Episode 09: Aphantasia: How Your Bedtime Routine Could Affect Your Ability to Visualize

In this podcast, I explore the possibility that poor bedtime habits and excessive screen time could be causing aphantasia - the inability to visualize. I dive deeper into the question of whether watching TV before bed could be causing young children to lose this valuable skill. Additionally, I discuss the importance of practicing visualization and whether or not it is simply a skill that needs to be developed. Join me as I investigate the potential link between poor bedtime routines, screen time, and aphantasia.

Transcript:

Speaker A [00:00:01]:

Hello. and welcome to my YouTube channel. I'm Robin. I am a creative professional trying to hear my own Effentasia. I'm just recording this as I drive because I don't have a lot of alone time to record stuff, so Sorry about that. I haven't been on here in a while because I started a TikTok, and it's kinda fun. so I've been doing little videos on there asking questions for my own research. and one of the questions I recently asked actually, I haven't asked you yet, is, okay.

Speaker A [00:00:38]:

Well, I have all these theories about where Avantasia could stem from. I mean, there's so many, like, maybe we're just born without the ability to visualize maybe there was some sort of trauma in our lives as a young child that, made us block out certain things. maybe it was a protection thing. Maybe we had nightmares as kids, and this was a way of, like, protecting us shutting off the ability to visualize. I don't know. but I asked this week, What if you have Afantasia, if you've recently learned or you've always known that you've had Afantasia, Can you remember your childhood, what your bedtime routine was like? I feel like I had a fairly healthy, it was sunny, super a fairly healthy, like, bedtime routine, My mom, is big on reading, so we used to always read I would read books or my mom would read to my brother and sister and I as a family in her bed, like, and I remember enjoying listening to the stories. I don't ever remember having visuals, but it's hard. It's hard remember if I did because even, like, recently I was trying to figure it if I could see my own dream.

Speaker A [00:02:06]:

The only reason I can really know that I can see it because I can't recall memories, right? Just like a memory, I can't recall and a memory. I can't do that with a dream. So even though I think I can see my dreams, there's no way of recalling it. So how the hell do I know? Right? I don't know. It's weird. anyways where was I going with that? recalling memories. okay, bedtime routines. So I'm gonna have to change just could look like super stunning.

Speaker A [00:02:42]:

I was thinking about bedtime routines and how I can't really remember if could visualize. I don't think I can. I was trying to think of, like, okay, do I remember any, like, reoccurring nightmares to the kid? I remember, and this actually came back to me because I was watching Space Jam with my son, Space Jam too, the one with whom we're games. Anyways, was a scene where Wiley Coyote, like, goes over a cliff or something, or they're trying to, like, jump a road? And that was a dream I had as a kid all the time was like, we're on a family trip, and we're driving over a bridge, and we're trying to jump this bridge. And I don't know if there's anything or or if my dream just ends. but seeing that the visual of that from space jam, like, from the, the bugs bunny characters, I was like, oh, maybe this is why up this because I used to watch Bugs Bunny as a kid, and that's, like, a pretty big scene is, like, trying to help over things or, like, falling off a cliff. Like, how if you actually fall off a cliff or see someone fall off a cliff? You never do in real life, but in cartoons, that's a thing. So, anyways, that was a tangent about that, but, I've seen a bedtime routines, and I remember in the 5th grade, I bought myself a television camera garage sale.

Speaker A [00:04:12]:

It was just like a tiny little black and white television. It had like 4 channels on it. But it got basketball, and I was big into and get in love with Chicago Bell's back then. So I would watch basketball usually, or whatever cable show is on. at night. And, oh, in case there's 2 gs in front of me. On the road, I wish I could turn my camera around. hello.

Speaker A [00:04:39]:

Anyways, I was thinking I started doing that at a fairly young age. I was in grade 4 when I bought it, so that became like a nightly thing for me. It was like, list or watching TV. And so and because I can't remember how my brain functioned before, I really believe I ever had the ability to visualize, but if I did, I feel like the time I would use my visualization skill most. And again, I don't know this because I don't think I ever have been able to visualize. The time I would probably use it hone it and practice it is, like, at bedtime, right? You would like I would think that you would sit there or lay there, I guess, and close your eyes or, like, stare at the ceiling like, think about your day or think about stuff and visualize stuff. I feel like that that that time of the day, like, when you're alone and you're just, like, sitting there, maybe you've read a story and you're, thinking about the story, I feel like that's the time of day you would probably visualize. So by me adding this, like, screen and distraction at bedtime, I wasn't like, I started fairly young, not actually, like, sitting with my own thoughts.

Speaker A [00:05:59]:

So that was just a revelation I had. I thought, well, maybe that's what caused it. Maybe that maybe I just lost the ability because I don't practice it. and I'm a huge meditator. I love meditating, but I kids, 3 little ones, and it's not always easy. but I do I feel like the more I meditate, the more have his, like they're I don't know how to explain them because they're not it's like I can see some sorry. That's okay. It's like an imprint of a thought in my mind.

Speaker A [00:06:36]:

I don't know how to but I have these, like, downloads that come into my mind when I'm meditating. They're almost like a visual, and I feel like if I work on it, if I keep doing it, I'll get there. oh, like, I feel like I'm going to get to the place where I'm gonna be able to visualize. I don't know. but I feel it's gonna take a lot of, like, time spent in my own brain and not, like, being distracted by things. And I think about, like, all the people that up. Like, I'm an eighties baby. Right? So I was born in 84.

Speaker A [00:07:14]:

My nineties were, like, I mean, pretty chill. We didn't have, like, devices to go on. Again, I bought my my TV when I was in grade 4, and it was like this little tiny black and white thing with a knob. but I didn't have, like, a cell phone or weird computers, and I spent a lot of time on computers because my dad was like a computer guy. but I didn't, like, have one in my room or maybe I did. but I feel like in that time period, we were so much less distracted. So I'm wondering, like, are we gonna see if if visualizing and, like, being able to imagine things. If it's a skill that we learn or have and we need to, like, continue to develop or I don't know.

Speaker A [00:08:09]:

Maybe we just lose the ability to do it if we don't if we're distracting if we can't sit with our own thoughts. that's just a thought. I don't know. Sorry. I'm just trying there's construction. yeah, I wonder about the kids these days that are growing up with devices, like, my kids even, like, they're on roadblocks all the time. They often go to sleep watching a show or a meditation, and, and I don't know. Am I I tried to now that I know about this because I never knew that I had Avantasia.

Speaker A [00:08:47]:

I didn't know that people were able to visualize. I tried with my to do my kids, to do a lot of visualization activities, to try to make, them keep that skill in case it is something that you lose over time. One thing fun I've been doing with my youngest daughter lately, she's 4. at nighttime, I'll lay in bed with her and we'll snuggle and, we do this thing where I pretend it sounds gross, but I pretend to cut her brain open. and then I go into her brain and I steal a memory and put it in my my head, and then I'll tell her what I see. And of course, I don't see anything I just, like, have a random thought of a memory come into my head, and I'll explain a term. And my daughter's always, like, blown away that I know these memories. And, and a lot of them are just, like, things that we've done together, so they just pop it in my head, but sometimes they'll get, like, something happened at school, she's playing with a friend, and I just, like, say it.

Speaker A [00:09:44]:

And she's like, blah. But it's fun. She does it with me too, and she'll go into my memory and take memorial and put it in her head. And, it's a fun thing to hear her talk about things that she sees in her own mind, now knowing that she can actually see those things, that it totally changes the way I parent even, knowing that my kids have disability and I don't, so they think differently and, like, I'm rambling now, but my the whole point of this video was to ask, what you're if you have appendage of what your bedtime routine was at a young age, like, if you can remember, if it was, like, if you remember just, like, laying there, or if you've always kind of had a distraction to get to sleep. yeah, comment and let me know. I'd love to hear anyone Let me know. It's interesting. Right? Anyways, have a great day.