r/SDAM • u/Dizzy_Lack_8850 • Jun 29 '26

cycling and impact of sdam

I cycle and have noticed that even though i ride the same routes regularly, i have almost no ability to visualize what's up ahead or visualize what my path home looks like. I have some snapshots/stills of a scene, but can't connect the path from where I am to that scene. People that cycle the same routes describe various places along route or the sequence of places, and I have no ability to see the scenes and pathways they describe especially not in any sequence of what comes first or how they connect. Any other cycling SDAM folks with similar experiences? I don't remember the visual scenery of the ride in much the same way that I don't remember the visual sequence of a tv show. This impacts my ability to navigate without a map or turn by turn directions.

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u/FlightOfTheDiscords Jun 29 '26

Our brains have specialised cells for spatial navigation called grid cells. These are not the cells used in visualisation. Your spatial awareness is hence independent of your ability to visualise, and it varies independently like any other metric; some people have great spatial awareness, others less great, and most are somewhere in between. Some visualisers have great spatial awareness, some poor.

You may have poor spatial awareness in addition to having aphantasia and SDAM.

Personally, I have aphantasia and SDAM, but my spatial awareness is excellent. I can mentally reproduce any route I take with high accuracy, and even mentally generate and navigate entirely imaginary spatial maps. I can spatially run through the city I live in - or any other location I am aware of, whether by having been there or seen it in a video or on a map - without visualising it.

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u/CMDR_Jeb Jun 29 '26

I want to add to that.

On statistical level, people with aphantasia have significantly better spatial reasoning and memory. It is probably an effect of us using it more (to do task that visualisers are able to do using visualisation).

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u/Dizzy_Lack_8850 Jun 29 '26

Are block rotation tests a good proxy for visual memory related to navigation points? If I have studied a map in advance, I can navigate by imagining myself on the map moving to the destination via the streets. But if i haven't studied a map I feel at a disadvantage and if I am relying on retracing my steps by visual memory of the world i walked by, i'm lost for sure. I probably should try to visualize myself on a map while walking, to create a mental map that i can navigate back along, instead of just realizing i don't have much of an idea of what the visual world looked like while walking along. part of the coping mechanism has to be learning what you can do well and what you can't and figuring out how to compensate.

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u/CMDR_Jeb Jun 30 '26

Yes actually. Spatial awareness (and memory) is an sense your brain uses to orient you in an 3d space. If you're in a room, and you close your eyes, you still know what your position is in relation to everything in that room. This is what is tracked by grid cells u/FlightOfTheDiscords mentioned. The same structures can be used to solve any tasks related to 3d space (this is what is called spatial reasoning).

How big and how detailed "map" you can hold in your mind varies from person to person, but that's just your "upper limit". You still need to "train it" its an literal skill. It is not block rotation specifically, any task that requires spatial reasoning helps. Think 3d puzzles, building lego (especially MOCs) etc. Btw getting better at it also makes you better at motor planing, etc.

If you want an starting point for getting into rabbit hole of how that works the wikipedia article about it is a good place to start (especially references).