces of friends.
In his brain scans, researchers noted “hypoactivation of his anterior cingulate gyrus,” which means they were underperforming.
Note: MX could still experience mental imagery. It just wasn’t experienced visually. These findings led researchers to come up with terms like “blind imagination” and “blindsight.”
The Real Definition
In sum, a definition of hyperphantasia currently relies on people who self-report the ability to imagine in ways that are either “extreme” or photorealistic.
Hyperphantasia Symptoms: What Do People Report?
If we go back to the original Galton study, people reporting extreme imagination listed experiencing mental imagery that was:
- Brilliant, distinct, never blotchy
- Comparable to the real object, as if they were actually seeing it
- Feel dazzled, like you would when looking into the sun
- Clearness, brightness
- High definition
- “As if the reality is before me”
But again, we need to note the dangers of self reporting.
For example, YouTuber KhabeeraSpeaks claims that her love of reading counts as a hyperphantasia symptom.
Well, I also love to read, as do many people with aphantasia and phantasia. I have read many books where I could say it was as “engaging” as watching a movie precisely because there was no mental imagery distracting me from how I experience reading.
It is the high probability of being distracted by mental imagery that explains why I don’t recommend all people with aphantasia seek an aphantasia cure.
Benefits/Advantages Of Hyperphantasia
The benefits of experiencing elevated imagination could certainly help with planning and many creative tasks. It’s possible that it could make reading books on boring topics more interesting as well.
That’s why I created this multi-sensory hyperphantasia guided meditation you can watch or listen to:
Since this approach is experimental, I’d love to know what you experienced if you go through it.
For me, the advantages of adding multi sensory levels while using memory techniques like the Memory Palace have been huge.
For example, it helps you place associations in familiar locations in your mind. The more multi-sensory those associations are, the easier and faster your memory returns them to you.
To learn more about how to use these techniques:
The Best Hyperphantasia Test
The best way to test hyperphantasia at the present moment is to test yourself.
If you take the guided meditation I’ve shared above and journal about your experiences.
Here’s another set of questions that are different from the video to consider as well. They are all based on what we in the Magnetic Memory Method community call KAVE COGS:
- Kinesthetic
- Auditory
- Visual
- Emotional
- Conceptual
- Olfactory
- Gustatory
- Spatial
Kinesthetic Test – Imagine A Kiss
When you imagine a kiss:
- Do you feel the pressure of two lips meeting and how hard or soft is it?
- Do you feel anything else, such as the other person’s breath or arms?
- Do you feel the full physical location of your body in space? Or do you just imagine the location of the kiss?
- Can you feel how heavy your body is?
- Can you reach out and touch other parts of your body or the person you’re kissing in the mental image?
- Can you add wings to both yourself and the person you are kissing and feel them pumping to take you off the ground and up into flight?
Don’t worry if you don’t imagine any physical sensations at all. But if you do, explore the answers very deeply.
Auditory Test – Imagine A Song
For this test, please pick a song you know well that involves multiple instruments.
- Can you hear all of the instruments or just some of them?
- Can you hear the vocals?
- Can you remember the lyrics?
- Can you hear tonal changes as the melody plays out?
- Can you hear dynamics in the percussion parts?
- Can you change the tempo by speeding it up and slowing it down?
- Can you imagine switching instruments in and out (for example, can you hear a guitar as a trumpet or a bass as a sitar)?
- Can you make the singer sound deeper and higher at will?
- Can you imagine the singer singing completely different lyrics to a song they wouldn’t normally sing?
- Can you imagine the song played in a different genre (a metal song played as bluegrass, etc.)
Visual Test – Imagine An Orange
- Can you describe or do you experience the exact tone of orange?
- Are there variations in the color of the orange? Are there any unripe areas or tonal variations?
- Do you see any surface imperfections?
- Do you automatically also see the white wax that sometimes covers oranges?
- Do you imagine a shiny spot? Is light and its reflection accurately represented?
- Can you zoom in on the orange or zoom out? Can you zoom into the orange and travel through its skin?
Emotional Test – Imagine A Win
Think of a time you accomplished something big – like your graduation day or when you got a raise.
- Can you recreate that excitement?
- Can you mentally share that excitement with someone who shared it with you at the time?
- Can you recall and describe any specific emotions?
- Can you recall any specific words or phrases you used at the time?
Conceptual Test – Imagine Categories
Pick a genre like science fiction or a category like vehicle. Then start to divide up each part into its components.
For example, if you think about Westerns, divide them into movies that involve cities and towns from ones that purely take place in the wilderness. Picture the different locations.
If you pick a category like vehicles, mentally separate cars from planes and trains, boats, etc.
Try to come up with 5-10 categories to work with. Always take care to think both conceptually and visually as you go through these steps.
Although this exercise might feel abstract, it’s important to apply concrete thinking as much as possible. For example, in the case of vehicles, as you distinguish boats from cars, think about specific examples of each. For example, you might think about the boat in the movie Jaws and the second car you owned, etc.
Olfactory Test – Imagine A Fragrant Plant
Pick a plant or tree with a very strong smell.
- Can you imagine any smell at all?
- Do you imagine it strongly, as it is in reality?
- Or do you just get a vague sense of that smell?
- Can you imagine the plant visually and change it’s smell to something else, like chocolate or coffee?
- Can you imagine two different smells at once, such as roses at the same time as baking cookies?
Gustatory Test – Imagine A Coconut
- Can you imagine cracking open a raw coconut and mentally taste drinking its water?
- Can you imagine also getting some of the outside of the coconut in your mouth and taste it?
- Can you imagine it exactly like coconut water tastes?
- Can you imagine changing its taste by adding salt and pepper?
- Can you imagine mixing in a bunch of tastes at the same time, like coconut water plus wine and some chocolate?
Spatial Test – Imagine A Room
Bring any room to mind.
- Can you imagine all four walls at once?
- Can you imagine all four walls and all four corners at once?
- Can you zoom into a small millimeter of space?
- Can you zoom outside of the room to imagine the entire exterior of the building? The entire street? The entire neighborhood? The entire city?
If you answer yes to all of these questions, you probably have hyperphantasia.
Do You Really Need An Ultra-Vivid Imagination?
At the end of the day, the answer is no. We know from aphantasia studies and cases like MX that mental representation is perfectly possible without visual imagery.
If you do self-report as having hyperphantasia, exactly how to confirm your conclusion through testing it is still unclear. As Zeman notes at the end of the most detailed scientific study I’ve seen so far:
“It will be important to investigate the associations we have described using objective measures, including tests of face recognition, autobiographical memory and synaesthesia, in future work. Free text responses, provided alongside the codeable data in our questionnaires, suggest that extreme imagery may have affective as well as cognitive associations.”
At the end of the day, there are many ways to experience the world. Hyperphantasia is just one of them.
42 Responses
I indeed have hyperphantasia – always, but assumed everybody did. I also have maladaptive daydreaming and used to have panic attack disorder. I also used to make myself do out of body experiences for a few years as a child, but stopped doing that because I thought maybe they brought on the panic attacks later.
Nothing is better than being alone and imagining all sorts of worlds and narratives inside my head – sometimes with me as the lead character. Takes me forever to read fiction, as I embellish a lot – probably guilty of plagiarism. These paracosms have gotten me through tough times, but have probably also cost me relationships and made me lazy.
I was wondering about literature out there to read up on.
Great post, Megan, and thanks for mentioning the paracosm concept. That’s very interesting.
I’d be curious to know what you mean by “maladaptive dreaming”. I had many horrible dreams as a kid myself, but haven’t heard that term before. I also went through many years of panic attacks, but thankfully that has all resolved now.
In terms of further literature, I’d suggest searching for books and articles on the term “mental imagery” as a whole. You’ll find many wonderful things to read and consider.
this is the exact reason why i found myself searching about this “hyper phantasy a “ i thought maybe it had a connection with maladaptive day dreaming and then i read your comment.
I actually stumbled upon this article, I was searching for “how does my brain picture everything?” Because I’m a very curious person myself, and for the first time saw the term hyperphantasia, and it all just made sense to me. I do have Maladaptive Daydreaming Disorder (MDD) , i think for 10 years now, where I can “create” and “see” any scene, world, place. And put in real and fictional characters and just “daydream” away, continued this loong “movie” that then became “series”. It got very addictive at some point I had to google what it was, just recently 5 years ago I found out it was MDD and thus why it’s very easy to relate now to hyperphantasia. Safe to say I have learned to control MDD for a year now, but I do have to be careful not to get loose again. Though I still love the way my brain can imagine things and places so vividly. It’s a gift.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Melissa.
I have a vivid imagination so much so that I can’t watch a lot of movies as I react as if violence or even lower level conflict is actually happening to me and it is horrifically overwhelming and terrifying.
I thought I had hyperphantasia but on reflection, after going through this page, I actually don’t see that clearly, I just thought I did as the experience of using my imagination is so real to me but it’s really the emotions, olfactory, gustatory and kinesthic bits that are ‘hyper’.
If I consider what I see, it’s easily distinguishable from this reality as it is dimmer but the bit I look at lights up as if a torch has been shone on it but then dims as I look somewhere else and that bit lights up so I can’t see the whole scene well at one time though I have a very strong overall sense of it through other means.
It’s also shown in 3rd person so I’m not part of the scene but standing right in the middle of it and watching without ever being involved, like standing just out of the way and experiencing everything but no-one knowing you are there.
I’ve tried putting myself in front of a person and seeing with my own eyes in the first person but I can’t hold it for long and it slips back quite quickly back to being in the 3rd person. Could be a dissociative factor involved here??? I hear nothing directly either but my own thoughts can imagine sounds and tell me what people are saying so again in the 3rd person.
What has the strongest, most emotional input to any scene in my imagination though is music. It provides a meaningful overlay to the whole thing and fills in the gaps. It also always creates it’s own images if I relax and the images get more complex so I get more information if I play the music over and over.
This is useful as I write a lot so it provides answers to me that I am looking for and creates more and more complex scenes in the narrative I am creating. I find this unusual, especially since the only sense which is strong in ‘normal’ reality is my emotions so this alternative imagined reality often seems more real to me, even though I don’t actually see it as clearly.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Fiona.
I’m not qualified to say whether there are any dissociative factors in what you’re experiencing, but if you ever have a chance to speak with someone who can, it would be great to know.
Music is indeed powerful. I write a lot with music playing. In fact, nearly every post on this blog is written by listening to the same album. It’s like “entrainment.” I’ve never had writer’s block thanks to this habit. I just put the album on and rarely stop writing until it’s done playing.
There’s such a wide range of possible mental experiences. It’s wonderful that we can get together to share them, so thanks for being part of this emerging conversation. I hope to hear and read more from you soon.
I’ve always had an extremely strong imagination, am a massive daydreamer and used to have extremely vivid nightmares as a child. I started to lucid dream as a way to exit these dreams once they got to scary, bear in mind i was still very young. i used to count to 3 and wake up, like dorothy in the wizard of oz except i didnt tap my shoes together and say “Theres no place like home” :D. I still sometimes lucid dream but at a far lower rate, its like having HD vision in some cases its actually far more detailed than real life, it can be very beautiful. But i still fairly frequently get nightterrors and thats very vivid. Its facinating although i dont know whether i have hyperphantasia, i can do all the tasks pretty easily but not necessarily with perfect HD vision. I probably dont have it, still interesting anyways, i guess to some extent this must exist on a spectrum.
Thanks for adding your perspective, John.
Hopefully your night terrors will go away.
Have you ever looked into the practice of savasana? It might help.
I like your focus in the article on the multisensory aspects of aphantasia and hyperphantasia. In my experience, most people who learn about aphantasia, etc. don’t often go beyond the mind’s eye into the other sensory domains you described. It’s therefore something I’ve focused on as well in my own exploration. I have aphantasia and my girlfriend has hyperphantasia, which has led to a lot of interesting discussions.
It is indeed a shame that people don’t go into the multisensory.
Putting in the work is where all the riches come from.
I always wondered why everything I experience…read…eat…remember…read…hear is seen in my mind in acute detail as a film or pictures not thoughts.
I stumbled upon this article and realized that I have always had this and never thought it was of consequence.
Is it problematic or a mental disorder? Should I worry? I actually enjoy it.
Thanks, Kathryn.
Obviously, if it concerns you, seek the advice of a medical professional.
Generally, if if your imagination isn’t preventing you from being a productive member of society, it’s probably not a problem.
I recently learnt that not everyone see things like I do. As an example a walk on the beach. I see a whole beach, with waves crashing on the shore, the sun shining bright, a nice grassy hill off to the side feel the sand in my toes, the breeze from the ocean, smell the salt air. Even the clothes I’m wearing and how they feel on me.
I’ve always pictured things clearly in my head, though some I can easily relate to memories I have. But always it’s all so clear and vidid. If I think supermarket I see a supermarket and walk the isles, hear, feel and smell it all too. I love reading and often get so caught up in the movie in my head, I’ll finish the book in one day. Literally everything is a movie. I thought this was what everyone did and after talking to my family tonight… no not everyone does, lol. Does this sound like it to you? You didn’t mention smelling or tasting what you see, so I’m not sure.
Thanks, Deanne.
You are very lucky to have this kind of imagination. What do you think? Does it count as hyperphantasia based on what we’ve discussed here?
I actually do mention both taste and smell on this page. One would probably not have hyperphantasia if they weren’t represented in the experience, but a close look at the definition will be helpful in determining one’s self-definition.
At the end of the day, anyone who pays close attention to the now can certainly experience this state. It’s more a matter of perception in the present moment than anything else, which is why I added the guided meditation for hyperphantasia.
Imagination tends to create my reality as my subconscious is impressed and so it comes out!! I’ve had many experiences in my life. I tend to live in the here/now only the present moment as that’s all we have. The conscious and subconscious mind are amazing! I also at times have downloads of images that I have no control over just like a video film!! Thanks.
Sounds like you have the best of all possible experiences and the best possible attitude about the present to go with it. Bravo!
I, also, spent my whole life assuming everyone else saw things in their mind like I do. It was only 6 months ago when I started asking others questions about how their brain works. It didn’t take long at all for me to realize I was profoundly mistaken. This article is the first time I have had someone even come close to seeing things in the mind the way I do. I live physically in the world that is my reality, as well as the world in my mind. One world I physically participate in. One world, I see a continuous movie. All senses included, the more focused on a picticular sense, person or object allows me to create more detail. I can see in 1st and 3rd person point of view. I can see thigs I have made up just as clear as memories. I can change colors, volumes, conversations, emotions etc. One difficulty I do have is details like words on a page, numbers or faces of people I dont know well. What I want to know is, what can we do with this gift we have and how can we use it to help people or do good with it somehow?
One way to share the gift would be to create a YouTube channel or podcast and simply discuss your experiences with it.
And if you can reverse engineer a bit of how your mind works, it might be possible for others to enjoy similar experiences too.
I have this – it’s sometimes overwhelming because it’s almost like existing in this weird space between reality and where you decide to take yourself. I’m a creative professional and while this is helpful, sometimes it can be distracting. I seem to have all of these ‘symptoms’ and am not sure if that means my brain is malfunctioning or what but I’d love to better understand it.
Thanks for this article. I feel a little better about it now. 🙂
Hyperphantasia is a little bit of bad thing for me in some case for example because of the mental imagery i see i can’t fall asleep easily, i can’t throw it out and usually it takes a lot longer than a person with phantasia
Thanks for sharing this.
Have you tried shaping the images in any particular way? Or perhaps tried asking the questions and questioning process I shared in my TEDx Talk?
Finally started delving into this. Recently had conversations with others about this. At any point, I can see hundreds of faces of people I’ve never seen before. Right down to any imperfections or pores. Scenery, space, architecture, it doesn’t matter. Spin them in 3D, easy. Thought this was normal. Apparently it is not. If it’s a skill that can be used rather than just a fun hobby I’d like to learn more
Thought I’d share.
I’m confident anyone can learn to do these things if they’re willing to put in the effort. And if a person has a natural or given inclination for it, all the better.
I also think it’s very helpful to abandon the notion of “normal.” As Einstein apparently said, the miracle is that there are no miracles. And each of us is exactly just what we are.
I thought i was hyper-f and Therefor did the test and my resultat was 66% I recognise extrakt much of what is in the comments above. In youth i dreamed multiple horrific dreams and dreamt repeatedly the same dream again and again. Even as an adult my dreaming took me its grip. Now as older it has subsided I have the ability to elevate and steer myself into elevation through concentration and stead my navigation in the air-journey through my concentration so I am in my dream and conducting the dream at the same time. I travel between worlds and can vanish into these worlds and later write about them.
Sounds like you have a great experience.
What do your writings wind up like? Do you produce and store the recorded experiences in any particular way?
This can be really nice for me sometimes. I like to fantasize about just sitting with a comfort character, and sometimes the imagination can help me in a lot of ways. Even though I’m not very good at drawing what I’m thinking, I’m decent at describing it and the image is amazing in my head. Even when I’m dreaming, it’s extra vivid. I remember having one recently and the scenery was beautiful.
Sometimes it makes craving things a lot worse though. Usually when I imagine those things it makes me want the real thing a lot more because as close as it is to real feeling, mental imagery and reality can’t be the exact same.
However, other times it’s almost torturous. I can’t really seem to control any negative or unhelpful imaginations, thoughts, or scenery. If I’m feeling panicky my mind usually conjures up some kind of terrifying entity, and I back into the corner so I can get a full view of the room and make sure nothing’s entering. I spend most nights staying up until 4-5am even if I’m tired.
I used to think this was normal and that everyone was like this, but I did this test with my best friend, and they didn’t experience it as vividly. Even with their favorite song, they missed a view instruments and vocals.
I’m sorry this was so long
Sounds like you’re having interesting experiences.
Never any need to apologize for writing at length. People rarely write enough to communicate meaningfully these days, so it’s great to see.
I can do all of these tests except the emotion one. As I’ve seen someone in the comments mention, I also can’t watch brutal movies. When I see someone getting stabbed with a knife, I feel paranoid and pain as if I’ve been stabbed with something as well for as long as I remember the scene in my head and try to picture it. If someone cuts their finger with paper, I feel that as well. I picture in my mind a paper slicing one of my fingers and then I feel pain in my mind but when I stop imagining it the pain isn’t there. When watching serials about hospitals I always turn my head away when I see someone getting a surgery cuz I’ll just ,,feel” that pain, not like feel FEEL but I can feel a tingle and a burning sensation in my stomach or that place and I’ll have to touch that place to make sure I’m not wounded. When I close my eyes, I can go from a color to another one, for example green to purple etc. The thing is, I’ve once tried to remember a page from a book. After reading it once I try to picture it in my head and it works 50/50. It’s a page from a geography book. I can see the image of a lake with mist around it and I see the words and sentences about something but I can’t read them. They’re scribbles. I just need to close my eyes and it pops up right away. Guess I’m not the only one.
You’re definitely not the only one, Sally.
Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with this form of visualization.
I can see video like images when I look through my minds eye. It is usually the same wooded scene and it winds and meanders on a trail. If I don’t stay focus it fades but I have yet to follow the trail in its entirety. It moves and zooms in so images are line looking through a video complete with colors.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, Pam.
If video didn’t exist, how do you think you would describe this?
I’m now only 13 years old I’ve always had this weird imagination even with my eyes open. I have tell you guys a secret I kinda fell in love with my imaginary friend. I never told my mom that I had these imagination even my BFF . I just don’t know what to do but I do think this is not a bad thing. I think this kind of imagination is a blessing. I can always imagine God talks to me. Thanks guys for showing me everything I needed.
It’s great that you have a strong imagination.
Have you heard about the paracosm concept? I talk about it elsewhere on the blog and it may reassure you further.
One way to think about the memory techniques discussed on this website is that we have many, many imaginary friends and these friends help us remember.
I believe I have hyperphantasia, hypnagogia, and that I’m on the autism spectrum as well. I am pushing 50 years old. The visualization conditions I have been aware of for a few years, but the autism is a condition that has been making sense over the last year.
I work in media and I see what I want to create in my head and how to accomplish it. I can take apart mechanical objects in my head, often when I’ve never taken them apart before, I just seem to know how the parts go together. I am an improvisational musician and I hear the music in my head before I play it. I enter a visual/dream-like state instantly when I begin to fall asleep almost every time, and I unintentionally lucid dream pretty much every dream. I actually try NOT to lucid dream because sometimes it leads to sleep paralysis which is stressful. If I’m relaxed hypnagogia happens in meditation, too, and EMDR. In EMDR I imagine the entire world based around my memories and can leave the location of the specific memory I’m recalling and explore the location beyond the memory as far as I want. Sometimes there is a “teleportation” effect if I’m completely in a flow state. I can’t read fiction very deeply or quickly because I lose the words as soon as I enter the visual state… My eyes will keep acknowledging that I’m reading words but it transitions to being immersed into the world described and “freely walking around in it” and leaving the story for my own exploration of the imagined environment.
I thought everyone had this experience. It seems to frustrate two of my coworkers. They say things like “beginner’s luck” or “you got lucky on your first try” when I can simply see how to do things. It frustrates me, too, because it often seems to me like they are being lazy or overcomplicating something that seems very obvious to me. I get upset when they try to “overexplain” something that seems obvious, and they get upset with me that I am either not sharing information as if I have some access to a public resource and I’m hiding it. I’ve had one person say “You seem to be able to do anything you put your mind to.” and warned me to be careful because other people saw it as threatening. That person later retired early and upset with me because I wanted to make things simpler.
I’m really bad a paying attention to monologues. I feel present, but that the other person does not see me as present in their monologue and it feels like they are repeating themselves or I think I know what they are trying to say before they say it. My mind moves faster than my mouth and I can’t typically explain my thoughts to anyone.
I come across as rude I think, when I don’t mean to, and I don’t really see hierarchy or competition as real. It’s not that I don’t know it exists, I just don’t understand the value of it or understand why anyone would want to participate in it as it seems like a distraction and waste of time. I’m not sure if this is tied to hyperphantasia, but definitely seems tied to autism. I am not BOOK SMART at all. I can’t really memorize trivia, facts, or anything really. I never realized that until right now. I am horrid at standardized tests and memorizing of information. It’s all kinetic visualization for me.
Thanks for sharing your experiences.
I also go out of my way not to lucid dream. The illusion of control is more than enough in waking life.
I have only just discovered this after talking to my therapist, I am female with Autism, I have always struggled with my hyper senses, which caused me a lot of anxiety and panic attacks, now I am older I see it as a gift, I use to feel like I was different and never fitted in. It goes beyond just the mental crisp images, I can smell anything I think of, feel, hear, sense others emotions and even danger etc. I dream every night and mostly lucid, which is strange because I have to have seratonin medication to help me sleep, otherwise I suffer insomnia, due to my hyper active brain. I decided to start painting my dreams and I could capture every detail by just focusing on them, my imagination is so active I come up with many ideas for movies, and can write a whole script, but lack the writing knowledge to do so, but that could be down to my lack of confidence. I am also NIFJ personality type, and do spend a lot of time isolating myself, I love time alone, I am often miss understood when I can’t explain an idea I see, but when I have a picture in my head for example decorating a room, I do it exactly as I see it in my image, I am very grateful for this gift. I wouldn’t say I am great at memory games, but if I wanted to I can remember, by putting them into a pattern I work well with seeing patterns in things, my mum use to say I always found tiny things that irritated me which still does, it could b a pulled thread, or a tiny stain, no one else notices. The mental images appear to me with my eyes open and it only takes me a second to capture it.
Thanks kindly for sharing your experiences. It sounds like you are having a great inner adventure, even if there are some challenges.
Have you ever tried savasana? I have found it very helpful for getting to sleep, especially when combined with using the memory techniques I share on this blog.
I finally stumbled upon this page which is now beginning to answer many questions for me. I’m currently 49 years old, my thought process when listening to some tell me anything has always been like what I describe to people as a crystal clear 3d rendering that develops as fast as the story someone is telling me goes. I see every single cinematic detail building / developing as they speak.
I can sit through hours of class or meetings and remember in detail virtually everything. As someone describes a structure / building to me the 3d rendering kicks in instantly and start building and layering and as I think about solutions for that structure I can turn it back and forth and around in my mind looking at ever nook and cranny. I can go inside it, travel up and down through it, into rooms, ceilings, as if I were in the actual building. No one I know can comprehend this when I describe how I process information via speech.
Thank you very much for this page I so very much needed.
hanks for stopping by and sharing your experience, Brian. Sounds like you’re having a fantastic mental experience!
What happened to Conceptual in your KAVECOGS test? Tom.
Not sure how that got deleted. Just added it back. 🙂