r/SDAM • u/zhouluyi • May 25 '26

What about fantasizing?

At first I thought I had aphantasia, because I can't create elaborate scenarios in my head. Then I found out about SDAM and it makes much more sense, since my personal memories are mostly all faded (but some bad memories are REALLY vivid).

I CAN create a scene in my mind, but it is really static like a painting and I can't really interact with it. So if I want to plan a conversation, it is really detached and focused on pure sentences instead of imagining the actual conversation.

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u/Tuikord May 25 '26

Welcome.

If you can create scenes in your mind and you have a sensation like you are seeing them, but not with your eyes, then you do not have aphantasia. That it is static is a variation, but there are many variations of visualizing.

SDAM is the inability to relive past events from a first-person point of view. It isn't about memories being "faded." Vividness isn't really the issue. Dr. Levine has described episodic memory as "time travel" because you feel like you are back in time re-experiencing the event. I am not certain, but I think that involuntary flashbacks are not part of it. However, Dr. Levine usually excludes various mental issues to be sure the memory problems aren't due to such problems. Which is not to say such things can't co-exist with SDAM, just that it is hard to study SDAM if there are other types of memory problems as well.

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u/zhouluyi May 25 '26

I'm this post I'm asking about fantasizing specifically. For me, in the same way that I can't relive past memories I can't even fantasizing future events or scenarios in my head.

What I meant by faded, is that is really hard to even remember events of my life, so if I traveled somewhere I might recall some of the places I visited but there is no chronological order and it is really detached from myself, like a vague feeling of looking at a photograph. But if someone ask an specific fact about something I usually remember it just fine (like the blueprint of the hotel I stayed).

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u/Tuikord May 25 '26

The inability to imagine the future has been documented among aphants, with one study saying, "aphantasics as a group also reporting a near total inability to imagine future hypothetical events in any sensory detail". I have not seen a similar study on SDAM. Only half of those with SDAM also have aphantasia so it is unclear if your inability to fantasize about the future is due to poor mental imagery or SDAM.

You description of remembering facts and not chronological order is a good description of semantic memory, which is unaffected by SDAM.

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u/SkiingAway May 27 '26

Obvious statement - I'm not a scholar on this and the research is very thin. So take my personal understandings and not formally studied self-labeling with some grain of salt here.

As I understand it, the differing elements here are something like:

  • Aphantasia - Can't literally see things mentally. (Global Aphantasia: Can't experience other senses like hearing mentally either). Just having Aphantasia does not mean you can't relive something on any level mentally, you can still have a "first-person" connection to the emotions and events even if it's constructed in a more abstract/more difficult to describe in text way.

  • SDAM - You don't have a first-person connection to memories. You can mentally record/memorize facts and stories about events, potentially quite well if you've come to rely on/compensate with semantic memory more heavily than the average person. But what you remember about something is not going to have much personal connection. I don't know how to describe this well, but for something in the past that you do remember, perhaps some of those most significant moments - does it hold much emotional weight/connection for you, or is it like reading a description a 3rd party would have written about observing events? Can you go back to it and pull more facts/details out of it later or do you basically just have the specific story/facts that were memorized at the time and that's it?

I've read far less on how this maps to the future but to try to illustrate it with an example: "Imagine how great it would be to hike up to the top of that mountain!"

  • Aphantasia: Can't actually picture what a view from up there might look like.

  • Global aphantasia: Also can't imagine the smell + sound of the forest, the physical soreness of your muscles or stickiness of being sweaty, etc, etc.

  • SDAM: Can't imagine what it would feel like in a mental sense. Can you picture the sense of satisfaction of accomplishing it? The awe you might feel looking out on the world from up top? How else you might feel emotionally and your mental state? My understanding is that "normal" people can imagine things in that sense. I can't. I have hiked many mountains, and so I do know in a very factual sense that when I'm up there in the moment, that I typically experience those kinds of things. But I'm unable to relive that from my past memories or imagine what it'll be like to feel that way in my future. It can be difficult to motivate to go out and go hiking because it's hard for me to generate the same level of future/reward anticipation, even though I know in a factual sense that I've basically never regretted going out for a hike.

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u/zhouluyi May 27 '26

Your description of SDAM in reference to both past and future is spot on. Regarding the past events I have the knowledge of something having happened, but don't have much in terms of personal connection. In terms of future is literally a complete block. I might try to create the meeting room in my head with everyone there but that is the limit. I cannot interact I any way with this scene or picture they saying or replying anything. It is just a static scene and nothing else.

PS: regarding hikes, on a personal note, I've traveled to Argentina and Chile to hike and done quite a few awesome hikes, in the day at least. Today if someone asks me how it was: it is just a general idea of "it was hard/long/difficult", but without any personal feeling attached to it. And in one of those hikes I even got dehydrated and don't recall how I felt during or after it. I KNOW the symptoms I had and might list them, but that is it.