Ann’s Reflection
I cannot visualise. No inner cinema. No mind’s eye. No inner voice. Thoughts arise shaped by language but without mental sound. I lived this way for decades before learning it has been described as aphantasia and anauralia.
When I began meditating, I assumed instructions like “imagine a white light” were metaphors. Eventually, I realised that others saw imagery behind closed eyes while I experienced a vast, dark space. Where others listened to an inner voice, I sensed thought as silent sentences.
Early on, some teachers didn’t understand. Their guidance relied on imagery, and my feedback often landed with a puzzled smile. Much of the advice I received was framed around substitution: “use felt sense,” “focus on sound,” “recall memories.”
Much changed after I found a teacher who invited me to rest in direct experience—body, breath, sensation, feeling, thought—and in the knowing itself. There was no pressure to visualise. Only an open invitation to sense. More about this here.
Over time, I’ve come to experience aphantasia as a quiet gift. The absence of mental images leaves a mind that is often deeply still. Not always. But often, there is room.
For those of us with no mind’s eye, there may be no veil to part. We already live—by nature or neurology—in a kind of open field. And sometimes, that nothing is everything.
Linda’s Reflection
I also experience life somewhat differently than is usually described by meditation teachers. It was only after I started meditating and heard instructions for visualization that I realized that others had an ability I seemingly lacked. I thought I was completely aphantasic for a long time. I have since realized that I have some limited “see-in” ability. However, I cannot call up stable images on command. Instead, I have fleeting, wispy images that arise from memory that contribute to my ability to navigate my space, and remind me of core fears. I don’t normally have visual thought except for fleeting images that accompany some memories. My verbal thought is also limited to situations around having or remembering conversations. Otherwise, thought just seems to arrive as knowing without being translated into language.
It also seems to me that thought, body sensation and emotion are interrelated, although I can attend to the aspects separately, there are patterns of interconnection that seem to also contain meaning/information. I also have some unusual persistent vibratory body sensation and visual experience that I haven’t heard others talk about. For example, when I close my eyes or enter a dark room, it isn’t dark. It is bright with changing, moving patterns of color that I have very little control over. The same things also appear with eyes open, but are frequently dimmed by regular vision. These get stronger when I focus on them, so I’ve learned to largely ignore them.
For these reasons, I have avoided any meditation practices requiring visualization. I have, instead, looked into, and rested in the experience that arises rather than trying to make my experience conform to the descriptions given by others. Meditation teachers have different responses to those with experience that falls out of their range of expectation. Some are accepting, curious, and helpful, others seem at a loss, or are dismissive. I have learned much from those who point at aspects of experience I simply hadn’t noticed or attended to, like openness and spaciousness.
My intention for these discussions is to provide a forum for discussion among people who are meditators—and for those who aren’t because they think they can’t for any reason—who have ways of experiencing life that may not conform to conventional descriptions. This might include people who are synesthetic, neurodivergent, aphantasic, or, like me, don’t seem to fall neatly into any category. My suspicion is that we all experience life differently, and that this isn’t a problem to be solved, but rather an opportunity for better understanding ourselves and others, improving communication. Our unique experience is exactly what we work with in meditation—not to change it, but to explore and embrace it.