Any other writers with aphantasia?

[ElectricBlue]

I’m curious:
Tereh’s taht tnhig wehre a mnid can sltil fletnuly raed wehn the lteetrs of wodrs hvae been jbmlued as lnog as fsirt and lsat lttrees are in the ccreort pelaces. Is taht mroe clhnalgenig for pelpoe wtih athaspisna? (I suspect it helps complicate my hyper visual dyslexia.)

I can read it easily enough, but it would do my head in trying to write it. I correct typos as I go, most of the time.

 

[AG31]

"Freedom"? I see Mel Gibson with blue make up and a dreadful Scots accent.

I can't think of any specific examples of non-visual associations, but they might occur alongside them. For example if someone mentions paper-cut, I think immediately of that stinging sensation before the thoughts ripple out into images.

What about "abstract," "very," and "abstraction?"

 

[Bramblethorn]

Here's a companion question to the one I posed to visualizers. To aphantasics, @ICantLeafYou, @ShelbyDawn57, @Omenainen, @Bramblethorn, @joy_of_cooking, and all others who want to chime in.

What goes on in your brain when you think about freedom, abstract, very and abstraction?

Hard to put into words without simply repeating those ones, but I'll give it a try.

Freedom: a sense of something existing in a space, with the ability to move in many different directions under its own volition.

Abstract (as adjective): sort of like a skeleton of something else, the thing that lies underneath the transient details.

Not sure if I can muster something coherent on the other two, will revisit this if I manage it.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

We could use 'neuro-boring' as a synonym for neuro typical,

I spend a lot of my time around people who are definitionally neuro-divergent, but in a way that is still highly stigmatized. I like neuro-boring for the middle of the bell curve normies.
But even as I was typing that, I was thinking about all the myriad spectra that folks can get assessed on, and defaulted back to my belief that "normal" is an illusion.

curious:
Tereh’s taht tnhig wehre a mnid can sltil fletnuly raed wehn the lteetrs of wodrs hvae been jbmlued as lnog as fsirt and lsat lttrees are in the ccreort pelaces. Is taht mroe clhnalgenig for pelpoe wtih athaspisna? (I suspect it helps complicate my hyper visual dyslexia.)

I watched a YouTube thing a week or so ago about the, let's call it 'mental mechanics' of reading. It was fascinating to learn how little of a lune we're reading is even in focus, much less for us to actually pay attention to. The fancy electrified pudding is doing a lot of instant decoding.

 

[Erozetta]

To those of you who say you are highly visual, @intim8, @ElectricBlue, @SimonDoom, @TheLobster. @lovecraft68, @Erozetta, @AlexBailey, @Agent0069, @stickygirl, @Kumquatqueen, and to any other visualizers who'd like to hime in.

Are there things you think about that are not accompanied by images?

What do you "see" if anything when you think about FREEDOM (already answered by some), ABSTRACT, VERY, ABSTRACTION?

It's not that single words conjure an image for me, most of the time they don't unless I'm asked to construct an image to associate with a word. (When I was doing EMDR therapy it was a highly visual process in closing my eyes and replaying scenarios in my head. Part of that process was associating images with feeling words. Anger was a red-devil mask, shame was a thick theater-style curtain, happy was a sunflower, fear was a looming shadow, etc.)

When I see those words, I just see the words in various fonts because there's no association being made for me to conjure an image. No context to visualize.

If you asked what I see when I think of my own freedom, I'd be able to say sitting on a plane and taking a deep breath. But the others are just random words without emotion attached, so no direct imagery for me unless I wanted to think of something associated. Like abstract would probably be a pouring painting, very would probably be an expression of an emotion (very angry=cartoon wolf with red face and steam out of his ears, for example), abstraction could be me brainstorming ideas with someone or it could be an artwork like Georgia O'Keeffe's Abstraction Blue.

But as words, they are just words. It's the context of words grouped together that give me visuals.

"Very abstract freedom" brings something up immediately: a very dark blue/black canvas spattered with red and purple with crisscrossing lines of gold.

 

[stickygirl]

What about "abstract," "very," and "abstraction?"

I see what you're getting at but I have no visual associations from 'abstract, very, abstraction'. Perhaps we need to be looking at nouns and verbs to elicit the response? At least for me.

I'd take a guess and say association/non-association was a left/right brain issue: the right brain is regarded as the visual, intuitive side whereas left brain would deal with the tasks requiring logic. 'Abstract' is to me a word that requires some logical thought to both extract its meaning and imagine a context.

 

[ElectricBlue]

But as words, they are just words. It's the context of words grouped together that give me visuals.

Agree, sentences bring meaning, and single words may or not have deeper (visual) "meaning" without a surrounding context. For example, "train" by itself is fairly nebulous, but "the Orient Express" is heavily laden with a whole bunch of deeper context.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

I did 'freedom' upthread.

To me, 'abstract' is an instant image of abstract art, currently resembling the ad for the neo-Expressionists at the Tate Modern, with some grey shapes added if we're thinking about abstract maths or concepts. 'Abstraction' would be the same with some extra diggers and mining equipment underlaid.

'very' is interesting because it isn't really a concept by itself - it brings up the word in various fuzzy fonts, colours and languages, but also some stark shapes like black lines and dots presumably representing 'very long', 'very small' etc. The crap online shop doesn't really register.

I have very strong associations of imagery and especially colour with ideas, but it's not synaesthesia - they all derived from alphabet toys or games I had when young. Anyone else have the Fisher-Price school? There's the capital letters. It was odd when my children were small and we brought out said FP school etc, how I could still remember the positions of every image in the Matching Pairs game (4 cards, each with 5 options for positioning, but I could still lift one cover, then pull out 16 pairs for each one, after not playing for 30 years. Impressive? Apparently so. Remotely useful? Really not.)

 

[Vitriolhack]

Brings to mind another thread I remember about this topic.

Interesting observation, but, respectfully, @Djmac1031 is experiencing a visual writer’s block, not an incapacity to imagine in an inner visual form.

 

[Djmac1031]

Interesting observation, but, respectfully, @Djmac1031 is experiencing a visual writer’s block, not an incapacity to imagine in an inner visual form.

I suppose in the interest of clarification:

I went through an extended period of writer's block, period. No ideas, no words. I'd stare at a blank page and nothing would come.

I have been writing again. After a few short simple ones I'm finally tackling a longer more complicated thing I've been trying to finish for ages now.

And the story is there. And I'm finding the words.

I think you're talking about my post on Twitter where I made some AI images of a female character in a suit of armor.

That was more about looking for a visual image I liked that I could base my physical description on.

Not even her looks per say, I know what she looks like. But the armor, how it looks, the colors, the fit etc.

it's not from any visual block per say. Although I have always struggled with more than basic physical descriptions of places or things.

It's more of just having a visual aid to work with.

 

[AG31]

I have very strong associations of imagery and especially colour with ideas,

You've mentioned color at least a couple of times. I love color (even though I don't see it in my mind.) I love watching the sort of stupid Prime series "My Life is Murder," because of the intense attention they pay to the colors on the screen.

 

[AlexBailey]

Reading other posts created more thoughts on how words create mental images for me. Not every word of every sentence creates a vivid mental image but they contribute to an overall effect.

Sentences are like stones skipping across a pond, the images are like ripples made each time the stone touches the surface, only in this case the impact of some of the words are larger than others. The faster the words come the faster the stones skip, making each impact less individually pronounced. A new sentence is a new thrown stone. A quick conversation of familiar concepts can skim right across the water with no draw on my attention to think about the images but they still exist as they disturb the surface.

Instrumental music is much better as a background when reading, writing, or studying. It’s more like a gentle breeze across the pond than like skipping stones.


Some words can cause a bigger ripple than others. Small words like “the” have no impact at all while some words, especially unfamiliar words like “aphantasia” make huge ripples that can disrupt everything for a while - interfering for some time with the ripples made from other words or even other sentences.

Too much visualization?

 

[AG31]

Report on Radio Lab show re the phantasia scale.

Today I was able to listen to an hour show on the the subject of the visual imagery scale. I took notes.

Objective evidence for the condition known as aphantasia
When most people are asked to imagine looking at the sun, their pupils contract. When people who describe themselves as aphantastic are asked the same thing, nothing happens to their pupils.

Subjects were fitted with goggles that showed a red circle to one eye and a green square to the other. In normal vision the brain merges the two slightly different images seen by each eye, but in this situation what the subjects see is a green square and a red circle alternating back and forth. If aphantastics are asked to imagine one or the other picture, nothing changes. But for those who have visual imagery, once they imagine either the circle or the square, that is what they see when they look into the goggles.

Applying a very mild electrical stimulus to the visual cortext intensifies the visual images of the subject. This has not been tried on aphantastics, and one interviewee thought it might be risky.

Associations with other characteristics
This is a little confusing because, on one hand, someone declared quite confidently, that there was no correlation between one's position on the phantasia spectrum and such qualities as intelligence and creativity.

On the other hand, they interviewed a hyperphantastic person who developed schizophrenia which began with his "seeing" with his eyes, coins always landing the way he imagined they would. The interviewer said that there may be some association.

Then in a discussion between two aphantastics, not scientists, they agreed that they felt a relationships between their condition and lack of empathy. Not a lack of caring for another, but a lack of feeling the same feelings as another. And one speculated that he was not as subject to trauma following horrific events at a hospital as his more visual colleages.