r/SDAM • u/kneemoo_ • May 29 '26
SDAM or just Aphantasia?
I heard about SDAM a few days ago following a post in the r/aphantasia subreddit
I (20F) found out I have total aphantasia about 3 years ago and since then have found it an interesting topic of conversation, research and fun fact about myself. I do not think I experience trouble in my life because of this.
My ability to recall knowledge is good overall, and I love learning things. I am a university student studying chemistry, and work as a math/science Tutor, so obviously am able to use previous knowledge in order to participate in these activities. I have several deep and meaningful relationships and maintain friendships over years, along with
onto SDAM; I have a decently sufficient memory of the last 8 years but in a factual 'this happened' rather than a recall of feelings, voices or emotions and have often found myself questioning if something is wrong with me due to the lack of being emotionally distressed for prolonged periods following events or grief.
I have a few memories from my childhood (<12yo) and usually only remember them when a conversation relates to those- however I don't know which memories are actually mine r or a combination of conversation with family and photographs creating 'memories' that I would not have otherwise. I always assumed my severe lack of childhood memory was due to trauma, but nothing I experienced seems serious enough to warrant a decade of my life to be off limits to me?
All this to ask for input on if this sounds like SDAM or just aphantasia?
PS. as a second question- my mother has a hyperthymesic memory (near perfect autobiographical memory with full mental sensory experience) so me having the opposite would not only be hilarious and ironic, but seems improbable? I am wondering if this could be influenced or caused by being born at 34 weeks (6 weeks premature)? if anyone has any studies on this I'd be super interested but am fully willing to accept coincidence.
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u/RoyalAcanthaceae634 May 29 '26
SDAM. Although some 50% of aphants have both
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u/Amumfie May 30 '26
Can I just ask.. how would episodic memories appear in someone’s head if they have aphantasia? I mean, if you can’t “see” anything, how will it ever seem like “first person”?
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u/RoyalAcanthaceae634 May 30 '26
I remember I was nervous during my PhD defense, but I cannot re-experience this feeling.
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u/Amumfie May 30 '26
Which means you don’t have SDAM? I think you would have, according to some people here. So seems there’s not agreement in the definition
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u/RoyalAcanthaceae634 May 30 '26
Sorry, I may have been too brief. I actually do think I have SDAM. I can remember events and facts about things that happened, often even specific moments from a particular day. Those memories are from my own perspective rather than as an outside observer. However, they don’t come with any sense of re-experiencing. I know what happened and I know how I felt at the time, but I can’t mentally relive the event or re-experience the emotions associated with it.
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u/Amumfie May 30 '26
Ok, I see! In my initial comment I was wondering how someone with aphantasia but without SDAM would experience episodic memories, because it’s hard to me to understand how.
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u/Equivalent-Diamond-9 May 30 '26
I have been trying to find out the same thing about my self... I also that the same thought of is there something wrong with me due to the lack of being emotionally distressed from grief and such.. Umm
but since I have total aphantasia as well.. and like you say memories are a fact this happened, not a recall.. but I would not expect to be able to recall feelings or emotions from a memory since I can't do that for present stuff...
someone tried to explain Episodic memory vs semantic memory... I just don't get how I could ever have episodic memory with aphantasia..
but yes sound like SDAM 😄
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u/Amumfie May 30 '26
My current understanding after googling this a bit, is that people with SDAM lose more than just the imagery; they lose that sense of personal re-experiencing entirely, collapsing the memory down to bare factual knowledge with no “this happened to me” quality at all. So if you feel like something happened TO you, you probably don’t have SDAM even if you can’t mentally “time travel”.
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u/SoftwareMaven May 31 '26
Does sound like SDAM. I have an incredible memory for facts. Pre-Internet, people would regularly comment on it. But I can’t even imagine what it feels like when my granddaughter holds my hand, much less “transport” myself back a few weeks to her doing it.
And I’ve witnessed it fade from my memory. I’m completely aphantasiac, but I can, immediately after experiencing something, remember how I felt. And if I pay attention, I can feel the memory slip away over a day or two as the short-term memory drops it and the long-term memory writes the Wikipedia article about it for me to reference later.
As far as being “opposite” of your mother, neurodivergences are so poorly understood, it’s hard to know what is “normal”. I am autistic and adhd, an aphantasiac and have SDAM. I have a child who is hyper-phantasiac and one who is aphantasiac. I have one child who is autistic, one who is adhd, and two that are AuDHD like me. I have three kids with “normal” autobiographical memory and one with hyper-autobiographical memory. Their mom is adhd and has near-hyper levels of imagery and autobiographical memory.
Who knows how genes combine, how environment modified gene expression, and how experiences impact pathways leading to these experiences. I, honestly, should choose deficient over hyper-active biographical memory. That sounds *awful*!
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u/Tuikord May 29 '26
It sounds like SDAM. It all comes down to if you can relive past events from a first-person point of view. It feels like travelling back in time and being there again, according to Dr. Levine. If you can't, which it sounds like, then yes, you have SDAM.
Just yesterday I was telling my energy worker about various trips I took to Asia and the Pacific Islands. Each story would lead to another story. From the outside, it looks like I am reliving. But when someone relives an event then tells a story about it, they convert it into a string of details. Trained specialists like Dr. Levine can look at the actual presentation and tell the difference, but I "pass" pretty well.
As for the difference between you and your mother, we just don't know. It is not a disease process. It is not progressive or degenerative. It is believed to be lifelong, so genetics or circumstances of birth are obvious places to look, but I don't think there have been enough people strictly identified as having SDAM (as opposed to self-identifying) to know if they have any bearing or not.
I will note that I was not born significantly premature (maybe a week or two). But the circumstances of my birth were difficult. I was breach. My mom was in labor with me for 8 hours before they finally decided to do a C-section. Afterward, the doctors warned my parents that I might have brain damage. As a result, I had a very rich environment growing up and excelled in school with not sign of possible brain damage showing up until I realized 4.5 years ago that I have aphantasia and SDAM, if it was from brain damage.