Any other writers with aphantasia?

[intim8]

We talk about mind’s eye, are there aphantasia havers who also don’t experience a mind’s ear, mind’s nose, mind’s skin, so to speak?

Yeah, I mentioned that earlier. For me, ear to almost the same level as eye, nose and skin, not at all.

I've asked here and elsewhere other people with aphantasia how they experience things, if not visually. It's difficult to explain, obviously. I've tried to ask myself how I experience and understand touch and smell, since i guess have the aphantasia counterpart of those, but I can't explain it to myself either. For me at least, I don't think I process those cognitively at all. The experience is just raw sensation. And taste is a wierd one for me.

 

[Agent0069]

I have no trouble imagining characters, their appearances, or actions. It’s even problematic sometimes to filter out the excessive details - if I can picture a scene, it doesn’t mean that readers need to learn it in tiniest detail down to where went the left foot, and where - right one, and so on.

What I struggle with is the colour. I can hardly remember what colour things are, even if I just looked at them, and I have trouble visualising it. Kinda annoying, and I’m not sure there are exercises to train brain in that regard.

 

[Omenainen]

I've asked here and elsewhere other people with aphantasia how they experience things, if not visually. It's difficult to explain, obviously.

No it’s not
I experience things the correct way, just like anybody, right? The way that makes me go what do you mean everyone is not like this? If I imagine something, say, a mousey librarian sitting behind a counter in a dusty quiet library, then that is what I imagine. There’s just not a picture attached unless I specifically take that step. It’s a mental image but not a visual one. Perfectly sensible.

 

[ICantLeafYou]

We talk about mind’s eye, are there aphantasia havers who also don’t experience a mind’s ear, mind’s nose, mind’s skin, so to speak?

Just speaking for myself, I can pretty easily imagine non-visual stuff. I can put a song into my mind if I want [intentional earworms, I guess], I can imagine smells alright. I can pretty easily feel sensations when imagining them.

 

[intim8]

There’s just not a picture attached

That's the part I don't understand. If not a picture, then what?

It’s a mental image but not a visual one.

What does that mean?

I'm not criticizing, this is just one of those things I've gotten deeply curious about. The "what it is like" for people that don't do it the way I do.

 

[ICantLeafYou]

It’s a mental image but not a visual one.

I totally understand that. It's so hard to put into words, there's no visual aspect to it but I can almost "see" it...

 

[Omenainen]

That's the part I don't understand. If not a picture, then what?

A mental image! Like, what kind of a personality they have, how they possibly move, how they dress, how voices carry in that room… whatever it might be that I’m focusing on. But I don’t need to see it. I don’t care if they’ve got on a cardigan or a button up shirt, or what kind of hair they have, I don’t need to know if there’s shelves on the left side of the desk or the right or only behind it, I’ll imagine all that when and if it becomes important.

I'm not criticizing, this is just one of those things I've gotten deeply curious about. The "what it is like" for people that don't do it the way I do.

I think it sounds pretty limiting to see everything at all times. Sounds like there’s only one possible version there whereas mine is more flexible. Don’t know if that’s so but having all the unnecessary details sounds exhausting to me.

 

[intim8]

I think it sounds pretty limiting to see everything at all times. Sounds like there’s only one possible version there whereas mine is more flexible. Don’t know if that’s so but having all the unnecessary details sounds exhausting to me.

It might be, I wouldn't know. As to the details, it is no different than actually seeing with your eyes. There's tons of details, but if you don't focus on them, they don't suck up any cycles.

The visuals are a combination of remembered and constructed. In imagination, it is all constructed, obviously. I can construct anything I want and change it. Visuals pop up spontaneously, but I can also consciously construct or alter them.

I'm not talking about some "other" thing giving me images I can do nothing about. It's that, whatever my brain and imagination are doing, they're doing it in visual form.

A mental image!

What form does this image take, if not a visual representation?

I said it above, but in case you missed it, I am not talking about seeing things with my eyes. I'm talking about experiencing imagination, understanding, cognition in the same way I experience it when I do see with my eyes.

I'm offloading all the work to the GPU.

 

[Omenainen]

I'm not talking about some "other" thing giving me images I can do nothing about. It's that, whatever my brain and imagination are doing, they're doing it in visual form.

What form does this image take, if not a visual representation?

A mental image. It’s a thought. It’s a combination of mood, motivations, everything. Visuals is only one aspect of things and for me it’s not the most important aspect. For me also not other senses, I don’t think I’ve ever spent time trying to imagine how something smells in detail. Touch to some degree, yes, especially with erotica. Sounds, not so much.

One way of thinking about it is that I think from within things. I’m not outside looking at them. I’m inside being them.

I said it above, but in case you missed it, I am not talking about seeing things with my eyes. I'm talking about experiencing imagination, understanding, cognition in the same way I experience it when I do see with my eyes.

All this makes me curious about blind people. Like, is there some type of brain that’s more prone to very visual thinking and if those people then suffer tremendously if they happen to be born blind, or is it all some kind of conditioning thing and any baby’s brain can adapt to any kind of senses? The latter would make sense. Brains are weird and wonderful.

 

[XerXesXu]

Amnesia never even came up, where are you getting that?

This is the guy who reinvented and repackaged the cognitive understanding of introspection in 2015, at the peak of fashionable psychobabble. He'll explain.

Well, he'll explain, at great length, that his new ideas are speculative, impact every aspect of cognition, may relieve distress (placebo effect) is unevidenced and requires a lot more research. One of the longest grant applications I've seen.

 

[Bramblethorn]

It might be, I wouldn't know. As to the details, it is no different than actually seeing with your eyes. There's tons of details, but if you don't focus on them, they don't suck up any cycles.

The visuals are a combination of remembered and constructed. In imagination, it is all constructed, obviously. I can construct anything I want and change it. Visuals pop up spontaneously, but I can also consciously construct or alter them.

I'm not talking about some "other" thing giving me images I can do nothing about. It's that, whatever my brain and imagination are doing, they're doing it in visual form.

What form does this image take, if not a visual representation?

Think of the difference between a film and its script. The script might say something like "Ripley looks at Lambert. A moment." At the time of writing that line, the writer doesn't know who will be playing those roles; maybe they had some placeholder image in their head, but that's not expressed on the page.

That is roughly the level at which I usually experience a story, closer to what you might find in a movie script.

Beyond that, hard to express in words. I work with complex systems, and I develop a kind of model of them in my head, kind of like an orrery with moving parts and gears, but it's not something I "see" in visual terms; if I did, it'd be much easier to explain to others.

 

[Erozetta]

My husband describes his imaginings as just a bunch of words and ideas with no visuals attached.

He says that and I picture images of the words in his head. I know that's not what he means, but it's the only thing that makes sense to me because I don't think in words, I think in images, smells, sensations, sounds and tastes...

If my husband can't find something and I'm not at home to help him look, he'll call me and ask me if I remember where it was last. I can close my eyes and walk through our apartment, find the thing, then direct him to it. Same if he's looking for something in a store or something. I can just... recall things when I think about them, full images, 3d, very realistic.

And sometimes it really fucking sucks and I wish I couldn't. Reading descriptions of animal or child abuse will make those visuals play through my head, so I can't read about them. It makes me physically ill and it doesn't stop when I stop reading, it plays on a loop until I can force something else to take its place and sometimes that takes hours.

 

[stickygirl]

Think of the difference between a film and its script. The script might say something like "Ripley looks at Lambert. A moment." At the time of writing that line, the writer doesn't know who will be playing those roles; maybe they had some placeholder image in their head, but that's not expressed on the page.

That is roughly the level at which I usually experience a story, closer to what you might find in a movie script.

Beyond that, hard to express in words. I work with complex systems, and I develop a kind of model of them in my head, kind of like an orrery with moving parts and gears, but it's not something I "see" in visual terms; if I did, it'd be much easier to explain to others.

If I were writing about Ripley's look, then I'd find running little internal movie-gifs to illustrate how a look can be interpreted. If it's important to pin down the emotional significance of the look then I'll include a couple of words to clarify "Ripley glanced at Lambert, uncertain of his mood" "Ripley glanced at Lambert and saw the half smile" but those qualifications might be needed to guide the reader.

There was an earlier mention of dreams and the OP described a lack of imagery, but rather an emotional narrative. Someone mentioned they don't see faces in their dreams ( perhaps you, Bramble? ) and that was a kerching moment because I've always had a problem recognising faces or recalling them, so my dreams seldom include a person's face. Weirdly, I recognise people's gait and can recognise a person at a distance by their walk, long before any other method.

It's often said that smell sparks a memory There's rosemary, that's for remembrance but not for me. I have a decent sense of smell but they have never elicited specific memories.

Ultimately, I don't think these particular quirks have a direct bearing on how readable or enjoyable our stories are. We may have a style that leans towards descriptive, or dialogue or third person but they are not strait-jackets. Stick to what you enjoy writing - that often what makes a successful tale.

 

[Bramblethorn]

If I were writing about Ripley's look, then I'd find running little internal movie-gifs to illustrate how a look can be interpreted. If it's important to pin down the emotional significance of the look then I'll include a couple of words to clarify "Ripley glanced at Lambert, uncertain of his mood" "Ripley glanced at Lambert and saw the half smile" but those qualifications might be needed to guide the reader.

Yeah, how much is needed depends on the situation. Sometimes the nature of the look is obvious from context, sometimes it needs explanation, and sometimes the writer's content to leave room for multiple interpretations. A good script leaves some space for the actors to bring their own ideas.

There was an earlier mention of dreams and the OP described a lack of imagery, but rather an emotional narrative. Someone mentioned they don't see faces in their dreams ( perhaps you, Bramble? )

Probably me, yeah.

 

[AlexBailey]

This conversation is fascinating. Please pardon me if my comments wander into some other territories.

When reading stories I get full pictures of faces in my mind. It’s interesting to see how characters are portrayed when a book is made into a movie. In many cases the actors and their appearance are spot on with what I imagined but in some they are jarringly different. I’m sure part of this depends on what actors are available who can personify the character personality but oftentimes they manage to fit the imagined look as well.

I wonder how much of this is based on cultural stereotypes - some of which are reinforced or maybe even created by media.

To people with aphantasia, do you ever have ideas of what characters look like as you read that clash with the appearance of movie characters?

When I wrote my early first drafts I didn’t provide much information about characters appearances, then later in my long story I mentioned various aspects of their appearance. My very insightful editor said that waiting so long before providing details was jarring because they had already formed a picture in their minds eye. I’ve since noticed that when reading I have to constantly adjust my mental image of characters as new details are revealed. It can be very distracting. I wonder if and how this effects my ADHD brain and why it can be difficult to settle in to some authors styles.

I’m also wondering now if my synesthesia is a major cause of my dyslexia and ADHD.

​

 

[ICantLeafYou]

To people with aphantasia, do you ever have ideas of what characters look like as you read that clash with the appearance of movie characters?

I was pretty frustrated when the first Harry Potter movie came out and Harry had brown hair, not black as mentioned in the books. And didn't they also get his eye color wrong? I don't like it when some clearly-mentioned trait doesn't exist or is different.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

To people with aphantasia, do you ever have ideas of what characters look like as you read that clash with the appearance of movie characters?

Sort of, but as facts rather than images if that makes sense. E.g., if it's a plot point that someone's really short or has a distinctive eye color, I'll know that.

 

[ICantLeafYou]

Sort of, but as facts rather than images if that makes sense. E.g., if it's a plot point that someone's really short or has a distinctive eye color, I'll know that.

Exactly! To refer to my example above, I don't "see" Harry Potter having black hair and green eyes, I just know it as a fact. The same way I know there's 1,000ml in a liter.

 

[AlexBailey]

Exactly! To refer to my example above, I don't "see" Harry Potter having black hair and green eyes, I just know it as a fact. The same way I know there's 1,000ml in a liter.

I saw the first movie HP movie before reading the books, so the movies made my first impression for any characters before The Goblet of Fire.

The issue of Hermione’s teeth bugged me in the books.

 

[Sultry23]

I've actually never really enjoyed fantasy content [whether books, shows, or movies] partly because I can't visualize what's going on. I do read a lot of non-fiction [mostly science and history stuff] and those don't really need visualization for me to understand what I'm reading. "So-And-So invented XYZ in 1932? Cool!" That's all that goes through my head tbh.

I couldn’t get through wheel of time because of this! It wasnt hard but keeping and adding on to the scenery took a lot more concentration than I thought was worth

 

[ElectricBlue]

I totally understand that. It's so hard to put into words, there's no visual aspect to it but I can almost "see" it...

This thread is fascinating. I'm extremely visual, so these descriptions of your different mind's eye got me thinking - many readers have said my style is very visual, my words conjure up all the senses, my stories are "like films", "cinematic". So I wonder how you would perceive the character I wrote in this story (it's only short, a 750 worder, a vignette - to start off with, anyway):

A Girl on the Bus

As you would see from the comments, many readers saw it as "visual", so I'd love to hear how you read it, in your non-visual way.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I was pretty frustrated when the first Harry Potter movie came out and Harry had brown hair, not black as mentioned in the books. And didn't they also get his eye color wrong? I don't like it when some clearly-mentioned trait doesn't exist or is different.

They tried to give him contact lenses to make his eyes green, but he couldn't cope with them. His hair is close enough to black that most people would say he had black hair.

My memory isn't just visual, but focused on colours. Spouse will ask me where a book is and I'll ask him what colour the spine or cover is - and he simply won't know! Sometimes spines aren't the same colour as the covers, but seriously, most of the time they are.

I'll happily read a story without knowing the appearance or sex of the characters, and they'll have a fuzzy representation in my mind that slowly gets filled in as they are suggested to be tall, stocky, dark, female, whatever. But I tend to put some facts early on for the readers who want to know that stuff from the start. Most erotica readers care about the sex of characters, for some reason.

 

[AG31]

Just curious if anyone else here has aphantasia.

I'm pretty far towards the extreme end of things, I have almost no visual imagination at all, no "mind's eye" like most folks. I almost never remember my dreams, but when I do, there's no images--only emotions or vague inklings that I was in a certain place or was with a particular person.

A couple of drugs have broken past that barrier. LSD and shrooms have given me mild closed-eye visuals, only colors and amorphous patterns. When I k-holed on ketamine, I had full-on kaleidoscopic visuals. Intense geometric patterns constantly changing shape and color. It was the most intense mental imagery I've ever experienced.

I never really thought about it before, but the aphantasia has to be why I'm so descriptive in my writing--whether it's general convos, sexting, or porn. I sort of assume the default is people needing overly-detailed descriptions to make sense of anything when that's not the case. Though it does seem to create an enjoyable result for everyone, I get a lot of comments about that aspect of my writing.

Absolutely. I've mentioned it several times in posts here. (Google "aphantsia" by "AG31"). I and my son are both at the 100% end of the spectrum. I know my brain can do it because in my lifetime I've had 2 or 3 vivid visual images. So I know what it's like. I don't think I'm totally 100% because I have vague "ideas" of images. My son draws a total blank.

When did you discover you had this? I was in my 20's. I'm 80 now. It sure explained a lot, like why I was so baffled that the "memory aids" in the Sunday supplements (back in the days of paper newspapers) never worked for me. It's very interesting in that people can live a long time and never realize that other people don't experience the world in the same way.

 

[AG31]

They also don't have an inner monologue.

I have aphantasia, discovered in my 20's, but I figured out in the last year or two (I'm 80) than also don't have audial imagery. I play the flute quite well, but this explains areas of bafflement I've experienced in my musical activities.

 

[AG31]

I think I’m on there somewhere. I don’t ‘see’ pictures, but I do have a vivid imagination.

Yes. I object to the term "aphantasia," because it sounds like you can't fantasize. Au contraire!!!!!!