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?
by salt-moth
3 Comments
Wow that is a complicated question; when reading I feel like I don’t use my mind’s eye at all, not real visualization, it is honestly like raw word processing.
Boy oh boy when I am trying to get to sleep though, vivid replays of the narrative are painted in my mind’s eye!
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.
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. 😉