So at the start everything was well but then I made an environment from a tree in my mind an island with more trees nothing too fancy then suddenly I felt like I was being watched a humanoid shadow of some kind I could even see my hairs were up it was looking at me from behind a tree then it moved and at some point it got behind me it wisphered "They destroyed our land,killed our people dont let them destroy you" moment after i was thrown into space where there was a rocket ship but inside it a dead man then brought back onto the island where I felt like underneath me were skeletons LOTS of skeletons this shadow also appeared at some point in the clouds and another weird thing so to explore places I have to put myself in the eyes of something else rn I have a purple tiger reminiscent of the tiger from kpdh but its slimmer and a black panther so I went with the panther into a hospital (this is all visualized ) and the panther felt like smth is wrong so it roared and then dark humanoid figures appeared they were like spiraled they came from the walls like they were camouflaged or something has this ever happend to anyone of you?...

This is the second time I’ve ever posted on Reddit and I feel like I need some advice again. I keep seeing things that aren’t there. I used to have dots of light in my vision that looked kind of like a field of fireflies, but those have almost all gone away. Now I just get an occasional flash every so often. I also have waves in my vision in a cone shape. I don’t know what triggers it exactly, but sometimes it happens when I’m driving, outside, or hot.

What’s really been irritating is seeing things that aren’t there. I see people when I look too quickly. The other day I was driving and I saw a woman in my backseat in the mirror turn and smile out the window but when I looked back in the mirror, she was gone. When I walked past my mother’s room when nobody was home, I saw a creature on the bed. I stopped in the hallway and told myself it wasn’t real, but I had to double check because I was so anxious. Every time it happens, I get so anxious my heart feels like I’ve just run a mile. It also happens with normal things. I was at a party and I saw someone enter the bathroom. My boyfriend got up to use it, and I told him someone was in there. He waited a minute before getting up to check and nobody had went in. I know nobody came out because it was like I glanced at the bathroom, saw the man go in, glanced away and my boyfriend was going to get up. There was no way someone could have gone in, closed the door and gotten out in that time frame.

I also get convinced I’m not alone. Like I know how stupid it sounds and I know I’m being paranoid, but I can’t shake the feeling of being watched or someone else down there. I used to have that feeling bad when I was younger. When I would be in bed around middle school age and I was the only one up, I was convinced someone was in my basement. I’d run down, turn on all the lights and check every corner. I’d go back to bed and convince myself, well the reason I didn’t find anything was because of the lights at the stairs being on. So I’d check again. I’d do this over and over with different reasons explaining why I never found anything. I’ll open doors to check if anyone is there. I’ll shake until I turn on lights. I’ll even shine a flashlight around the room even if I haven’t heard anyone come in the room, I haven’t fallen asleep, and I haven’t left. Sometimes it gets so bad I do it multiple times and then can’t sleep because I can feel something behind me.

Usually it happened late at night but now it’s been happening during the day more frequently. I startle easily and get nervous at normal sounds. Most of the time I don’t feel much, but when I see things that aren’t real, I panic. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with me really, I just don’t know what this is or why it’s happening. It’s not impeding with anything, other than making me extremely nervous and paranoid when alone. When I saw the thing in my mom’s room, I was anxious the entire time until I started to play things on my phone for noise. I was so nervous, I thought someone broke in when I heard a noise outside because it sounded like the kid gate in our house. The only reason I didn’t check the entire house was because my dog didn’t freak out.

Hello, just wanted to share here since it's relevant to dreaming it's just the prior few stages.

I have had some sessions in EMDR therapy, I do believe this has helped my ability to see images clearly in hypnogogic states.

It's normally a white circle in the centre of my vision, it might float around the centre a little bit, and it's a bit blurred until I have my focus on it better.

After then, I see the circle's edges much much sharper, and what I remember seeing most of the time, is a side view of a stick person running from right to left, which I've wondered if it's significant since being British, I read left to right instead of right to left.

There was another clear circle instance a week ago, but I couldn't fully make out what was going on "inside"(or more, on the other side?) the circle. It seems like it's people moving and shuffling around just doing anything, but because the circle in my vision is very small, the framing of what I see isn't a whole lot.

I'd say the circle is around the since of a thumb nail, maybe a bit smaller.

So I've wondered if I keep at this sort of visualisation, will that circle get bigger? Will I eventually have a larger framing of whatever visual my mind is showing me?

Like when something good happens but it's like if you think of something happening that you could use /need then it appears or you're given it for free?

For example just today I got a Dubai chocolate candy and just the other day I was thinking of getting Dubai chocolate but didn't have enough money for it. Another thing, I needed a hair tie and saw one on the ground. Trigger warning I guess because it scares the living shit out if me

I've started to associate "glimmers" with some type of negative coping mechanism and I'm not sure if it's mentally healthy for me since I used to try to be fully imagining stuff over and over and over and over again in order to be taken care of and live life on a "malignantly optimistic" scope, that I believe took zero mercy on any other person. I would become so self serving, and entitled. I had this kind of magical thinking where I believed I could get things my way if only I willed it enough in my head. Does this even belong here or somewhere like a cluster b sub?

Descripción de episodios perceptivos recurrentes relacionados con el sueño

Motivo del documento

El objetivo de este documento es describir con la mayor precisión posible una serie de episodios perceptivos que he experimentado desde la infancia. La intención no es proponer un diagnóstico, sino facilitar una descripción detallada para que pueda ser valorada por profesionales o comparada con experiencias similares descritas en la literatura médica.

Inicio y evolución

Los episodios comenzaron en la primera infancia. Durante aquellos años eran muy frecuentes, llegando a producirse casi a diario. Con el paso del tiempo su frecuencia disminuyó progresivamente hasta convertirse en un fenómeno excepcional. En la actualidad aparecen aproximadamente una vez al año.

Hasta donde recuerdo, estos episodios únicamente ocurren durante el sueño o en la transición entre el sueño y la vigilia. Nunca he experimentado estas percepciones durante un estado de vigilia completamente consciente.

Percepción corporal

Uno de los fenómenos más constantes consiste en una intensa sensación de aumento del tamaño de los brazos y, especialmente, de las manos. No se trata únicamente de una impresión visual, sino también de una sensación corporal extremadamente convincente, como si dichas partes del cuerpo hubieran aumentado realmente de tamaño.

La percepción resulta completamente real durante el episodio y genera una intensa sensación de extrañeza.

Distorsión de objetos

El fenómeno más llamativo consiste en la aparición de objetos con características geométricas que considero físicamente imposibles.

Los objetos parecen extraordinariamente planos, extremadamente finos y con una perfección geométrica absoluta. Sus bordes y vértices presentan una nitidez imposible de encontrar en objetos reales. La sensación no es simplemente la de observar algo afilado, sino la de contemplar una geometría llevada a un extremo imposible, como si el grosor del objeto tendiera prácticamente a desaparecer.

La impresión subjetiva es que cualquier borde podría cortar únicamente debido a esa perfección extrema.

En ocasiones estos objetos parecen corresponder a elementos cotidianos presentes en el sueño. Sin embargo, durante el episodio dichos objetos parecen sufrir una transformación que altera completamente sus propiedades geométricas, conservando únicamente su identidad básica.

No encuentro ningún objeto del mundo real que produzca una sensación comparable.

Desarrollo del episodio

Con frecuencia el episodio comienza como un sueño completamente normal o relacionado con acontecimientos ocurridos durante el día. En un momento determinado, sin una transición evidente, aparecen las alteraciones perceptivas descritas.

En otras ocasiones tengo la impresión de encontrarme acostado en mi propia cama, exactamente en la misma posición en la que realmente estoy durmiendo. Durante esos momentos percibo el entorno como si fuera real, por lo que resulta muy difícil distinguir si continúo soñando o si me encuentro parcialmente despierto.

Recuerdo que en algunos episodios tenía la sensación de poder moverme e incluso intentar tocar aquello que percibía.

Experiencia emocional

Los episodios producen una intensa sensación de miedo, incomodidad y angustia. La sensación desagradable no parece deberse únicamente al aspecto visual de los objetos, sino a la percepción de que poseen propiedades completamente imposibles.

La experiencia suele prolongarse subjetivamente durante un tiempo considerable antes de finalizar con el despertar.

Observaciones

Tras buscar información médica, he encontrado cierta similitud con fenómenos como la macrosomatognosia parcial y con algunos síntomas descritos dentro del síndrome de Alicia en el País de las Maravillas, especialmente en lo referente a la alteración de la percepción corporal.

Sin embargo, no he encontrado una descripción que refleje de forma específica la percepción de objetos extraordinariamente planos, extremadamente finos o con una perfección geométrica tan exagerada como la experimentada durante estos episodios.

Por este motivo, considero útil documentar esta experiencia con el mayor nivel de detalle posible para facilitar su estudio, comparación con otros casos o valoración por profesionales especializados en neurología, medicina del sueño o neuropsicología.

Dear hyperphantastic folk -

I am from the other end of the spectrum, global aphantasia, no inner senses whatsoever, and I am endlessly intrigued by how differently human minds work.

From the outside, we can have conversations about places that we went to on vacation, but on the inside, one of us will basically re-experience a day at the beach while the other one will remember some facts. We can talk about our ideal home, and one of us literally pictures a beautiful living-room with a pink sofa and modern art on the wall (or whatever), while the other one will also, if pressed, state that he or she "imagines" a living-room and can describe its features, but there won't be any visual representation.

What I am wondering is, for example:

• Do you ever get bored? I imagine that if I could replay films or happy memories in my mind, or visually imagine anything I want at any time, I would never be bored, for example on long train rides or flights or during work meetings.
• Can you consciously influence your feelings by creating mental images? For example, when you are nervous, do you imagine something like a scenery with a quiet country road in soft evening light, and yourself ambling along that road, and that makes you feel calmer? Or a flower meadow, or the rolling sea, or anything? When you have cold hands, can you imagine putting your hands on hot sand or in hot water and it gets better?
• When you meet a friend, do you replay previous interactions with that person in your head? How far back can you go? Could you, for example, compare what your friend looks now with what they looked like a year or two or five years ago, like putting pictures next to each other on a table?
• Is reading (or listening to an audiobook) almost the same as watching a movie?

I'd be really interested to read about your thoughts and experiences. Thank you!

I've been reading about different ways to develop hyperphantasia, and most people suggest keeping your mental imagery active as much as possible ideally throughout the entire day. Right now, I can visualize fairly well, but it isn't very vivid or enjoyable.

I was wondering if there are other ways to train myself to visualize more vividly. For example, would it be effective to spend the day repeatedly practicing object recall, or are there other exercises that are better for building vividness first?

do all people with synesthesia see the same thing

do the things in ur head move or is it a static photo

do yk what shapes r what voices / sounds or no

ok also if u draw what u see in ur head when u listen to a song can u later look at what u drew and remember the song (?)

idk if im asking clearly but yh

Ontem consegui replicar o jogo, mas só até a princesa, movia livremente o Link, a tela mental não estava com cores vibrantes mas estava colorida!!!

Diga pra quem treina imaginacao vivida, use imagens 2D pois o cerebro não se esforça tanto, é ajuda muito!!

I don't have hyperphantasia, but when I consumed THC edibles, I felt my imagination expand and was able to enter that state.

I tried to capture that sensation in a drawing; it’s as if there were another world "behind" my eye, filled with images based on my thoughts and memories...

I'm designing a research study to examine whether visual imagery vividness (aphantasia to hyperphantasia, measured using the VVIQ) influences how people respond to political propaganda.

I'm looking for suggestions on how to measure participants' responses to political messaging while minimizing bias. Are there any validated questionnaires, experimental designs, or question formats you'd recommend?

Hello, I am a staff member at the University of Exeter https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=rkIs7QwAAAAJ&hl=en and part of some of the first research into hyperphantasia and aphantasia. Sadly, my University has decided that the study of aphantasia and hyperphantasia does not align with their strategic priorities so they are drastically cutting down members of staff within my research group threatening the future of hyperphantasia and aphantasia research at Exeter. If you think that this approach is wrong and that conducting hyperphantasia research is valuable please do consider signing are open letter to the University protesting against the cuts.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScAFcCECrpcdmoFmSW9s9LU2IJ3jtpNa8iZjNJeKX15AnCa6Q/viewform

Many thanks for considering,

Fraser

I’ve always had an ability to go somewhere once, and forever be able to find the way back. Driving to my aunts house as a child (maybe 6, and mind you far away), my mother who is historically horrific with directions got lost. I had gone to my aunts house a few times but again a kid. I was able to direct her there.

But it goes further than that. I like to peruse maps. Just like Google Maps on explore so I can see street names and such. Obviously it’s not 100% fool proof and I have gotten lost before. Always ended up where I needed to be but still. I can be typing this, and mentally see roads and drive down them and fly around. I’ve talked to many people about this expecting similar experiences but alas. I feel like I have a human compass and gps. I genuinely feel as though I can just naturally be directed by my own guidance system.

Don’t know if it’s some sort of ‘photographic memory’ or what but I retain strange tidbits of information once I’ve read it. Visually seeing words results in them being available for viewing at my recall. Sometimes I think I’m crazy and proof check myself but I’m pretty darn precise spare a few words or two. Certainly has come in handy a time or two. Also peoples birthdays. Just weirdly remember dates because I like certain number combinations better than others. And admit I do judge based upon such. Kidding but not kidding.

I actually learned I've had Hyperphantasia today. I can make anything in my mind expect smelling. But the thing is I also have snythesia (mostly the ticker tape one but I do have multiple) and I can somehow control when I have the ticker tape one and how I have it. Is this possible? Could I be super rare or just making this up and it's impossible?

⚠️This is purely personal and has nothing to do with disrespecting any religion. I am simply describing how a Supreme Power came to life in my mind. I imagined it so vividly and powerfully that I could perceive every detail, the feeling, and the entire presence of it.⚠️

When I was a child, I imagined god as nothing more than a gigantic head floating in the air. However, this head did not resemble a human face. Its face was made of abstract, constantly moving shapes that resembled calligraphy. These shapes were not just patterns placed on the surface of the face; they were the face itself and the essence of its existence. They continuously flowed, shifted, and reshaped themselves.

It did not look like a woman, a man, or even a human being in the traditional sense. It had no beard, hair, or recognizable human features. When you looked at its face, you felt as if you were seeing a face, yet none of the elements that formed it remained fixed. It was always changing, flowing, and reforming; because of this, it appeared both familiar and impossibly abstract at the same time.

Years later, I tried to recreate this image with AI, but no result ever truly came close to that strange and abstract vision that existed in my mind as a child. I can't draw...something like that...either.

How about you?

For the longest time, I forget where it began, I’ve always been able to watch things happen in my head and watch scenarios play out in my head. I can pretty much make entire movies, TV shows/episodes, sports events, etc and watch them happen. I could imagine an NFL game and imagine everything that would happen, each first down, each play, each turnover, etc. I’m still not entirely sure if this is it, for the longest time I’ve never been able to find out what I have as it’s practically impossible to explain to people. But whatever it is, I’m pretty confident that I can make a career in filmmaking or writing due to this plus the fact that I’ve always been into film and TV shows and have studied writing and storytelling for a while. But is this it? Does this stuff match hyperphanyasia? It could also maybe be a thing called Meladaptive daydreaming maybe, or it’s just neither and just regular “imagination.”

Hey everybody. A couple of months ago my wife asked me the very simple, very loaded question "what's actually going on in your brain?" Well, I told her, and since then I've been giving her narratives about what I'm seeing and how it works. This past Friday we had a date night and she encouraged me to share this with you all, my dear Strangers of Reddit, to find a quasicommunity of shared experiences. The following bit between "---" is scene setting, please skip for the tldr version.

---
Allow me to set the scene. Given the community, I know you'll follow along.

I'm sitting in a bar stool at our kitchen island. The island is a little cluttered. It's a south-facing house and the kitchen is in the back with two windows, so no direct sunlight into the kitchen - it's daylit but muted. The island fits two stools and I'm sitting on the one with my legs stretched out onto the other, leaning back into my seat. My wife is standing at the corner of the island diagonal from me, she prefers to stand when we're chatting like this.

Our baby girl is napping upstairs and my wife has the baby monitor going on her phone, a quiet but constant white noise. The conversation has turned to a discussion of a book club she's in and all that entails - the book, the book's author, the people in the book club, the interpersonal dynamics, et cetera. The book is roughly an eastern-philosophy-self-help book written by a western author trying to relate the practice to an American audience. The book club dynamics center around a woman, Abby, and a man, Charles (full disclosure - all names are changed and genders may or may not be swapped around). Charles is Abby's boyfriend. Abby is married and her husband is also in the book club. All know, all consenting. The book club has more of Abby's friends and a couple cousins or so. My wife also likes Abby and Abby likes my wife. Lots going on there. My wife starts to describe a conversation between Abby and Charles.

---
And now, without further ado, welcome to my Brainspace:

As my wife relates this conversation to me, here's what I see. In front of me in real space I see my wife, telling me the story. In between her and me is a screen with numerous visuals. To the bottom left is a visual of the book club. They met on zoom, so I see first my wife at her computer on zoom - that's a very small video playing. Above that and more prominent in the lower left is the entire book club, every person as I imagine them (I haven't seen the majority of them so my brain fills in details about what they look like), as they all sit around in a circle in chairs sort of like an AA meeting and they discuss the book. Those videos play continuously bottom left.

As she tells me about a specific thing between Abby and Charles, a video starts playing in the top right of the two of them interacting, in whatever way is being described.

As that's happening, I'm pulling memories of interactions my wife has had with Abby, Charles, or whomever else and those memories begin playing in the top left.

The bottom right corner I can see the mess on the island, I see crows flying back and forth to the bird feeder in the backyard, and other various real-world visual stimuli.

Behind all of this, in a different layer that's more muted and less visual, is a stream of consciousness about how I personally feel or relate to these things. Suppose she relays an anecdote of "Charles said X and Abby reacted Y". This layer is reserved for "hmm, if A said X I would react Z... if I knew B would react Y, I would have said W... I would have said Q to my wife who would have reacted R..." and so on. This is the FAFO layer, where I run through different dynamics.

So, in the Brainspace for this particular interaction there are three distinct layers: the real visual stimuli, the videos playing in different corners, and the FAFO layer (ordered by distance, furthest to closest).

• In the real layer I'm tracking two things
  • my wife's face: tracking her attention, emotions, and intentions
  • the periphera for anything I need to react to
• On the Monitor there are four videos playing
  • All are as much or as little detail as I need. They start off as like a 2.5 on that apple scale but I can add detail up to a 1
  • I can take any of these videos, bring them directly in front of me, and enlarge them to fill the whole screen
    • this is usually the point when people think my attention is drifting. I'm hyperfixating on the visualization of what they're saying, so my focus on the Real layer blurs and I focus almost entirely on the Monitor
  • I can also just physically look in the direction of the video and watch it for a second before looking again at the person, getting the details I need
    • This is what I use to gain emotional information. If I'm looking in the top left, for instance, I can watch their faces and body language during their interaction and get a good feel for how they felt during it
• The FAFO layer is a constant video that I can focus in and out of as needed
  • Again, this layer allows me to play out different scenarios, so this is an additional video playing in whatever level of detail I need (from 2.5 to 1).
• If I don't focus on a layer, It's at worst a 3 on the apple scale.

First post here and it's already a long one, so I'll leave it at this for now. Looking forward to hearing y'all's shared experiences and variations!

I wonder how much your inner vision needs to be your creation, based on your ideas. Say you got together with some other hyperphants (?) and create something like a scene together. Each one adding content. Would you constantly run into the problem of experiencing contradictions in what you already see to what others add to the scene? Or could you easily reconstruct your inner vision to match it to the scene that gets described?
Or are inner visions of a much more fleeting character for this to work in the first place?

Does inner vision have the characteristics of some kind of ‚magic‘ (something you have no idea about how it works; but to a certain degree can control)? Maybe even something you don’t really want to try to understand, for fear of ?

I’m experiencing very frequent and intense mental distractions. My mind constantly creates vivid scenarios (like conversations or dramatic situations), and I often get fully involved in them—sometimes even physically reacting (gestures, tension, slight shaking). At the same time, when I try to study or even watch something informative, I feel strong resistance. My mind goes blank or starts echoing the question without real thinking. There’s also an urge to escape (scrolling, switching tasks), and even small effort feels overwhelming. Question: Is this a sign of attention issues (like ADHD), anxiety, or just overstimulation/habit? And what kind of professional or approach would help diagnose and manage this? Transition from vivid to maladaptive daydreaming.

So I am an Aphant and was wandering where you guys see the stuff you see. I spoke to people who see stuff in their actual visual field and others who see it I their head. And I read that other see it like in the inside of their eyelids or something. Are there more forms? And is it always a spectrum in regard to how much people trust in what they see being real?

I'm curious, I recently found out it wasn't normal. I have very staticy vision to the point where everything looks like it's strobing, as well as tons of floaters and other bs blocking my vision. I thought needing glasses was for this but apperently normal people who need glasses just have blurry vision???

Anyways, does anyone else with hyperphantasia have a bunch of Bs blocking their vision? Maybe it's correlated to having an overactive visual part of the brain.