So I was wondering, is it possible to hypnotize a person who has Aphantasia. Now, before you get into a debate that a human cannot just make another human to run on commands. I’m no talking about this kind of hypnotism.
Where an expert in this field guide his/her patient/client to close their eyes and imagine a bunch of scenarios to calm their mind, I’m talking about this kind.
What will happen if a client turned out to have aphantasia?
Will the expert be successful in his/her method?
Person with partial aphantasia (when I really try, I can get about the graphic fidelity of Star Fox on SNES on a monitor with a broken backlight) here:
I always found those thought-journey thingies somewhat pointless when teachers at school n such tried to do them with us. Of course they weren’t experts, though, so maybe someone who really knows what they’re doing could invoke something but realistically, probably not.
On the other hand, dimming the lights, closing my eyes and the relative quietness of only one person calmly telling a kind of story, made me calm and sleepy regardless, so maybe the imaginary journey isn’t necessary anyways.
I have a hard time freely forming realistic images in my head. Like if I TRY to picture an apple, I just get the vibes of an apple but no image.
But I did yoga some years ago. We did 15 min of breathing exercises, 45 min of actual physical practice (vinyasa), then 30 min of guided meditation. The whole point of the class was the meditation really, everything before that was preparing to meditate.
Anyways, first time I went, I did the breathing, did the “flows”, then we laid down to meditate. The instructor guided us through this meditation, about being in an open field, and riding a horse, and feeling the wind on your face the horse underneath you, and dude… I could picture it all like it was real life. I could see in full 4k 3D. So much I started to feel like I was there, I could actually feel the wind the horse. See the bright sun. I actually cried a little.
So yeah I think with the right guidance you could probably see in your mind like it was real life.
“Vibes of an Apple” are fine. You don’t need to see it, just to have a felt sense of it for the most part. Of course, everyone is different, and I cannot say this would work for everyone.