Olfactory aphantasia is the inability to imagine smells Phantosmia is detecting smells that aren’t there
Similarly there’s gustatory aphantasia for taste and phantom taste perception
Etc
this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2025
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You can actually feel taste and smell when you think about them? Like on your tongue?
A phantom taste perception is actually a lingering bad taste in your mouth and actually caused by multiple things like schizophrenia, diabetes, bad dental hygiene, head injuries, certain cancers, medications, etc
Fuck yes, the real answer. Thank you, @ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com. Immediately surfaced results.
We probably don't have a c/rimjobsteve yet, but would this qualify?
Likely both ragebutt and I would qualify.
Yes I’m blind across all internal senses.
There's amusia, which is "tone-deafness".
It's one thing to not sing in tune or not remember a melody correctly, but there are people who can not even hear a difference between two melodies, even if they can tell other sounds apart. I would guess that's somewhat similar, because I doubt these people have any chance in imagining what a melody sounds like.
Edit: removed what I said because apparently, in spite of the literal definitions of the words, I was wrong!
It looks like you're incorrect
... Huh.
Language is freaky like that.
Would you happen to know the names or be willing to share? I guess I didn't know what to look for.
EDIT: Looks like you're wrong about it specifically relating to vision.
https://aphantasia.com/topic/olfactory-aphantasia/
It might not be called aphantasia since it isn't for sight, but yeah it exists, I have it for taste and smell.
Just last week I was looking up ADHD and autism in blind people, but I was also questioning whether blind people could have aphantasia. Or rather, how does blind people perceive roundness or a circle in their mind? They know what it feels like at least, so is it tied to some other sense? I'm guessing blind people have a way of mapping out surroundings and 3D space, but I imagine explaining how a person thinks about stuff like this is as hard to describe as whether two people perceive the same colours the same way.
People with aphantasia have improved spatial memory that tries to compensate for episodic memory.
So the first thing that I feel when I try to remember something is my position in the room, or where the person speaking to me was standing.
Same thing if I try and ‘see’ a circle. I’ll just feel the dimensions. Hard to describe but it’s almost like pressure in my frontal cortex. A circle feels like coming down from the left and right in a circular pattern, whereas imagining a tree feels like the pressure is at the bottom pushing up.
Who was the lady that was deaf and blind, and famously overcame those? I can't think of her name. Her first word was water.
I once read an interview with her and she said that before she learned language she basically didn't have any mental images or thoughts. Her mind was just raw emotion and mostly anger.
Once she picked up language she was able to think things through, and understand where she was in the world. I always found that fascinating, and your comment reminded me of it.
Who was the lady that was deaf and blind, and famously overcame those?
Might be Helen Keller, very famous deafblind activist. A quote from wikipedia kind of shows how hard communicating when senses are limited:
The next month, Keller made a breakthrough, when she realized that the motions her teacher was making on the palm of her hand, while running cool water over her other hand, symbolized the idea of "water". Writing in her autobiography, The Story of My Life, Keller recalled the moment:
I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, set it free!
Helen Keller
Yes, that's her. Thank you!
This gave me a bout of serious existential dread.
Interesting, it might be just different or depend on what sense is more dominant. I can feel imaginary smells, but never felt imaginary taste.
Imaginary Taste, don't have it. Imaginary smells, also don't have it. Imaginary voices? -- Might wanna see a doctor about that...
Well, I guess technically a lot of people have that. There was a whole community dedicated to "GIFs you can hear" once.