Visualizing and aphantasia
QUESTION: Masters, I have a problem visualizing, have for many years. Now I finally stumbled on the term aphantasia today and was wondering why would I incarnate with this problem especially if I feel my purpose is to help humanity and now I have no direct link to my spirit team of teachers and guides (like so many do). Also, I see what looks like heat rising from the surface around me and then know someone is here from spirit. Is my life lesson to get over been frustration? ~Lesle, South Africa
ANSWER: Aphantasia, or the inability to form mental pictures, does not prevent one from connecting to their guides. What if you had chosen to be born blind and have no reference as to what a cat or a chair looks like? Would that prevent you from knowing what they are? Absolutely not. You rely on your other senses.
You can use your ability to feel energy or see the appearance in another form such as your heat rising. What is preventing you from going forward is your expectation that visualization is a necessary element of communication – and it is not. Open your other senses and begin a dialogue with your guides; you don’t need to know what they look like – their essence is nothing but energy anyway.
Your way of “visualizing” is by “knowing.” It is more specific because it is something apparent to your entire physical and nonphysical being. A mental picture is just that – a picture created in the brain. A knowing is a comprehensive sensation announcing the physical presence of another and not just your idea of what they would look like if you could see them.
You assume that most people can visualize clear mental images, and this is not true. As a matter of fact, most people never even get around to trying. As to the term being used, aphantasia, it can be a part of your life choices or occurring because of a traumatic injury or neurological malfunction.
To establish contact, allow yourself to go into your knowing. How large is the feeling? Where are they located in relationship to your body? What sensations are they giving off? Confidence? Merriment? Caution? A sense of approval? Work on perfecting the classifying of what you sense – this is a very strong way of communication.
If you need something more, try auto writing or typing. Sit in front of a computer keyboard and ask a question. Let your fingers work the keys and see what happens. More information on this physical trait can be re-read in our teaching of July 9, 2017.