Since working out that I have hyperphantasia I've been doing a slow audit of my assumptions - essentially going back through various things I've always done or experienced and asking "wait, is this actually normal?" The answer is frequently no, and my partner finds each new discovery somewhere between interesting and baffling.
This is the current list. I'll probably keep adding to it.
1. Replaying memories like footage
When I remember something that actually mattered - a conversation, a place, a specific moment - I don't just recall that it happened. I watch it. Not a perfect recording, memories don't work like that, but visually, spatially, with something close to the original sensory texture of being there. I thought "I remember it like it was yesterday" was a universal experience. It is not.
2. Pre-visualising conversations before they happen
Before any conversation I'm anxious about, I've usually already watched it play out several times in my head. Different versions, different responses, different outcomes. I assumed this was just what "preparing for a difficult conversation" meant. It isn't - my partner thinks about what they want to say. I watch a rehearsal. When I explained this, they stared at me for a moment and then said: "So you make yourself nervous about the thing, and then watch it happen, and then get nervous about that too?" Which is… accurate, yeah.
3. Seeing music
Certain music produces colour and movement and sometimes whole environments in my head without my choosing it. I assumed this was just what listening to music felt like. Some of it might technically be synesthesia - I genuinely don't know where hyperphantasia ends and that begins - but a lot of it seems to just be the brain illustrating things because it can and nobody asked it to stop.
4. Furniture arrangement without moving anything
I can rearrange a room in my head with what feels like complete spatial accuracy before touching a single piece of furniture. I have never moved something to a spot where it didn't fit, because I've already placed it visually and can see the problem. My partner has to physically try it, or use the IKEA app like a normal person.
5. Making myself feel things on purpose
I can make myself cry by choosing to imagine something sad in enough detail. The emotional response follows the imagery as directly as if it were actually happening. When I mentioned this to my partner they looked at me like I'd said something deeply strange, which I suppose it is if your brain doesn't work this way. "You're sad about something that isn't happening?" Yes. Quite often, actually.
6. Picturing faces from memory with enough detail to notice their expression
I can recall the faces of people I know clearly enough that I can remember, in a specific memory, what their exact expression was at a particular moment. My partner knows what people look like in person but the image isn't there to retrieve when they're not around. When I told them I could do this right now, with someone we both know, they asked me to prove it and then found the result unsettling. So. Not universal, apparently.
Where do you land?
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