Can Someone Experience Life Only Through Thoughts Without Mental Imagery?

Question:

Can someone experience life solely through their thoughts, without any sensations or visualizations in their mind’s eye?

Answer:

This seems to be a question about Aphantasia, if it is, then yes. it’s not an issue at all.

Aphantasia (correctly pronounced with a hard A, like able rather than a soft one like in father) is a condition where internal representations of senses (vision, touch, smell, etc) cannot be created. It was originally limited to just visualisations, but was expanded to also cover the other senses too. It’s not an all senses or no senses thing. It’s different for different people. For example, I have the condition myself and have zero on all scales apart from audio, where I’m actually on the hyper side. Others with the condition could have a totally different combination though, even including the exact opposite. Although when people first discover they have the condition they are very depressed about it and see it as a major disability, in reality it’s little more than a minor inconvenience. In fact it does also have some positives, resistance to PTSD and an instilled different ‘out of the box’ way of thinking for example. The fact many people have the condition and never know, or don’t find out until later in life should demonstrate how little of an issue it actually is. With a few simple workarounds, it doesn’t prevent you living a full and enjoyable life.
It doesn’t prevent hypnosis either, which is another frequetly asked question.


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