Ask Lemmy

Mine was, oddly enough, LSD. It’s not even physically addictive. I didn’t even particularly enjoyed tripping, but in my day-to-day life I have aphantasia; I can’t visualize anything.

If I asked you to close your eyes and picture an apple, then rate 1-5 how realistic you could make it look, most people would probably land somewhere around a 3 or a 4. Not photorealistic, but it would at least be recognizable as an apple and convey the important parts. A few artists or particularly visual people may land on a photorealistic 5. The people who are more biased towards speech (like an internal monologue) may land closer to a 2, like a rushed sketch, or even a 1 where it’s just a coarse outline and some color.

I land on a 0. I just see the backs of my eyelids. I can describe an apple to you. I can tell you what it smells like, what it tastes like, what color I would want it to be, how big it is, how heavy it is, what it feels like to crunch into it and get a little bit of the peel stuck between your teeth, et cetera… But I can’t visualize it.

I always thought the “picture yourself doing/going/working/etc {x}” types of things were just a figure of speech. Like if I was in elementary school and an art teacher said to picture a thing then draw it, I would just skip the first part. I’d still use my imagination before putting anything on paper, but it wouldn’t be visual.

But with LSD, that’s different. I can actually visualize things. Not particularly well, because everything is wobbling around like it’s made of tiny ocean waves… But I can do it. I quickly found that creative outlets were much easier when I could actually plan things out visually before putting them on paper. It was like I had been stuck using black and white paints my entire life, and then someone handed me some red, green, and blue for the first time. I also quickly realized how boring life was when I couldn’t just conjure images out of the ether at will.

Sadly, shrooms (which is commonly compared to “like doing LSD then smoking a blunt” in terms of feeling) doesn’t do it for me. I guess it doesn’t activate the same parts of my brain. But for whatever reason, LSD specifically allows me to overcome my aphantasia. I haven’t done it in years now, but I occasionally get the whim to try it again. Not enough to actually bother tracking down a new plug, but enough to muse about it while I type out shit like this.