2-4% of people have Aphantasia (No visual imigery)

[NuclearFairy]

I mostly just think in images. When I'm writing or reading I more feel the meaning of the word than actually hear the word in my head, although there's a certain amount of that. And when I read, "The wind blew through the trees," I'll quickly shift from feeling the words, to seeing wind gusting through trees, ratting branches and plucking at leaves.

So when it comes to imagining a scene, I see it play out in my head, and with effort I can even hear the dialog as they're speaking.

And yes, this can lead to problems writing as I try to find the words to describe what's in my head. It can be especially problematic for a dialog heavy scene where I forgot to think of the actual words they're saying. Like I can see and feel it in my head, I can feel the thrust and flow of what they're saying, I know the meaning of every word spilling out of their mouths, but I forgot to think up the actual words. Then I'll have to examine the feel of each word closely and go, "Is that small, tiny, little, minute, or something else?"

 

[AG31]

it just ended up being self-referential, "meaning is when you... well.. when something means..."

Yup. And for us a chair is just... well.. a chair.

 

[AG31]

@Off_base, did you ever try the steps I recommend in reply #22?

 

[OddLove]

So, those of you who can't visualize things, what are your memories like?
Do you only recall words, not faces or people? How do you remember things you've seen?

I don't think I'd read at all, if I couldn't imagine what anything or anyone looked like. That would just be passing my eyes over words.

My memories are kinda like a word document full of facts. Like the when, where, and why. Who was there, how it made me feel, how other people seemed to feel, etc. Maybe other small facts like 'it was rainy' or 'I was anxious' but mostly just a recalling of events read spoken internally with words. No visuals at all.

 

[Off_base]

@Off_base, did you ever try the steps I recommend in reply #22?

I did read through them, and I was able to imagine a visual reference for each one. My mind automatically goes there.

 

[PennyThompson]

I'm curious what it would look like if we plotted a bunch of erotica writers on the visualization vibrancy spectrum. My intuition is that an unusually high number would fall on both ends of the spectrum, and statistically fewer than the average population would fall in the middle. It seems like both aphantasia and hyperphantasia could be seen as strengths when it comes to writing!

 

[AG31]

I did read through them, and I was able to imagine a visual reference for each one. My mind automatically goes there.

Fascinating! Was there a small stretch of time when you were casting about before you were "able to imagine?" Or was the image the very first thing? Can you describe what you saw for each one?

 

[iwatchus]

I mostly just think in images. When I'm writing or reading I more feel the meaning of the word than actually hear the word in my head, although there's a certain amount of that. And when I read, "The wind blew through the trees," I'll quickly shift from feeling the words, to seeing wind gusting through trees, ratting branches and plucking at leaves.

So when it comes to imagining a scene, I see it play out in my head, and with effort I can even hear the dialog as they're speaking.

And yes, this can lead to problems writing as I try to find the words to describe what's in my head. It can be especially problematic for a dialog heavy scene where I forgot to think of the actual words they're saying. Like I can see and feel it in my head, I can feel the thrust and flow of what they're saying, I know the meaning of every word spilling out of their mouths, but I forgot to think up the actual words. Then I'll have to examine the feel of each word closely and go, "Is that small, tiny, little, minute, or something else?"

More than anything else, I think in dialog. I can hear the dialog in my head. If you look at one of my short outlines, half of it is snippets of dialog. I have some sense of the visuals, but it's not sharp at all. I experience all the senses other than dialog like that.

When a scene is not dialog driven, I struggle to describe the scene, much like Fairy describes.

 

[AG31]

I'm curious what it would look like if we plotted a bunch of erotica writers on the visualization vibrancy spectrum. My intuition is that an unusually high number would fall on both ends of the spectrum, and statistically fewer than the average population would fall in the middle. It seems like both aphantasia and hyperphantasia could be seen as strengths when it comes to writing!

I figured out late in the game that, along with "conceptual," my processing is heavily "somatic." When I remember my children as babies I remember how they felt in my arms, how it felt to blow between the soles of their feet. Likewise what I want (and hopefully provide) is for the reader to sense what the MC is sensing. Erotica is the perfect genre for a somaticist (not a therapist... just a kind of mental processor).

 

[AG31]

More than anything else, I think in dialog. I can hear the dialog in my head. If you look at one of my short outlines, half of it is snippets of dialog.

I do too. At 3 in the morning I'm composing e-mails and Lit posts. But if you think about it, not ALL of your thinking is verbal. Words just don't go fast enough to handle all the thoughts you have in a day. That's where purely conceptual thinking comes in. Whole globs of meaning, but not audial or visual.

 

[iwatchus]

I can force myself to think in almost any sense. I have no problem with the "imagine a blue cube, now put a triangular hole through it and put an apple in the slot" kinds of visualizations tests. It's just not the way I first imagine things. I guess I think in emotions, then words, then senses.

I also don't have clear images of most of my characters, which was encouraged early on by advice some here give to not provide detailed descriptions of your characters.

 

[Off_base]

Fascinating! Was there a small stretch of time when you were casting about before you were "able to imagine?" Or was the image the very first thing? Can you describe what you saw for each one?

ambiguity
conundrum
harmony
integrity
ambiguity
Possibility
Identity
Meaning
Continuity
Paradox

Ambiguity- the "ambiguously gay duo" cartoon skit from SNL.

Conundrum- I'm locked out of the house and need to pee.

Harmony- Rascal Flatts performing a song.

Integrity- people feeding the homeless on Christmas.

Possibility- my cute neighbor.

Identity- my cousin.

Meaning- a person on their knees in a church.

Continuity- traffic in my city.

Paradox- an approaching thunderstorm that was visually mesmerizing.

These came to mind, without any extra thought. I'm not sure my mind can work any other way. It's on autopilot.

 

[SimonDoom]

So now I'm wondering, how do people even write if they're thinking in pictures? How do you think of something visually then write it down if you don't think with words?

It's not either/or. I can visualize things and also think of them with words.

 

[stickygirl]

There's a well validated self-test called the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire, and you can take a version of it online!

I scored 75 out of 80, which apparently puts me pretty far on the opposite end of the spectrum from Aphantasia, in Hyperphantasia territory.

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I find this topic fascinating though, because it's difficult for me to imagine what other experiences on the VVIQ spectrum would even feel like. I can understand it intellectually, but I can't make myself feel the feeling.

If nothing else I confirmed my autistic tendencies: I managed to answer question 1 ( visualise a friend ) but in subsequent questions I was asking 'Whose characteristic poses?' 'Whose precise carriage, step?'... do they mean the person chosen in #1 or are we thinking of people in general? Never mind visualising anything - ask me meaningful questions dammit!

See my post #22.

I am visualising a post - it has pig netting nailed to it and brambles encroaching

 

[stickygirl]

I appreciate some folks are aphantasic but for others I suspect it's difficult to assess how reliant ones brain is in needing visual images to make sense of our surroundings and function in the world. Our brains do an extraordinary job of filtering out extraneous information presented by our senses - background chaff. The same must happen with visual images flicked up by our imagination - our brains have to discount most of it or else be overwhelmed.

If I go to the bus stop, I don't visualise the entire route - I just walk there while thinking about something else. If I have to explain to someone else how to get there, then I'll generally provide them with landmarks that I think might help them navigate their way to it. Giving instruction to either a lost bus-user or for example, teaching someone how to sail a boat, then we need to be aware of how people process information: visual, kinetic, auditory, writing... so that they can comprehend the exercise and be successful in learning a new skill.

How much extra information from our senses do we need to comprehend our environment to let us function safely? Just enough. There's no need to describe every shade in the autumn leaves on our way to work unless it's relevant OR if we're later asked to recall it. Too much input into our conscious brain is exhausting and unhelpful. In writing we are more likely to stop and give consideration to how rain on the window sounded like gravel being thrown at it, or how the mist in the valley hugged the land like a chilly blanket...

 

[TheNovelist2000]

So today, I was talking with someone and 'imagination' came up. As we were talking, I realized other people actually see what they're thinking about in their mind. If they think of an apple, they can close their eyes and legitimately vision it. The redness, the little stim with the leaf, maybe some light reflecting off it's shiny surface.

Then I went and fell down a rabbit hole trying to figure out why I can't see anything when I close my eyes, and why when I 'imagine' an apple, I just hear myself describing it with words while I see black. Turns out it's Aphantasia, and 2-4% of humans have it. Which is actually a ton, it's about 160 million to 320 million people.

Some how I made it to 34 years before realizing other people can actually see things instead of just describe it internally with words.

So now I'm wondering, how do people even write if they're thinking in pictures? How do you think of something visually then write it down if you don't think with words?

Then you’re lucky enough not to know the pain of being unable to bring the pictures in our minds onto paper exactly as we see them. I have the most extraordinary visions when I fantasise. Visions I don’t have words for, visions that make me wish telepathy existed so other people could see them too.

I can still picture the little 29th Street I grew up on: the serene one-story houses, the perfect amount of sunlight, the wind, my god, the wind. The gravel beneath my feet. And the greenery. Now that little 29th Street is gone, along with my childhood home and those of my childhood friends. It was a time before mobile phones and the internet, and we were too poor to own a camera. So I have no pictures of it. They exist only in my mind now. If only people could see them.

 

[stickygirl]

Then you’re lucky enough not to know the pain of being unable to bring the pictures in our minds onto paper exactly as we see them. I have the most extraordinary visions when I fantasise. Visions I don’t have words for, visions that make me wish telepathy existed so other people could see them too.

I can still picture the little 29th Street I grew up on: the serene one-story houses, the perfect amount of sunlight, the wind, my god, the wind. The gravel beneath my feet. And the greenery. Now that little 29th Street is gone, along with my childhood home and those of my childhood friends. It was a time before mobile phones and the internet, and we were too poor to own a camera. So I have no pictures of it. They exist only in my mind now. If only people could see them.

In reading through the thread it struck me how an artist views the world and then brings emotion to the canvas. An impressionist painter give hints of what they saw and in general a painter will summarise, exaggerate and make-up what they saw or else they'd just use a camera. Same with writing - we pick out the details that we hope other people will understand and so help them build a scene, not just with visual references but emotive ones. A writer leaves room for the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks.

Your recall of your childhood home is photographically complete to you, but frankly to the rest of us - so what? To make us care about that street, you'd need to tell us about the broken concrete where you tripped and skinned your knee, or the house with cobwebs and an old man you used to call names, or the tight corner where a lorry got stuck and a huge crane was brought it to rescue it and the crane drivers had a tattoo of a bird on his arm. Make the whole scene bite-sized I guess.

 

[OddLove]

Then you’re lucky enough not to know the pain of being unable to bring the pictures in our minds onto paper exactly as we see them. I have the most extraordinary visions when I fantasise. Visions I don’t have words for, visions that make me wish telepathy existed so other people could see them too.

I can still picture the little 29th Street I grew up on: the serene one-story houses, the perfect amount of sunlight, the wind, my god, the wind. The gravel beneath my feet. And the greenery. Now that little 29th Street is gone, along with my childhood home and those of my childhood friends. It was a time before mobile phones and the internet, and we were too poor to own a camera. So I have no pictures of it. They exist only in my mind now. If only people could see them.

There's pros and cons both ways. So if I was gonna do a You're Lucky retort, I'd say You're lucky because I will never see my first cat friends again because I don't have pictures of them. But I do remember their personalities, like how they were way more affectionate with me vs my other neighborhood friends, and how much they liked each other, and the silly way the brother cat smothered the sister one when they slept cause he was so much bigger. As far as looks, I just remember literally documented information, the brother was orange, white paws, about 15 lbs, the sister was dark gray tabby, white chest, white paws, white on tip of tail, only about 8-10 lbs.

I still been tripping about this all day, I keep trying to close my eyes and think of my grandma or my old favorite teacher or my first bike, but it doesn't work. I'm kind of jealous of people that can do it, but I'm sure I'll get over it soon.

 

[OddLove]

I appreciate some folks are aphantasic but for others I suspect it's difficult to assess how reliant ones brain is in needing visual images to make sense of our surroundings and function in the world. Our brains do an extraordinary job of filtering out extraneous information presented by our senses - background chaff. The same must happen with visual images flicked up by our imagination - our brains have to discount most of it or else be overwhelmed.

If I go to the bus stop, I don't visualise the entire route - I just walk there while thinking about something else. If I have to explain to someone else how to get there, then I'll generally provide them with landmarks that I think might help them navigate their way to it. Giving instruction to either a lost bus-user or for example, teaching someone how to sail a boat, then we need to be aware of how people process information: visual, kinetic, auditory, writing... so that they can comprehend the exercise and be successful in learning a new skill.

How much extra information from our senses do we need to comprehend our environment to let us function safely? Just enough. There's no need to describe every shade in the autumn leaves on our way to work unless it's relevant OR if we're later asked to recall it. Too much input into our conscious brain is exhausting and unhelpful. In writing we are more likely to stop and give consideration to how rain on the window sounded like gravel being thrown at it, or how the mist in the valley hugged the land like a chilly blanket...

I feel like even someone with 'Eidetic Memory' like Shawn from Psych would have to not store literally everything. If a high def two hour movie is about 1 or 2 gigabytes, then someone who records every minute of everyday, visually, with eidetic memory, along with sound and all other senses like touch, smell, emotions too, it would have to be like billions of terabytes of data in the brain.

It would take tens of thousands of solid state hard drives to store one persons full lived experience, assuming we ever have the technology to even store emotion, smell, touch, etc. Maybe it's impossible.

 

[TheNovelist2000]

Same with writing - we pick out the details that we hope other people will understand and so help them build a scene, not just with visual references but emotive ones. A writer leaves room for the reader's imagination to fill in the blanks.

This is nicely summed up in this quote from Stephen King's memoir.

I’m not particularly keen on writing which exhaustively describes the physical characteristics of the people in the story and what they’re wearing (I find wardrobe inventory particularly irritating; if I want to read descriptions of clothes, I can always get a J. Crew catalogue). I can’t remember many cases where I felt I had to describe what the people in a story of mine looked like—I’d rather let the reader supply the faces, the builds, and the clothing as well. If I tell you that Carrie White is a high school outcast with a bad complexion and a fashion-victim wardrobe, I think you can do the rest, can’t you? I don’t need to give you a pimple-by-pimple, skirt-by-skirt rundown. We all remember one or more high school losers, after all; if I describe mine, it freezes out yours, and I lose a little bit of the bond of understanding I want to forge between us.

 

[TheNovelist2000]

As far as looks, I just remember literally documented information, the brother was orange, white paws, about 15 lbs, the sister was dark gray tabby, white chest, white paws, white on tip of tail, only about 8-10 lbs.

I can totally understand this because, although I don't have your condition, some memories of mine are so distant that I can only recall their mechanical details, not the actual pictures. There used to be a girl who always finished first in almost every exam when I was young, and I once knew her face very well. But now I only remember that she was smart, rich, and that she would feed the whole class on her birthday.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Your recall of your childhood home is photographically complete to you, but frankly to the rest of us - so what? To make us care about that street, you'd need to tell us about the broken concrete where you tripped and skinned your knee, or the house with cobwebs and an old man you used to call names, or the tight corner where a lorry got stuck and a huge crane was brought it to rescue it and the crane drivers had a tattoo of a bird on his arm. Make the whole scene bite-sized I guess.

This is your gift as a writer, Sticky, your ability to capture, like a Polaroid camera, that tiny detail. Like Hannah waving at the girl on the breakwater. It's why you and I clicked so much, in our story about France, coz I'm the same.

I've just read @OddLove's post up above. I think, if I focused on a particular time and a place, I could create in my mind a vivid image.

It might be part imagination, it might be true recall, but if I put my mind to it, I reckon I could recreate nearly every step of the way of the mile I walked to school when I was twelve, in Australia, and when I was thirteen, in England. That's many decades ago. It's not an eidetic memory, probably more a constructed one in my mind, but it could just as well be real. I could write it down, and make it vivid.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

This is nicely summed up in this quote from Stephen King's memoir.

Stephen Kind doesn't write erotica/porn.

 

[OddLove]

Stephen Kind doesn't write erotica/porn.

It really depends how disturbed one is.

 

[AG31]

Ambiguity- the "ambiguously gay duo" cartoon skit from SNL.

Conundrum- I'm locked out of the house and need to pee.

Harmony- Rascal Flatts performing a song.

Integrity- people feeding the homeless on Christmas.

Possibility- my cute neighbor.

Identity- my cousin.

Meaning- a person on their knees in a church.

Continuity- traffic in my city.

Paradox- an approaching thunderstorm that was visually mesmerizing.

These came to mind, without any extra thought. I'm not sure my mind can work any other way. It's on autopilot.

Thanks! I guess you've given us a good insight into what it means to be hyper-phantasic.