Anyone else with Aphantasia?

[Iustefan]

(Hope this is an OKAY place to post this thread. Thought it falls under the umbrella of 'getting to know others').

I'm curious about how common aphantasia is among writers, readers, and people in this community. Any other people with aphantasia here? And what your thoughts are on it? Does it affect your creativity? Does it make writing more difficult for you? Does it not bother you at all?

If you don’t know what aphantasia is, I’ll quickly explain: aphantasia is the complete absence of a mind’s eye.

To further explain: when I say, “imagine an apple falling on a table,” someone with* aphantasia will not be able to conjure any image in their mind's eye. While people with normal mind’s eyes, will be able to see** the apple falling on a table.

For people with aphantasia, this revelation can be quite shocking. Not so much that they see nothing internally, since that has more or less always been their reality, but more so that a majority of people do see something. It was a shock for me. I thought everyone's inner experience was more or less the same as mine, and so finding out that most people have these sometimes vivid and visual inner thoughts was incredibly mind blowing.

Phrases like “counting sheep,” or advice like “imagining everyone naked” when making a presentation, are absurd for someone with aphantasia. Personally, I always thought those were figures of speech. I never realised people were actually seeing these things! (It still feels very strange to know that other people can recall my face at will).

What’s more, the mind's eye is a spectrum, and aphantasia is merely an extreme side of the spectrum. So, this means that everyone has varying abilities of visual imagination. Some people have more control of their visual imaginations, can see with them more vividly, etc. (To be honest, since I don’t have a mind's eye myself, I don’t have a clear idea on this, but it’s what I’ve been told).

What’s even more, aphantasia is the absence of the mind’s eye. But on top of the mind’s eye, people have mind’s ears, mind’s noses, and so on; a corresponding inner sense for all the regular senses. So people can hear songs in their heads, or recalling the feeling of hugs from loved ones, or even smell smells that aren’t physically there, from memory… Not all people with aphantasia lack these other inner senses as well. Aphantasia specifically means the lack of the mind's eye. But, alas I do lack all of them. I’m basically a complete mute with all inner senses (yes, even sounds, so my inner voice is non-existent, at least, it’s not ‘sounded out’ at all.)

I have a friend who is an exceptional chef. He described his ability to combine flavours within his imagination and how he is able taste them virtually—his inner taste sense is so refined that he can accurately imagine combinations of flavours he has never experienced in reality.

I’m sure none of this is all that exciting for most of you, since most people have perfectly normal and working internal senses. But for me it was quite a strange revelation to find that I have aphantasia, and furthermore, that I lack all internal senses.

What really bothered me the most, was that I cannot relive past memories, and that when I read, I do not get anything visual. I am quite jealous of people with strong imaginations for these reasons. Although, I still love reading, even though all I get is some words on the page along with the story.

Anyways, I am wondering if there are any other writers/readers with aphantasia here? How does it affect your writing? How does it affect your life? Let’s start a discussion…

Also, I should add, there are other related things called SDAM and face blindness, which are perhaps related to aphantasia but not exactly the same thing. SDAM stands for severely deficient autobiographical memory, which many people with aphantasia have, but not all. I have it and am terrible at recalling past memories. And I am also terrible with faces. Lucky me?

Not to say I am asking anyone to feel sorry for me. My life is perfectly normal, and I don’t find that a lack of inner senses affects me adversely. In fact, I only found out about all this as an adult, a few years ago, and so up until finding out, I never thought anything was wrong, or different. And I still don’t.

So anyways, all that out of the way, I think it’s an interesting discussion when it comes to writers and creatives in general, since so much of what we do is playing with the imagination of other people. I never realised that readers would interpret my words within their heads, and actually “see” my descriptions or stories play out. I think that’s totally cool and interesting. Everyone will see and experience my words differently and in very unique ways… That, for me, makes writing quite fun and exciting, and I like hearing about how people interpret my words and stories within their imaginations. You could say that's one of the joys of writing for me... although, I have very few readers.

Hope I'm in the correct place with this topic.

*: Uh, “someone with aphantasia” sounds like its a disease or something, but it’s not. I’m just honestly not too sure on how to use the word.

**: I guess it’s not technically actually seeing? I just use that verb for shorthand…

 

[Lakey]

I wanted to react to this post — but none of the reaction emojis seem quite right. Thanks for sharing your experiences, Stefan. I am not aphantasic or face-blind but I’m pretty sure there are others on AW who are. I don’t have the strongest visual memory ever — I am particularly bad with spatial memory — but I do have a “mind’s eye” and a fairly strong “mind’s ear.” Your chef friend’s ability strikes me as more acute than average, which might be either because of his training as a chef or part of the reason he’s so well-suited to be one!

 

[Iustefan]

Thank you for the response, Lakey.

I've learned that everyone has varying abilities with all their inner senses. For the longest time, I basically thought we all had rather similar inner experiences. I thought everyone was more or less like me (kind of a dumb thought in hindsight). But by learning about my aphantasia, and by chatting with others about it, I've learned that there's a huge variety to imagination.

It's really amazing what some people can do with their minds. Reading around these forums and seeing how some writers use their imaginations to build complex worlds before even beginning writing was always so cool to me.

I need a blank page to do any imagining myself it seems haha.

 

[Maryn]

I know of at least two other members who have some level of aphantasia, but I'll leave it to them to present themselves if they choose to--which I hope they do.

It's fascinating to me the varying ways our minds work, the super-aspects, absence-aspects, and just plain different-from-others. Are you aware of any specific adaptations you've made to accommodate your aphantasia? (If there even are any.)

Maryn, hoping not to pry

 

[Janine R]

This makes me wonder how it affects your dreams?

 

[CMBright]

This makes me wonder how it affects your dreams?

I can't "see" anything when I imagine things. To use the example in the opening post, I have a good idea of what happens when a dropped apple impacts with a table, but I don't "see" the apple hit the table. I imagine in words/voices.

Yet when I dream, I dream in images and sounds. Which makes me wonder. I don't experience touch, taste or smell in dreams. Even in dreams where one would expect to feel, like the one where I was flying, if "swimming" using the backstroke through the air, using hand motions to rise or descend can be considered flying. Either I have never dreamed of tasting or smelling things or I've forgotten such dreams, because none come to mind.

That is my experience with not being able to see things in my imagination but being able to see things when I dream. Others might vary.

 

[Thecla]

I also have aphantasia and I also found out that what is normal-for-me has a name fairly recently (reading this piece by Mark Lawrence in The Guardian). My experience differs somewhat from Iustefan's; I have an internal voice, for instance, although, thinking about it, that's about the extent of my inner senses. The internal voice is mine. I can't conjure the sounds of other people's voices in my head anymore than I can conjure their faces.

My partner is not aphantasic and so we've had to adapt to the fact that our brains work in different ways. They think about and remember things in images, I in words. Minor example: I asked them to buy my favourite oatcakes this morning and they asked what colour the packet was so they knew what to look for. I had no idea at all, but I could remember the words that were written on that packet. I can't rotate shapes or add or subtract one shape to/from another in my head, which means I'm very bad at any form of test or puzzle that requires mental manipulation of objects.

As for writing... Well, I don't write lengthy descriptions of people or places because I have no idea what any of my characters look like or a clear image of their surroundings. Nor do I see scenes and action play out inside my head like a film as some people do when I'm reading or writing. It's all words. That said, I don't think anyone reading my work could tell I'm aphantasic and it's certainly not something that has ever been brought up by editors or beta-readers. When writing fiction, I am a pantser to the nth degree and I've wondered occasionally whether this is a part of being aphantasic. I'm not sure it is, though. There are other reasons that seem more likely.

 

[Unimportant]

Me. No pictures or voices in my head.

 

[SariBelleW]

Thanks for sharing @Iustefan . The human brain is so fascinating. I remember when I learned about the spectrum of how some people think purely in images, others in words (and others none of either), and I bugged everyone I knew for weeks asking them how their brains worked.

I do not have aphantasia. I think in both images and words (more on the words side), but I don't think I have an internal nose or touch or taste.

I hope you don't mind me asking a couple of questions. When you're thinking day to day thoughts, like "need to buy milk", if you don't hear or see it, how does the thought run through your head? Does it had arrive there, fully-formed, and you have instant understanding of it?

And do you fall asleep quickly? I often struggle to fall asleep, particularly if I'm stressed or anxious about something, because my inner voice will NOT SHUT UP. And I can lie there, sometimes for a couple of hours, with a constant monologue going on in my head.

Again, thank you for sharing. I think it's so interesting to hear about other people's inner worlds, and how our brains are all so wildly different.

 

[Iustefan]

It's fascinating to me the varying ways our minds work, the super-aspects, absence-aspects, and just plain different-from-others. Are you aware of any specific adaptations you've made to accommodate your aphantasia? (If there even are any.)

Maryn, hoping not to pry

Not prying at all. For me, before realizing I had aphantasia, I'm not sure if I did anything. But perhaps it was a reason why I was drawn to writing and journaling and art in general. After finding out, I take far more pictures on my phone, for my memory's sake, and I draw quite a bit more, as this is the only way for me to experience my imagination.

Aphantasia also made me re-evaluate how I learn. For example, before, because I enjoyed writing, I always considered myself a "word" learner--as in someone who excelled at learning by simply reading. I always took that early (false) assessment of myself at face value and struggled along with studies. Now I've realized that I'm actually more the kind of person who learns visually, actually seeing diagrams, or by physically doing something.

This makes me wonder how it affects your dreams?

This is a very good question... I think everyone will be different. Apparently, dreams are processed in a different part of the brain, so some people with aphantasia do dream visually. For me, I'm not really sure. I'm sure I used to dream... and I want to say they were visual. But recently, specifically after finding out about Aphantasia, I hardly ever dream. And when I do, I can't be sure if my dreams are visual or something else. I am guessing they are not visual... And perhaps it was only my processing them in hindsight, upon waking, which told me they were visual. I hope that makes sense. I am fascinated by dreams, and dream literature, so it kind of saddens me that I don't seem to have a typical dream life.

When writing fiction, I am a pantser to the nth degree and I've wondered occasionally whether this is a part of being aphantasic. I'm not sure it is, though. There are other reasons that seem more likely.

I am also a pantser, and I assume this is because of aphantasia.

I hope you don't mind me asking a couple of questions. When you're thinking day to day thoughts, like "need to buy milk", if you don't hear or see it, how does the thought run through your head? Does it had arrive there, fully-formed, and you have instant understanding of it?

And do you fall asleep quickly? I often struggle to fall asleep, particularly if I'm stressed or anxious about something, because my inner voice will NOT SHUT UP. And I can lie there, sometimes for a couple of hours, with a constant monologue going on in my head.

These are very good questions! And I don't mind being asked at all.

While I don't think in sounds or voices, my thoughts are expressed as a chain of words being thought. So perhaps not totally foreign to how you think (I assume). It just doesn't have a sound. I think I subvocalize all my thoughts. It's very easy to clear my head, and think of nothing. I write essays to myself if I want to do serious thinking.

Falling asleep can be difficult for chemical reasons (caffeine or alcohol), but in general, if all is well, I am able to sleep easily. But stress can cause my thoughts to run rampant, which can keep me up as well. So maybe I'm not all that different in that regard. But I live a pretty stress-free life these days, so thankfully that's not an issue anymore.

 

[SariBelleW]

While I don't think in sounds or voices, my thoughts are expressed as a chain of words being thought. So perhaps not totally foreign to how you think (I assume). It just doesn't have a sound. I think I subvocalize all my thoughts. It's very easy to clear my head, and think of nothing. I write essays to myself if I want to do serious thinking.

Internal thoughts with no sound is so hard for me to comprehend. It’s like, as a seeing person, trying to imagine what it's like to be blind. That it's not just seeing black, but seeing nothing. My (very noisy) brain explodes trying to imagine this. Thank you so much for sharing.

 

[dickson]

Internal thoughts with no sound is so hard for me to comprehend. It’s like, as a seeing person, trying to imagine what it's like to be blind. That it's not just seeing black, but seeing nothing. My (very noisy) brain explodes trying to imagine this. Thank you so much for sharing.

A strange thing happened to me while reading this thread. I normally read too fast for my inner speech to keep up; I have no awareness of hearing what I read. (Not to say it doesn’t happen at some level. If so, I normally don’t notice). But on reading people’s varied experiences of aphantasia and auditory responses to reading, I started hearing the text I read, loud and clear. Pretty distracting.

Years ago I read somewhere that when a sighted person loses vision, they retain visual memories and experience visual dreaming at first, but after about a decade these vestiges vanish, leading to a state called (then, dunno if terminology has changed) “deep blindness.” It’s not seeing nothing; it’s the absence of vision. I can’t imagine what that is like, either.

The human brain, however, has considerable wetware devoted to vision, and I’ve also read it is possible for people blind from birth to draw recognizable pictures of objects with a bit of coaching. Go figure.

 

[Iustefan]

Me. No pictures or voices in my head.

Very similar to me. Do you lack most inner senses? Almost more surprising than the visual part of imagination, was when someone told me she could remember the feelings of hugs. I definitely cannot do that either.

Years ago I read somewhere that when a sighted person loses vision, they retain visual memories and experience visual dreaming at first, but after about a decade these vestiges vanish, leading to a state called (then, dunno if terminology has changed) “deep blindness.” It’s not seeing nothing; it’s the absence of vision. I can’t imagine what that is like, either.

The human brain, however, has considerable wetware devoted to vision, and I’ve also read it is possible for people blind from birth to draw recognizable pictures of objects with a bit of coaching. Go figure.

This is probably my greatest fear since finding out about aphantasia. I fear if I ever went blind I would automatically be in a place of deep blindness. I'm not sure how I would cope with it.

 

[mccardey]

Might already have linked to this (I'm rushing atm) but just in case - interesting article in the Guardian today about this very thing.

 

[Bitterboots]

Internal thoughts with no sound is so hard for me to comprehend. It’s like, as a seeing person, trying to imagine what it's like to be blind. That it's not just seeing black, but seeing nothing. My (very noisy) brain explodes trying to imagine this. Thank you so much for sharing.

Me too. I am one of those people who gets an earworm stuck in my head for DAYS!!! I even wake up in the night and it's just there. And trust me, you don't want ABBA stuck in your head for 96 hours straight. I also get words stuck in my head that go on repeat. I wonder if this is almost like an opposite occurrence of aphantasia. I also have anomic aphasia which is the inability to remember names of people and places. I have great facial recognition but names just leave me blank until I literally train myself to remember. Keeping track of new characters was a real problem for me for awhile.

 

[SariBelleW]

A strange thing happened to me while reading this thread. I normally read too fast for my inner speech to keep up; I have no awareness of hearing what I read. (Not to say it doesn’t happen at some level. If so, I normally don’t notice). But on reading people’s varied experiences of aphantasia and auditory responses to reading, I started hearing the text I read, loud and clear. Pretty distracting.

I almost ETAd on my last post to mention I subvocalise when I read. I'm a slow reader because I have to "hear" everything in my head to comprehend it. If I scan my eyes over text, and don't subvocalise, I wouldn't be able to tell you a single thing it says. I wonder if that's related to how incessant my inner voice is.

 

[DeleyanLee]

Also aphantasic here (though I really dislike the term "aphantasia" since it insinuates that I don't have an imagination, which is certainly not true). I've been aware of being "mind-blind" most of my adult life. I have many artist friends (painters mostly), so I knew that their brains were full of pictures I just couldn't comprehend. Not being able to picture things has been a challenge to writing, particularly in the description area, but over the decades I've learned to cope with that. Reference pics, etc, which I can see and put together to get descriptions on the page. It seems to work for me.

I have to consciously thing/read to get words in my head. I'm not very good at remember music, smells, sounds, etc. I frequently forget faces from one minute to the next unless I've made a point of memorizing a mental word-description, and even that doesn't last long (ie: getting picked up at an airport by a friend I haven't seen in over a year).

Dreams are pictures with sound, but my memories of them are even more fleeting that most people's memories of dreams. Unless there's a good plot involved, then I can generally remember the plot. That doesn't happen often.

I'm a plotter when I write. I like to know where I'm headed and generally how I'm going to get there. Doesn't mean it always works out exactly as planned, but when I try to pants a story, it just spins around, grows long and doesn't do a bloody thing. Sorry to break the trend there, but nothing is really universal in my experience.

 

[TheoreticalJoe]

So I recently discover that I also have Aphantasia, and I agree it was quite the revelation.

As far as my thoughts on it, it DEFINITELY changed the way that I see certain things and the way that I perceive other people who do similar things to me.

For example, I play quite a lot of chess. Most people, I have come to find out, can close their eyes and actually see the chess board, where I get only blackness and have to try and "build" a chess board with my thoughts - which doesn't really quite work when you try to put it into practice. This limitation makes chess INCREDIBLY difficult when trying to think several moves ahead. Now that I know that I have Aphantasia, it was easier for me to understand why this part of the game was SO VERY HARD for me.

When it comes to writing, I feel it gives me a sort of advantage (although very rarely), because I am generally used to describing things to myself that I am trying to see in my head, so translating that onto the page is sometimes easier. Once I am able to think of a thing, or imagine it in my head, I can generally describe it or "build it with words" fairly easily. The downside of this, and something that I've found the few people I've met with Aphantasia have also experienced to some degree is that I tend to get a bit wordy when describing things. People who can see things in their head tend to be less wordy when describing them, because it doesn't take that much for them to form a picture in their mind, but when you can't see things in your head, you sometimes don't know when to stop because you have no idea when the image becomes clear to your average reader.

I would say that my inner senses for how things feel - emotionally at least - are definitely off as well. Writing emotional scenes and such is a really difficult process for me, because I tend to just be kind of "flat" on the inside.

Can't say that I have any sort of mind's ear, or mind's nose that I know of though. That much is certain at least.

As far as reading goes, I think this is why I tend to prefer stories that are written in the 1st person (moreso than 3rd at least) I can't really explain why...it just...hits differently? When I read third person I get a narrator telling me what people are thinking, and explaining emotional queues to me that should indicate something that just doesn't translate quite right if you know what I mean(i don't really have a better way to describe it lol). Whereas when I read a 1st person story, its a much more immersive experience. I wouldn't say that I get any visuals - that's never been a thing for me - but it does tend to pull me more out of my own head and more into the character's head that I'm reading about, which tends to make it more enjoyable for me at least.

I don't have the same problem with reliving past memories though. Or maybe I do and I'm just not aware of it? I can remember things that happened to me as far back as childhood, though I don't have any feelings or anything like that associated with them aside from things that were funny making me laugh, and things I regret making me sad, etc...but it's kinda like reading a newspaper article more than it's being an actor in a movie I guess.

I guess it all boils down to I have what I like to call an inner voice, and when I try to think of things or remember them, I describe them using the inner voice. I can't see people's faces when I try to think of them, but I can describe them if I think about it long enough. I tend to remember details about things and people that other people simply wouldn't notice - which mostly people just translate as me being hyper-observant, but I never really thought about why others don't remember all those key details and how they tell memories of people apart, etc.

As far as how its affected my life - I would say relationships have been the hardest thing to maintain. Most of my friends and especially my significant others over the years don't understand how I think or process things. Details that they remember as easy as breathing are things that it doesn't even occur to me exist. The biggest hurdle for most of them is that I don't seem "excited" or "happy" to be with them. (like I said I have been described mostly as "flat") and usually all the relationships tend to end the same way friendships or otherwise. With the other person assuming I don't care enough, and that being the end of that.

It's really good to know that there are people here who have the same experience though. Thanks so much for sharing and giving me a place to come be my overly wordy self about this =)

 

[Maryn]

(Our pleasure. We like getting to know one another at a more personal level. Thanks for your post.)

 

[Perks]

Oh wow! Yes, I'm aphantasic. It's very interesting talking with mind-sighted writers. We have no idea how the other one does it. Lol!

I have a pretty good memory, for the way I remember things, and feel like I would only want to add images to my thoughts on a trial basis. I'd want to be able to give it back if I didn't like it. Truthfully, it sounds like chaos. I like the other way of remembering and knowing. I feel like I can just open my eyes if I want that sensation, but the conceptual flow of my stream of consciousness is entirely another thing. And I quite like it.

I only found out about aphantasia in late 2018. Since then, I read up on it and think about it a lot. It seems with concentration, I can almost get a fleeting idea of internal imagery, but it's so fleeting and fuzzy that it's hardly worth the trouble.

Knowing about it has affected my writing a little. I try now, more than I did, to add visual details.

Back when my first book came out, readers sometimes told me that I wrote so visually or "cinematically" and I really didn't know what they were talking about. I can't help but conclude that very visual readers will spin the pictures out of what you give them, no matter how little there is on the page.

 

[Perks]

I will say that as soon as I learned about aphantasia, I immediately understood why I found guided meditations so desperately irritating.

 

[Perks]

It's fascinating to me the varying ways our minds work, the super-aspects, absence-aspects, and just plain different-from-others. Are you aware of any specific adaptations you've made to accommodate your aphantasia? (If there even are any.)

I don't think so. As far as I can tell, everything I see just becomes a code in my mind. Kind of like the Matrix. Everything that mind-sighted people "see" I just know as a different type of storage. All the info is there. Like, I could describe my husband to you, but I can't "see" him when I'm doing it.

So it all comes out in the wash, I think.

Fun fact: aphantasics are thought to be largely immune to classic PTSD. How much sense does that make? Human sight is so essential to our survival that in these extremes, being tipped back into it can be a special misery and terror. But not us.

Fun fact #2: Aphantasics dream in images just like everyone else. (Although the recall is different, obviously.) When you're sleeping, the visual cortex comes back online during certain phases of sleep and operates like you're awake and looking at things. Not how the aphantasics do for recall and invention. We use other parts of our brains for that.

 

[TheoreticalJoe]

Fun fact: aphantasics are thought to be largely immune to classic PTSD

I can at the very least confirm that this is not the case for me at least. I don't what they mean by "classic" PTSD, but I can say with certainty that I definitely suffer from PTSD related to my time in the military.

I don't know that its different from anyone else's experience either, since most of the people in my support groups over the years seem to have similar experiences to me. The only exception being how vividly we relive events.

 

[Perks]

The only exception being how vividly we relive events.

What I had read about was related to this. It's not that aphantasics can't experience trauma and have it severely affect their lives. It's that the vivid, nearly hallucinatory flashbacks that can feel nearly indistinguishable from being back in the moment of trauma doesn't happen to aphantasics.

We certainly don't get a get-out-of-jail-free card on things like rumination, crippling depression, and nightmares.

 

[TheoreticalJoe]

What I had read about was related to this. It's not that aphantasics can't experience trauma and have it severely affect their lives. It's that the vivid, nearly hallucinatory flashbacks that can feel nearly indistinguishable from being back in the moment of trauma doesn't happen to aphantasics.

We certainly don't get a get-out-of-jail-free card on things like rumination, crippling depression, and nightmares.

Ah, thanks for the clarification. I guess I never thought about it being different like that. The flashbacks still happen, though you are correct, they aren't really visual in nature. It's more like I go somewhere else where I stay trapped for a while, and my body does things that are sometimes out of my control. Dreams are different, the nightmares are still vivid - which I guess lines up with everything else I've learned.