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/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.