Aphantasia (mind blown)

Penny

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Saw a random news story about Aphantasia, a condition as many as 1 in 50 people suffer from where you basically have no visual imagination.

Blew my mind, kind of hard to imagine not being able to imagine something visually.

I am wondering how you could possibly enjoy fiction if you couldn't imagine the things we spend time describing to people.
It could be the reason some people hate reading or find it boring.

Anyone here has a friend with it or... somehow has it? I am so curious how reading a book would work for someone with it.
Also wondering how you might write something for a person with the condition to enjoy
 
I have a good friend who claims to have poor visual imagination. She won't read fantasy for that reason, but enjoys books featuring "realistic" people in familiar settings.

I'm not sure I really engage my visual imagination when reading books like that either. I can have a vague impression of the room or street or clothing etc, but don't often bother with much else. The ideas and emotions are often more important, and they don't depend on visuals. Of course, with fantasy it gets puts to work.

I'd suggest for someone with this condition to enjoy a SFF story, you'd have to have a lot of visual information supplied. As discussed in another thread, ebooks could potentially go this way, and this is one market for which such a direction might actually be useful.
 
Yeah, I'm the same as Harebrain, I don't actually see all that much when I'm reading, just get a general sense of place and movement. It's no good someone describing whole areas to me because I don't hold the layout in my head at all. Wouldn't be able to describe the appearance of a character beyond the very common features that get mentioned a lot. It's not a complete lack of visual imagination, as just thinking about some of the books I have read definitely bring up specific, if rather vague images, but it's certainly not one of great detail.

Edited to add, though, that this may be because I read very quickly so maybe if I actually decided to slow down one day, maybe I'd picture more?
 
I have a fairly vivid if... inconsistent visual experience when reading a novel, about 40% or less might have been described in actual words, the brain makes up the rest. I read very fast and am very in the zone, even my ears turn themselves off when I read. :p

People with Aphantasia apparently get nothing in varying degrees, some can't read words in another person's voice in their head for example. or imagine a sunrise at the beach, even while at the actual beach.
Some can't imagine a color in their mind... if you can even wrap your mind around that one.


So for me its like... polar opposite.

I find it super interesting.
 
A friend pointed out that I have the ability to close my eyes and imagine I'm actually in the situation being described to me. Whilst this allows me to enjoy reading a good book, it also makes the beta reader from hell... if I can't visually follow a piece of fiction, I get discombobulated and my brain turns into scrambled mush. I envy those with aphantasia!

PS I don't critique all that often, thank goodness!
 
How we interact with something will vary even if people have the same mental capacity. Sometimes you don't need to be able to mentally imagine the scene, but you do want to "feel" the scene itself. Ergo the descriptions might not let you build an image in your minds eye of the room or structure or character as such; but it lets you get a feel for it which is part of the books charm.



Personally I find I've little trouble with visualising details, but I'm hopeless with remembering names. Indeed in many stories to me characters are more the sum of how they behave and act than they are a name. Sometimes this means I have to double back and re-read a part or check the character list in a book just to quickly remind myself who is talking; or to sort out which person it is when there might be some with similar names.

As for recognising people outside of normal encounters that's actually pretty normal. IF you see a person in the same clothing and the same situation all the time then that person's mental identity to you is connected to those clothes and situation. If you then meet them outside of that situation and they are dressed very differently it can be really confusing as to who they are because the only similarity is the face and voice. (sometimes even the body lies as certain clothing can make a person look fatter/thinner or even shoes or if they are always seated might make them appear much taller or shorter).


Also Hoopy if you are reading really fast I'd agree that building a mental image is hard; doing two very separate things at the same time requires a lot of practice and work to achieve and often as not its not doing them at the exact same time, but very close together so that the swapover between the tasks is hard to detect; or where one action relies upon muscle memory more than thinking.
I reckon if you slowed your reading and put some pauses in after major scenes or descriptions you could "train" yourself to visualise things much more readily.
 
Also Hoopy if you are reading really fast I'd agree that building a mental image is hard; doing two very separate things at the same time requires a lot of practice and work to achieve and often as not its not doing them at the exact same time, but very close together so that the swapover between the tasks is hard to detect; or where one action relies upon muscle memory more than thinking.
I reckon if you slowed your reading and put some pauses in after major scenes or descriptions you could "train" yourself to visualise things much more readily.

Eh, it's not affecting my life overly much not having a detailed image of what Harry Potter looks like.
 
My imagination goes into overdrive when reading - hence why stuff like Lovecraft I tend to read in small doses. Reading is my escapism.

It's the same with my writing. I can see exactly what I want in my minds eye. Just a pity that somewhere between that and my typing fingers it gets lost.
 
I've got a wildly active visualization part of the brain. Like Hoppy, I read quickly, but the words just seem to instantly turn into pictures. It's like I'm watching a movie as I read, which is cool but also distracting.
 
One of the reasons I've always thought "the book is better than the film" is because we supplement it with our own imaginations, whereas with films it's all there for us. I guess this isn't the case for (most?) people with aphantasia.

One of my early problems writing fiction was "white-room", where I wouldn't give enough setting detail. To me that was never a problem as a reader or writer, because my imagination seems to automatically fill in detail. Sometimes I think I struggle when there's a lot of description, because my mind is picturing a scene differently.

There's a test here to help find out if you have aphantasia: Aphantasia: A life without mental images
 
I guess it maybe helps reading a book after watching the tv/film adaptation? I've started readung the Game of Thrones books after watching the tv series, and despite the descriptions by the author, I visualise everything as though it was the tv version.
 
This isn’t quite the same thing, but over the years I’ve met a very small amount of people who simply can’t deal with science fiction or any kind of fantastical fiction at all. They wouldn’t be able to give any credence to a serious book or film with an overt SF element (say, Ex Machina), but would be able to enjoy something totally unfeasible set in the real world (James Bond, for example). A story like The Borne Ultimatum, which gets close to SF in its brainwashing programme, is fine, but anything more would be dismissed as nonsense. Has anyone else run into this?
 
Oh lots.

Basically that group of people prefer things to be real rather than made up fantasy. I tend to see it far more with older rather than younger generations, but its not exclusive to the older generations. Heck don't forget there was a time when fantasy was considered very abnormal - I seem to recall the writer of Guiliver's Travels getting into trouble for publishing a book which was untrue.
Some also consider it a childish thing, which is often promoted by the fact that many fantasy stories and sci-fi are often pitched toward the younger generations in marketing. So they don't want to take part in it because they consider themselves adult and thus not childish any more. CS Lewis has his famous quote “When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” Which is adapted from the Bible quote "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me."

I would wager to most Chrons members CS Lewis sums it up for them, whilst for those who are more "real" its either an untrue statement or a way of thinking that they've not entertained.


And yes James Bond or other "real" or contemporary dramas or films are "allowed" because whilst they include many sci-fi elements; they are grounded in enough of the real world that the sci-fi can "make sense" (even if in reality it doesn't). It's why shows like NCIS and such work because even though most of them abuse the science to an insane level; most people wathcing don't know science to even a basic level to know where the make up and reality lines are drawn (some areas are obvious, others are very hard to work out and some of the most insane ideas often turn out to be more true than not).



And, of course, the older many people become the more entrenched their views become. Especially if their life is not presenting them with continual challenges against those world views. If they've no desire to push or change their own views then they won't engage with the material that will challenge them, thus those views they already have become stronger and stronger.
It's not to say they never can change, but that it would likely take a lot of outside influence and the right exposure to the right material to change their views.


Edit - also don't forget many people live lives where their job is very much their life. It fills most of their waking moments in the world so they've little to no desire nor time to really devote toward something that isn't related to life or their work. Sure they'll take an interesting real world things like politics and such, but they've really not got the time nor inclination nor benefit (in their view) of "wasting time" daydreaming or reading fantasy. Heck many might not read many novels, if any, at all. It's just not a passtime for them; whilst their TV choices might be more just for the noise than the content (There's many a person who turns on the TV just to have a background noise - just like the radio)
 
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I was friends with a Seventh-day Adventist long ago... His view was that because the bible was the true word of god and that meant somehow that written words had to be true, reading fantastical or fictional things was essentially sinful.
I would normally not disrespect a religion but I felt sorry for him, he was a teenager and could not enjoy his imagination or fictional works because of his devout beliefs.
I belive they took his sister out of school early so she could be taught to be a housewife. very sad.
It is hard to believe for a creative like myself but many people must intentionally stunt their own imaginations. it is a sad thing.
 
Which has now made me wonder why I've never been there to learn more about face-blindess, which I seem to have a mild version of (e.g. I struggle watching films with actors I don't know, or don't recognise people out of context such as a colleague outside of work): Prosopagnosia (face blindness) subreddit • r/Prosopagnosia

I once dated someone with quite severe Prosopagnosia. He would ask me to greet him verbally first if we're meeting up somewhere crowded (e.g. if he was picking me up from the airport or train station) so he could recognise me by my voice, gait, hairstyle, and body shape.

As for my face, he said that he could discern my face when with me but once I'm out of sight, he can't remember what I look like given that so much of conventional beauty standards are based on facial looks.

It was a little strange to realise that someone romantically involved with me wouldn't be able to identify me in a crowd or describe me to someone else.

But going back to Aphantasia - I can't imagine what that's like because I've always had a very visual imagination whether I'm reading, writing, or daydreaming. I suppose for people with Aphantasia, reading fantasy is akin to reading a very dry history textbook that just info-dumps at you?
 

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