#an aphantasia fantasia

[copperbadge]

In the ongoing discussion of aphantasia (see "an aphantasia fantasia" tag for more) an article popped up recently which has some details to share, including a history of how aphantasia was discovered in the scientific sense. I don't have "spatial thoughts" the way the author does, but it's also a pretty good discussion of how people who don't form mental images (or can't access sound, smell, etc in their minds) still interact normally with the world.

Here's some fucked up shit I didn't expect, however:

In a 2015 paper, a group of researchers [...] identified a new syndrome they called “Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory,” or SDAM for short. People with SDAM lack the ability to relive past experiences in their minds. While this condition is rare among the general population, a preliminary survey hints at a link with aphantasia, with as many as 51 percent of a sample of 2,000 SDAM individuals also having aphantasia. My own experience is similar. Past episodes of my life—when I can recall them at all—feel distant and non-sensory. [...] I would describe my recollections as summaries of key facts rather than first-person “mind movies.” When asked, out of the blue, about an experience I’ve surely had—say, any childhood birthday party—my mind first responds by drawing a blank. It feels as if my episodic memories were filed into a “mental cabinet” without an index. Many memories are in there, somewhere, but retrieving them is a daunting task unless I’m provided with very specific prompts. With some groping work of deduction (where did I live at the time? Who did I hang out with?) I can gather enough hints to bring out some locations and non-visual facts: I had a big party in our countryside garden when I was 11 or 12; there was cake; a lot of kids running around and … that’s about it.

This is one hundred percent how I access memory and how I assumed everyone did -- I am well aware I don't remember chunks of my past (or only remember them if prompted by something) but I do the same thing he does. I ask myself where I was living, or what other things were happening at the time, or I snag on a rare memory of a piece of clothing or a feeling, and I extrapolate from there. I don't relive memories in the way that the article implies regular people do, and while I will recognize say, the smell of a specific library, a deeply ingrained scent for me, I don't remember the smell if I'm not standing there smelling it. And this explains my dedication to making an annual photobook documenting the past year, each December -- the photobooks are powerful memory triggers and have more than once reminded me where I was or what year it was when I did XYZ thing.

Also, turns out that one of the key methods for emotional regulation in most people is calling up a happy memory to counteract sad ones, which is why depression is so pervasive, because depressed people have literal biological impairments to remembering or reliving positive memories.

And SDAM, associated with aphantasia, is an impairment to reliving any memory at all, so...

Big ol' neurological yikes, guys.

[meltorights]

when you said aphantasia I first thought that you had a thing about the elephants in Fantasia and I figured hey good for her, those are cool

then I Learned Something (TM)

HHHHHHHHH the elephants in fantasia are cool but i dont have any thing about them

[sunshinetomioka]

Here is a small poem i wrote about my aphantasia

When I close my eyes

All I can see is darkness,

Darkness all over the place.

It's like a nightmare.

And I want to leave

Because I want to live

Like a normal person.

I don't want to feel like a bad version

Of human,

When other are like superman.

I wish I could fly

In these landscapes

So I might escape

From the darkness

Full of cries.

I may have aphantasia

But I still own my fantasia

[everwizard]

We’re Fucked Up

Chapter One

A Sanders Sides fanfiction.

Word count: 1547

Warnings: Fighting

Summary: Four men meet and they all have something in common. They all have a weird and rare neurological condition.

AO3 Link

Next Chapter

Logan was in his dorm, working on a group project for one of his classes. it was nothing too difficult, the graphic design professor simply wanted a poster advertising an issue of the student's choice.

His partner, Roman, was going on about his ideas for their Save the Bees poster. Logan was not really listening. Mostly because Roman's (probably rehearsed) Scottish accent drove Logan up the wall. So Logan just continued scrolling through the website he was researching on.

"Oh! I've got it!" Roman shouted suddenly.

"That's what you said four minutes ago, but proceed," Logan prompted.

"Okay, close your eyes," he began.

Logan started to argue, "I don't see why I need to-"

"Just do it, pocket protector!" Roman demanded.

Logan's complied and closed his eyes, releasing a sigh of resignation.

"Thank you," he begin again. "Now, imagine a villain that's an evil beekeeper. He got knocked out by the hero who is bee or honey themed. Something like that. There's a bunch of bees flying away from the beekeeper, excited to be released from his cruel grasp. And then-"

"That sounds nice, but I'm going to stop you there," Logan cut in.

"What for?" Roman asked, slightly offended.

"I can't imagine it," Logan said simply.

"Was it really that rubbish?" He had thought it was a pretty good idea, but maybe not.

"No, I just can't imagine things," he shrugged.

"What do you mean? Of course you can!"

Logan sighed. "I have aphantasia."

"A Fantasia? Like the Disney movie?"

Logan was taken aback. "What? No. Aphantasia. It means I cannot create images in my mind. I cannot see in my 'mind's eye' if you will. It's a neurological condition that I've had since I was a born."

Roman watched quietly while Logan explained. "Huh. Didn't know that was a thing. Must be weird."

"Not really. I don't have anything to compare it to."

The two sat quietly, looking at each other. Roman pondered what it would be like to not see in his head. Logan wondered if they should get back to their assignment.

Roman was the first to break the silence. "I have a brain thing, too."

Logan broke out of his thoughts. "A what?"

"A nero-whatever condition," he supplied. "It's why I talk like this."

"You mean it's not because you are," he wracked through his brain, "extra?"

"Oh I am, honey," he said with sass. "That's just not why I have an accent.

"When I was in high school, I got a really bad concussion from playing football. When I started recovering I woke up and my voice had changed. I've never been outside of the States and I've got American parents, but after the accident, I ended up with this Scottish accent.

"The doctor say it's called foreign accent syndrome and that I'll probably be like this for a long time."

"Interesting," Logan remarked. "So you damaged your left frontal lobe and it affected your speech patterns."

"Sounds 'bout right, yeah." He checked the time on his phone it was 1:30 in the afternoon. "Do you wanna get lunch? I'll buy."

"Sure, since you're buying."

They grabbed their things and headed out.

The pair of college students finished their meal at the sushi place they ate at. They were making the walk back to Logan's dorm when they noticed a fight break out across the street.

Fights weren't unusual where they lived, it was a rather large city. They were going to ignore it and continue walking until a small man watching the fight caught Romans eye.

He pulled Logan to a stop. "We have to help him," he said.

"Help who?" Logan asked, looking around.

"Him," Roman answered pointing to the man across the street. The man was small and wore a light blue polo. He had tears streaming down his face, which held the pained expression. He seemed to be frozen in place watching the fight unfold.

Logan looked over at the man and saw he was in pain. "I'm sure he is fine. He doesn't appear terribly injured. Besides, if he didn't want to get hurt, he shouldn't have become involved in the fight."

Roman groaned. "I don't think he was involved in the fight." He grabbed Logan's hand and pulled him into the street towards the blue-clad man.

"Jaywalking is illegal!" Logan reprimanded.

"Oi, would you shut up?" Roman retorted.

They reached the other side of the street and noticed the man was shaking.

"Fear not civilian! Your knight in shining armor is here!" Rowan declared. Logan sighed.

"Excuse me sir," he began. "Are you quite all right? My friend and I noticed you were distressed."

The man did not move but they could hear him muttering to himself. "It hurts. Everything hurts so much. I can't look away and it hurts!"

Roman sprung into action and stood between the man in the quarrel. He reached a gentle hand towards the smaller man's shoulder.

The man broke out of his trance like state at the touch. His knees buckled and he fell just in time for Logan to catch him. Tears continued to pour from his eyes as Logan held him.

"Are you all right, sir?" Logan tried again.

The man shuddered. "My car," he said pointing to a vehicle a short distance away.

Logan understood what was meant. "Roman, help me lift him and take him to his vehicle."

Roman nodded and reached down for the crying man. He lifted him up and he and Logan helped the man towards the car. They found it unlocked and Logan opened the door, allowing the man to take a seat.

Once the man was situated, Logan began. "May I take a look at your injuries?" He asked.

The man had begun to calm down. He was no longer shaking and is sobbing have been reduced to mere whimpering.

"There aren't any," he replied with a sniffle.

"Then why were you going on about everything hurting?" Roman interjected.

The man sighed and extended out his hand. "Hi, I'm Patton and I have mirror-touch synesthesia."

"My name is Logan," the student said, reaching to shake Patton's hand.

"I'm Roman! What's that?" Roman shouted, pushing Logan aside. Patton winced.

"It's a condition with my brain where I feel things other people feel. Like when you just pushed Logan. I felt that."

Romans face turned red, embarrassed. "Oh. Sorry 'bout that, mate. Sounds like it hurts."

"It can be really brain-ful sometimes, but I can also feel nice things. Like cats! And hugs!" Patton chirped. Logan groaned at the pun.

Patton's crying was completely gone now.

"That's cool," Roman replied. "It's like a weird superpower. Me and Logan have brain things, too."

"Logan and I," Logan corrected. "And I'm sure Patton and didn't need to-"

"That's neat, kiddos! What are they?"

"I've an accent and he can't think in pictures," Roman explained.

Patton's eyes widened. "Wow!"

Logan cleared his throat. "Well if we're finished, Roman and I should be on our way."

"Wait!" Patton yelled. "Can I take your kiddos to meet someone?"

The college students looked at each other, unsure.

Patton saw the look on their faces. "I know what you're thinking, but please trust me. You were so nice to me and I just want to return the favour."

Roman let out a sigh of resignation. "Sure. But if something happens, we won't hesitate."

"Thanks!" Patton chirped, putting the key in the ignition. "Hop in!"

Roman jumped into the passenger seat while Logan sat in the back. Patton started the car and drove away.

Five minutes and some small talk later, the trio arrived at a cemetery.

"He likes to hang out here a lot," Patton explained.

Logan was growing concerned. "Not that it wasn't fun getting to meet you, Patton, but I think it's time Roman and I go."

"Come on! Where's your sense of adventure?" Roman argued.

"Logan, please? I promise nothing's going to happen." Patton pleaded.

"Fine," he agreed. "Lead the way."

Patton walked through a few rows and came to a stop at a mausoleum.

"Dark, strange son?" Patton called out. "Are you here?"

"Don't call me that," a deep voice replied. "But yeah. I'm coming."

A moment later, the figure appeared from behind the mausoleum. They wore dark clothes; black jeans and a jacket with purple patches. His dark, purple-dyed hair hung in front of his eyes.

"Who are they?" The person asked Patton, raising an eyebrow.

"These are Logan and Roman. They're like us!" Patton pointed to each student as he said their name.

The person tilted his head and interest. This prompted Patton to continue.

"Roman has foreign accent syndrome and Logan has Fantasia."

"Aphantasia," the newcomer corrected. He took his hand out of his pocket and did a half wave. "Name's Virgil. I've got Cotard's syndrome."

"Wait a moment. How did you know the name of our conditions? We never told you." Logan demanded.

"We've done research on our own conditions," Virgil shrugged. "It's not hard to find information on similar conditions."

"So what's your deal, Hot Topic?" Roman asked.

"I think I'm dead." He didn't elaborate.

"Okay, so why are we here? How did we even meet? It statistically improbable!" Logan prodded.

"Isn't it obvious?" Virgil remarked. "We're fucked up."

Taglist under the cut

@deceitthesnakelord @larkiaquail @filmgatorisnotonfire @kfc-chickenyo @dedaartist @wrenweasly 

[copperbadge]

Damn, this is probably why affirmations won't work for me. If you hear a thought in a voice in your head and then say a different thought out loud, the two are in comparable contradiction. It's two of the same media vying for your attention. Whereas if I say an affirmation out loud I just feel like a dumbass for lying to myself, because I know the thought in my head is inaudible and undefined, and therefore is what I really think.

I mean, I definitely will think an inappropriate thing and then go "Well, that's inappropriate to express, and could be harmful to you," but that doesn't make it less my thought. It just makes it a thought I shouldn't express or act on. I don't judge my thoughts in terms of whether they make me a good or bad person, because I know that it's whether I act on them that matters, morally speaking.

Regardless, no amount of out loud talking can compete with the nonverbal stuff going on inside. Mediating that is like 90% of what I'm doing in most conversations and certainly in all my writing. Everything I think is getting on-the-fly stress-tested for propriety before becoming words, which is a huge reason I find socializing stressful. I often get the level wrong and say the wrong thing, or I'm working so hard to figure out whether I should say Thing One or Thing Two that I miss what someone else said. It's why I prefer digital communication, I can take time to refine the thought's words before I have to say it.

Also explains why stream of consciousness and automatic writing don't really work for me. There's always a mediator for me, converting thoughts to words, so it's impossible not to consider and refine as I go. I choose every word, I can't not, because I don't start out with them in place.

Well, fuck. I don't think there's any fixing that.

[copperbadge]

Okay so wait a minute, with this aphantasia thing. I don’t think I have aphantasia because I process audio fine, in fact I prefer not to have any visual, but apparently there is some relationship between it and ADHD. I’m not trying to be confrontational in any of this but I’m bewildered by the idea of mentally picturing things you listen to or read about. It’s bothered me since I posted the ask. 

I can picture things in my head, if I stop and make a conscious decision to build them, but if I’m doing that I can’t do anything else -- I can’t listen to a podcast and picture it in my head and also do something with my hands. Come to think of it I probably couldn’t even keep up with the podcast if I was trying to picture it in my head, I’d struggle to choose which things to imagine and by the time I got them built they’d have moved on. It never feels like a very useful thing to do, because I’ve already got the words, that’s the important part, and I’d rather be doing stuff. I just assumed that most of the time when people talk about picturing stuff they’re either doing it very deliberately, like a guided meditation, or they’re being poetic, like people don’t actually do that, we just say we do as a way of describing someone thinking about something.

So, I’m listening to a podcast in which the host reads a letter from Napoleon Bonaparte to his brother, discussing his brother’s relationship with his wife (“she’s still young, let her dance if she wants, don’t lock her up with the kids all day.”) If you see images in your head when you hear audio, are you seeing the host reading off a sheet of paper, or Napoleon writing the letter, or Napoleon talking to his brother, or are you seeing Napoleon’s brother being mean to his wife? If you don’t know what any of these people look like, do you just make something up? 

Jesus Christ, when people read erotica do they picture the sex happening? What’s that like? You just get porn in your head involuntarily? I mean, not involuntarily, you’re choosing to read the text, but it just shows up when you do? 

Writers, when you write do you get mental images as you go? I often will pause in writing to build a mental image in my head and then describe it but as soon as I do it disappears, and it’s mostly a waste of time so I really only do that when I need to describe a space that people are moving around in (like the fishing lodge with the kitchen bar dividing the living room and kitchen, I do have several mental “camera snaps” of that setup, but I don’t picture it when I’m writing about it). 

This might explain why I always get yelled at for not describing people in my books. It’s simply unimportant to me 99% of the time and awkward to try and insert it the other 1%. I don’t picture people in my head when I read -- they’re a personality, a collection of characteristics. My characters don’t have faces to me, like how people in dreams don’t have faces, you just know who they are. I describe them but that’s just words I really like, or I pick out people who already exist and just say “oh they look like that”. Obviously when someone wants a description I do my best to supply it, but in prose it’s just not important. 

This is genuinely blowing my mind. This is why people always want descriptions of things! They get to see the descriptions! Reading a book must be like going to an art gallery anytime you want without moving. Is that what it’s like? Is this super common, like am I the weird one, or is this just like for people with super vivid imaginations? 

[copperbadge]

Supposedly, people with Anphantasia don't get scared reading scary stories, or at least not much. Is that true with you if you ever read Horror?

You know, I'd never thought about it, but I suppose it is. To an extent, anyway.

Follows a discussion of my relationship to horror prose and media; if you don't know what aphantasia is, as many people coming to this tumblr don't, I have a tag for it here that may help -- it's basically the lack of a "mind's eye", a visual imagination, so I hear/read things and don't see an image of them in my mind. If you are scoffing right now that nobody actually has a mind's eye, congratulations, you may also have aphantasia. The articles linked in the tag will be useful to you.

I have definitely been scared by prose before but it's very rare, and not much since I was a child, when the stories I found scary were preying on fears I already had. I loved the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark books, and I think it's not unusual that I found the illustrations more frightening than the prose, but the only story that ever scared me was the one about the vampire who kept trying to grab a kid through a window -- because I had a window over my bed in my childhood bedroom and I was terrified I'd look up to see someone looking down at me through it. Likewise, as an adult, the only content in horror I find scary is what I think of as "mind horror" -- the loss of faculty or the loss of awareness of faculty (think the end scene of the novel Hannibal with the brain). Which is one of my biggest fears.

I don't read much horror because generally I get bored, which has in the past made me feel faintly appalled at myself, but which now makes more sense. Certainly I have no interest in slasher-style gore in prose, because I find it uninteresting and it goes on a really long time, while I don't watch it in movies/TV because the visual is upsetting -- so if I was getting the visual from the prose I might react more emotionally. I am a fan of Stephen King but mostly his early work where he was shorter on suspense, and I was reading it because I liked the ideas and the characters. Carrie is super interesting because of the personalities involved, not because of the violence or the horror aspects. But I've never seen a movie adaptation and I can imagine I would be deeply unsettled if not distraught by certain scenes if depicted visually. Although I didn't find the Hannibal TV series super upsetting (I mostly was put off by how bad I imagined Will smelled) so perhaps body horror just doesn't do it for me.

This may also explain my hard-no on zombie media, because I'm not scared at all of zombies, I just find them boring and gross, and that leaves the post-apocalyptic humans. My hard-no on post-apocalypse anything is an aversion to imagining the end of my world, though, which isn't visual, it's conceptual, and not scary, just upsetting.

Like, people kept suggesting Zombies Run! to me when I was taking up running and -- well, one, I needed the music to keep my pace, I didn't want it interrupted. But two, I didn't see why a bunch of random groaning noises would make me run faster. If you could see zombies chasing you in your head, yeah, that'd probably be more motivating.

It kind of explains too why I haven't written much horror. I used to be very curious about how people worked out what's "scary" in horror prose and I guess part of the curiosity came from not experiencing it myself. It's tough to know how to write a scary story when stories don't scare you.

To be clear, I definitely experience fear. Reading Stephen King's "It" didn't really scare me, but there were scary moments in the film adaptations. I startle at jumpscares. There's plenty of stuff in real life that I'm scared of. And even podcasts -- I don't get mental images during podcasts like apparently most people do, but Magnus Archives got me with the "digging into your pre-existing fears" thing once or twice, and while I didn't finish The Left Right Game (I just got bored) the hitchhiker scene definitely got me. But I think, unless it's playing on something conceptual that already existed, yeah, I don't find prose particularly frightening.

Huh. This feels like the kind of thing that could have a significant impact on my creative output if I could crowbar my way into it. Knowing that I as an aphantic don't need descriptions that other people do has already, I think, impacted my editing process, but this feels like it maybe would somehow have an effect on the whole thing -- the fact that I don't experience emotions when reading in the same way other people do because I don't get the visuals is something to meditate on.

How the fuck did I ever even become a writer. Like what's up with that.

(Ironically it was X-Files fanfic. X-Files, a show that very much did scare me, for which I wrote and read a lot of fanfic, none of which did...yikes. Well, that's something to meditate on for the weekend.)

[copperbadge]

I'm starting to think one reason (of many) you're such a good writer is you think in words instead of mental images. It could make it easier to express yourself in words to other people. When I write I have to try to fully express what's on in the three dimensional, surround sound smellovision cinema in my head, and I will never be able to do that.

I do wonder -- whether for good or ill it has definitely had an impact. (For new readers, I have aphantasia, the lack of a "mental eye" or inner visual world, which you can read more about in the "aphantasia fantasia" tag; it's disproportionately common to neurodiverse individuals, along with poor autobiographical memory). I don't know if it's better training for expression, because without knowing how words invoke mental images I don't really know how effective I'm being, but I think it does make for easier first drafts. And probably some of the popularity of my fanfic in specific is that it allows people to project a good deal onto the story/characters, because I tend to keep the visual details vague.

One of the longest-running complaints about my work is that it's much of a muchness, all my characterizations and stories are the same. While on the one hand that's obviously not a compliment, I think that is also attached to the fact that I'm not very visually specific, so not entirely my fault; if people are reading the same things into my work over and over it's probably because of a lack of imagination on their part as well. (I've tried to work on this as a skill, but I'm aware that haters gonna hate, so I don't take envy-driven criticism too much to heart anymore.) I think it's less homogeneity than it is simple vagueness.

But yeah also I would imagine if you're driven to give a very specific visual impression it would be SUPER frustrating if you feel like you can't, either because there aren't words or because you don't feel you have the skills yet. A lot of skill in writing is just practice, but "just practice" is a real minimizing phrase. I'm not someone who subscribes to the idea that talent doesn't matter, because I think it does; I think it's much easier to practice when you derive pleasure from the thing you're practicing, which I think is linked to talent.

Yeah, I dunno. Certainly it explains why most of my early adult writing was in theatre, where you're leaving a lot up to the designers and director in any case.

Rutherford & Fry did a podcast episode about aphantasia that I should probably get back to listening to, but I can't listen to much of it at once; some of it is the sense of being perceived, but some of it is also envy, because they talk to someone who has aphantasia but not ADHD and she's like "Yeah my mind is super quiet, it's nice" and I may not see images or hear noises in my head but still somehow manage a truly inconvenient level of chaos there. :D

[copperbadge]

Was ruminating on your fascinating exploration of the fact that some people visualize descriptions and some don’t, when this turned up in my queue: The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry: The Case of the Blind Mind’s Eye. Have you listened to their science podcast? LOTS of people don’t visualize, and R&F investigate why. 😊Neurodiversity FTW! 😊

Thank you! @yee-jun recommended it as well, and I've just downloaded the episode and after a bit of listening subscribed -- always like to find new podcasts. I haven't finished listening to the episode yet but it is rather validating to know that a ton of people also have aphantasia and don't realize it. I mean, having it, I'm actually quite fine with that, although it's causing me to re-evaluate some things, but not having known that a lot of the world sees things very differently in their heads, that was throwing me for a bit of a loop.

I do a lot of thinking, these days, about the ways in which I was different, as a kid, from most of the other kids around me. Not in a bad way really, just like "Oh...this is why that was the way it was." Like when I was ten or eleven our teacher would spend about an hour each day reading aloud to us (usually classic YA novels; I think we did a couple of Wizard of Oz books and maybe some Boxcar Children?) and I always needed something else to be doing because I found it so understimulating. Usually I was allowed to do a handcraft of some kind because otherwise I Caused Problems. I mean they were really imaginative problems, like inventing silent games to play that the teacher couldn't see while reading, but they were still Problems. Letting me make friendship bracelets while I listened was so much easier on everyone.

At the time I thought it was impatience because I could read so much faster than anyone reading aloud would be able to; I understood that other kids sometimes struggled with reading so I knew the purpose of the Reading Aloud Hour was to get kids who weren't interested in reading a bit of literary culture. But looking back, my impatience was almost definitely that all my friends were sitting there getting a little movie in their heads, and I was just there like "I am bored by the slow words and ADHD makes the boredom intolerable, fight me."

[copperbadge]

This morning I was doing the dishes, ruminating on something else, when someone on the podcast I was listening to referenced Dimension 20, which is the channel (possibly the originator? -- ETA, no, that was Adventure Zone it appears) for one of those “Funny and charming people play RPGs for your entertainment” shows. 

I don’t have anything against the Watch An RPG genre, and I certainly watch my fair share of stuff like Lets Plays, but I’ve seen a few episodes of various Dimension 20 shows and while it’s not offputting it’s also just like...not something that really grips me. Which is surprising, because I love collaborative storytelling and improvised fiction, but I think it’s possibly because of the aphantasia. Well, all right, in combination with the ADHD, but.... 

The problem I kept having was that every time someone does anything in the game, all action stops while the DM describes the result -- how the NPCs react, changes in the environment, that sort of thing. Which if you’re playing a game is all data, so while it’s still a little difficult during actual gameplay I usually can pay pretty close attention. And if you’re just listening to someone tell a story, there’s a narrative to follow that’s fairly direct and usually pretty devoid of flat exposition. But if I’m watching other people play a storytelling game, then it hits my brain like a verbal infodump without direct relevance to me. And I don’t get any visual, so it’s like....hearing someone read a spreadsheet aloud. 

So I tune out, because ADHD, and then I miss whatever happens next. But there’s almost always some brief emotional reaction to whatever happened, which grabs my attention, and I tune back in...just in time for another long descriptive moment. Which is now about people and places I’m not even familiar with because I tuned out. 

It’s absolutely not the fault of Dimension 20, I think it’s evident that a huge number of people derive a ton of enjoyment from it. But it’s nice to have put a finger on why I just can’t bring myself to watch and when I do watch I can’t manage to invest. It must be so much more fun and interesting if you can see the game rolling out in your head! 

[copperbadge]

I'm sorry, but that post is driving me absolutely insane. What is it like to not see images in your head? Is it like being blind? How do you know what's happening?

The words...tell me what's happening.

(Incidentally, sorry to everyone seeing a million posts about this topic today -- they're all tagged "an aphantasia fantasia" if you need to block.)

So the words tell you what to see in your head -- even if it's unconscious you do need the words to make you make the picture -- and then you have a feeling about what you're seeing, yes? I just skip the seeing bit and go straight to the feeling. (When you see images you do have feelings about them, right? Because otherwise I have so many more questions.)

I don't know if it's like being blind because I've never experienced being blind, though I am starting to get a little uneasy around all the "why would you read if you can't see the images" sentiment on behalf of blind people. Do people think blind people don't like to read? Do you think you can't feel things if you can't see them? (Obviously some blind people do see mental images, particularly if not blind from birth, but generally speaking I'm guessing most blind-from-birth people don't.)

What people are doing physically in space, in a book, is rarely important to me. If Michaelis walks across the room to give Jes a hug, I don't care what room and I don't need to see him walk, what I care about is the fact that a character offered his loved one comfort. I might, for fun, picture the two of them hugging, but if so it's a hazy image without faces, and I have to stop reading (or writing) to do it.

I'm more interested in a direct connection to the feeling. Like, I'm fairly sure Jes is shorter than Michaelis in most peoples' minds, and I might even have described a situation where they are in previous books, but I also wrote a scene in Twelve Points where Jes hooks their chin over Michaelis's shoulder from behind, to give him a bit of a cuddle and watch someone else leave the fishing lodge. Probably that's not physically possible but I don't really know or care, because the sensation is the important thing, of two people who love each other experiencing something together. I write to inspire thoughts and feelings; the idea of writing to show someone else a mental movie, while alluring as a concept, never crossed my mind.

[copperbadge]

Okay, I went outside and touched some grass (or, well, I had potato pancakes at Christkindlmarket, which is functionally the same thing) and thought about the aphantasia post. I probably will not get to reply to most of the comments/reblogs/asks, just because there are so many, but I’ll look through them and see if I can pull out some stuff to share with you guys. 

As many of you said, visual imagination is a spectrum, and one of my friends off-tumblr reminded me implicitly that I am a researcher and can look this shit up. As she and I think maybe some people in comments pointed out, it’s something like 25% of people who have no visual association with words, and closer to 40% are somewhere in the “don’t see things when I read” category, so it’s not a full on outlier situation.

I don’t think I would find this as perplexing and unsettling if I weren’t a writer, because there’s such an intimate link between prose and imagination and I’ve been going about the prose end of it as if everyone felt like I do about words which...I guess they don’t, mostly. Which is not an indictment, of other people or of me, it’s not better or worse, just different -- the struggle is in how unexpected the difference was. 

I have a feeling, as I said to a couple of people, that this is either going to make me a much better writer very quickly or it’s going to fuck me up for a while. But, well, the ADHD diagnosis already fucked me up this year, so just add it to the stack of books about why Sam is a weirdo, we’re building a library. 

[copperbadge]

On the topic of aphantasia / inner monologue: do you not get songs stuck in your head then? Because I will walk around with the same catchy chorus on repeat in my brain but if you don't actually "hear" your inner voice do you "hear" inner music?

I was actually thinking about this the other day!

It's a little difficult to verbalize because it's tough to describe an abstraction like thought. I do get songs stuck in my head, though it's relatively rare and usually easily fixed -- most of the time it's as easy as putting some other music on or distracting myself with a book or something. Generally it only happens when I'm very lacking in other stimulus or extremely tired, which is probably an ADHD thing, not that I thought about that until just now.

But I don't hear music in my head; until recently I’ve always thought that was an expression for something more abstract and non-literal, precisely because abstract thought is so hard to describe. When I have a song “stuck in my head” I just think about the lyrics, usually a fragment of the full song, in a repeating loop, making it difficult to think about other things. I could never, for example, get a classical piece with no lyrics stuck in my head. There’s simply nothing to think about. 

I do wonder if not hearing music in my head is the reason I have such a difficult relationship to music as a musician -- I really enjoy playing the ukulele but I will always be blocked from certain levels of musical ability by certain things I simply can’t do. I can’t identify a note by ear; despite playing piano my whole childhood and currently playing the ukulele I will never hear a note and go “Ah yes, that’s C.” I felt entirely lost as a child when I was made to do theory, because I couldn’t understand how the math they were trying to tell me about was connected to playing music. I still don’t understand time signatures (please don’t try to explain them, I also don’t care). Until I could climb around in the concept of “keys” and figure out the metaphor of the decoder ring for how keys worked, I didn’t understand that, either, and I was in my late thirties then. 

In any case, I would imagine the levels of annoyance are probably pretty similar, I just don't actually hear it, and that probably makes it easier to get rid of it.

[copperbadge]

WELL everyone has a lot of feelings about visual imagination. :D 

I went through the reblogs and comments on the two main posts I made about it and I decided not to respond to the reblogs mainly because the tags sometimes addressed me but most of the reblogs were offering personal accounts, which were very interesting to read but I don’t think really needed input from me. The same held true for a lot of the comments, but I found a few I wanted to answer.

I did want to say that I want us to be careful when we talk about visual imagination and visual thinking, or lack thereof -- the word “hallucination” came up occasionally (mainly in terms of “someone else said this” or in terms of self-description, which is a personal prerogative) and hallucination generally implies that you can’t control or discern the reality of what you’re perceiving, plus it carries negative/pejorative implications a lot of the time. I’d like to keep this discussion neutral and also make sure we refrain from stigmatizing hallucination, either, so just be cautious in how you discuss all of this. People shouldn’t feel belittled for the way in which they perceive the world, whatever that perception might be. You guys have actually been really great about this but it’s always good to vocalize those boundaries. 

gallusrostromegalus

If you tell me to picture an apple, i can imagine several apples, with different sizes, weights, textures and colors, and how the internal structure of the fruit develops from the bud like a time-lapse movie. It's wild to me that people CANNOT do this- though hilariously, it affects my writing in that I straight-up don't put descriptions in because my brain auto-generates scenes and appearences for me and I think i kind of assume everyone else's brain does too

Which is especially bananas because I don’t put in descriptions because I don’t see the point, like why would anyone want a bunch of irrelevant words, get to the important words! Two ends of a weird-ass range, I suppose. 

akela-nakamura

I very much see a picture when I'm writing/reading. In fact I sometimes get frustrated when I'm writing because I can't -quite- get the right words to describe what's in my head. It's not like, All of the time but I visualize things often and it usually doesn't get in my way. It's just...there lol

A bunch of people said that often when they write they’re describing the pictures in their head, which does sound incredibly frustrating and tedious at times, as a practice -- trying to get the right word to evoke a mental image does seem much harder than just picking a fun word that indicates the vibe, which is what I do. They’re difficult in different ways but yeah it does sound very annoying. 

taketheshot21

Brains are fascinating. Question, is it the same for voices? Do you 'hear' characters own voices in your head when you read/write or not?

It seems as though some people who don’t get visual do get audio, but I don’t get either. If I want to know how something sounds, I have to say it out loud myself -- often before I publish something I’ll read it out loud to myself to check for flow. Occasionally if I’m writing a scene in the Shivadhverse where I’m not sure of the speech patterns, I’ll go listen to people speaking in Welsh accents on YouTube to fix the accent in my mind for a bit so that I can write it properly, but it needs refreshing every time I do it. 

Like, in Twelve Points there’s a scene where Noah says something surprising to most of the family, and there’s a beat of silence before Michaelis starts to laugh -- and I know exactly how to evoke a sense of his reaction, but I don’t hear any of it in my mind, or see him sitting at the dinner table laughing. I have some sense of how most of the adults sound, but I’m around teenagers so rarely that I don’t really hear Noah’s voice at all -- but writing him as a twentysomething in a later story, I have a much better sense of what his fully-adult voice would sound like. 

byteduchess

I don't get mental IMAGES but I will experience phantom sensations sometimes especially with certain gory/painful descriptions which is. Fun.

This is why I assumed horror was such a popular genre for fiction podcasts, because it’s a “safe” way of experiencing horror stories without having to deal with the visuals or the jumpscares. It’s very perplexing to me now to know that some people absolutely still get the visuals, with horror podcasts. Although I suppose it still offers a higher level of control. 

svollga

People in dreams have faces...

Yeah, that must have sounded kind of creepy, I forget most people who dream in visuals do see faces. I knew that I was a bit unusual for not seeing them in dreams but it’s not like I see blank heads, I just never see anyone from the neck up, or if I do their face is in shadow. 

snazzy-hats-and-adhd

Hrm. Well now I kinda want to go and do a close reading of some of your stuff specifically looking for visual imagery to see if I can quantify an opinion on it, but since I've been following you since before I realized you had actual books published, it's probably a moot point. I hope your potato pancakes were delicious. 💜

They were! I do wonder how my books must read to people with visual imaginations, but comments seem to indicate I’m not bad at it (and thank you to those who said that, it was very reassuring), so my writing to evoke feeling and their reading to inspire seeing/hearing must mesh pretty well. It’s definitely something I’m going to keep in mind going forward, the fact that people will actually see what I describe, but I think also that might be why my fanfic is reasonably popular -- I leave a lot of scope for peoples’ minds to fill in the blanks, which we already want in fandom a lot of the time. 

thebibliosphere

Yeah, I am in the same boat and I get pissed off being told to "describe more things" and I'm like "why? That's just clunky." When I read and write I'm enjoying the formation and rhythm of the words, not the images in my head, because I do not have any. I can't even do it when I focus really hard and do nothing else. It's like a dream I can't reach. According to my psych person that's aphantasia but *shrug*. I've never known any different.

It really is bonkers. I’ve never known any different either, at least that I know of, and I don’t know that I get annoyed with it but I did used to be a bit confused as to why people wanted more description, it just always felt like padding to me. I once got into it with someone about how Sam Vimes is never described fully in the Discworld books, and I was like “Why would you? Pterry gets away with it, I should be able to” (which is rather arrogant of me admittedly) and they were like BECAUSE IT’S REALLY ANNOYING NOT TO HAVE A DESCRIPTION. And now I get why! Poor Sam Vimes was just a blur in their head! 

I don’t want to go into therapy but I’m reaching a point where I’m like “If I wait any longer, no therapist is going to take me” :D

br-nz

This is fascinating to me because i have a very rich visual inner world. I write fic too and i literally see the stories play out in my head, like a movie. It’s how i put myself to sleep at night, i lie there and plot out more scenes.

I mean, I do that too, I just don’t see the scenes visually. I think about situations and interactions, and sometimes I take notes if I come up with a really good turn of phrase, but it’s literally Telling Myself, there’s no showing :D 

delphinidin4

I would love to read your source on ~40% of people don't visualize when they read! I'm really interested in psychology and the imagination.

I actually got the stat reversed so apologies for that, but the research comes from the Wiki on Visual Thinking, so less reading in specific than just cognition in general: 

Research by child development theorist Linda Kreger Silverman suggests that less than 30% of the population strongly uses visual/spatial thinking, another 45% uses both visual/spatial thinking and thinking in the form of words, and 25% thinks exclusively in words.

laurabwrites

This is where the phrase 'in the mind's eye' comes from btw. Lots and lots of people picture things visually in the mind. As with everything there's a range of how detailed the visualizations are/can be. This website might be helpful to you: https://aphantasia.com/vviq/

Oh that test was really interesting and also extremely frustrating to take, lol. :D  

[copperbadge]

i should add, vis a vis adding in sensations - that is an EDITOR'S role. your fanfic and i suspect a lot of your pro work springs out in the first draft. just because it 'feels' natural doesn't mean we didn't screw it on like an extra lightbulb in a later draft, and not a single reader needs to know that. like don't stress out the writer inside you. it's very much about describing the elephant

I have gotten better about adding in descriptions, mainly because I know I don't do it enough -- the two problems I always have are the first chapter (I almost always go back and completely rewrite it, to the point where you guys never even see the first draft of it anymore) and physical description. To me, in Fete, the descriptions are really blatant, but that's also part of the romance genre in some ways -- if you read romance novels, even really good ones, it can be a bit jarring because the relationships start very quickly, and the descriptions are often weirdly loving given the people are just meeting.

But that is the nice thing about writing romance novels, there's...a bit of permission to not be quite so polished. I loved Six Harvests and I think it's probably my best work, but man that book was a wrestling match. The Shivadh books just kinda fall out of me, and if they're clumsy then that gives me space to experiment and learn, like when I was first writing fanfic.

Although admittedly Royals/Ramblers is giving me grief, but it is BOOK FIVE I wrote in THIS YEAR ALONE so I'm trying to just take a break from it and come back later. I'm trying to do a lot in a single book but there's not a lot of space to split it, so we'll see.

[copperbadge]

Re: Songs stuck in your head: Weirdly, I hear ACTUAL music 🎼 stuck in my head: a section of song, on loop, full sound, lyrics and instrumental and VOICE of whomever I heard sing it, like a human sampler. Same for human voices in general, and I replay memories like video, full immersive and surround sound. Is there a WORD for the extreme opposite of aphantasia? 😕

I mean, I think that's just towards the far end of normal. I know a lot of people don't like the world normal and with good reason, but I can't think of a better way to put it, unless we use something like mainstream. Perhaps majority. You might be at the far end of the visualization spectrum, though, which I'm sure comes with its own strangeness.

If you're interested in learning more, Rutherford & Fry's The Case Of The Blind Mind's Eye does talk a little about outliers at either end. I've only managed to get ten minutes in, because it's a bit difficult so I've been taking it in small doses, but what I did listen to seemed solid and was very interesting.

I get into weird little cycles around this brain stuff where I'll do some research and find out something that's upsetting, and I can't figure out why I'm so upset since it's only data, it's not actually affecting my life, and then after I calm down I don't know how I should feel, even as I'm well aware I don't really have to feel anything about it, it can just exist. It's not...stressful, it's certainly easier to cope with than some times in my life, but it's not easy, either.

I was joking a while ago that the rule of thumb is for every year you were in a relationship it takes a month to recover from a breakup, and that can be applied to massive life changes of all kinds, and so "In three and a half years I should be fine", but honestly I'm at the point where I wonder. Guess we'll know by my 46th birthday.