On Writing and Reading with Aphantasia

Apparently, most people have PICTURES in their imagination. What?!?! Not me. I've got aphantasia.
For most of my life, I thought that when people or guided meditations told me to "visualize", they were being figurative. Turns out...they meant it literally. But even without pictures in my head, I love to read and I love to write, and I write fantasy novels. Readers often tell me how vivid my books are. So, how do I do it?
In this video, I'll talk about my experience with aphantasia as a reader and a writer, and present a pretty bold theory as to why I think a lack of mental pictures might actually be a help to writers, rather than a hindrance. And I'd love to know about your experience, too!
Quick note on identity-first vs. person-first language in this video: I know that a lot of neurodivergent folks would rather have their diagnosis integrated with their identity, i.e. "an ADHDer" or "an autistic person" rather than "a person with [your neurodivergence here]". My personal preference for talking about my own aphantasia is "a person with aphantasia." Because even though it definitely makes me interact with, remember and maybe write about the world differently than most people, I still don't consider my life to be run by it. It's the only "normal" I've ever known, and I'd rather be a person first than a diagnosis. Your preference may be different, and that's okay! ^_^
RESOURCES:
"Vividness of Visual Imagery" quiz: aphantasia.com/vviq/
A quick overview of the phantasia spectrum: mashable.com/article/do-i-hav...

[@makingmeaningnow]

Fun to reflect on. I too do not see images in my mind and I have always wondered why writers spend so many pages on describing how characters and settings look 😂 Once I realized I have aphantasia is made a lot more sense. I mostly just skip over those parts to get to the story. 😂 I am a painter and since realizing that other people actually see what they want to paint in their head I have been ruminating on how I know what to lay down where. I think it might make me generally more happy with the work I create as the common lament of other artists is that they are unhappy with their work as it does not look like how they saw it in their head. I am always just surprised at how it turns out 😂

[@jessicasblack]

This just blew my mind!!! I always thought I was visualizing but apparently I was just having an idea of something. Like I know what an apple looks like so I just recall it and don't "see" it. It's an idea of an apple and memorization. Visually it's all blank. I asked my husband and he said he can actually see things. This explains so much! Like my need to memorize everything and my inability to describe the creative things I think of or to make original drawings. I can copy really well but I couldn't come up with and draw my own concept.

[@sidneyn1366]

This is my experience too. If I've seen the thing before, I can pull up the idea of that thing but there is no REAL picture. I just KNOW what it looks like. But reading or hearing a description of something I've never seen, all I can do is KNOW what that list looks like piece by piece. It's particularly...sad when I try and remember what my loved ones look like. Obviously I can recognize their faces when I see them and I know what the look like but I can't call up a picture of them in my head.

[@jessicasblack]

@@sidneyn1366 I tried this exact same thing earlier trying to picture my Grandma. And I couldn't see her, even though I very much know what she looks like, but I could distinctly hear her voice. It's so interesting to realize that I wasn't actually visualizing anything but just recalling it from memory. For 47 years, I thought that was visualizing.

[@BB-ui2vi]

Aphantasia is such an interesting concept to me. I am a very visual thinker. I would say 95% of my thoughts and memories are actual snippets and/or pictures - like short movie clips of sorts. It is so ... outlandish to try and imagine how it would feel to not have all those visuals in my head at all times. Not sure if that's normal, but when I close my eyes I even get random images (scenes) that are not at all connected to my life or the situation I'm in. No idea what prompts my brain to create those but it's interesting. You really describe so well in your writing and I totally agree that you don't need visual descriptions in writing to create pictures and entire scenes. We all just experience whatever we can in whichever way we can and that's what's so great about reading and writing. Thank you for this video! It was really very interesting and I'd certainly welcome more content like this if you have ideas :)

[@alekvillarreal3470]

Fascinating! From an amateur writer with pictures in my head, this was eye-opening. Thank you for sharing 🙏

[@TakeBackOurCountry-RFKJ24]

I'm a writer with aphantasia and an avid reader. I never knew I was different until my 30s. I do dream like a movie, but as soon as I wake up it fades SUPER FAST. I remember the elements, but I can't see it. I also cannot recall memories visually. It's more like a library of stories in my head with no pictures. With writing I am just making 1000000 decisions about every single detail. I lean into symbolism more than my other writing friends. I think and imagine in words and I think it helps me in some ways because I don’t have to try to make the pictures in my head match the perfect word choice on the paper. Instead it all comes in words first. I also find I lean a lot into emotion and interiority of characters more than what things look like. I also like using things like playlists, vision boards, drawn maps etc...to help when I need to.

[@TheGJRuppert]

Great video. I'm 59, love to read, and my first book (novella) is being edited now. I'm a 0 on the aphant scale. Didn't even know the minds eye was real until I was 45 or so. It still blows me we away to think about being able to 'visually hallucinate' at will.

[@user-hl6cl4kh2i]

I really needed this. And I really needed to know there are other writers who face this like I do.

[@tangible_audio1060]

I usually describe the way I imagine/remember things as knowing the relationships between things. Like starting with a chair; well it has to be made of something, let's say wood; ok, then an object has a texture, so is it finished or unfinished and with what?, etc. Essentially my entire internal process is essentially writing descriptions in the most helpful and fun way I can, so actually writing a description is pretty natural and already only has the interesting parts and feelings/senses. Thinking in connections also works really well in story development because tracing those relationship threads can suddenly snap a web of story information into place, sometimes taking the plot or character to places you didn't expect.

[@user-fy5fy1wk4h]

I too have aphantasia and can relate to this intire video. It makes me happy to see videos about it because it's so unknown to most people. I also like to read but I always get bored at the characters descriptions and don't pay it attention so when I see an adaptation to a book it's so weird to me because I never actually thought about how the characters look. I visualize in concepts like you said so I love dynamic scenes and descriptions of thoughts and feelings. Just your dragon description made me want to read a book of yours. I'm currently reading a phantasy book in which the dragon was described as "the most hideous creature you could think of", and the image was left vague and I really liked it.

[@Horisevaharju]

I read an intereview of a person with aphantasia last year and the dream thing came up. They said that they think they see the dreams but can't really be sure. The memory of the dream is like a memory of a movie watched, and with aphantasia, the memory isn't visual, but you still know you saw it. For me dreams are, like you mentioned all 5 senses, but my visual thinking limits to almost invisible flashes of the shapes, and if I try to visualize the spaces or objects, I think of them in a tactile or spatial way. For dreams, I remember that I saw them, like the person in the interview said, but I know I've been there because the spatial memory is more "vivid".

[@LeilaAMMartin]

Yes, that's probably the biggest bummer is that I can't hold on to the dreams once I wake up, can't see them anymore. But I can remember having seen something or someone, and can recall facts about their appearance (blue shirt, brown eyes, whatever), just like in real life. It's similar to remembering a movie that I've seen, definitely. The thing from dreams that stays with me the longest is the emotion, which is often pretty intense! So I can say I know I saw them in the same way that I know I saw my mom yesterday, but I can't call up the visual of either of those things now that they have passed.

[@rwathome7232]

A few years ago I realised that I have aphantasia. I can’t visualise to save my life but I have very vivid dreams in colour and quite often with a full orchestra providing a soundtrack. I’ve become aware that it is a sign of falling asleep when pictures arise in my mind.

[@cozycottageediting]

Interesting topic! I hope this finds a lot of other writers who have aphantasia! I took that quiz, and I don't have it or see flat, colorless images, but I still find visualizing hard and exhausting. I get vivid flashes of partial images that I can't hold onto for more than a split second. If I don't associate a character with a celebrity or a specific person, I have absolutely no concrete image of them--only a feeling and presence with a knowledge of their general features. And those usually feel like the most vivid characters to me.

[@BrentARJ]

My wife and I both love to read, and she is a very vivid visualizer while I have aphantasia. She was asking me how I can get so engrossed in a book when I can't see it, and I said because without the visual sense, I instead hear the story in my mind, the inflection of the spoken words, like a performance - even the narrative sections have a tone and pace like narration. I feel the scene, I hear it, I smell it. My other interior senses fill in for the lack of visualization so much that I never even realized I had no mind's eye until I was 40. The other interesting difference between us is that I care about, and am moved by, the choice of words and the style of writing much more than my wife. She prioritizes clear descriptions so she can picture what's going on, to the extent that she's actually put off by literary fiction that plays too much with language and form because it gets in the way for her. I, on the other hand, really relish great writing, and can get lost in how a writer expresses their ideas, even when they go off on long non-visual, atmospheric tangents. I've wondered if that might be due to our differences in visualization.

[@helencantimagine]

In October of 2022, at 68 years of age, I discovered I had aphantasia. I was having a casual conversation with my daughter. She said you know how you visualize it in your head. I said no. She was blown away. She had seen some things about aphantasia on Tic-Toc. A week later, I found out I also had no internal monologue. I don't feel upset about it. It just means I'm a unique person. I can read. I've kept a journal on and off since I was 11 years old, and my daughter tells me having aphantasia and no internal monologue is why I'm so chill. I'm a visual learner. When people start describing how they're going to construct something, I can't picture that, so I have to wait for the project to be completed before I understand what it looks like. Friends and family do comment about my memory and how well I remember things. My hope is to meet someone one-on-one, face-to-face, and talk about it. Videos are great, but talking to another person live is my goal.

[@Sally-vf8eh]

For a very long time I assumed everyone had hyperphantasia and were able to visualize with all five senses engaged, and not only that but they did what my psych calls "parallel processing" of verbal thoughts and those images all the time. It just goes to show how different we are and how diverse our perspectives can be, even neurologically. Really interesting hearing your perspective as a writer!

[@Miguel_Gabriel_]

Woahhhhh !!! I feel like not so alone now…

[@keithrobertson2260]

great book! I am an avid reader and have mainly skipped descriptive parts.

[@Lollo_Dark2015]

I'm a total aphant 😕 even silence is louder than my own thoughts

[@BlueMiaou]

I have visual imagination and I also like writing while keeping descriptions to the bare minimum and making it atmospheric instead... It's easier on my attention span, haha!

[@willowwright8526]

Thank the algorithm! I was just talking to a philosopher about the experience of life with aphantasia - sent this to them immediately. Please share more if there are more words you have to say on the topic!

[@micron000]

At 32 years old, I've recently realized that I have Aphantasia. I've always been a fan of reading and writing, I adore words and am a big fan of storytelling in general. Since realizing that most people can actually SEE images in their head (still blows my mind to think about), I've been noticing that most of the stories I enjoy, are very character-driven. I've never been a big fan of action in writing, which I suppose makes sense looking back. Much like you've spoken about here, when I write, a lot of my descriptions tend to be emotion-based, or relay on other senses rather than visual. I never had any real issues with reading other people's visual descriptions, but I do sometimes find myself skimming them quickly, in order to get to the "good part"; Which to me, lies in emotional, often inter-personal drama. In my own writing, I've noticed that I sometimes refer to a character's vibe or aura, and when applicable, I usually fall back on tactile descriptors (E.g. textures, temperature etc) more than anything else. Even when I do try to describe a visual, it tends to be very spatially-driven, such as describing the distances between certain characters or objects. When I do make references to visual aspects, such as colors or lighting, it's usually a narrative plot-device - Like, describing a light shinning through the window, tells the reader that it's daytime, without me having to outright explain that it's day. Sometimes I'll embellish these descriptions to make them a bit more interesting, but it's never been because I believed people would actually see what I'm describing in their head. I just go into detail because I love writing, and enjoy finding the words to describe what I'm trying to convey in a captivating manner. I mean, if I have to set up the scene anyway, I always try to make it enjoyable to read. So I guess these could be seen as "visual descriptors", but honestly that's never my actual intention. None of this was a conscious decision, by the way. Purely visual descriptors just never came very naturally to me, which is why I rarely use them.. And when I do, I think it's mostly because I've learned that's how it "should" be done. I've honestly never given it much thought before discovering Aphantasia, it just felt natural to me to describe things this way, since this is how I see the world and experience my own memories. I simply never knew that most people didn't experience it the same way I did lol. Looking back at some of my writing (I mostly write fan fiction for genre shows I love), knowing what I know now, is honestly pretty hilarious. Like, I've written a whole 60K word fanfic about two characters forming a mental telepathic connection - Where, among other things, I've referred to the main character's "mind's eye" as a "dark void", stating that having the other person in her head, helped "light up the usual darkness" she'd see every time she closed her eyes. Later in that same story, when she has trouble "clearing her mind", I even made a reference to how she has always hated meditation for this very reason lol. Like, all the signs were honestly always there - And looking back I'm kinda amazed that people actually read and liked (I hope at least) the story, since I think I've done a poor job of representing most people's experience of a "mind's eye". Then again, I suppose said character never stated on the show that she didn't have Aphantasia, so maybe the readers assumed this was just my own interpretation... And who knows, some readers could have Aphantasia as well, whether they know it or not haha. Anyway, just thought I'd share because I find this topic very interesting and rarely see people discussing it. Thank you for making this video! I relate to a lot of what you've described, and it makes me feel better about my own writing, to hear it being described as a potential benefit as well and not just a lack.

[@LeilaAMMartin]

I love this reply, and you are so spot on about using visual descriptions because that's "how it's done". Culturally, we're all so exposed to things like the mind's eye or a person reliving memories or other like really vivid experiences that I honest to goodness always thought were figurative, because I'm not capable of experiencing my brain that way. I was just thinking about dreams today because for the past two nights in a row, I've been playing a couple of hours of a hidden object horror video game before bed, and both nights my dreams have been super vivid and in puzzle form, so it's basically my brain's interpretation of that game in my own life. Less horror, more puzzle. But I thought to myself, how would I describe having fully immersive movielike dreams to somebody who's like, well, if your mind's eye doesn't work, how do you know that your dreams were visual and vivid and all that stuff? And then I thought to myself, well, if I saw a movie, I would know that I had just seen it even if I couldn't call up visual memories of what had been on the screen. And with dreaming it's basically the same.

[@guerra_dos_bichos]

one thing I've read , years ago, when aphantasia was not even uses, was a person in a forum describing it like being able to logically understand an image without having to create it. for instance, I can't imagine a plant growing from a seed to a sapling , but I know immediately what you mean when you ask me to imagine it. I can't imagine the process on A B C D E steps, but I can describe all the steps if you ask me .

[@dr.bandito60]

This is a great explanation. I have wondered about the unique style of an aphantasia mind in writing. I don’t have aphantasia. I’ve noticed I have three distinct systems of visualization. I have a hyper real, ultra detailed system, but I don’t use it much. Often it feels less under control, more like a dream. It would be almost impossible to consult this system while functioning normally in life-it requires too much focus. This space is 3D and navigable. I can generate movie shots in my head and control a flying camera. I usually visualize mostly in a more conceptual space, like a black void, where I create mostly spacial relationships. This is what I use for a lot of abstract thinking-like understanding how electricity works, or trying to design a piece of clothing. I create all the components conceptually and imagine them in relation to each other. There is usually no color, just like a spacial framework. This is much easier to access while doing other things. The third system seems like it may be a bit of a mashup of the other two. I can call up like a single, flat image of a colorful and highly detailed space or room. This is what I use to imagine what a room would look like painted in a new color. Or when I try to give someone directions, I create like an overhead map of an area and try to refer to it. I use this ability a lot for design and navigation. When I think of an apple, I usually think of it as an uncolored, spacial object, then if prompted I call up a few colored versions and pick my favorite. I can add more layers to the detail if I wonder about the lighting, the space, etc. But if I use this ability to visualize when writing, it’s kinda impossible to get the idea across. I also don’t really visualize much about people and my relationships. I actually struggle to casually imagine people’s faces. I think of and mentally store social interactions as sequences of vibes and thoughts. Anytime I visualize people that I know doing things, it feels like unhealthy daydreaming. I try not to create too many expectations. And I worry about my ability to generate fake reality and forget what has actually happened.

[@gracemaple1060]

Interesting. This actually feels pretty close to my own experience, however, I wouldn't even call the conceptual space visual at all for me. It does feel spatial, but there doesn't seem to be imagery connected with it. I use it for coding, figuring out how a system works, and even modeling social dynamics and how people work. Its probably the main way I think in general. I also have a hyper real, ultra detailed visualization that requires a lot of focus, which I often use for daydreaming... its actually a great way to fall asleep and I keep it to a minimum during the day. However, this is only for images, as my other senses like touch and sound don't require nearly as much focus to simulate. I often just have a song playing in the background of my brain. Imagined touch can be almost intrusive, especially with painful or uncomfortable things. Hearing a friend tell a story of how they accidentally cut the tip of their finger off calls up unwanted sensations for me. I do merge the two systems, calling up gradation between concept and imagined sense, but I don't think I do it that often except when reading fiction, actually. I always forget things like mental maps of an area, so I am terrible with directions. I also have to be careful not to replace a real memory with an imagined one, which I might create for a white lie. I have a very clear memory of accidentally burning myself in one way, when I know for a fact that I accidentally burned myself in another way and lied because I was embarrassed. So that is definitely something I try to avoid doing nowadays.

[@albertupardsnipec5988]

I have aphantasia but weirdly when i took a facial recognition test it said i was a "super-recogniser" with exceptional ability to recall and distingush between faces. I think aphantasiacs DO have the ability to visualise but some kind of mental censor blocks it out. If you say "imagine yourself on a beach" i get a feint, latent "echo" of beachiness but then a ceaseless neurotic processing takes over asking "well, WHICH beach, a desert island beach or an English beach?", no platonic "beach" appears and it's the same story with that damn apple.

[@sashahanton5716]

I found this video from your comment on an Instagram reel where you mentioned it, I've known for a while I have aphantasia but I didn't know the name for it! As a fellow fantasy writer, I can relate a lot to what you're saying, I've definitely noticed when I'm purposefully trying to craft imagery in my writing I lean into the senses of sound and smell rather than focusing primarily on the visual. This has also sent me down a rabbit hole of learning more about it!

[@LeilaAMMartin]

Thanks for coming by! One other thing that I do that I didn't really mention was to hit on the emotions in every scene. Because I think one of the most interesting things to me, not being able to see in my mind's eye, is to get a feeling for the shapes and the tensions and the invisible strings between characters, and that all happens through emotion. Senses are part of that, and sounds, but it's also feelings (emotional and physical), and I constantly get great feedback from my writing group about that! Is that something you find happening in your writing as well?

[@sashahanton5716]

@@LeilaAMMartin Definitely something I can relate to with my writing, leaning into the emotions and I also pay a lot of attention to dialogue and internal thought in my writing. I shared your video with my writing group and was pleasantly surprised another in our group has Aphantasia, it prompted some really interesting discussions :)

[@nitesky5815]

I don't know whether i have aphantasia or not because my childhood memories ( many of them ) are still pretty vivid but i do find myself unable to picture my characters and surroundings and stuff exactly how you explained. Idk what to do about it. But thank you for assuring me that i wasn't alone.

[@vazzaroth]

Something I always wonder about people w/ the apple question... (And you said it here) WHERE is the apple? All my imagination is either Blackbox, IE a black flat screen behind and the item renders on it individually, or I remember the object in a scene I've seen it often before. For apples, they always show up in a pile in the supermarket unless I specifically try to flip and rotate it, then it goes into the blackbox rendering space. I think my digital art/programming experience has to have some foundational effect with that lol. The other thing I often notice is that I can 'imagine' or recall images WAY easier with my eyes OPEN. When I close them, the 'darkness' and verbal noisiness of my mind is too distracting (ADHD DX'd) and I find myself tempted to open my eyes and basically unfocus, dissociate, to imagine. When my eyes open, the verbal echoing is quieter, so I can focus on 'faux visuals', 'overlayed' on reality. I definitely notice, as I'm studying writing for my own stories, that some writers are simply NOT for me, b/c of the way they describe. An over-obsession with 'aesthetic scene setting' aka Flower Descriptions, REALLY distract me. I feel like I can get plot, OR scene setting, but can't fuse them. Then again, I REALLY enjoyed RR Martin's style in GoT that other people complained about, like his focus on tiny visual details like armor fluting, moisture in food, etc. In that case, I often find those details fill out my low res blurry idea of the scene in concept, and brings it into a sharper 'tableu' in my mind. Freeze-frame scenes work really well for me. Like getting a piece of key-art in a storybook to set the scene, then the characters can go about their actions but I'm not moving them around the scene. If I started trying to do that, I'd probably fail and get distracted from the plot anyway. BTW I think I'm on a scale 1-2 of Aphantasia, not true aphant aka 0. I often wonder how my terribly bad eyesight w/o glasses impacts my visual recall in my mind, since everything is SUPER blurry, as if I wasn't wearing my glasses. (Nearsighted btw, I can't read ANY text until I'm

[@mossbaby6292]

I think I have hyperfantasia, thanks for talking about that!! I genuinely cannot remember a single thing unless I have pictures to remember them by or a strong visual memory from the event 😅

[@lisapettit7403]

I always wondered how my mother would just "know" what a room would look like BEFORE she redecorated it. To me, it was "witchcraft". I see absolutely nothing in my mind. I don't hear, smell, or feel anything in my mind, either. When I am reading, I find the parts with all of the description of the scenes and characters to be very boring. I just want to get on with the story itself. I was blown away when I learned that people saw "movies" in their heads when they were reading. This explained why I could read super scary stories and not have nightmares. What I can't do is go watch the movie version of those stories! I've always said that I don't see things in my mind, I just sense them. I like the explanation of have a concept of them better. I get frustrated with my aphantasia because it affects not just childhood memories, but all of my memories. I dread it when my kids ask for stories about when they were babies or children. I wish that I had realized how this would affect me because I would have written things down and recorded more.

[@LiteraryStoner]

Same here! I have complete aphantasia when i'm awake. No visuals, no mental sound etc. and i've always been this way but my dreams are vivid and i never know i'm dreaming until i wake up and go "oh, that was a dream". I'm with you "yes! Yes! Same!" I don't know how to describe it but I can sort of "feel" (not literally) things, like say i'm reading a scene i can "feel" where the characters are or I can think about my childhood bedroom and I can draw a picture of it, a rough sketch with just outlines of where everything was, no details and I can't see it, but I can remember it. I've heard it described as spatial awareness. I remember other stuff as facts, like my mom's height/hair and eye color etc. I can't see her face in my mind but I know these things as facts. I'm also a writer and a reader. I love books and stories and story telling and fantasy. My favorite genres are horror and nonfiction but I read everything and i'm currently writing a fantasy story! Science fiction, fantasy, horror, contemporary, historical, romance, etc. I have ptsd for multiple reasons and I believe (for me at least i'm not saying anyone else has to feel this way) that my ptsd would be worse if I could visualize and i've heard as much, how horrorific ptsd can be, from others that can visualize. I have had ptsd nightmares, which granted i think are real as i'm dreaming so that's horrorific and i've had plenty of panic attacks while awake but at least awake I don't see anything. I might think back to the triggering memory, but I don't see it or smell it or hear it all over again, you know? So personally I see it as every way, aphantasia and phantasia, has pros and cons. I could go on and on lol. Because this is what i've always known and it works well for me, i'm happy with aphantasia. And my imagination works just fine, it's just different, and I love to be creative. I cry at books all the time. Will I remember the outfit a character wore? Highly unlikely. Will I remember how I felt about the character? Yes. Can I love the fictional characters? Yes. I'm definitely character driven over plot. Sorry if this is all over the place lol. I can't remember songs, not entirely but I do remember beats (how this works I can't describe since I can't literally hear anything) and I tend to remember chorus's, lol. That's it. I am good at remembering things people said though. I am apparently what's called an intuitive pantser, I'll know a little before I start writing but not much. A premise, vague plot points, vibes, maybe a theme or maybe not. Random disorganized notes. But basically the story comes to me (in concepts I guess and dialogue - I can think in silent words, that's how I read for example, etc.) as i'm writing it. Maybe scenes. I'll write random notes in scrivener as I think of things, including things i'm not at yet in the story, different ways things might go, and what happens might still be a complete surprise to me when I finally get there. It's magical. I can't explain it but I can't outline because if I outline my brain goes "well the story is done, all done, time to move onto the next one" even though not a word of it was written and all motivation to actually write it is gone, so this is how I have to write. It's terrifying to be honest but I love it and somehow, it works. I struggled with reading comprehension in school. I could read...fast. That was my problem. I'm also autistic and my processor works but it's slow. I can read faster than I can process the words because reading requires me to think about what i'm reading. Fiction is harder than nonfiction for me, I can have to think and "feel" the spatial awareness stuff and of scenes, which I have to actively think of, remember plot etc. I did read some as a kid. I loved horror so when I saw Goosebumps covers in the 90s at scholastic book fairs I was a moth and they were the flame, so from them I learned that reading could be fun, even if it was difficult to remember what I read. Read some Fear Street and Stephen King as a teenager. Then only a few nonfiction books after I graduated from school in 2007 until 2015 when I said I wanted to learn how to read and remember stuff. I hadn't been allowed to read Harry Potter as a kid despite wanting to so I started there, then found booktube and it spiraled from there. What I learned, was I just needed to slow down. I have to slow down to match my processor, but I can. I hope that makes sense. Sorry i've written a novel here.

[@LiteraryStoner]

I am not the fastest writer. I have to spend a lot of time just thinking, staring at the screen, brainstorming.

[@LeilaAMMartin]

I loved the Goosebumps books too! I'm similar to you with the spatial awareness without being able to see places or faces in my memory. Like I remember how things are laid out, but I can't see them in my head. I also read really fast, but I process things pretty quickly too. As a writer, I'm mostly a plotter, like I have spreadsheets. But I also leave room for discovery, and things tend to change a lot during the editing process! It's amazing how our brains find ways to do things that work for us, and it's so unique to every person!

[@LiteraryStoner]

It is amazing! I was almost 30 when I learned people were being literal about visualizing and picturing things in their head. Been about 5 years since then. I love learning how brains can work in so many different ways!@@LeilaAMMartin

[@b.steiner8495]

Aphant here... no sound memories and as it turns out neither is there an internal vocabulary of smells, so I made a lousy sommelier. Like you I have spatial memories and can remember things said to me that had an emotional impact. I have stalled with writing as my descriptive powers are so limited. I wrote a screenplay so that someone else could cast the characters and create the sets, but was told the story needs to be told as a novel with lots more detail for the historical setting. I'm stuck. Painting is another creative venue that I have suspended in frustration.

[@ava.i1]

The one reason I'm grateful for my aphantasia is that i can't visualise nightmares, but somehow when i wake up i know i had a nightmare even though nothing visual happened in my brain

[@vazzaroth]

Ah! I remember primarily amorphic colors, and that kind of spacial recall EXTREMELY clearly too! I always tell my wife how I have 'blueprint' brain. I can draw up floor plans in extreme detail of my childhood, teen years, old work places etc. But then I can't remember the faces or voices or any specifics about people that were there. I also can 'sorta' sing songs in other languages even if I can't define exactly where one word ends and another begins lol! I ALSO find AI art SUPER DUPER helpful! Translating texts to images seems like utter magic to me, since it's such a challenge in my mind. By chance have you ever taken a 4-letter (MBTI) test? Mines INTP and I'm always curious about how people's mind experience maps to it via type. Especially Thinker vs Feeler and Sensor vs Intuitive when it comes to imagination topics.

[@hoppypoppy950]

So it's like you think in AI :D But just the text input part

[@gracemaple1060]

I'm curious, does this extend to sounds? You talk about memorizing songs, but can you hear them in your head? How about touch or taste? For me, I definitely am on the hyperphantasia side of things. I can see things extremely clearly, with my eyes open, no need to close them (it might even be easier to imagine things when they are open haha). I also don't necessarily picture them clearly, I can do gradations between vague concept and extreme detail. I can play music in my head, I can smell things that are almost real. When you talk about picturing that apple, I can also imagine eating it, and the texture is so real. When I don't know what I want to eat, I will simulate eating different foods to see if they are something I am in the mood for. I don't actually think in words. Either I think in pure concepts, or the words are spoken in my head, as in I am imagining myself or someone else actually saying them out loud. It makes text conversations quite nice, but I dislike when people text in ways that don't sound like speaking. I am also not the best spatially, but sometimes my ideas feel quite spatial in nature, like a physical model in my head that I am messing with. I think it can actually prevent me from writing. It makes me very perfectionistic. I get frustrated when the words I place on the page don't match what I imagine and feel, which is actually a great trait to have for persuasive writing, perfectly replicating an argument I understand in my head. Reading is amazing though, I get completely immersed and both the words on the page and whats around me disappears. I have a lot of ideas for stories, but for now they remain in my mind.

[@LeilaAMMartin]

This is a great question. With songs and sounds, I can sort of hear them, but not the same as if I was actually listening to them; it's not like turning on Spotify. It's more like the ghost of the sound(s), and relies heavily on... sort of *feeling* how they go. I think in a mix of words and concepts, and I rely on patterns and rhythms and feelings to aid in memorization.

[@calgoodbomb3617]

I have aphantasia. I used to be a professional musician. I always have music in my head being composed all the time, or else songs I know. I “hear” them in a way where if I start singing along it will be in perfect pitch to the recorded song,perfect tempo, etc. I once knew over 300 songs, and I still can remember all the lyrics to songs I don’t even remember that I remember until I start playing. I can figure out almost all the chord changes from the music in my head. Sometimes the music becomes an annoying ear worm, so mantras are helpful. I can’t visualize to meditate but I can do mantra and sound meditations that can take me to prophetic trance states which are often symbolic dreams lasting less than ten seconds, with easy to decipher messages.

[@els1f]

The moment you said "visualize an apple" I was already throwing it in the air and I could feel it's skin and smell it (it was recently picked and hasn't been cleaned yet😋). By the time I realized you were still talking, your weren't talking about apples anymore🙃 I have POWERFUL ADHD and teaching me as a child in any class outside of English class was impossible- I was always already tossing the apple around 😂🤣

[@LeilaAMMartin]

Wow!

[@TraceyM825]

​@@LeilaAMMartin My thought exactly. WOW!!

[@markmuller7962]

Clear memories and images from early childhood are very sparse and rare for everybody

[@LeilaAMMartin]

I can only speak to my experience, but I don't have any memories *at all* before 3rd or 4th grade (about age 8-9). Most of the people I've asked about their experience have at least some kind of memories from earlier than that, even if they're not perfectly clear.

[@martinfreeman6491]

Holly crap the opening sent me into a major panic attack. Had to stop. And yes I am 77 found out by early video. What the I know what it is going to be BLACK. But attempting freaks me out. I went 72 years before I found out why I was the weird one. Why I stopped reading after the pictures were gone. Of course. I had school but I listened and reguratated the answers for tests. Reading how do you know what they are talking about and now I am bored. Hey did not mean to say anything disrespectful. Just the way I reacted. Thank you

[@jimnutter6901]

It’s easier without SDAM. 🌹j.

[@hitesh9445]

Hello mam, I was a brilliant visualiser. After a head injury, I acquired total aphantasia.... Can you suggest some study tips or make a separate video for someone who recently acquired aphantasia so that we can better adapt to new way of learning? ( based on how you as an aphant memorised facts and details..) I'll be highly thankful🙏🏻 Can you please answer if someone with aphantasia clear competitive exams and get a good job?

[@LeilaAMMartin]

I'm so sorry this happened to you! You raise a great question, but I don't think I'm qualified to answer it. I've had aphantasia all my life, so I don't have anything to compare it to. Memorization without visuals happens in two ways for me: rote repetition, or remembering something by relating it to something else. Songs help, if you're good at remembering music. I'm not sure which competitive exams you mean. I was brilliant on my language exams but I've never been at home with math, and my exam scores reflected that in things like the American Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). I always scored highest in the exams for subject matter I was already interested in (literature, English). As far as getting a good job...that's kind of a loaded question. It sounds like your're concerned that aphants can't get good jobs, but you also don't clarify what you consider to be a "good job". Do you mean something you love doing? Something that pays well? Something with flexible hours? I can't speak to "good job" until I know what good means to you. What I can tell you is that I'm a professional writer. I enjoy my job because it uses my strengths--language, teaching--and I don't need to be able to visualize. I work with designers all the time, and they do the visualizing for me and show me wireframes. ;) I'm making a decent income working a standard, Monday-Friday, 40 hours/week doing a job I like. So to me, that's a "good job". But what does "good job" mean to you?

[@hitesh9445]

Thanks for this, mam! I'm glad to share I'm also a English literature enthusiast...Thanks for highlighting the aspect about what consists a good job...its a very subjective thing but what I wanted to say is that there are mainly two kinds of exams in my country:-1). MCQ based only and 2).the ones divided in stages like Mcq, answer writing and interview. So my concern is after acquiring aphantasia, I feel like mcq based exam are relatively easier since options act like reference and help you remind things but the ones which require answer writing and interview now seem like a huge challenge to me since I'm facing memory challenges after acquiring aphantasia and since childhood civil services was my dream career.... So I kind of feel helpless ( before aphantasia I had a great memory and I used to remember facts and info. with ease but now that I have acquired aphantasia it has become very challenging to remember whatever I study so... that's what I meant while saying 'good job' since in my country mcq based kind of exams are the ones which are low paying and the ones which I'm interested in require answer writing and interview also. ) So,I was just exploring and seeking help... I haven't been able to adapt to this new condition ...I don't know how to start and go about things! Can you please help me in any way ( by sharing some tips maybe on how to memorise info. I tried rote memorization but I wasn't really able to remember the entire syllabus.. I don't know how to go along with this really..)! Apart from the above can you please answer these questions, these will help me in some way:- 1). How do you remember things with the help of songs( as you mentioned above)? 2). How do you remember entire syllabus, I mean you mentioned Eng. Lit. as in there's a lot eg- the history of Eng. literature, literary terms, the texts, themes, characters and on top of these intertextuality and critical essays.... How do you retain so much of it and then there are other subjects, current affairs etc. too!! ( kindly answer this mam, I myself have studied Eng. Lit. in my graduation and it was one of my fav subjects, I used to remember everything and quote like anything.. I have been an A student all my life so far but now I don't seem to remember and retain info even after reading multiple times.. I'm facing problem with retaining info. and things just don't seem to stick in my head! I don't know how to organize all the info. and there are so many subjects to cover.. Your answer might help me see how can i shift and learn things in a new way since you definitely remembered things in detail to have scored so well and being able to establish your career! ) Thank you🙏🏻🙏🏻

[@LeilaAMMartin]

@@hitesh9445 I'm not sure how useful I can be. I'm in the US and our employment doesn't hinge on exams. I didn't have to take an exam to get my job. For school, I never had to memorize a syllabus. It was always available to reference. I don't really know how to advise you regarding new ways to memorize things, but here are some ways I've done it: - Record yourself reading out loud the thing you want to memorize, and listen to it over and over. - Associate your listening with an action. For example, listen to the recording when you're sitting down and gently marching your legs. That way, every time you sit down and march your legs, your brain has a better chance of leaping to that connection and thinking "oh, last time I did this motion I was thinking about/hearing X" - Write things down by hand. There's a proven connection between handwriting and memory, even if you're not able to go back and "visualize" the notes or the act of writing. - Listen not just for sounds but for cadence, emotion and pattern. I've been a huge memorizer of movie lines all my life, without ever having mental imagery, because I'm listening for the "music" in the language and I remember how sounds flow together. - Make connections. Instead of trying to memorize by rote, think about what you want to remember, and why it's important and/or how it relates to other things you believe are important, or things that you find easy to remember. - Write things down. Keep a planner or commonplace book with a running to-do list. I actually DON'T remember everything, but I can always look something up or go back to my notes/journals/planners if I need a reminder of something. There are plenty of tools out there to help you remember things, whether they're on paper or digital. You don't have to rely on the inside of your own head for everything. Everyone's experience and brain is unique, so I don't know if any of that will help, but best of luck!

[@hitesh9445]

@@LeilaAMMartin Thanks a lot for your input, mam! It really means a lot to me🙏🏻 (I'm from India and here we need to clear exams to get jobs and the competition is really tough with high cut off scores! I hope I find some way soon! ) If you don't mind, have you heard of Dr. Anthony Metivier Magnetic memory method? Is it worth trying? ( I came across him after surfing for memory techniques for aphantasia).

[@LeilaAMMartin]

I've never heard of it!

[@anna.m8]

It's so funny how aphantasia people always say "close your eyes" when they want you to visualize something because we don't need to close our eyes to visualize things. It has nothing to do with that. It's a brain-see, not an eye-see

[@LeilaAMMartin]

So funny! I was always told to close my eyes to visualize by the people who assumed I could. That's how I learned to say that. So maybe some people who can visualize do need to close their eyes? Maybe they're on a different place in the spectrum than folks who can visualize with their eyes open. Or maybe it's just to eliminate distraction?

[@anna.m8]

@@LeilaAMMartin you're right, there's probably a spectrum

[@hitesh9445]

​@@mikesmithzit's the same place where you feel that 'me above your eyes in the middle of forehead' where those with mind's eye see pictures! We see black blank space there and they see pictures there!!

[@hitesh9445]

@@mikesmithz see it's that entire space of your forehead..... above eyes, eyelids, entire forehead I mean. I had it there before my head injury. It used to feel like an hd tv screen!! Can you help me with how to memorise facts with aphantasia for competitive exams? I'll be highly thankful🙏🏻 ( I recently acquired this condition and just trying to figure out my way through this..)?

[@hitesh9445]

@@mikesmithz Thanks for sharing and being so kind🙏🏻. It really means a lot! Gives me hope!! Yeah, I'm just listening to other people's experiences to figure out what can work for me.. I do relate with the emotion aspect.. I've become less emotional because of aphantasia.. If you can take out some time, can you please answer these questions, these will help me some way:- 1). I'm going to try that audio idea you've shared. Can you just tell me..... Suppose you need to write an essay, so with those techniques can you remember enough to cite quotes, data, and report findings in your essay? 2). Does not being able to feel emotions impacts your relationships? (Sir, It will help me in some way....Kindly answer, I'll be highly thankful 🙏🏻).

[@johnaustin47]

Your an NPC. " Back drop person ! You didn't mention that you don't have an inner monologue !