I have aphantasia but somehow I am having a feeling it is self induced. Let me explain. You know how in movies sometimes people who have hallucinations (basically uncontrolled prophantasia) start screening in terror because of the horror images they see.

So, good portion of my life my dreams were black and white and they look like room with under the strobe light. Only rarely I could see horizon in "outdoor dreams" or colors in my dreams. But, from time to time I have vivid color dreams, and even fewer of those, look like a reality.

So, when I started practicing meditation coupled with imagination and visualization of objects phantasia improved a bit, but dreams improved ten fold. But, soon as it improved a bit I stop practicing, I did not know why.

So, few weeks ago I started again, and few days I had a extremely sharp dream in which I saw viper snake attacking me, it was so vivid that I jumped out of bad. And while opening eyes, that image was still there, "snake" in the dark, on my bed.

So, my question is what if subconscious mind is doing it in order to protect us? Basically shutting down parts that feel unbearable for emotions to handle. Has anyone else had similar experience?

Additionally, when I have gimps during visual streaming (practice designed to improve visual imagination) objects are too complex and moving to fast, it is like video is streamed into my mind and I cannot control it. Last thing I remember is seeing some kind of very complex puzzle, element that was reshaping in breathing very rapid motion. Also those streams look more like AI generated visuals, they kind of looks as something but you cannot recognize anything.

Something like: https://twitter.com/revrart/status/1463518351498563585 and "Name one thing on this image" https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/029/455/Scr...

So, I guess if I would have those all the time, my sanity would be in question, so I suppose "slow conciseness" in order to sustain itself needs to "shut down" certain brain function, or optimize skills we used the most on expense of others, for instance I am good with imagining abstract things and logic.

I would like to know how to invoke those visualisations on demand, but it seem they just happen.

What I also find strange is that people who can vividly imagine, cannot recollect people faces. On the other hand, I cannot describe any face, not even my closest love ones, but I can recognize them. I could not describe anything to let say a police photo robot how crime suspect looks like, but I could pick it from the line among thousand of faces.

I am finding that very strange, it is like having one directional mind, in the sense you can understand foreign language (read/listen) but you cannot create your own sentences, write or speak.