Just for clarity: Aphantasia is a separate condition from Autism. People with Autism may (and often do) have other neurodivergencies. Many autistic people are excellent visualizers.
I am highly visual but I have to tell you...any type of battle in a book or movie just loses me. I either skip over those parts and skim to find out who dies and/or who wins...I'll fast-forward through movies/programs until the end of battles....And I stopped reading Lord of the Rings in the middle of the series because there were so many battles....Perhaps it's because I'm so visual....and I hate violence and have high sensitivity (autism) that I find it so distasteful and wasteful of my time. So it may or may not be because of visualization or lack thereof that leaves people cold. Just my two cents. Enjoyed your video! Best wishes.
@@Suebee1988 - my partner is like that there's a lot of things she doesn't want to hear about because she sees it. She only told me that recently because I have been asking about how she sees what she sees because I am pretty sure I have aphantasia. So I like to watch videos about dogs getting rescued, because when I hear "poor Rover was locked in a cage in this own filth with no food or water" I just know what has happened, whereas she doesn't like to see those videos because she can see the dog in it's suffereing state in her mind, where I only see it as a dog who is at the vets or the new owners and is decent conditions no longer suffering etc.
It's always mindblowing when I realize there are folks out there with such vastly different experiences in the world to myself. Visualizing had always been a metaphor to me, so much so it's nearly impossible to believe people are actually seeing things in their mind's eye. I've always been a huge reader of tons of genres, and I've noticed the descriptions that resonate with me most are audio descriptions rather than visual. Even in my own writing, I never really put emphasis on visual descriptions, but I always make describe audio cues. Sometimes I wonder if that's also why coming up with ideas in visual arts (like drawing) have always been somewhat of a struggle for me
As a young child, my son loved being read to from picture books but would get highly upset if I forgot to show him the pictures OR if I changed the wording in any way. One night I was so sleepy so I tried to skip a couple pages at end of book to get to THE END. OOH, he had a fit. Of course, we had to start over at beginning.😮 Never did THAT again... I recently found out that he (now 43 yrs old) cannot visualize at all when he reads. So now I understand the importance of the normal FULL story. I always wondered why it was like pulling teeth to get him to read something as he aged. His neuro-disorders are extensive, most diagnosed by 6 yrs old. This one was not even on my radar then. Thanks for info. He might not benefit from it directly, but one of his 5 kiddos might.
Never knew this was a thing until recently. I always thought the “imagine you in your happy place” was such a weird metaphor until I realized it isn’t for most people. I don’t have any other neurodivergence’s, but I think it’s really cool to see the correlation between aphantasia and other neurodivergentcies!
I had never heard of aphantasia but have always been a poor visualizer. Even when I know what things look like (friends or family for example), I don't really see them in my mind's eye. It's more a fleeting generalized perception like seeing a photo for a second before it fades. This probably explains why I so seldom remember dreams.
I have never felt so understood!!!! I am mindblown by the information about having aphantasia myself and knowing this only for the past couple of days. I am 38.
I learned at 38 too. I don't remember if I said that in the video. It's amazing to go so long not realizing other people are seeing things in their mind!
I'm 22 with a similar profile to yours. I have aphantasia but i can hear tv dialogue and song fragments. The bulk of what I read for pleasure is SF/fantasy light novels and isekai.
I was born with Aphantasia and Dyslexia. I will be 80 years old in 6 weeks. I am world traveled, have a degree in psychology and law and have created, built and ran two companies for 20 years. Because of no one knowing about Dyslexia and Aphantasia when I was born in 1944, I had to teach myself to read. At 18, every Friday I would go to the book store and pick one book off the New York times best seller list. I read that book over and over for a week. The following Friday I did the same. I memorized the English language and instead of letters, I see words as pictures. It made me a fast reader. There are many forms of Dyslexia. During my 68 years in the U.S. I never met anyone with Dyslexia. I have lived in South America for 12 years and have three professional friends who are Dyslexic, all different degrees of Dyslexia. I was tested for Aphantasia 6 years ago and have congenital Aphantasia and consider it a gift. I do not daydream and I fall asleep within minutes of laying down. I do not live in the past or future as I cannot bring either up in a vision. Memories stored in my mind come up as a photograph only. I will remember you from the moment I met you ,even if you age before my eyes. I have never allowed anything to get in my way. I am sure I am missing other things that I do not know about but I think Dyslexia and Aphantasia are a gift and as I have been told, I am just wired differently. Outside of grade school, neither have ever gotten in my way. And as you age, your mind forms images from repetition and you do not need vision to bring up images. I also have no fear because I do not see into the future, so I do not have things that hold me back, since I do not know what will happen tomorrow. I see my little flaws as making my life very good.
Someone I know might be worse than average to average at visualization, lol...when reading a novel, he can sometimes imagine certain aspects vividly, other aspects might be vague...he suspects faces are more likely to be a blur, and locations more vividly imagined, etc, lol...he can vividly imagine some places he had spent time in, sometimes feeling as if he could walk about, lol, but faces are more of a blur...when reading novels, he suspects the same thing happens, locations are more vivid, faces are more of a blur...sometimes, but rarely, he might imagine the voices of the characters, etc...but usually he hears a uniform voices, perhaps his own, lol, in his mind, for everyone...
Until I learned I have Aphantasia, I always thought that those on the spectrum were visual only. Language was difficult. The truth is what you are saying. There is a spectrum for autism and a spectrum with aphantasia. I have ADHD, Aphantasia, SDAM and now I believe I have Autism. What you say is how I live my life and how I view things. Incredible! We are not broken. We are different and we are many. We are more than anyone knows right now. I just joined this knowing! It’s an awakening for me. Now I can create systems to function more effectively.
Hi, great video. I remember having a conversation with my wife about all of this. She mentioned a favourite scean in a book and how it brought up so many images. I had to keep asking things like, "You mean you can actually see these things in your mind?" When she asked me what Isaw I said, "just the words in the page." My favourite book is The Lord Of The Rings. Is highly descriptive, but I let it wash over me. Its like doing the journey in a windowless carriage with someone outside telling you what's happening.
Hello Amanda. I am a late diagnosed male, 51 years old from the United Kingdom. I watched your video with interest. I read mostly non-fiction but I am a fan of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels. Thankfully I have the Amazon Prime show to use as a reference, but I regularly use Google Maps to 'visit' the Los Angeles locations in the books. Otherwise I pull information from other movies to fill in locations such a police stations and so forth. I also like Sue Grafton's Alphabet mystery books, but there are no shows to reference, so I will often use actors from other movies to 'play' the roles in the books. Still, the description-heavy passages are useless to me. I laughed when you mentioned Lord Of The RIngs, because I cannot picture anything Tolkien describes. It's all as though I'm standing in a very dim room trying to look at something out the corner of my eye! There is a question in one of the UK diagnostic questionnaires I filled in that asks 'when reading fiction, are you able to picture the characters in your mind?' I had no idea about aphantasia before finding your video. Unmasking is tough. I am having a bit of a crisis of identity. But there are lot of books and videos that help enormously in figuring out my own autism. I have added you to my list of subscriptions and will watch more of your posts. All the best. John
Thank you for adding in this example! Yes, I was reading Brandon Sanderson's book Skyward recently and googled Doomslug because I wanted to know how people visualized his description of this creature!
Tolkien was a fun read! But I get you on the loooong descriptions. Robert Jordan is TERRIBLE for that, like pages and pages describing women's dresses =oD Pretty much ALL of it lost on me beyond general scene setting. I dunno if being able to see "just a little" as you describe would be more or less annoying than the the rainbows on black. Kinda as if you are always seeing patterns in the clouds just to have them blow away =oD
Re visual references and Tolkien, do you know of Puzzlewood in the Forest of Dean? It’s a little patch of ancient, beautifully mossy, woodland (often used as a filming location) I have a dim recollection of some suggestion it may have inspired Tolkien. I haven’t read Lord of the Rings but it’s the place I thought of reading the hobbit to my daughter.
@@i.am.mindblind i too have Aphantasia and also have the Brandon Sanderson books on Audible and I "imagined" a brightly coloured sea slug. 😂 no idea if remotely what he was going for and to be honest when I first thought of that char, for the longest time I didn't even assign it a physical form.
I love this explanation since people are always asking me what happens when I read a book with aphantasia. I used to read only non-fiction, but I've recently rediscovered how much I enjoy fiction. But I don't actually read it. I listen to audio books. I find it's much easier to understand what's going on when I'm listening to the action. So now I always have one fiction/sci-fi/mystery book on my phone to listen to and one non-fiction on my kindle because I like to highlight and take notes.
Hello! My favorite genre is science fiction, and that’s partly because I do have the ability to fully immerse myself in the story. But dialog and character development are my favorite parts of books, so I’ll recommend The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells. The character development is amazing, and the audiobooks multiply that times 10, because they are performed so well. (And don’t let the title put you off) :)
Another aphantasic AuDHDer with (undiagnosed) SDAM here. I think you capture pretty well how I relate to fiction - and I definitely concur with you about LoTR: the battle scenes in particular were far too tedious to be able to hold my attention.
It's worth noting that this is more or less the same way that readers handle adjectives that they don't understand. They typically just fill in whatever they care to fill in, so long as it doesn't seem to matter. For example, a dress pattern is probably going to be skipped by any reader that isn't into fashion enough to know what it means. Likewise, Stephen King rarely bothers to describe the clothing of the characters in his books unless it's somehow significant to the plot. He trusts that readers will fill in something appropriate if need be and by leaving that detail out, he helps to reduce the issues of future readers opening one of his books and wondering what butterfly collars are. The difference is that those of us that are either weak visualizers or completely incapable of it just have that going on for everything and are forced to use more conceptual knowledge to deal with it and may prefer to consider other facets of the language like texture.
This explains why I love reading on the kindle so much. I love that I can highlight a word or term and it brings up a dictionary definition or Wikipedia article.
I'm a 47-year-old female, and the most I've ever been able to "visualize" (if I close my eyes and try really hard) is a quick flash that resembles an undeveloped photo negative. Like you, for most of my life, I thought "Picture this..." was metaphorical. I have known, for a few years now, that other people can actually visualize; and also realize my inability to do so, probably contributes greatly to my inability to draw. I, too, love to read; and will just skip ahead if some "filler description" gets too in-depth. Thank you for putting a word to my lack of visualization.
This is so helpful! It really explains why I've always preferred non-fiction to fiction. I also have realized that my ability to "visualize" (I've never "gotten lost" in any series...) really depends on the author. I have more vivid pictures in my mind's experience of Stephen King, Neil Gaimen, and J.R.R. Tolkien's books.
You're welcome, it's fun for me to try and break it down and relate it to what I've read others experience. I went so much of my life relating to people like they had similar brain patterns as I do and no wonder I always got responses that didn't make sense!
Thank you for this video. I have only realized this year (I am 70) that I must have aphantasia. I haven't been professionally diagnosed but based on all the descriptions of aphantasia and my life experiences, I am certain that I experience my mind this way. This video was particularly interesting because while I am a curious, intelligent, and well educated person I have rarely enjoyed reading fiction for exactly the reason you describe ... books that are heavy on describing visuals are hard work with little reward ... and I can never remember what the scene had been described like later in the book when the author refers back. I have always preferred non-fiction books. There is such a social thing about being a reader and sharing references to books, etc., that I was never a part of. It was always so uncomfortable for me when people would say, "Oh, you don't enjoy reading?" As if there was something wrong with me. This has brought much clarity for me. Thank you.
Sounds like my spelling deficit. I preffer reading technical books to fiction. Fiction seems pointless to me, probably because it's usually written from nuerotypical perspective. I like to learn things when I read that are going to be useful to me. You have a great way of dealing with your visualation issues. Well done. Thanks for switching to "identity first" language with regards to your autism in the intro too =)
That's an interesteding point about fiction. I have come across a few self published Autistic fiction writers on TikTok but haven't bought any of their books yet. It'd be interesting to compare.
I’d never heard of aphantasia before. But I have known that I’m not a very mentally visual person. So sometimes when I’m talking with my friends and something gross comes up, 🎉they cringe and I don’t because I don’t see it they way they do in my mind. My mental pictures are very fuzzy. I have a sensing/perceiving personality style. So I’ve always assumed that my way of understanding the world was more thru sensing emotions, than visually seeing what was going on. I can read emotions very well that are taking place in front of me. If I were to imagine an emotional scene, it would be more of experiencing the scene than seeing the scene.
Thank you Amanda! I resonate with much of what you said. I only recently found out I have Aphantasia.. I was shocked people could actually see in their heads!.. I see nothing at all but use memory and facts as you say to draw from. I use words a lot. So much is making sense from my past now I learn this about myself. After getting over the initial day or two, I’m grateful for my inner darkness, I’m very sensitive energetically so to have lots of images in my mind I imagine I’d find quite overwhelming (amazing as it sounds). I Love books so much. I have enjoyed plenty of fiction, more the emotion and relationships (non-visual aspects) so that now makes sense but I prefer non-fiction and exploring hidden truths of nature, history and spirituality. I look forward to watching some of your other videos. Just subscribed. Thank you 😊✨
It really shook me when I learned other people visualize too. It's so weird how we are all walking around with different inner experiences and have no clue. Thanks for subscribing! 😊
I just found out I have aphantasia 2 days ago. I'm still in shock. But your comment about not having all these visuals or sounds from life in your head will help me. I'm also energy sensitive, so I should consider the darkness and silence a gift, not a liability.
&markiefufu Yes the silence and darkness is definitely to be experienced as a gift! I keep forgetting I have aphantasia and then get fascinated by it all over again when I remember! Without the shock of first discovering it.. makes me wonder though, what else I don’t know I don’t know. Self discovery is life long rich and essential work! Blessings ✨🤗
I’m soooo glad I watched this video. I literally thought I was just dumb my entire life. As a kid I read above grade level but I could barely comprehend some books and now it makes sense. When I read I can only see images that I’ve seen before so when something I had never seen before was being described my mind would basically skip that part.
I would be fascinated to see you sketch a scene that is completely fictional and original, as you are hearing it being described. I want to see if your sketch is anything like the mental sketch I would be creating while hearing the description as you are hearing it. For me, visualizing something I have never seen but am hearing or reading about is a lot like a sketch pad, with lots of updates and corrections as early assumptions are replaced with actual parts of the description.
@@i.am.mindblind The artistic quality of the sketch is not very important in this experiment. It is more about building any sort of scene out of words.
I only realised a year ago (I am 40) that I have Aphantasia...it was so relatable watching this lady's video and I could even see the reference to the Hobbit coming. That is exactly why I could barely make it a quarter way through that book and it is very rare I don't finish a book, however, the ones I don't finish are invariably ones that over describe scenes etc.
i've read about aphantasia but ironically it's hard to imagine what it's like if you don't have it. hearing someone talk about their own experiences is just so fascinating.
I'm a very vivid visualizer when reading, it's like watching a movie for me, but more immersive. However, following the book on character descriptions, outfit descriptions, and things of that nature can get kind of lost on me. My brain just auto-creates the character to what I imagine they would look like and then focuses on the plot. If any changes to their appearance happen throughout the book, my brain has to pause and entirely redo the character. Sometimes it even makes me forget what I imagined the character to look like entirely.
I just found your channel. This video blew my mind. I am late (self) diagnosed autistic and adhd, and recently discovered aphantasia as well. I also always thought it was just metaphors folks would mention. I always loved Harry Potter as a kid, but that’s the only fantasy series that grabbed me. I think it was in no small part because of the aphantasia. But I love books with more dialogue and looove podcasts, especially when it’s a conversation because I don’t have to put in all that extra effort. I feel so seen right now, I even sent this video to my partner to help explain, cause that’s difficult for me too. Thanks for sharing your experience, I feel less alone in it now. 💜
Your explanation of this condition was fascinating and concise, especially since until now I hadn't heard of it and thought I just didn't like novels that much. Despite loving and amassing books, the ones I find more engaging seem to always be unintentionally nonfiction. I makes complete sense now, my mind rarely conjures up that 'wrap around' all engrossing nature other readers talk of. And yup, my go to sci-fi space ship scenario, is always the deck of the Enterprise! Excellent content and channel.
I had never heard of aphantasia until this year... I'm 59 and just figuring out that other people really see things in their mind! Here's how i have experienced it: 1. the pictures of family that i keep on my walls refresh my mind to the details of what each person looks like. Yes, including my own grown children. 2. I have always loved reading, but "visualize" the characters as their names written out... too many characters, especially with similar names, and i get lost. If the book is made into a movie i am thrilled because even if they change the plot i will at least have a reference to what the characters look like. 3. I have never understood how people can work with a police artist to describe a suspect. There is no way i could tell you what facial features i saw on a random person. 4. If i try to visualize an object or animal, i will either "see" fleeting impressions of parts of it (a bike frame of indistinct color, but no wheels) or the word itself. 5. I cannot imagine the end result of a creative project without drawing it.
Same! I have aphantasia and I love reading. I don’t like books that spend too much time on painting a picture of the scenery. You get one page and then I’m done. I want them to get to the point. I prefer it when a book is made into a movie. I have no preconceived notions about what the characters or landscape look like. When I found out people can visualize I immediately began to mistrust people. You can make up anything in your head! I don’t think of myself as broken or disabled. I can’t imagine all that noise in your head.
I can relate a little to this. I don't have aphantasia, quite the opposite. But while I can imagine my own things very easily and in great detail, I struggle to translate written or spoken words (by other people) into images in my head. I can do it, it just takes a lot more work, and there are often gaps. Especially when picturing characters in my head. They usually appear in my mind as amorphous blobs. And settings can shift around like in a dream. Sure, maybe I could try to get around that by making my own characters and settings and putting them in there instead, but---wait. That's a good idea, actually. I hadn't thought of that before. I'll have to try it sometime.
Wow you are right inside my head. I was always reading ahead, i never saw and i still dont. Your sloth description is exactly as i would describe it. Like you read and take in how something is described however i cant describe an individual i can bring up previous text/info etc but i can't see and i can't describe i can only tell people my memory not imagery. I have nothing diagnosed but i definitely have differences.
I am 38 and am coming to realize I have this too.i have discovered it during the process of my self awareness and spiritual journey as I can not visualize which makes it so hard.
Determined my husband has aphantasia, today, but listening to your description of reading books, that's quite like what I go through. I just read graphic novels anymore because anything else I'm just looking at words on a page and it's visually boring. I don't strictly have aphantasia but anything I picture in my head is blurry and vague, minimal detail, can't make much out. As you described, I have to access a database of things I've seen in order to describe something.
I think visualizing is a scale so it sounds like your visualization isn't really good enough to be useful, so to say you have Aphantasia I think would be appropriate. Some people gatekeep the word which I think is ridiculous. I feel if your visuals don't help you then they might as well not exist. I see nothing in my minds eye at all, my sister can render 3d movies. It's crazy!
I am also autistic and have adhd and complete aphantasia and really related to what you said here, and I love to read! I actually struggled with reading comprehension growing up, that's the one difference, because I could read the words fast but I can't process and think about what's going on in the book that fast so I had to learn to slow down but now i'm an avid reader no problem. :) I was 26 in 2015 when I decided I wanted to figure out my issue with reading, and I did, and it was like 2018 or 2019 when I learned about aphantasia and by then I was already an avid reader. I read some as a kid, Goosebumps, Fear Street, R.L. Stine got me to see reading could be fun even when I was struggling to remember what I read. I've always loved horror (that's how the Goosebumps books got me, I was the moth and their covers at the scholastic book fairs were the flames lol) but now I read a bit of everything. Horror and Nonfiction are my favorites (nonfiction being easier than fiction for me and I love to learn about different things, like animals) but I also read fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, contemporary, etc. Epic fantasy tends to lose me though or long descriptions of things. Or maybe i'm just scared of epic fantasy. I'm more character-driven than plot. I won't remember what the characters were wearing or how they looked (unless i'm beaten over the head with it) but i'll remember how I felt about them as characters.
Hello mam, I recently acquired aphantasia (total aphantasia) because of my anxiety disorder. Prior to this, I was a brilliant visualiser. Now no imagery at all.... It's severly affecting my academics. I don't know how to adapt to new way of learning.. Now I face problem in remembering facts and info. (Especially subjects like social sciences, current affairs for exams etc.) Can you people share how you learnt being an aphant? I'll be highly thankful🙏🏻.
Interesting, I've heard of people getting aphantasia due to head trauma but never because of anxiety. The brain is so interesting. I guess it's trying to protect you. I've always had aphantasia so I guess I adapted as I went. I use a lot of reference photos when I need to draw, I make a lot of lists, I have to use GPS to drive.
This raises questions for me not in books but writing stuff. I write about my transspecies identity a lot and phantom limbs. I wonder how i could be more accesible describing my identity for others to understand in case the misunderstanding is from a neurodivergent area. Ive held off on diagrams, but i wonder if that helps someone with aphantasia have a visual refrence to how i view myself as. If it does ill totally use that in my description
I have a friend who has DID. They pull photos from the internet to show me how they think of themselves inner world. Only about 3% of the population has Aphantasia, but I think word descriptions will always leave more up for inturrpretation than drawings. People with aphantasia adapt, most of us don't know others can visualize until we hear about it in the context of it being a real phenomenon and not a metaphor.
Also autistic here, but maybe hyperphantasia? Is that a thing? It took me a long time to understand that imagining sensory information was a skill, that there were degrees of it, and that there can be absence of anywhere from one sense to all senses in “the mind’s eye.” It’s very hard to remember that the amount of visualization I do is in any way unusual, because I put no effort into it at all. It just happens. But especially when interacting with other neurodivergent people, it would probably make sense to more frequently remember or ask if aphantasia affects them. Sometimes I run into a lot of communication issues with other autistic people, more so than with neurotypical people. It’s kind of a “feast or famine” thing: we’re on exactly the same wavelength, or just not at all. And especially in the past when I’ve attempted to share roleplaying games, that’s had some odd results. Which would make sense for a hobby that is literally all about imagining things. You play a character in a fantastical world. You are more or less expected to react to fictional events in real time as if they were real. It would probably be very hard to enjoy if the “inner world” of the game were patchy or fully blank. As always, thanks for your great content. You consistently give me a lot to think about.
I love this! Yes, hyperphantsia is a thing. I think it has another name too. My husband is really into D&D and before I knew about aphantasia I couldn't understand how anyone would want to play it. When I learned other people can visualize it made so much more sense! I love the concept of D&D but the playing just doesn't work for me.
i can’t imagine what it must be like. It’s one of the things i like about reading books, the visualization. Also the main reason why i haven’t listened to any audio books so far, because I would have to pause the reading to let my mind wander. diagnosed with ASD some 8 years ago.
have you read any Jane Austen? I find that her writing style is so heavy on dialogue that I actually can't follow it because there's nothing I can visualize. it's like reading a script but without all the character names and stage directions.
I have, but I don't recall whether or not I liked it. That is an issue I have so often. I'll read a book (even a famous one) but then forget it and what I thought about it soon after reading. (my memory disorder sdam.) It makes joining book clubs almost impossible. Lol.
Same here..like dialogue a lot better since I don't visualize either. I also have to listen to the book to understand it. If I read it my comprehension goes way down.
As for books I read, when I got back into reading, I started reading all of Roald Dahl’s books, as he was my childhood favourite. I then spent a long time reading almost exclusively non-fiction, before I got into fiction. I really like series with many books in, like the aforementioned Discworld, Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe books, and Lindsey Davis’ Falco and Flavia Albia books (ancient Roman detective stories). I feel that the fact that they have plot and setting in common, and a common writing style takes off some of the mental load, allowing me to focus on the story. Recently, I have started reading graphic and Illustrated novels. I had not been able to do this before, because to me the pages were so dense with both pictures and words, and I struggled to take in info from both. I started with Lizzy by Alison Stewart, which has some pages like a graphic novel, some pages are just a large illustration, while others are a panel of words like a novel, but with pictures to the side. Reading these illustrated books is giving me great joy.
I first heard about aphantasia about a year ago. I think it was when I read that an experimental therapy had enabled people without a mind's eye to be able to visualize. I'm still struggling to understand what other people "see" when they read, or meditate. And I realized that this might be why I hate guided meditation exercises - it's so hard for me to construct an image, that exists for a mere flash, that I'm exhausted and cranky and everyone else seems fine. I spoke to a colleague about this and she was as perplexed as I, for the opposite reason. If I say "apple' she says that she can see it right there in her hand. I'll admit... I'm jealous. It seems amazing to be able to visualize. For reading - yes, I'm an avid reader, but I prefer non-fiction. For novels, though, I have to construct the scene e.g. driving up the hill on a road overlooking the coast. And it's not worth it, I'd rather just enjoy the story.
I’m ADHD with aphantasia. Sometimes I look things up but then I end up in a rabbit hole and forget to go back to the book. Most of the time I just skim through the parts of the book with descriptions. Like if they are describing an outfit or scenery, I feel like it’s mostly irrelevant to the story so I don’t care or bother with it. Same with location. If it’s fiction, then I feel like location is irrelevant too because most of the time it’s something in someone’s head and probably not true to life anyway. It does cut down in the size of a book considerably though. When I was a kid everyone just thought I was a super fast reader because I could blow through large novels in a day or less. It was because I skipped all the descriptions. They didn’t really do anything for me. I can’t picture it anyway so what’s the point. I was always happy if they had a picture though because then I could study it to see what the author was actually thinking when writing.
I have Aphantasia as well and have to read portions of books to my husband (who has hyperphantasia) and he adds explanations for me. Battle and fight scenes where you have to hold the layout of a room of position of people in mind are a particular struggle for me, and I’m an avid reader and former English teacher.
Oh that's a great idea! I hadn't thought about that for people. I have had my husband draw me diagrams sometimes, though 😂This probably explains why I like Brandon Sanderson as a fantasy author - he draws in his books so I actually have a reference point.
Oh, I can't express strongly enough how insanely recognisable this was for me! I will always forget the descriptions of the protagonists, so when the author refers to someone as "the redhead" or whatever, I have no idea who they're talking about! When an author describes facial expressions or movements, I will do the expression or movement described in order to understand what is going on. His brows went down, she looked at him through her lashes, she straightened her spine - anything that I can copy I will. It helps me dive into the emotions and relationships of the story, as well as understanding nuances of communication. I always did really well in school, except for geography. Like you said, if I have seen something a lot of times, I can describe or even (very) roughly sketch it. So a map of my own country, Norway, is both recognisable and describable. Africa is a very distinct shape, and there are a few other places I can identify on a map. But for the most part, it's just Here Be Dragons.
Often no, but I think that is more to being autistic than having aphantasia. I struggle with abstract thinking. When an analogy is pointed out to me I can understand it. And I'll pick up on obvious ones but in school teachers would talk about metaphors and analogies and I'd not see them.
My late wife had Aphantasia. This was very helpful in understanding how she experienced the world. She was an accomplished researcher and definitely leaned towards non-fiction vs fiction. Of interest, she almost never remembered a dream. Perhaps related to Aphantasia?
I'm sorry for your loss. ❤️ I remember dreams sometimes, but it is rare. I don't know if that is common for aphantasia or not though. I have a different video where I talk a bit more about dreams because it is the only time I can visualize. Although dreams that I remember & am aware I'm visualizing is very rare.
Did you ever read a book and got lost where you were in the page and what was happening in it a few words after? It is what usually happens to me. And i read outloud for myself because of soundless words in my head 🤷♀️
Yes this happens often, but probably due to adhd. Lol. I like to read outloud but don't usually do it for myself, I like reading outloud to my kids. But yes, I also have soundless words in my head. ❤️
@@i.am.mindblind now i don't feel alone anymore as a total aphant. It's still confusing how people literally sees and hear things inside their heads. The closest i got was some hypnagogic flashes and my crazy first brekthough
Ι'm autistic with adhd and afantasia as well. Unfortunately I'm unable to read books, not only because I don't have the attention span for it and afantasia makes most books seem like endless pages of descriptions without meaning, but also because I have something called Irlen syndrome which is a perceptual processing disorder that resembles dyslexia when it comes to reading. Most books I have tried to read have been made into movies, so I watch the movie first and then read the book and that really helps with afantasia because I just recall all the images from the movie and it also helps with adhd because I know I'm reading something that I actually like but still I've never managed to finish any book! I hope I will be able to treat my irlen syndrome someday and maybe find some enjoyment in reading. For now reading is literally a torture to me!
I love fantasy books but only at a young adult level....I tried the adult books and they were WAY too detailed for me to handle. I am betting this is why! I definitely think I have aphantasia and this just confirms it for me!
Thank you Amanda for sharing, I go through fazes, currently I am reading and drawing, I’m a visual person but being autistic can’t always create or be creative, but the saving grace is spirituality. I meditate , listen to music, take walks go near the ocean ! 💜🙏🏼
Interesting. So I know a guy with autism who has aphantasia too. I have autism and addiction and while I can visualize a character in a book or imagine what the character would look like, I have trouble focusing on reading the book. Like after reading for a minute, starts to space out. That makes sense on the description. btw, did you know people with autism think like animals. We tend to be bottom up thinkers rather than top down thinkers. Sloths are so cute! They smile like koala bears.
I was also hyperlexic as a kid but I went from reading fiction (mostly books written by Enid Blyton) to reading fantasy. But I do remember that when I was reading books that were a bit more description heavy (looking at you, Harry Potter), I would either start diagonal reading or just skip entire paragraphs to read ahead of the descriptions altogether but I never linked that with my aphantasia until now. I also liked to read comic books since they already had the visuals included with the text, but those were not welcomed by my family so I had very few of those. Nowadays, I tend to read more scientific books.
I've been on a science fiction kick the past couple of weeks. I keep Googling for fan art so I can "see" what these alien characters might possibly look like!
Most of the population is, Aphantasia is only in about 3% of the population current studies suggest. I think it would be so cool to be able to visualize!
I love to read non fiction, my brain just loves random information so it's easy. I have only completed maybe half a dozen fiction titles, not for lack of trying, I struggle for the reasons you described, I get bored of endless exposition and my ADHD doesn't let me power through the vast majority. I have found solace in reading comics and manga for when I crave fiction, the images really do make a world of difference. perhaps my brain isn't wasting power trying to encode scenes or appearances into memory. I have had a conversation about Aphantasia with my sibling and I was surprised to find out that even though she can picture stuff, she actually can't imagine voices very well in her head but I do so exceptionally well. When I read a comic, every single character has their own distinct voice that plays out in my head while I read, she on the other hand says everyone just sounds like her own internal voice. I think I have Aphantasia, though I'm not certain. I can't conjure anything more than vague outlines when I try to and even those vague outlines are surprisingly demanding to create. I can picture some things in my head, but it's almost always just a memory, I can't imagine anything I haven't seen before even if it was described to me. Clarity of my memory is not necessarily good enough to where I could confirm whether or not a sloth has ears either and is usually just a brief flash of still images. Oddly enough though, which is why I'm skeptical if I qualify as a Aphantasiac, is that I do have visual clarity when I am daydreaming. I have ADHD and I just kinda drift off occasionally and during those times, it is real enough that I can get stuck in there for 10-20-30 minutes at a time. The dream just passively takes over and outside of it, I have no control over my mind's eye.
This is quite interesting. The working definition aphantasia that I currently have is the ability to voluntarily picture things in your mind's eye. But since you don't seem to have control over it I don't know if that is aphantasia or not. But the fact that you can visualize anything kind of makes it sound like it's not aphantasia. Not that I'm here to gate keep the term aphantasia I feel like anybody who benefits from using it as a description if they cannot picture things then that term is the correct term to use.
Just recently found out most people actually visualize things and the mind's eye isn't a metaphor. It explains why I never cared to read fiction. It's very taxing to try and create a world in your mind using only facts and words. I think that's why I always preferred comic books over novels. The world and characters are drawn for you, so you can enjoy the plot.
I have weak visualization, it’s strange to explain. If someone asked me to describe rooms in my house I know what they look like so i can describe it and i can think about what they look like but I don’t actually see it. I was about to say that reading battle scenes is hard for me when you said the same thing. Haha. I cannot for the life of me visualize how it all plays out. I don’t really watch a lot of battle or war related movies or tv so i don’t have a huge reference base but I do enjoy reading fantasy and sometimes they have a lot of battles. Lmao. I am like you though and I tend to gravitate towards books that have more character development and interesting dialogue. Because I have a huge inner monologue. Hahah. It’s almost constant.
Omg that make sense why i dread the description part of a book. Too much brain power is needed to store every word in memory and then try to stitch them together. Now a days, i like audio fiction books and I read non fictions. I thought i was slow or something. Now i know it is my bodies mechanism.
I also have aphantasia but I'm the opposite with description. Some of my favourite authors are critizied for how descriptive they are. I loved fantasy growing up. I think I liked the description because with only a little information I wouldn't be able to fill in the assumed gaps but I've always looked for fanart too to get an idea of what characters look like. If there is a movie then that is how that world will always 'look' to me when I read. I'm the same with action though, I can't following the movements in my head so I tend to just skim it for plot points.
Yes, the way you are talking about science fiction books and database is what bottom up thinking is. If you watch temple Grandin, you mentions this, bottom verses top thinking.
That's interesting. I'm still learning about bottom up vs top down thinking. I understand it in concept but it's good to have lots of examples. (part of bottom up thinking)
I was at Costco when a fairly attractive blond woman comes up to me and says hi how's it going? I stood looking at her completely dumbfounded. I'm staring at her face desperately trying to force my mind to come up with something. I didn't forget her name, i completely didn't think I'd ever seen her. (I stress the attractive part because of a guy was going to remember someone you'd think it would be someone who was really attractive) she could see i was totally lost, And thankfully we had a good relationship so she teased me for a couple min, and then said we've worked together. helps, cuz I've been with the same company over 20 years. But still nothing. She finally let me of the hook and described what department and job she did, and then i blurted out, oh you're the lady who lent me Architecture Digest magazines. I was so embarrassed she had worked 8 feet from me for 6 months less than 2 years earlier. I have zero ability to picture things...😂
I am a visualizer, to the point where I can become fully immersed and stop "seeing" the physical words and instead be completely absorbed in the movie in my head. My partner is aphantastic. We have poked the edges of this a lot as a couple (we are both autistic and ADHD) and found that he also experiences some other things differently. I can think of a song and hear the song with its instrumentation in my head. He can not, but he can sing to himself in his own head (subvocalize?). I can also recall other sensory data in a similar way to how I would describe my visualizing (sortof a phantom version of the actual visual object since I'm not a super-visualizer), such as the smell of something or the feeling of his hand in mine. I'd be interested to know if you have experienced similar things.
Wow that is so awesome. Sounds like you have hyperphantsia, more visualizing capabilities than the average person even. I don't have any internal senses. I go in more depth about it in some of my other aphantasia videos. I do absolutely love trying to understand how much others can sense. It's so wild how differently our internal experiences are and most of the time we operate like others are the same. Until conversations like this happen.
I really go into the world of the story when i read. If there's a storm or it's specified that it's windy or something I'll feel cold. Long travelling in a story makes me feel tired too. I also really lose myself in tv and movies too
I did a video on dream here. I do dream on occasion, I don't remember or am not aware of my dreams most nights. ruclips.net/video/Z0X2z5P25_s/видео.html
Strangely for me being aphantasic means I only read fantasy fiction book. I think it’s because by definition of the genre, you can’t have real images as references, and for that reason, usually verbal descriptions are very detailed and it corresponds to my mind as I think with reasoning words only and no inner sense. That’s why I love so much the LOTR, as a book, it is very descriptive and Tolkien don’t rely the reader’s mind to create their own image.
I am completely undiagnosed other than ADHD. But I am certain I have Aphantasia. And I remember virtually nothing from my childhood and very little from my past other than the “biggish” things. I’m guessing this is SDAM? I feel like it would be the same? But I’m realizing I’m certain I am autistic too. 40 year old female. My boyfriend is undiagnosed ADHD autistic and a hyper visualizer. He can create entire worlds and rotate 3D items in all directions. It blows my mind cause I see NOTHING!!! With that said. I am an empath so when I am reading I See NOTHING, but I Feel EVERYTHING. So I can FEEL Being in field of wildflowers, sun in my face, sweeping my hands through the tall grasses. But I See nothing. I Loved Anne of Green Gables as a child. Possibly because my grandmother recorded it for us too so I had something to reference. (Thinking back. That makes sense) But it was so passionately written too. And I felt all those emotions. I Love fantasy like Harry Potter and the Nicholas Flamel series. But I also did a lot of acting when I was younger. So in these fantasy stories, I become the person, if that makes sense. I ALWAYS have a voice reading to me when ever I read. I read crazy slowly though. Ok. It’s late. Many random thoughts and partial sentences. 🤣🤦🏽 Thank you for sharing this. I am definitely looking into diagnosis.
That's so cool you have the internal sense of being able to feel though. I'm always touching things because my brain can't tell me what a texture will feel like until I actually touch it. I have vocabulary for it, like silky, rough, prickly but those words don't have a sensation of feeling in my mind unless my fingers are actively touching the item.
Well, I can’t sense things as a physical feel. I feel things purely emotionally. So I can like sense the vibration of something perhaps? And that is how I “feel” or sense it.
Another example. I can touch an item like a pen. If I really focus, it has a specific vibration to it. Included in that vibration or embedded within it are the emotions of people who has used the pen. I feel those emotions/vibrations. Another example, if I touch a person, I can feel their entire emotional past sometimes. Trauma, joys, grief. I feel all of it. I can’t necessarily say what instance caused the trauma specifically. But I know it is there. Does any of this make sense? Lol
I am an AuDHDer, avid reader and writer, and i also have been realizing i have some degree of aphantasia! It's funny I paused the video when you mentioned sloths, i said out loud some sort of very basic description of them, then unpaused the video and you said exactly the same things I said, even in the same order 😂 When reading I realize that I make up some sort of layout of the room or place where the action takes place, which might not always be what the author is describing. I'd say layouts are the most of what I can visualize, like if someone is sitting on a bed in a scene I will see a mostly empty room with a bed, but no details (especially I can't visualize a fictional person's face). I definitely know that my aphantasia (just like all my other neurodivergencies) show up in my writing a lot. Sometimes I worry it makes my writing hard to read for visualizers, and I force myself to add details that I think are needed, but it's always pure intellectual/logical work on my part as opposed to "I'm describing what I'm seeing in my head" Thank you so much for talking about this, as well as your other topics. I always enjoy your videos!
That's so funny about the sloth! Glad to meet a writer that has aphantasia. It can make things difficult but not impossible, we find work arounds. I wonder if you have a scene you want to add more details to if you use Art AI to give you a reference so you can then describe details in more of a flowing way?
@@i.am.mindblind I'm actually generally against using AI-generated images since artists' works get mined (i think that's the term?) without their consent/knowledge, but if I want to write something in a more descriptive way I usually try to find scenaries from anime or movies with similar vibes!
I agree that art AI is controversial and needs more regulation. I mostly think that we should leave art to humans. But if artist could sell their art to AI databases and AI databases weren't allowed to mine for art that isn't royalty free then it could be used as a concept tool for communication. As it currently stands there are ethical issues, but I do see it's potential.
I feel like it'd be very interesting for sociological studies to gather data on how likely Aphantasia people can turn into the typical nerd that is very much into fantasy and sci-fi content, games, etc. in a very involved, passionate, engaged or even fandom fashion like nerds are known to experience these entertainment media very passionately and very seriously. The question raised to me when I realised I didn't stumble upon a single Aphantasia nerd in any social media ever, the opposite so actually, extremely grounded and often "normie" type of people.
I'm not sure I follow. You haven't met any Aphants that like Sci fi and fantasy? I definitely do! I'm currently reading a a Sci fi series right now and watching the fantasy Wheel of Time show with my husband. Also love Star Trek!
I thought the whole point was if I need to know what something looked like then the author will tell me. Visualization shouldn't be involved anywhere in the process of reading as far as I know.
Most people as they read can picture the scene the author is describing. I can't picture it in my head. So yes, authors describe spaces but other than the main gist I don't hold on to the details on my mind.
I find the details are a problem and names don't stick, I forget the title and author and have trouble finding the book again. It's like a radio show for me, as I grew up in the time of radio shows and then tv came around so I will re read a book I like over and over, talk about being a puzzle to my husband and mother in law. I like all kinds of subject matter but I have to re read a lot. Even making a comment about something gets lost in my head. I think of my memory like quick sand, stuff falls in to it and then my Subconscious buries it. It can surface, with some stimuli or if I like it. I think I have read Lord of the Rings dozens of time. I find something interesting in the stories every time and then it gets hidden in my head.
I have always known about this and feel like I have been robbed 😡 I read books slowly, then listen to them on tape, then movie of the book if available.
I do find writing that is heavy on detailed physical descriptions and actions tiresome. I cannot form mental images so I focus on what that information implies. I think mainly in terms of concepts. I'm not great at identifying faces or remembering names either. I wonder if this is related... It seems to me that people have great variety in how they perceive and make sense of the world. I dislike the trend of 'experts' pathologizing so many things these days as if they really knew what they were talking about. Their expertise is too often the mere conventional speculation of the day within the area of study, soon to be replaced by the next conventional speculation. The truth of 'knowledge' is that the more that you learn, the less confident you become in what you think you already understand.
My sister is also a hyperphant. She says she can loose herself in daydreams quite easily as she creates visually interesting worlds with other sensory experiences too. I can't even begin to wrap my head around it.
@@i.am.mindblind Power problems with the laptop but I finally finished the video! lol. As with most other things autistic it's a blessing and a curse; being a hyperphant, at least for me, if something really captures my imagination I can get "stuck" (that's what I call it) for hours and hours. It can happen at any time and can be offputting if I'm say walking on the road and stopping to look at flowers or shopping or something like that.
Thank you for sharing this experience. It's very interesting. Have you thought about writing yourself? If you can't visualize in your mind, you experience memories and thought creation like a blind person (I assume). You know what both experiences of life mean. That's an amazing strength right there. We'd have a lot to learn about your vision. By vision, I mean that experiences and memories recollection are not bound to only one sensory dimension. Visualizing is just easier for everyone because it is the sense we rely the most on to navigate that world, every day. But there is a threshold of sensory information that our brain can process. It means that people with disabilities develop with more finess other senses, as I am sure you do too. This is why disability shouldn't be the word. It is only disability because paying attention to diversity of experience is not seen as being the norm yet. Fortunately it is changing thanks to people like you wording their world out. Thank you for that. Blind people might collect and talk about books that you'd be more sensitive too. It could give you access to a pool of writing that you are more likely feel more in touch with. What do you think? Have you already been there yet? If your brain can't emulate images, can you emulate well other senses? Touch, feeling (emotions), smells, sounds? I can be good at vizualizing but it's a muscle I think. I don't read fiction, science-fiction. I like to read to learn and understand. It can be challenging to read as well, as you said. The other day, I started listing at least 20 points about technics to stay focus and keep at reading. I didn't know to know that much about reading... so yeap... That's a whole field of study in itself to be able reading regularly and reduce the struggle. I only mean here to share thoughts, suggestions, ideas because I enjoyed your content and found it stimulating. I hope you'll enjoy those words as well then. A lovely day to you! 🌌
I hope you check out some of my other Aphantasia videos where I go into other details, but no, I have total or sometimes called global aphantasia and don't experience any of the senses in my mind. I'm not a great writer because I can't visualize out a scene in my head, I'm even grappling with whether or not I have an inner monolgue, from what other's describe I don't think I do, or a very weak one at that. I process out loud, which is why I love this vlog so much. My best friend is blind, she lost her complete sight 15 years ago. Before that she was a visualizer. She loves very very detailed descriptions of things because she can build the descritptions in her mind. Some blind people don't care too much for physical descriptions (colors for example) because they might not remember a color or if they were born blind have a hard time understanding color the way sighted people do. But my friend remembers colors in her mind very well, even not seeing them for 15 years.
I follow the Curly Girl Method. I use Giovanni tea tree shampoo and conditioner, Cantu Curl Activator and tresseme strong hold gel. I'm not really well versed in talking about it because different kinds of curls will respond to different weight products, etc. But there are awesome curly content creators on Instagram and Tiktok. I'm sure on this platform too. I do appreciate your interest though! 😊
Yes, I have some familiarity with a sloth so I can describe it in broad strokes. But do they have ears? A tail? Is their belly the same color as their back? Do they have other markings? I can't pull up a mental image of what a sloth looks like so these details I won't know unless I go look at a picture of a sloth. And yes, even visualizers will have to have familiarity with a thing to visualize it in detail, but I was just using this as an example to describe my inner experience.
Yes. I've always thought I struggled with learning new languages because of aphantasia but there are multilingual people with aphantasia. Still, for me, memorizing anything in general is so hard. Especially phone numbers, addresses and the like.
General Aphant, AuDHD, and other things. I have ALWAYS loved the fiction but for me I eat up descriptions because they already "in my language", unlike having to translate the "video" my eyeballs see into something resembling a wonky dictation machine after Ham radio broadcast =oD I love the looooooong series and I search for completed works so I don't have to "manage" multiple worlds because I can't really long term store much of the data in the book. I'll admit, sometimes I see how descriptions get too long and I start scanning; Robert Jordan waxes long over dresses. Long action/battle events can kinda get boring, but Asexual/Aromantic me skips right over the sex scenes. I can't remember who it was, but one author actually put plot in the sex scenes... usually there is nothing of value there =oD Kinda like realizing there was a lot of plot in Tolkien's Songs but skipped right over and no interest to read more male writers. I very much appreciate the E-Rearders for their access to female writers that are churning out fantasy and SF rather than the published male authors available in the 80s and 90s. Classics are a nice read, but I tend to skip over short, one off books... like, you need at least 4 large tombs to get my attention. Oddly enough, I LOVE manga, too. I don't know why I have been autistic fighting doing Manga on my large E-Reader, but thus is Autism, stuff happens but not always when I want it to. I rarely read non-fiction, but to be fair, I do read a lot of news, tech, and even repair manuals and that is technically non fiction =oD I will agree that what I have "loaded" can somewhat effect future thoughts. I.E. using Star Trek ship deck to represent a general starship; I think I rarely allow the bandwidth to create more than just "A space ship of X size". However, with a huge expanse of writings "loaded", even abstractedly, I've amazed myself how my story telling and world building can captivate NT audiences. I really want to DM table top RPG games, but I have no experience in any game system... or enough friends to have a game night =oP I started reading a little behind the curve, but once I found the Box Car Children, I took off and was constantly reading considerable more books and beyond my peer level.
D&D never appealed to me, I think because of aphantasia. I'm playing a game called Frosthaven with my family which has a D&D feel to it but with actual board pieces and tangible cards and manipulatives that make it easier. Still, we play fairly straight without added fighting descriptions.
I think so to some extent. I can't hold numbers in my head. I have to work problems out on paper. But I have heard of people with Aphantasia who are good at math so it may not be a universal issue.
Hi Amanda, I too am a late diagnosed Autistic, ADHDer, dyspraxic, and I have total aphantasia. Thank you for this excellent video. I too was an avid reader and hyperlexic as a child, but stopped from the end of school till my mid-20s. Your video explains a lot to me, like why I struggle so much with high fantasy novels where the names look like a string of consonants to me. Because my aphantasia means I don’t form a mental image of each character, I struggle to tell characters apart unless ai can store all their names separately in my mind. I think this is one of the reasons I love Terry Pratchett’s Discworld so much. With characters called Agnes Nitt and Reg Shoe, they are still “weird” fantasy names, but they occupy known object spaces in my head, so I can keep who they are in my mind.
@@i.am.mindblind yes! One of the reasons I love the Lindsey Davis books is that they have a list of characters at the beginning. Kindle has a feature called X-Ray in some books; highlight a name and it will show you a list of all the times that character is mentioned.
Just for clarity: Aphantasia is a separate condition from Autism. People with Autism may (and often do) have other neurodivergencies. Many autistic people are excellent visualizers.
Look up "Bionic reading" it has helped me a lot!
I am highly visual but I have to tell you...any type of battle in a book or movie just loses me. I either skip over those parts and skim to find out who dies and/or who wins...I'll fast-forward through movies/programs until the end of battles....And I stopped reading Lord of the Rings in the middle of the series because there were so many battles....Perhaps it's because I'm so visual....and I hate violence and have high sensitivity (autism) that I find it so distasteful and wasteful of my time. So it may or may not be because of visualization or lack thereof that leaves people cold. Just my two cents. Enjoyed your video! Best wishes.
Makes sense why the Lord of the Rings series was agony to read.
@@Suebee1988 - my partner is like that there's a lot of things she doesn't want to hear about because she sees it. She only told me that recently because I have been asking about how she sees what she sees because I am pretty sure I have aphantasia. So I like to watch videos about dogs getting rescued, because when I hear "poor Rover was locked in a cage in this own filth with no food or water" I just know what has happened, whereas she doesn't like to see those videos because she can see the dog in it's suffereing state in her mind, where I only see it as a dog who is at the vets or the new owners and is decent conditions no longer suffering etc.
It's always mindblowing when I realize there are folks out there with such vastly different experiences in the world to myself. Visualizing had always been a metaphor to me, so much so it's nearly impossible to believe people are actually seeing things in their mind's eye. I've always been a huge reader of tons of genres, and I've noticed the descriptions that resonate with me most are audio descriptions rather than visual. Even in my own writing, I never really put emphasis on visual descriptions, but I always make describe audio cues. Sometimes I wonder if that's also why coming up with ideas in visual arts (like drawing) have always been somewhat of a struggle for me
As a young child, my son loved being read to from picture books but would get highly upset if I forgot to show him the pictures OR if I changed the wording in any way. One night I was so sleepy so I tried to skip a couple pages at end of book to get to THE END. OOH, he had a fit. Of course, we had to start over at beginning.😮 Never did THAT again...
I recently found out that he (now 43 yrs old) cannot visualize at all when he reads. So now I understand the importance of the normal FULL story.
I always wondered why it was like pulling teeth to get him to read something as he aged.
His neuro-disorders are extensive, most diagnosed by 6 yrs old. This one was not even on my radar then.
Thanks for info. He might not benefit from it directly, but one of his 5 kiddos might.
Never knew this was a thing until recently. I always thought the “imagine you in your happy place” was such a weird metaphor until I realized it isn’t for most people. I don’t have any other neurodivergence’s, but I think it’s really cool to see the correlation between aphantasia and other neurodivergentcies!
I had never heard of aphantasia but have always been a poor visualizer. Even when I know what things look like (friends or family for example), I don't really see them in my mind's eye. It's more a fleeting generalized perception like seeing a photo for a second before it fades. This probably explains why I so seldom remember dreams.
I have never felt so understood!!!! I am mindblown by the information about having aphantasia myself and knowing this only for the past couple of days. I am 38.
I learned at 38 too. I don't remember if I said that in the video. It's amazing to go so long not realizing other people are seeing things in their mind!
I'm 22 with a similar profile to yours. I have aphantasia but i can hear tv dialogue and song fragments. The bulk of what I read for pleasure is SF/fantasy light novels and isekai.
I was born with Aphantasia and Dyslexia. I will be 80 years old in 6 weeks. I am world traveled, have a degree in psychology and law and have created, built and ran two companies for 20 years. Because of no one knowing about Dyslexia and Aphantasia when I was born in 1944, I had to teach myself to read. At 18, every Friday I would go to the book store and pick one book off the New York times best seller list. I read that book over and over for a week. The following Friday I did the same. I memorized the English language and instead of letters, I see words as pictures. It made me a fast reader. There are many forms of Dyslexia. During my 68 years in the U.S. I never met anyone with Dyslexia. I have lived in South America for 12 years and have three professional friends who are Dyslexic, all different degrees of Dyslexia. I was tested for Aphantasia 6 years ago and have congenital Aphantasia and consider it a gift. I do not daydream and I fall asleep within minutes of laying down. I do not live in the past or future as I cannot bring either up in a vision. Memories stored in my mind come up as a photograph only. I will remember you from the moment I met you ,even if you age before my eyes. I have never allowed anything to get in my way. I am sure I am missing other things that I do not know about but I think Dyslexia and Aphantasia are a gift and as I have been told, I am just wired differently. Outside of grade school, neither have ever gotten in my way.
And as you age, your mind forms images from repetition and you do not need vision to bring up images. I also have no fear because I do not see into the future, so I do not have things that hold me back, since I do not know what will happen tomorrow. I see my little flaws as making my life very good.
Someone I know might be worse than average to average at visualization, lol...when reading a novel, he can sometimes imagine certain aspects vividly, other aspects might be vague...he suspects faces are more likely to be a blur, and locations more vividly imagined, etc, lol...he can vividly imagine some places he had spent time in, sometimes feeling as if he could walk about, lol, but faces are more of a blur...when reading novels, he suspects the same thing happens, locations are more vivid, faces are more of a blur...sometimes, but rarely, he might imagine the voices of the characters, etc...but usually he hears a uniform voices, perhaps his own, lol, in his mind, for everyone...
Until I learned I have Aphantasia, I always thought that those on the spectrum were visual only. Language was difficult. The truth is what you are saying. There is a spectrum for autism and a spectrum with aphantasia.
I have ADHD, Aphantasia, SDAM and now I believe I have Autism.
What you say is how I live my life and how I view things. Incredible!
We are not broken. We are different and we are many. We are more than anyone knows right now. I just joined this knowing! It’s an awakening for me. Now I can create systems to function more effectively.
☺️❤️
Hi, great video. I remember having a conversation with my wife about all of this. She mentioned a favourite scean in a book and how it brought up so many images. I had to keep asking things like, "You mean you can actually see these things in your mind?" When she asked me what Isaw I said, "just the words in the page." My favourite book is The Lord Of The Rings. Is highly descriptive, but I let it wash over me. Its like doing the journey in a windowless carriage with someone outside telling you what's happening.
Hello Amanda. I am a late diagnosed male, 51 years old from the United Kingdom. I watched your video with interest. I read mostly non-fiction but I am a fan of Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch novels. Thankfully I have the Amazon Prime show to use as a reference, but I regularly use Google Maps to 'visit' the Los Angeles locations in the books. Otherwise I pull information from other movies to fill in locations such a police stations and so forth. I also like Sue Grafton's Alphabet mystery books, but there are no shows to reference, so I will often use actors from other movies to 'play' the roles in the books. Still, the description-heavy passages are useless to me. I laughed when you mentioned Lord Of The RIngs, because I cannot picture anything Tolkien describes. It's all as though I'm standing in a very dim room trying to look at something out the corner of my eye! There is a question in one of the UK diagnostic questionnaires I filled in that asks 'when reading fiction, are you able to picture the characters in your mind?' I had no idea about aphantasia before finding your video.
Unmasking is tough. I am having a bit of a crisis of identity. But there are lot of books and videos that help enormously in figuring out my own autism. I have added you to my list of subscriptions and will watch more of your posts. All the best. John
Thank you for adding in this example! Yes, I was reading Brandon Sanderson's book Skyward recently and googled Doomslug because I wanted to know how people visualized his description of this creature!
Tolkien was a fun read! But I get you on the loooong descriptions. Robert Jordan is TERRIBLE for that, like pages and pages describing women's dresses =oD
Pretty much ALL of it lost on me beyond general scene setting.
I dunno if being able to see "just a little" as you describe would be more or less annoying than the the rainbows on black. Kinda as if you are always seeing patterns in the clouds just to have them blow away =oD
Re visual references and Tolkien, do you know of Puzzlewood in the Forest of Dean? It’s a little patch of ancient, beautifully mossy, woodland (often used as a filming location) I have a dim recollection of some suggestion it may have inspired Tolkien. I haven’t read Lord of the Rings but it’s the place I thought of reading the hobbit to my daughter.
@@i.am.mindblind i too have Aphantasia and also have the Brandon Sanderson books on Audible and I "imagined" a brightly coloured sea slug. 😂 no idea if remotely what he was going for and to be honest when I first thought of that char, for the longest time I didn't even assign it a physical form.
I love this explanation since people are always asking me what happens when I read a book with aphantasia. I used to read only non-fiction, but I've recently rediscovered how much I enjoy fiction. But I don't actually read it. I listen to audio books. I find it's much easier to understand what's going on when I'm listening to the action. So now I always have one fiction/sci-fi/mystery book on my phone to listen to and one non-fiction on my kindle because I like to highlight and take notes.
I struggle with audio books but lately I've been able to listen to one while doing embroidery.
Hello! My favorite genre is science fiction, and that’s partly because I do have the ability to fully immerse myself in the story. But dialog and character development are my favorite parts of books, so I’ll recommend The Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells. The character development is amazing, and the audiobooks multiply that times 10, because they are performed so well. (And don’t let the title put you off) :)
Another aphantasic AuDHDer with (undiagnosed) SDAM here. I think you capture pretty well how I relate to fiction - and I definitely concur with you about LoTR: the battle scenes in particular were far too tedious to be able to hold my attention.
It's worth noting that this is more or less the same way that readers handle adjectives that they don't understand. They typically just fill in whatever they care to fill in, so long as it doesn't seem to matter. For example, a dress pattern is probably going to be skipped by any reader that isn't into fashion enough to know what it means. Likewise, Stephen King rarely bothers to describe the clothing of the characters in his books unless it's somehow significant to the plot. He trusts that readers will fill in something appropriate if need be and by leaving that detail out, he helps to reduce the issues of future readers opening one of his books and wondering what butterfly collars are.
The difference is that those of us that are either weak visualizers or completely incapable of it just have that going on for everything and are forced to use more conceptual knowledge to deal with it and may prefer to consider other facets of the language like texture.
This explains why I love reading on the kindle so much. I love that I can highlight a word or term and it brings up a dictionary definition or Wikipedia article.
I'm a 47-year-old female, and the most I've ever been able to "visualize" (if I close my eyes and try really hard) is a quick flash that resembles an undeveloped photo negative. Like you, for most of my life, I thought "Picture this..." was metaphorical. I have known, for a few years now, that other people can actually visualize; and also realize my inability to do so, probably contributes greatly to my inability to draw. I, too, love to read; and will just skip ahead if some "filler description" gets too in-depth. Thank you for putting a word to my lack of visualization.
Glad you've got a word for it now! 😊
This is so helpful! It really explains why I've always preferred non-fiction to fiction. I also have realized that my ability to "visualize" (I've never "gotten lost" in any series...) really depends on the author. I have more vivid pictures in my mind's experience of Stephen King, Neil Gaimen, and J.R.R. Tolkien's books.
Wow, thank you for describing that. It is very interesting to get a little idea of how your brain works. 😊
You're welcome, it's fun for me to try and break it down and relate it to what I've read others experience. I went so much of my life relating to people like they had similar brain patterns as I do and no wonder I always got responses that didn't make sense!
Thank you for this video. I have only realized this year (I am 70) that I must have aphantasia. I haven't been professionally diagnosed but based on all the descriptions of aphantasia and my life experiences, I am certain that I experience my mind this way. This video was particularly interesting because while I am a curious, intelligent, and well educated person I have rarely enjoyed reading fiction for exactly the reason you describe ... books that are heavy on describing visuals are hard work with little reward ... and I can never remember what the scene had been described like later in the book when the author refers back. I have always preferred non-fiction books. There is such a social thing about being a reader and sharing references to books, etc., that I was never a part of. It was always so uncomfortable for me when people would say, "Oh, you don't enjoy reading?" As if there was something wrong with me. This has brought much clarity for me. Thank you.
Sounds like my spelling deficit. I preffer reading technical books to fiction. Fiction seems pointless to me, probably because it's usually written from nuerotypical perspective. I like to learn things when I read that are going to be useful to me.
You have a great way of dealing with your visualation issues. Well done. Thanks for switching to "identity first" language with regards to your autism in the intro too =)
That's an interesteding point about fiction. I have come across a few self published Autistic fiction writers on TikTok but haven't bought any of their books yet. It'd be interesting to compare.
I’d never heard of aphantasia before. But I have known that I’m not a very mentally visual person. So sometimes when I’m talking with my friends and something gross comes up, 🎉they cringe and I don’t because I don’t see it they way they do in my mind. My mental pictures are very fuzzy. I have a sensing/perceiving personality style. So I’ve always assumed that my way of understanding the world was more thru sensing emotions, than visually seeing what was going on. I can read emotions very well that are taking place in front of me. If I were to imagine an emotional scene, it would be more of experiencing the scene than seeing the scene.
Thank you for this description. I love hearing how other people process.
Thank you Amanda! I resonate with much of what you said. I only recently found out I have Aphantasia.. I was shocked people could actually see in their heads!.. I see nothing at all but use memory and facts as you say to draw from. I use words a lot. So much is making sense from my past now I learn this about myself. After getting over the initial day or two, I’m grateful for my inner darkness, I’m very sensitive energetically so to have lots of images in my mind I imagine I’d find quite overwhelming (amazing as it sounds).
I Love books so much. I have enjoyed plenty of fiction, more the emotion and relationships (non-visual aspects) so that now makes sense but I prefer non-fiction and exploring hidden truths of nature, history and spirituality.
I look forward to watching some of your other videos. Just subscribed. Thank you 😊✨
It really shook me when I learned other people visualize too. It's so weird how we are all walking around with different inner experiences and have no clue. Thanks for subscribing! 😊
I just found out I have aphantasia 2 days ago. I'm still in shock. But your comment about not having all these visuals or sounds from life in your head will help me. I'm also energy sensitive, so I should consider the darkness and silence a gift, not a liability.
&markiefufu Yes the silence and darkness is definitely to be experienced as a gift! I keep forgetting I have aphantasia and then get fascinated by it all over again when I remember! Without the shock of first discovering it.. makes me wonder though, what else I don’t know I don’t know. Self discovery is life long rich and essential work! Blessings ✨🤗
I’m soooo glad I watched this video. I literally thought I was just dumb my entire life. As a kid I read above grade level but I could barely comprehend some books and now it makes sense. When I read I can only see images that I’ve seen before so when something I had never seen before was being described my mind would basically skip that part.
I would be fascinated to see you sketch a scene that is completely fictional and original, as you are hearing it being described. I want to see if your sketch is anything like the mental sketch I would be creating while hearing the description as you are hearing it. For me, visualizing something I have never seen but am hearing or reading about is a lot like a sketch pad, with lots of updates and corrections as early assumptions are replaced with actual parts of the description.
Could be an interesting video idea if I could set it up. I'll think on it. Although, without refrence photos I'm not a great artist! Haha!
@@i.am.mindblind The artistic quality of the sketch is not very important in this experiment. It is more about building any sort of scene out of words.
I only realised a year ago (I am 40) that I have Aphantasia...it was so relatable watching this lady's video and I could even see the reference to the Hobbit coming. That is exactly why I could barely make it a quarter way through that book and it is very rare I don't finish a book, however, the ones I don't finish are invariably ones that over describe scenes etc.
i've read about aphantasia but ironically it's hard to imagine what it's like if you don't have it. hearing someone talk about their own experiences is just so fascinating.
I'm a very vivid visualizer when reading, it's like watching a movie for me, but more immersive. However, following the book on character descriptions, outfit descriptions, and things of that nature can get kind of lost on me. My brain just auto-creates the character to what I imagine they would look like and then focuses on the plot. If any changes to their appearance happen throughout the book, my brain has to pause and entirely redo the character. Sometimes it even makes me forget what I imagined the character to look like entirely.
Very interesting. I really think it would be so incredible to be able to do this.
I just found your channel. This video blew my mind. I am late (self) diagnosed autistic and adhd, and recently discovered aphantasia as well. I also always thought it was just metaphors folks would mention. I always loved Harry Potter as a kid, but that’s the only fantasy series that grabbed me. I think it was in no small part because of the aphantasia. But I love books with more dialogue and looove podcasts, especially when it’s a conversation because I don’t have to put in all that extra effort. I feel so seen right now, I even sent this video to my partner to help explain, cause that’s difficult for me too. Thanks for sharing your experience, I feel less alone in it now. 💜
😁 My husband still grapples with my aphantasia. It just blows his mind I can't see stuff in my head. Lol.
Your explanation of this condition was fascinating and concise, especially since until now I hadn't heard of it and thought I just didn't like novels that much. Despite loving and amassing books, the ones I find more engaging seem to always be unintentionally nonfiction. I makes complete sense now, my mind rarely conjures up that 'wrap around' all engrossing nature other readers talk of. And yup, my go to sci-fi space ship scenario, is always the deck of the Enterprise! Excellent content and channel.
Thank you! Nothing wrong with non-fiction either. I often have one non-fiction and one fiction book going at a time.
I had never heard of aphantasia until this year... I'm 59 and just figuring out that other people really see things in their mind! Here's how i have experienced it: 1. the pictures of family that i keep on my walls refresh my mind to the details of what each person looks like. Yes, including my own grown children. 2. I have always loved reading, but "visualize" the characters as their names written out... too many characters, especially with similar names, and i get lost. If the book is made into a movie i am thrilled because even if they change the plot i will at least have a reference to what the characters look like. 3. I have never understood how people can work with a police artist to describe a suspect. There is no way i could tell you what facial features i saw on a random person. 4. If i try to visualize an object or animal, i will either "see" fleeting impressions of parts of it (a bike frame of indistinct color, but no wheels) or the word itself. 5. I cannot imagine the end result of a creative project without drawing it.
Same! I have aphantasia and I love reading. I don’t like books that spend too much time on painting a picture of the scenery. You get one page and then I’m done. I want them to get to the point. I prefer it when a book is made into a movie. I have no preconceived notions about what the characters or landscape look like. When I found out people can visualize I immediately began to mistrust people. You can make up anything in your head! I don’t think of myself as broken or disabled. I can’t imagine all that noise in your head.
I can relate a little to this. I don't have aphantasia, quite the opposite. But while I can imagine my own things very easily and in great detail, I struggle to translate written or spoken words (by other people) into images in my head. I can do it, it just takes a lot more work, and there are often gaps. Especially when picturing characters in my head. They usually appear in my mind as amorphous blobs. And settings can shift around like in a dream.
Sure, maybe I could try to get around that by making my own characters and settings and putting them in there instead, but---wait. That's a good idea, actually. I hadn't thought of that before. I'll have to try it sometime.
This sounds fascinating! 😊
What's such kind of ability is called?
Wow you are right inside my head. I was always reading ahead, i never saw and i still dont. Your sloth description is exactly as i would describe it. Like you read and take in how something is described however i cant describe an individual i can bring up previous text/info etc but i can't see and i can't describe i can only tell people my memory not imagery. I have nothing diagnosed but i definitely have differences.
I am 38 and am coming to realize I have this too.i have discovered it during the process of my self awareness and spiritual journey as I can not visualize which makes it so hard.
Determined my husband has aphantasia, today, but listening to your description of reading books, that's quite like what I go through. I just read graphic novels anymore because anything else I'm just looking at words on a page and it's visually boring. I don't strictly have aphantasia but anything I picture in my head is blurry and vague, minimal detail, can't make much out. As you described, I have to access a database of things I've seen in order to describe something.
I think visualizing is a scale so it sounds like your visualization isn't really good enough to be useful, so to say you have Aphantasia I think would be appropriate. Some people gatekeep the word which I think is ridiculous. I feel if your visuals don't help you then they might as well not exist. I see nothing in my minds eye at all, my sister can render 3d movies. It's crazy!
I am also autistic and have adhd and complete aphantasia and really related to what you said here, and I love to read! I actually struggled with reading comprehension growing up, that's the one difference, because I could read the words fast but I can't process and think about what's going on in the book that fast so I had to learn to slow down but now i'm an avid reader no problem. :)
I was 26 in 2015 when I decided I wanted to figure out my issue with reading, and I did, and it was like 2018 or 2019 when I learned about aphantasia and by then I was already an avid reader. I read some as a kid, Goosebumps, Fear Street, R.L. Stine got me to see reading could be fun even when I was struggling to remember what I read.
I've always loved horror (that's how the Goosebumps books got me, I was the moth and their covers at the scholastic book fairs were the flames lol) but now I read a bit of everything. Horror and Nonfiction are my favorites (nonfiction being easier than fiction for me and I love to learn about different things, like animals) but I also read fantasy, sci-fi, thriller, contemporary, etc. Epic fantasy tends to lose me though or long descriptions of things. Or maybe i'm just scared of epic fantasy. I'm more character-driven than plot. I won't remember what the characters were wearing or how they looked (unless i'm beaten over the head with it) but i'll remember how I felt about them as characters.
Hello mam, I recently acquired aphantasia (total aphantasia) because of my anxiety disorder.
Prior to this, I was a brilliant visualiser. Now no imagery at all.... It's severly affecting my academics. I don't know how to adapt to new way of learning.. Now I face problem in remembering facts and info. (Especially subjects like social sciences, current affairs for exams etc.)
Can you people share how you learnt being an aphant? I'll be highly thankful🙏🏻.
Interesting, I've heard of people getting aphantasia due to head trauma but never because of anxiety. The brain is so interesting. I guess it's trying to protect you. I've always had aphantasia so I guess I adapted as I went. I use a lot of reference photos when I need to draw, I make a lot of lists, I have to use GPS to drive.
This raises questions for me not in books but writing stuff. I write about my transspecies identity a lot and phantom limbs. I wonder how i could be more accesible describing my identity for others to understand in case the misunderstanding is from a neurodivergent area. Ive held off on diagrams, but i wonder if that helps someone with aphantasia have a visual refrence to how i view myself as. If it does ill totally use that in my description
I have a friend who has DID. They pull photos from the internet to show me how they think of themselves inner world. Only about 3% of the population has Aphantasia, but I think word descriptions will always leave more up for inturrpretation than drawings. People with aphantasia adapt, most of us don't know others can visualize until we hear about it in the context of it being a real phenomenon and not a metaphor.
Also autistic here, but maybe hyperphantasia? Is that a thing? It took me a long time to understand that imagining sensory information was a skill, that there were degrees of it, and that there can be absence of anywhere from one sense to all senses in “the mind’s eye.”
It’s very hard to remember that the amount of visualization I do is in any way unusual, because I put no effort into it at all. It just happens. But especially when interacting with other neurodivergent people, it would probably make sense to more frequently remember or ask if aphantasia affects them.
Sometimes I run into a lot of communication issues with other autistic people, more so than with neurotypical people. It’s kind of a “feast or famine” thing: we’re on exactly the same wavelength, or just not at all. And especially in the past when I’ve attempted to share roleplaying games, that’s had some odd results.
Which would make sense for a hobby that is literally all about imagining things. You play a character in a fantastical world. You are more or less expected to react to fictional events in real time as if they were real. It would probably be very hard to enjoy if the “inner world” of the game were patchy or fully blank.
As always, thanks for your great content. You consistently give me a lot to think about.
I love this! Yes, hyperphantsia is a thing. I think it has another name too. My husband is really into D&D and before I knew about aphantasia I couldn't understand how anyone would want to play it. When I learned other people can visualize it made so much more sense! I love the concept of D&D but the playing just doesn't work for me.
i can’t imagine what it must be like. It’s one of the things i like about reading books, the visualization. Also the main reason why i haven’t listened to any audio books so far, because I would have to pause the reading to let my mind wander. diagnosed with ASD some 8 years ago.
have you read any Jane Austen? I find that her writing style is so heavy on dialogue that I actually can't follow it because there's nothing I can visualize. it's like reading a script but without all the character names and stage directions.
I have, but I don't recall whether or not I liked it. That is an issue I have so often. I'll read a book (even a famous one) but then forget it and what I thought about it soon after reading. (my memory disorder sdam.) It makes joining book clubs almost impossible. Lol.
I go through cycles too! Glad I am not alone.
Same here..like dialogue a lot better since I don't visualize either. I also have to listen to the book to understand it. If I read it my comprehension goes way down.
As for books I read, when I got back into reading, I started reading all of Roald Dahl’s books, as he was my childhood favourite.
I then spent a long time reading almost exclusively non-fiction, before I got into fiction.
I really like series with many books in, like the aforementioned Discworld, Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe books, and Lindsey Davis’ Falco and Flavia Albia books (ancient Roman detective stories). I feel that the fact that they have plot and setting in common, and a common writing style takes off some of the mental load, allowing me to focus on the story.
Recently, I have started reading graphic and Illustrated novels. I had not been able to do this before, because to me the pages were so dense with both pictures and words, and I struggled to take in info from both. I started with Lizzy by Alison Stewart, which has some pages like a graphic novel, some pages are just a large illustration, while others are a panel of words like a novel, but with pictures to the side. Reading these illustrated books is giving me great joy.
I also love series, and you are right having an established setting and characters makes a huge difference! 😁
I first heard about aphantasia about a year ago. I think it was when I read that an experimental therapy had enabled people without a mind's eye to be able to visualize. I'm still struggling to understand what other people "see" when they read, or meditate. And I realized that this might be why I hate guided meditation exercises - it's so hard for me to construct an image, that exists for a mere flash, that I'm exhausted and cranky and everyone else seems fine. I spoke to a colleague about this and she was as perplexed as I, for the opposite reason. If I say "apple' she says that she can see it right there in her hand. I'll admit... I'm jealous. It seems amazing to be able to visualize. For reading - yes, I'm an avid reader, but I prefer non-fiction. For novels, though, I have to construct the scene e.g. driving up the hill on a road overlooking the coast. And it's not worth it, I'd rather just enjoy the story.
Yeah for my meditations I prefer breath work, no picturing a serene place for me!
I’m ADHD with aphantasia. Sometimes I look things up but then I end up in a rabbit hole and forget to go back to the book. Most of the time I just skim through the parts of the book with descriptions. Like if they are describing an outfit or scenery, I feel like it’s mostly irrelevant to the story so I don’t care or bother with it. Same with location. If it’s fiction, then I feel like location is irrelevant too because most of the time it’s something in someone’s head and probably not true to life anyway. It does cut down in the size of a book considerably though. When I was a kid everyone just thought I was a super fast reader because I could blow through large novels in a day or less. It was because I skipped all the descriptions. They didn’t really do anything for me. I can’t picture it anyway so what’s the point. I was always happy if they had a picture though because then I could study it to see what the author was actually thinking when writing.
I have Aphantasia as well and have to read portions of books to my husband (who has hyperphantasia) and he adds explanations for me. Battle and fight scenes where you have to hold the layout of a room of position of people in mind are a particular struggle for me, and I’m an avid reader and former English teacher.
Facinating! Yes, sometimes it's so hard to grasp the long descriptions. I love being able to Google fan art on some occasions!
Oh that's a great idea! I hadn't thought about that for people. I have had my husband draw me diagrams sometimes, though 😂This probably explains why I like Brandon Sanderson as a fantasy author - he draws in his books so I actually have a reference point.
I like Brandon Sanderson too!
Oh, I can't express strongly enough how insanely recognisable this was for me! I will always forget the descriptions of the protagonists, so when the author refers to someone as "the redhead" or whatever, I have no idea who they're talking about!
When an author describes facial expressions or movements, I will do the expression or movement described in order to understand what is going on. His brows went down, she looked at him through her lashes, she straightened her spine - anything that I can copy I will. It helps me dive into the emotions and relationships of the story, as well as understanding nuances of communication.
I always did really well in school, except for geography. Like you said, if I have seen something a lot of times, I can describe or even (very) roughly sketch it. So a map of my own country, Norway, is both recognisable and describable. Africa is a very distinct shape, and there are a few other places I can identify on a map. But for the most part, it's just Here Be Dragons.
Here be dragons! Love it. Glad you enjoyed the video. 😊
How are you with concepts? Do you get the analogies easily in stories?
Yup! Don't need mental images to get those =oP
Often no, but I think that is more to being autistic than having aphantasia. I struggle with abstract thinking. When an analogy is pointed out to me I can understand it. And I'll pick up on obvious ones but in school teachers would talk about metaphors and analogies and I'd not see them.
My late wife had Aphantasia. This was very helpful in understanding how she experienced the world. She was an accomplished researcher and definitely leaned towards non-fiction vs fiction. Of interest, she almost never remembered a dream. Perhaps related to Aphantasia?
I'm sorry for your loss. ❤️ I remember dreams sometimes, but it is rare. I don't know if that is common for aphantasia or not though. I have a different video where I talk a bit more about dreams because it is the only time I can visualize. Although dreams that I remember & am aware I'm visualizing is very rare.
Did you ever read a book and got lost where you were in the page and what was happening in it a few words after? It is what usually happens to me. And i read outloud for myself because of soundless words in my head 🤷♀️
Yes this happens often, but probably due to adhd. Lol. I like to read outloud but don't usually do it for myself, I like reading outloud to my kids. But yes, I also have soundless words in my head. ❤️
@@i.am.mindblind now i don't feel alone anymore as a total aphant. It's still confusing how people literally sees and hear things inside their heads. The closest i got was some hypnagogic flashes and my crazy first brekthough
Ι'm autistic with adhd and afantasia as well. Unfortunately I'm unable to read books, not only because I don't have the attention span for it and afantasia makes most books seem like endless pages of descriptions without meaning, but also because I have something called Irlen syndrome which is a perceptual processing disorder that resembles dyslexia when it comes to reading. Most books I have tried to read have been made into movies, so I watch the movie first and then read the book and that really helps with afantasia because I just recall all the images from the movie and it also helps with adhd because I know I'm reading something that I actually like but still I've never managed to finish any book! I hope I will be able to treat my irlen syndrome someday and maybe find some enjoyment in reading. For now reading is literally a torture to me!
I'd never heard of Irlene syndrome until earlier this week and now twice! Do you like audio books? I struggle to keep my attention with audio books.
I love fantasy books but only at a young adult level....I tried the adult books and they were WAY too detailed for me to handle. I am betting this is why! I definitely think I have aphantasia and this just confirms it for me!
Thank you Amanda for sharing, I go through fazes, currently I am reading and drawing, I’m a visual person but being autistic can’t always create or be creative, but the saving grace is spirituality. I meditate , listen to music, take walks go near the ocean ! 💜🙏🏼
Interesting. So I know a guy with autism who has aphantasia too. I have autism and addiction and while I can visualize a character in a book or imagine what the character would look like, I have trouble focusing on reading the book. Like after reading for a minute, starts to space out. That makes sense on the description. btw, did you know people with autism think like animals. We tend to be bottom up thinkers rather than top down thinkers. Sloths are so cute! They smile like koala bears.
I was also hyperlexic as a kid but I went from reading fiction (mostly books written by Enid Blyton) to reading fantasy. But I do remember that when I was reading books that were a bit more description heavy (looking at you, Harry Potter), I would either start diagonal reading or just skip entire paragraphs to read ahead of the descriptions altogether but I never linked that with my aphantasia until now. I also liked to read comic books since they already had the visuals included with the text, but those were not welcomed by my family so I had very few of those. Nowadays, I tend to read more scientific books.
I've been on a science fiction kick the past couple of weeks. I keep Googling for fan art so I can "see" what these alien characters might possibly look like!
I am exactly the opposite, very visual thinker.
Most of the population is, Aphantasia is only in about 3% of the population current studies suggest. I think it would be so cool to be able to visualize!
I love to read non fiction, my brain just loves random information so it's easy. I have only completed maybe half a dozen fiction titles, not for lack of trying, I struggle for the reasons you described, I get bored of endless exposition and my ADHD doesn't let me power through the vast majority.
I have found solace in reading comics and manga for when I crave fiction, the images really do make a world of difference. perhaps my brain isn't wasting power trying to encode scenes or appearances into memory.
I have had a conversation about Aphantasia with my sibling and I was surprised to find out that even though she can picture stuff, she actually can't imagine voices very well in her head but I do so exceptionally well. When I read a comic, every single character has their own distinct voice that plays out in my head while I read, she on the other hand says everyone just sounds like her own internal voice.
I think I have Aphantasia, though I'm not certain. I can't conjure anything more than vague outlines when I try to and even those vague outlines are surprisingly demanding to create.
I can picture some things in my head, but it's almost always just a memory, I can't imagine anything I haven't seen before even if it was described to me. Clarity of my memory is not necessarily good enough to where I could confirm whether or not a sloth has ears either and is usually just a brief flash of still images.
Oddly enough though, which is why I'm skeptical if I qualify as a Aphantasiac, is that I do have visual clarity when I am daydreaming. I have ADHD and I just kinda drift off occasionally and during those times, it is real enough that I can get stuck in there for 10-20-30 minutes at a time. The dream just passively takes over and outside of it, I have no control over my mind's eye.
This is quite interesting. The working definition aphantasia that I currently have is the ability to voluntarily picture things in your mind's eye. But since you don't seem to have control over it I don't know if that is aphantasia or not. But the fact that you can visualize anything kind of makes it sound like it's not aphantasia. Not that I'm here to gate keep the term aphantasia I feel like anybody who benefits from using it as a description if they cannot picture things then that term is the correct term to use.
Just recently found out most people actually visualize things and the mind's eye isn't a metaphor. It explains why I never cared to read fiction. It's very taxing to try and create a world in your mind using only facts and words. I think that's why I always preferred comic books over novels. The world and characters are drawn for you, so you can enjoy the plot.
When I was young comic books were frowned on. Now many people enjoy comic books without judgement.
I have weak visualization, it’s strange to explain. If someone asked me to describe rooms in my house I know what they look like so i can describe it and i can think about what they look like but I don’t actually see it. I was about to say that reading battle scenes is hard for me when you said the same thing. Haha. I cannot for the life of me visualize how it all plays out. I don’t really watch a lot of battle or war related movies or tv so i don’t have a huge reference base but I do enjoy reading fantasy and sometimes they have a lot of battles. Lmao. I am like you though and I tend to gravitate towards books that have more character development and interesting dialogue. Because I have a huge inner monologue. Hahah. It’s almost constant.
Omg that make sense why i dread the description part of a book. Too much brain power is needed to store every word in memory and then try to stitch them together. Now a days, i like audio fiction books and I read non fictions. I thought i was slow or something. Now i know it is my bodies mechanism.
I also have aphantasia but I'm the opposite with description. Some of my favourite authors are critizied for how descriptive they are. I loved fantasy growing up. I think I liked the description because with only a little information I wouldn't be able to fill in the assumed gaps but I've always looked for fanart too to get an idea of what characters look like. If there is a movie then that is how that world will always 'look' to me when I read. I'm the same with action though, I can't following the movements in my head so I tend to just skim it for plot points.
Yep, I recently did some Googling to get an idea of what other people might think of regarding characters in a book! 😁
Yes, the way you are talking about science fiction books and database is what bottom up thinking is. If you watch temple Grandin, you mentions this, bottom verses top thinking.
That's interesting. I'm still learning about bottom up vs top down thinking. I understand it in concept but it's good to have lots of examples. (part of bottom up thinking)
I was at Costco when a fairly attractive blond woman comes up to me and says hi how's it going? I stood looking at her completely dumbfounded. I'm staring at her face desperately trying to force my mind to come up with something. I didn't forget her name, i completely didn't think I'd ever seen her. (I stress the attractive part because of a guy was going to remember someone you'd think it would be someone who was really attractive) she could see i was totally lost, And thankfully we had a good relationship so she teased me for a couple min, and then said we've worked together.
helps, cuz I've been with the same company over 20 years. But still nothing. She finally let me of the hook and described what department and job she did, and then i blurted out, oh you're the lady who lent me Architecture Digest magazines. I was so embarrassed she had worked 8 feet from me for 6 months less than 2 years earlier.
I have zero ability to picture things...😂
I am a visualizer, to the point where I can become fully immersed and stop "seeing" the physical words and instead be completely absorbed in the movie in my head. My partner is aphantastic. We have poked the edges of this a lot as a couple (we are both autistic and ADHD) and found that he also experiences some other things differently. I can think of a song and hear the song with its instrumentation in my head. He can not, but he can sing to himself in his own head (subvocalize?). I can also recall other sensory data in a similar way to how I would describe my visualizing (sortof a phantom version of the actual visual object since I'm not a super-visualizer), such as the smell of something or the feeling of his hand in mine. I'd be interested to know if you have experienced similar things.
Wow that is so awesome. Sounds like you have hyperphantsia, more visualizing capabilities than the average person even. I don't have any internal senses. I go in more depth about it in some of my other aphantasia videos. I do absolutely love trying to understand how much others can sense. It's so wild how differently our internal experiences are and most of the time we operate like others are the same. Until conversations like this happen.
ngl, i am a strong visualiser and when you mentioned sloths with outward ears, i could immediately imagine it and i chuckled to myself lol
I really go into the world of the story when i read. If there's a storm or it's specified that it's windy or something I'll feel cold. Long travelling in a story makes me feel tired too. I also really lose myself in tv and movies too
That is so cool. ❤️
Do you dream? Can you have dreams with visual memory? Something similar to Agnosia?
I did a video on dream here. I do dream on occasion, I don't remember or am not aware of my dreams most nights.
ruclips.net/video/Z0X2z5P25_s/видео.html
Strangely for me being aphantasic means I only read fantasy fiction book. I think it’s because by definition of the genre, you can’t have real images as references, and for that reason, usually verbal descriptions are very detailed and it corresponds to my mind as I think with reasoning words only and no inner sense.
That’s why I love so much the LOTR, as a book, it is very descriptive and Tolkien don’t rely the reader’s mind to create their own image.
I love how we are all different!
I am completely undiagnosed other than ADHD. But I am certain I have Aphantasia. And I remember virtually nothing from my childhood and very little from my past other than the “biggish” things. I’m guessing this is SDAM? I feel like it would be the same? But I’m realizing I’m certain I am autistic too. 40 year old female. My boyfriend is undiagnosed ADHD autistic and a hyper visualizer. He can create entire worlds and rotate 3D items in all directions. It blows my mind cause I see NOTHING!!!
With that said. I am an empath so when I am reading I See NOTHING, but I Feel EVERYTHING. So I can FEEL Being in field of wildflowers, sun in my face, sweeping my hands through the tall grasses. But I See nothing. I Loved Anne of Green Gables as a child. Possibly because my grandmother recorded it for us too so I had something to reference. (Thinking back. That makes sense) But it was so passionately written too. And I felt all those emotions. I Love fantasy like Harry Potter and the Nicholas Flamel series. But I also did a lot of acting when I was younger. So in these fantasy stories, I become the person, if that makes sense. I ALWAYS have a voice reading to me when ever I read. I read crazy slowly though. Ok. It’s late. Many random thoughts and partial sentences. 🤣🤦🏽 Thank you for sharing this. I am definitely looking into diagnosis.
That's so cool you have the internal sense of being able to feel though. I'm always touching things because my brain can't tell me what a texture will feel like until I actually touch it. I have vocabulary for it, like silky, rough, prickly but those words don't have a sensation of feeling in my mind unless my fingers are actively touching the item.
Well, I can’t sense things as a physical feel. I feel things purely emotionally. So I can like sense the vibration of something perhaps? And that is how I “feel” or sense it.
Another example. I can touch an item like a pen. If I really focus, it has a specific vibration to it. Included in that vibration or embedded within it are the emotions of people who has used the pen. I feel those emotions/vibrations. Another example, if I touch a person, I can feel their entire emotional past sometimes. Trauma, joys, grief. I feel all of it. I can’t necessarily say what instance caused the trauma specifically. But I know it is there. Does any of this make sense? Lol
Wow, that sounds like it could be really a lot to process sometimes. ❤️/genuine
I am an AuDHDer, avid reader and writer, and i also have been realizing i have some degree of aphantasia! It's funny I paused the video when you mentioned sloths, i said out loud some sort of very basic description of them, then unpaused the video and you said exactly the same things I said, even in the same order 😂
When reading I realize that I make up some sort of layout of the room or place where the action takes place, which might not always be what the author is describing. I'd say layouts are the most of what I can visualize, like if someone is sitting on a bed in a scene I will see a mostly empty room with a bed, but no details (especially I can't visualize a fictional person's face).
I definitely know that my aphantasia (just like all my other neurodivergencies) show up in my writing a lot. Sometimes I worry it makes my writing hard to read for visualizers, and I force myself to add details that I think are needed, but it's always pure intellectual/logical work on my part as opposed to "I'm describing what I'm seeing in my head"
Thank you so much for talking about this, as well as your other topics. I always enjoy your videos!
That's so funny about the sloth! Glad to meet a writer that has aphantasia. It can make things difficult but not impossible, we find work arounds. I wonder if you have a scene you want to add more details to if you use Art AI to give you a reference so you can then describe details in more of a flowing way?
@@i.am.mindblind I'm actually generally against using AI-generated images since artists' works get mined (i think that's the term?) without their consent/knowledge, but if I want to write something in a more descriptive way I usually try to find scenaries from anime or movies with similar vibes!
I agree that art AI is controversial and needs more regulation. I mostly think that we should leave art to humans. But if artist could sell their art to AI databases and AI databases weren't allowed to mine for art that isn't royalty free then it could be used as a concept tool for communication. As it currently stands there are ethical issues, but I do see it's potential.
I feel like it'd be very interesting for sociological studies to gather data on how likely Aphantasia people can turn into the typical nerd that is very much into fantasy and sci-fi content, games, etc. in a very involved, passionate, engaged or even fandom fashion like nerds are known to experience these entertainment media very passionately and very seriously.
The question raised to me when I realised I didn't stumble upon a single Aphantasia nerd in any social media ever, the opposite so actually, extremely grounded and often "normie" type of people.
I'm not sure I follow. You haven't met any Aphants that like Sci fi and fantasy? I definitely do! I'm currently reading a a Sci fi series right now and watching the fantasy Wheel of Time show with my husband. Also love Star Trek!
I use my imagination but can not visualize.oh it would be so amazing to close my eyes and see vivid but blank black and memory from pictures😢
I thought the whole point was if I need to know what something looked like then the author will tell me. Visualization shouldn't be involved anywhere in the process of reading as far as I know.
Most people as they read can picture the scene the author is describing. I can't picture it in my head. So yes, authors describe spaces but other than the main gist I don't hold on to the details on my mind.
I find the details are a problem and names don't stick, I forget the title and author and have trouble finding the book again. It's like a radio show for me, as I grew up in the time of radio shows and then tv came around so I will re read a book I like over and over, talk about being a puzzle to my husband and mother in law. I like all kinds of subject matter but I have to re read a lot. Even making a comment about something gets lost in my head. I think of my memory like quick sand, stuff falls in to it and then my Subconscious buries it. It can surface, with some stimuli or if I like it. I think I have read Lord of the Rings dozens of time. I find something interesting in the stories every time and then it gets hidden in my head.
I have always known about this and feel like I have been robbed 😡 I read books slowly, then listen to them on tape, then movie of the book if available.
I do love following a book up with a movie if it's been done!
I'm aphantasic and I've always preferred non-fiction books. If I read fiction it needs to be narrative driven to keep my attention.
I do find writing that is heavy on detailed physical descriptions and actions tiresome. I cannot form mental images so I focus on what that information implies. I think mainly in terms of concepts. I'm not great at identifying faces or remembering names either. I wonder if this is related... It seems to me that people have great variety in how they perceive and make sense of the world. I dislike the trend of 'experts' pathologizing so many things these days as if they really knew what they were talking about. Their expertise is too often the mere conventional speculation of the day within the area of study, soon to be replaced by the next conventional speculation. The truth of 'knowledge' is that the more that you learn, the less confident you become in what you think you already understand.
As a friend of mine gasped, “ you mean all you see is words?” Sigh…
I don't even see the words. 😂 I mean, at least in my head. Just thoughts.
The movies are rarely as good as I visualize them. I don't see human faces in my dreams.
Interesting! It's so diverse isn't it? I've hyperphantasia myself. I could honestly lose myself in my own imagination.
My sister is also a hyperphant. She says she can loose herself in daydreams quite easily as she creates visually interesting worlds with other sensory experiences too. I can't even begin to wrap my head around it.
@@i.am.mindblind I never cease to be astounded by the sheer diversity of human experience. It's so wonderful. 💛
@@i.am.mindblind Power problems with the laptop but I finally finished the video! lol. As with most other things autistic it's a blessing and a curse; being a hyperphant, at least for me, if something really captures my imagination I can get "stuck" (that's what I call it) for hours and hours. It can happen at any time and can be offputting if I'm say walking on the road and stopping to look at flowers or shopping or something like that.
Thank you for sharing this experience. It's very interesting.
Have you thought about writing yourself? If you can't visualize in your mind, you experience memories and thought creation like a blind person (I assume). You know what both experiences of life mean. That's an amazing strength right there.
We'd have a lot to learn about your vision. By vision, I mean that experiences and memories recollection are not bound to only one sensory dimension. Visualizing is just easier for everyone because it is the sense we rely the most on to navigate that world, every day. But there is a threshold of sensory information that our brain can process. It means that people with disabilities develop with more finess other senses, as I am sure you do too.
This is why disability shouldn't be the word. It is only disability because paying attention to diversity of experience is not seen as being the norm yet. Fortunately it is changing thanks to people like you wording their world out. Thank you for that.
Blind people might collect and talk about books that you'd be more sensitive too. It could give you access to a pool of writing that you are more likely feel more in touch with. What do you think? Have you already been there yet?
If your brain can't emulate images, can you emulate well other senses? Touch, feeling (emotions), smells, sounds?
I can be good at vizualizing but it's a muscle I think. I don't read fiction, science-fiction. I like to read to learn and understand. It can be challenging to read as well, as you said. The other day, I started listing at least 20 points about technics to stay focus and keep at reading. I didn't know to know that much about reading... so yeap... That's a whole field of study in itself to be able reading regularly and reduce the struggle.
I only mean here to share thoughts, suggestions, ideas because I enjoyed your content and found it stimulating. I hope you'll enjoy those words as well then.
A lovely day to you! 🌌
I hope you check out some of my other Aphantasia videos where I go into other details, but no, I have total or sometimes called global aphantasia and don't experience any of the senses in my mind. I'm not a great writer because I can't visualize out a scene in my head, I'm even grappling with whether or not I have an inner monolgue, from what other's describe I don't think I do, or a very weak one at that. I process out loud, which is why I love this vlog so much.
My best friend is blind, she lost her complete sight 15 years ago. Before that she was a visualizer. She loves very very detailed descriptions of things because she can build the descritptions in her mind. Some blind people don't care too much for physical descriptions (colors for example) because they might not remember a color or if they were born blind have a hard time understanding color the way sighted people do. But my friend remembers colors in her mind very well, even not seeing them for 15 years.
Thank you
I do want to see a Hairvideo about your Routine and Products you use soooo baaad❤😅 if you would consider this please😂
I follow the Curly Girl Method. I use Giovanni tea tree shampoo and conditioner, Cantu Curl Activator and tresseme strong hold gel. I'm not really well versed in talking about it because different kinds of curls will respond to different weight products, etc. But there are awesome curly content creators on Instagram and Tiktok. I'm sure on this platform too. I do appreciate your interest though! 😊
I think your example with the sloth is a norm pretty much...
Yes, I have some familiarity with a sloth so I can describe it in broad strokes. But do they have ears? A tail? Is their belly the same color as their back? Do they have other markings? I can't pull up a mental image of what a sloth looks like so these details I won't know unless I go look at a picture of a sloth. And yes, even visualizers will have to have familiarity with a thing to visualize it in detail, but I was just using this as an example to describe my inner experience.
Is it hard to memorize things for you?
Yes. I've always thought I struggled with learning new languages because of aphantasia but there are multilingual people with aphantasia. Still, for me, memorizing anything in general is so hard. Especially phone numbers, addresses and the like.
General Aphant, AuDHD, and other things.
I have ALWAYS loved the fiction but for me I eat up descriptions because they already "in my language", unlike having to translate the "video" my eyeballs see into something resembling a wonky dictation machine after Ham radio broadcast =oD
I love the looooooong series and I search for completed works so I don't have to "manage" multiple worlds because I can't really long term store much of the data in the book.
I'll admit, sometimes I see how descriptions get too long and I start scanning; Robert Jordan waxes long over dresses. Long action/battle events can kinda get boring, but Asexual/Aromantic me skips right over the sex scenes. I can't remember who it was, but one author actually put plot in the sex scenes... usually there is nothing of value there =oD Kinda like realizing there was a lot of plot in Tolkien's Songs but skipped right over and no interest to read more male writers.
I very much appreciate the E-Rearders for their access to female writers that are churning out fantasy and SF rather than the published male authors available in the 80s and 90s.
Classics are a nice read, but I tend to skip over short, one off books... like, you need at least 4 large tombs to get my attention.
Oddly enough, I LOVE manga, too. I don't know why I have been autistic fighting doing Manga on my large E-Reader, but thus is Autism, stuff happens but not always when I want it to.
I rarely read non-fiction, but to be fair, I do read a lot of news, tech, and even repair manuals and that is technically non fiction =oD
I will agree that what I have "loaded" can somewhat effect future thoughts. I.E. using Star Trek ship deck to represent a general starship; I think I rarely allow the bandwidth to create more than just "A space ship of X size".
However, with a huge expanse of writings "loaded", even abstractedly, I've amazed myself how my story telling and world building can captivate NT audiences. I really want to DM table top RPG games, but I have no experience in any game system... or enough friends to have a game night =oP
I started reading a little behind the curve, but once I found the Box Car Children, I took off and was constantly reading considerable more books and beyond my peer level.
D&D never appealed to me, I think because of aphantasia. I'm playing a game called Frosthaven with my family which has a D&D feel to it but with actual board pieces and tangible cards and manipulatives that make it easier. Still, we play fairly straight without added fighting descriptions.
Can this effect your ability to do math problems?
I think so to some extent. I can't hold numbers in my head. I have to work problems out on paper. But I have heard of people with Aphantasia who are good at math so it may not be a universal issue.
Hi Amanda, I too am a late diagnosed Autistic, ADHDer, dyspraxic, and I have total aphantasia. Thank you for this excellent video.
I too was an avid reader and hyperlexic as a child, but stopped from the end of school till my mid-20s.
Your video explains a lot to me, like why I struggle so much with high fantasy novels where the names look like a string of consonants to me. Because my aphantasia means I don’t form a mental image of each character, I struggle to tell characters apart unless ai can store all their names separately in my mind.
I think this is one of the reasons I love Terry Pratchett’s Discworld so much. With characters called Agnes Nitt and Reg Shoe, they are still “weird” fantasy names, but they occupy known object spaces in my head, so I can keep who they are in my mind.
Yes! Any book with a lot of front loaded characters is difficult for me. I've even been known to make a chart if I'm invested in reading the book.
@@i.am.mindblind yes! One of the reasons I love the Lindsey Davis books is that they have a list of characters at the beginning.
Kindle has a feature called X-Ray in some books; highlight a name and it will show you a list of all the times that character is mentioned.
That's a cool feature! Thanks for sharing it.
Loved reading LOVED until they took the picture away. WTF are they tlking about now 78 I hate reading. Aphantasia. Ruined every relationship.
You don't need to be able to see anything in your mind to be able to read. This doesn't even make sense.
A lot of people who are visualizers can't comprehend how to read without visuals.
@@i.am.mindblind it's weird they would think that.
I read non fiction.😂