alt Hacker NewsRight. I have aphantasia and I've never felt bad about it. Maybe confused a few times, but that happens a lot anyway for any number of reasons.
I posit, without evidence, that the people who feel "confusion, frustration, shame, and inadequacy" about something like aphantasia are simply attention-seekers. If it wasn't for lack of mental imagery, it would be for something else.
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mrob • today at 11:45 AM
For me, learning that normal people go about their days constantly hallucinating had the opposite effect. I think it could partly explain some problems in society, e.g. people's susceptibility to advertising.
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agentcoops • today at 11:32 AM
I agree with you as an adult with aphantasia, but I think it's a relatively common experience as an undiagnosed kid in grade school etc.
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Hmm, agreeing that the pathologization of aphantasia is distasteful but then immediately positing that people who might feel shame and inadequacy about having it must be "simply attention-seekers" seems counterproductive. Not treating aphantasia as a disease and also acknowledging that people may suffer mental illness triggered by it are not mutually exclusive.