This morning, I realized for the first time that my partner of 11 years has aphantasia–difficulty picturing things in his mind’s eye. I, on the other hand, have a very vivid mental camera.
I started thinking about our different reading preferences and wondering to what degree our mind’s eyes affect them. I read a lot of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror in paperback and audio. My partner is a voracious reader of comics, graphic novels, and manga.
We also have different writing styles. I like to focus on the environment in my writing, and my partner often focuses on mechanics.
So I’m wondering: do you have aphantasia or not, or something in between? What do you like to read, and how does your inner perception affect the way you engage with the books?
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I am convinced at this point that “aphantasia” is a problem of language and semantic misalignment, and not a large scale phenomenon of difference in experience.
Can you expand on this? The differences in thought processing between individuals is not limited to the ability or inability to voluntarily visualize. Some people have an internal monologue, some don’t. Some can conjure imagery, sounds, smells, emotion, some can’t. None of these are deficiencies or “conditions” to be cured, just differences in mental processing.
We’ll never be able to experience someone else’s reality, but I don’t believe that my complete lack of voluntary visualization vs. my husband’s professional reliance on his ability to visualize vividly is simply down to an inability for us to communicate about the way we think.
Excellently put.
I have aphantasia and read a lot of fiction (basically everything except for romance and horror) and non-fiction (mainly memoirs and random subjects). Even though I can’t picture anything, I still enjoy reading mostly everything.
Describing how I picture books in my head while I read is difficult. I don’t have any mental imagery, but somehow I just “know” what the author is trying to show. It’s like an extremely weird sixth sense.
As far as writing goes, I focus on environments more than mechanics, but they’re both in there. I feel like I’m a better writer due to the aphantasia because I only think in words.
I guess in a way it doesn’t really affect me since I was born with it. I only found out a few years ago that the majority of people can actually see things in their imagination while awake. I just assumed everyone thought of things like I did. Imagine the shock that was haha. It took me awhile to get over the disappointment. I’m still slightly jealous of people who can just picture a cow or whatever off the top of their heads.
I have insanely visual dreams though! I got that going for me at least. ;)
I would absolutely believe that aphantasia helps with writing. I often have trouble finding the right word to go with the image in my head and can get frustrated in trying to describe it. I feel almost the opposite of you sometimes – a jealousy at being able to think in words!
I don’t get why people are so obsessed with this rn. I feel like writing , and even descriptive language, can be evocative and “paint a picture” through word association and rhythm, regardless of how well someone can visualize in their heads.
For example, let’s describe a tree. If you describe the tree branches as looking like withered bone-like fingers, you dont have to be able to visualize that in your head to understand that the author wants this to convey a creepy, decrepit setting. The word choice of “withered” and “bone” reveal something about the setting tonally. Its inherently evocative via vocabulary. Word association can stir emotion. A tree that “droops” implies heaviness, weariness, struggle. Something “standing tall” implies confidence, strength, defiance. You don’t have to see the tree crisp and clear in your head to be affected, word nuance is enough.
For what it is worth, i don’t think i have aphantasia. I don’t see movies in my head (more like fuzzy impressions) but i also am able to visualize well enough to rotate shapes in my head in 3d (which served me well when doing a physics degree). I read mostly “literary” fiction or sci fi. i am pretty good at art and enjoy animated tv and movies because i adore the artistry. I used to read lots of comics. I don’t like to approach books the way i approach movies or tv. Draw whatever conclusions you want.
I also feel like people are being generous with the definition of aphantasia; I feel like not being able to play a movie in your brain is not the clinical definition of the term.
Sorry if this is testy, i feel like im replying to this post and a dozen previous posts referencing aphantasia. But trying to guess at the cause of reading preferences is always fun. I hope you get some good discussion
I fully agree that if the writing is good enough and descriptive enough, it doesn’t matter if you can “see” it or not. And for the record, I don’t think one manner of perception is superior to another in any way–just unique.
I also get the testiness. I did hesitate before posting, wondering if this had been asked a million times. Part of my inquiry comes from a desire to write better and read more books I otherwise wouldn’t have–are there things I don’t notice because of my default perception that someone else might?
I feel his point was more that people use the term too lightly, most people self diagnose with aphantasia, just because they have poor imagination. But i might be wrong
That is fair! And really i think today i am grumpy and you’re a target of it, i apologize.
I guess I’m not sure how much mind-visualization has to do with genre preference. I mean, graphic novels and comics are popular among artists, so you might think mental-visualization is well represented there. But then you have your husband, who you say doesnt visualize well. And there are even many artists who admit to not seeing well in their own mind.
I am fairly visual and see OK in my own head but i think i still really enjoy works that feel very “intetnal” because i think thats where the strength of books/prose is: getting into someone elses head, or shoes, and connecting intimately with the character and author. or at least thats what my favourite strength of books is! But i am sure there are people with equivalent mental imaging abilities to me to have very different ideas of what they like in books.
I also do really care about environment in books, but it is more because i am interested in how people interact with and are affected by their environment than… the general aesthetic of it, i guess? I love a harsh cold environment especially lol (… why yes I did grow up in a northern climate )
Visualisation and imagery in general has an influence on emotion. For example take a look at “The Critical Role of Mental Imagery in Human Emotion: Insights from Aphantasia”.
In this study, participants were once told a story in words and once shown a story in pictures. The conductivity of the skin was measured, which changes through sweating in response to fear.
There were no differences between the control group and the aphantasia group for the picture story, but there were differences for the story told in words.
Um I don’t know if this helps or not, but I can’t remember if stories I’ve come across are books or movies/tv shows. I do not have… that.
Sorry everyone else knows what that is, I’ve heard of some people not having “minds eye” but didn’t know what it was called. Apparently I’m an uncultured swine or something 🤣🤷🏻♀️
i don’t have any pictures or anything else that is a distraction in my head. no internal monologue. nothing but the words i’m reading. i read mostly classics. older horror/scifi/fantasy too. i’ve been reading a lot of current genre fiction recently. my all time favorite author is nathaniel hawthorne and he wrote the heck out of some excessively long sentences. love dostoevsky and steinbeck as well. i don’t like anything gross cuz despite not seeing it in my head i will get sick feeling. like some of grady hendrix’s books have disgusting crap in them and i’d love to just shake him and tell him to calm himself. i love ghost stories and other things that are more atmospheric or psychological.
I have pictures, and find it quite distracting when the author doesn’t give me enough details to visualise the setting - I feel like I literally have to invent one in my head to be able to keep reading. This becomes a problem when someone does describe the visuals later on in the book - I have moments of “no it absolutely does not look like that!” with some books 😂
I can BARELY visualize, blobby and vague and no color, mostly just shapes that I have to focus really hard to form and they don’t stay together. Imagine bad drawings on an etch-a-sketch that someone keeps shaking.
I read fantasy and romance mostly, some Sci fi. That’s what I write as well. I don’t think it affects anything honestly. I write very descriptively and I love descriptive writing that really builds the world. Even though I can’t visualize things easily, I can know that I’m thinking about the things. I can build things up in my mind as words and ideas alongside my best attempts at visualization. One area that I could maybe see being affected is that I don’t imagine what characters look like very often unless I’ve seen fanart or in the case of writing if I’ve made images or models of the characters. I have an easier time visualizing images I’ve seen so I sometimes look up fanart or make images of characters so I can better know what they look like.
I have aphantasia and I have no internal dialogue (unless I force it, so like I can read in my head). You could argue this effects the writing style/genres I enjoy.
My writing style preference is similar to /u/Plant-Nearby . Descriptions using all the senses creating atmosphere and vibes is way more important then just visual description. At times when authors harp on visual description heavily, like going on for paragraphs, I end up quickly skimming it before I even realize what I am doing.
I have found that I like books that are set/have a basis in the real world in some fashion. This means that high fantasy is just not my thing but I do love magical realism, sci-fi (to an extent), speculative and historical fiction. My hesitance toward high fantasy is mostly based in feeling overwhelmed or lost rather then entertained. It feels like I missed some pages as I don’t have the context of the real world. Regarding comics/manga I do like those but they are definitely not the main source of my reading.
Though, I am not sure if this is just my preference or if it has to do with how my brain works. I personally loves these kind of discussions, but I just like talking about my weird brain which is the definition of “empty”.
I think about this a lot.
I can picture objects with little details if I focus really hard one the specific aspect but vivid is not a word I’d use.
As a reader I basically skim any set description looking for anything that might be relevant to the plot. Character descriptions go in one ear and out the other.
As I writer, I’ll describe a scene once if it has any plot relevant details. Basically if I am describing something in a scene though, it is relevant on some level, even if it’s just a world building thing.
I recently realized how much I struggle describing new scenes when I started a new series. My first was a time loop story, so I established all the scenes and people early and then left it alone, referencing relevant stuff as needed.
Now I’m writing a non time loop story and I often have to go back and add scene descriptions because Im used to not doing so. I am also majorly regretting making a certain characters outfit choices relevant because I have to keep describing them and I suck at it.
I think, because I don’t picture scenes, I am able to think more abstractly. I feel a sense of things fitting together when thinking about mechanics or plot threads or logical trains of thought. Or maybe it’s not related idk.