Had nightmares as a very young child and could dream visually back then. Only when dreaming. I have total Aphantasia, and no sense memory.
I lost the ability to dream visually in my teens, so I don't think it was a trauma response. I even remember my last vivid dream. Roller Coaster Tycoon inspired, so I can't say it was unpleasant. My inability to remember dreams at the time followed soon after.
I managed to lucid dream once in my 20's and very briefly had a stunning visual dream when I concentrated quite hard and it was as if smacking an old CRT TV with faulty connections. The effort maintaining that woke me up pretty quick, but for a minute I was in between huge glacial ice walls in a row boat bobbing in mostly calm deep blue sea water with chunks of ice floating around and clear skies.
That's it though for visual dreaming.
I can remember dreams now because I trained myself to by writing what I can remember down the minute a wake up. Over time I could remember for longer and longer after walking up. This would probably work for OP too if they were interested. Gotta stick to it though.
Psychedelics don't give me any closed eyes hallucinations and I need some pretty absurd doses of others or DMT to even see anything slightly weird open eyes. One of my motivations was to see if I could "unlock" the ability. Didn't work for me :(
Had nightmares as a very young child and could dream visually back then. Only when dreaming. I have total Aphantasia, and no sense memory.
I lost the ability to dream visually in my teens, so I don't think it was a trauma response. I even remember my last vivid dream. Roller Coaster Tycoon inspired, so I can't say it was unpleasant. My inability to remember dreams at the time followed soon after.
I managed to lucid dream once in my 20's and very briefly had a stunning visual dream when I concentrated quite hard and it was as if smacking an old CRT TV with faulty connections. The effort maintaining that woke me up pretty quick, but for a minute I was in between huge glacial ice walls in a row boat bobbing in mostly calm deep blue sea water with chunks of ice floating around and clear skies.
That's it though for visual dreaming.
I can remember dreams now because I trained myself to by writing what I can remember down the minute a wake up. Over time I could remember for longer and longer after walking up. This would probably work for OP too if they were interested. Gotta stick to it though.
Psychedelics don't give me any closed eyes hallucinations and I need some pretty absurd doses of others or DMT to even see anything slightly weird open eyes. One of my motivations was to see if I could "unlock" the ability. Didn't work for me :(