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Discovering Your Mind - Aphantasia and Beyond
Discovering Your Mind - Aphantasia and Beyond
Author: Shane's Brain
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© 2025 Discovering Your Mind - Aphantasia and Beyond
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The Discovering Your Mind Podcast is dedicated to research and discussion surrounding all aspect of the mind's eye from Aphantasia to Hyperphantasia and everything in between. Using our in-depth questionnaire that we call the "Discovering Your Mind Protocol", we unlock and discover your unique way of visualizing and bask in the beauty of our differences.
67 Episodes
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Send us a text In this episode we discover how Bruce Silverstein's mind's eye works using the Discovering Your Mind Protocol. Bruce has aphantasia and describes what the words "imagine" and "imagination" mean to him and how it has evolved. He also talks about how most of his dreams are not visual, how he thought that portrayals of memories in movies was just artistic license, and how he gets bored by lengthy descriptions when reading fiction. I appreciate Bruce's insights on many interesting ...
Send us a text In this episode I welcome several guests with aphantasia or hypophantasia to share their outside the norm experiences with visuals. Lindsey shares her experience with a spiritual vision, Edward shares his experiences with psychedelics, Kristin shares her experiences with hypnagogia, and Donna shares her experiences with possibly all three. We discuss spiritual and scientific explanations for these experiences, how trauma plays a role, and.... trees... Support the show Her...
Send us a text In this episode we discover how Kali Walsh's mind's eye works using the Discovering Your Mind Protocol. Kali has hyperphantasia and visualizes multiple videos in her mind at the same time from many different angles. Her mind's eye tends to overpower her actual eyes but usually in a very optimistic way. For example, she sees vividly the potential of something more than the reality of it. She says her inner monologue is more like an inner "visualogue" because instead of hearing t...
Send us a text This is a mini episode derived from a discussion that a few of us from the Aphantasia, Visualization, and Grief panel discussion had about the possibilities of using AI as a tool for grieving the loss of a loved one. We talk about the potential upsides, downsides, ethical concerns, and more. Support the show Here is a link to the apple graph, the nature picture, and the carnival picture. https://www.shanesbraindomain.com/aphantasia You could be on the podcast with YouPh...
Send us a text In this episode I bring back several guests to discuss how visualizing or not being able to visualize interplays with how we grieve or experience the loss of a loved one. I appreciate my guests willingness to be vulnerable and talk about this sensitive topic. We discuss how our differences manifest in each of our individual experiences with grief and loss, including aphantasia, hyperphantasia, SDAM, trauma, regrets, fading memories, the present moment, counseling, the other min...
Send us a text In this episode, we bring back Dr Paulina Trevena to further discuss her work and experiences within the worlds of aphantasia, hypnosis, and mental health. Paulina has aphantasia, SDAM, and ADHD. She tells us about how she discovered aphantasia and how she got into hypnotherapy. We talk about how other internal senses can play a role in hypnosis, how she tried to develop the perfect hypnosis protocol for people with aphantasia, the links between aphantasia and mental health, FO...
Send us a text In this episode, we bring back several guests to participate in some hypnosis processes and protocols to explore how aphantasia and visualization interplay with different hypnosis techniques. 3 people with aphantasia and 3 visualizers are guided through two different hypnosis protocols by hypnotherapist, Dr Paulina Trevena, and we discuss our experiences. Dr Paulina Trevena is a hypnotherapist, wellbeing consultant and researcher. After years of working in academia, Paulina dis...
Send us a text In this episode we discover how Lindsay Rice's mind's eye works using the Discovering Your Mind Protocol. Lindsay is a 3rd grade teacher / presenter with ADHD, autism, and aphantasia. We agree that this is kind of a weird subject to try and talk about and it's difficult to get anywhere concrete with trying to understand someone else's internal mind experience. She has a mind's ear but only hears her own voice in her head. She experiences what she calls "webbed thinking", reads ...
Send us a text In this episode we discover how Isaac Mathew's mind's eye works using the Discovering Your Mind Protocol. Isaac is a musician who can visualize and hear in his mind. It's interesting to hear how much of his song writing is coming from his mind and how much is coming from his physical hands on a physical guitar. Effort plays a big role in how well he can visualize and hold the images, when he reads, he hears the narration in a soft, clear woman's voice, and his answer to the que...
Send us a text In this episode I talk with Dawn Rossbach who is a very talented artist who has aphantasia and SDAM. We note that some folks assume that people with aphantasia cannot be artists. We discuss why this is not the case, and what Dawn's personal experiences with art are like. We talk about Dawn's recent grant project that revolves around art and aphantasia and how she is hoping that it brings more awareness about the condition. We also discover that she would make a terrible court w...
Send us a text In part 2 with Kristen Erickson she continues to boggle my mind because the way she describes her experiences really does sound like she can visualize to me. For example, her "imagination" or whatever it is, is in 3D. How can something that isn't there have dimension? And when we get into the other senses, it's just as confusing. However, when she talks about her dreams, it becomes more clear to me that although her aphantasia experience is wildly different than mine, she does ...
Send us a text In this episode I talk with Kristen Erickson who has aphantasia but her experiences with it seem very different than mine. In fact, based on the way she describes her experiences, I would never guess she had aphantasia. We talk about how words are a tricky obstacle when trying to describe our experience, how important it is to try and understand others experiences, how visualizing or not visualizing can affect education, counseling, playing chess, and more. Support the s...
Send us a text In this episode, we have several guests from many different backgrounds and experience to explore how aphantasia and visualization interplay with the education system. Join Sarah, Dawn, Chantelle, Stacey, Marika, Lindsay, Kristin, and myself as we discuss the challenges associated with spreading awareness, implementing change, and other interesting issues surrounding aphantasia, visualization, and education. Support the show Here is a link to the apple graph, the nature picture...
Send us a text In this episode we discover how Celeste's mind's eye works using the Discovering Your Mind Protocol. Celeste has aphantasia but believes she may have been able to visualize as a child. She also has very vivid dreams and nightmares where she experiences what visualizing while awake might be like. She can hear and touch in her mind which helps her remember things, but if it's visual, it's gone... for example, she couldn't recall what color her cabinets were in an apartment that s...
Send us a text Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Now What? Support the show Here is a link to the apple graph, the nature picture, and the carnival pi...
Send us a text In this episode, we are very excited and fortunate to have a discussion with Adam Zeman. Adam tells us his story about how he was involved in coining the term "aphantasia" and how his research and articles got picked up by the media, resulting in the large interest in this phenomenon that we see today. He shares with us where he falls in all of this including all of his inner senses. We ask him about many things that we have been curious about as well as questions from a number...
Send us a text In this episode we discover how Nikki O'Connor's mind's eye works using the Discovering Your Mind Protocol. Nikki is a Creative Arts Therapist with aphantasia. She shares some very unique experiences such as musical hallucinations and auditory tactile synesthesia. Although she has aphantasia, she ranks very high on the senses of hearing and touch in her mind, which is pretty rare, especially where touch is concerned. Support the show Here is a link to the apple graph, the...
Send us a text In this episode Rebecca McHale, Therapeutic Coach, takes us through many interesting topics surrounding aphantasia and therapy, including the internal experience spectrum, modalities, curiosity, validation, trust, language, and flexibility. We also talk about spreading awareness, grieving, trauma, and the feeling of wasted time that some people with aphantasia may experience. We also delve into some of her own personal experiences as an aphantastic person. Check out Rebecca's ...
Send us a text In this episode we discover how Jan Nichols' mind's eye works using the Discovering Your Mind Protocol. Jan has aphantasia and used to worry that if one of her children was kidnapped, she wouldn't be able to describe them to the police. She feels like having aphantasia both helps and hinders in dealing with grief, and at first, she found it hard to believe that people could actually see things in their minds. Where she falls with the other mind senses was very difficult to nail...
Send us a text In this episode we discover how Dana Swindell's mind's eye works using the Discovering Your Mind Protocol. Dana describes her thoughts as an invisible moving marquee that moves very quickly. She struggles with memory but has found many different ways to help with that including speaking things out loud. Her memories and imagination are strongly tied to feelings and emotions. We also talk about perfect pitch memory, spacial senses, sleep masks, seeing without seeing, and blind s...



