Recently I saw a post by one of the writing community on a social media platform asking why they find it so difficult to describe a character when they can see them so clearly in their head. I gave a wry smile and thought, you should try describing your character when you can't picture them.
The chances are high that, unless you have it, you've probably never heard of aphantasia. And there is also a chance that even if you've never heard of it, you might have it yourself. It's not a disease or a disability, it's not really even a condition. It's a rare neurodiversity that affects an estimated 1-3% of the population. It has no known cause and although most of us are born with it, it can also be acquired through traumatic brain injury. It has no formal diagnosis, although self-administered tests seem to be very accurate, and only now are neuroscientists starting to take an real interest in it.
Aphantasia is the inability to form mental images – I am mind-blind. If you close your eyes, what do you see? Blackness, right? Now imagine an apple. Can you picture its shape, its colour, the blemishes on the skin, the toughness of the stalk? Maybe there's a wilting leaf attached, or it has a soft brown patch where it fell onto the grass, or gnaw marks from a hungry mouse or peckish fieldfare. You can probably rotate the apple in your mind to look at the other side, or see the remnants of the flower that gave life to it. But when I imagine the apple I see blackness. That's all, just blackness.
I know what an apple is; I know everything about it, how it looks, feels, tastes, the feeling of my teeth penetrating its skin, the sharp sweetness of juice on my tongue. But if it's not there in front of me, I can't see it.
When I first found out about aphantasia, it was something of a surprise – not that I couldn't see things in my mind, but that almost everybody else could. When people said they counted sheep to fall asleep, I never realised the animals were anything other than metaphorical. But it does explain a number of things – why I could never meditate in yoga classes by picturing a tropical beach with a colourful sunset, for instance, and why I have difficulty responding to ekphrastic prompts.
Aphantasia is neither gift nor curse. On the downside, I am not good at putting names to faces, even for people I have seen on multiple occasions, and especially if I see them in a different context. And it is a cause of sadness that I cannot recall the faces of my family members, alive or dead, without a photograph to remind me. (Although if I want to see my mother's face all I have to do is look in the mirror!)
The benefits are that I can be very focused – I suspect I would find a constant stream of mental images distracting. I cannot help but live in the moment, as events from the past do not replay on a loop in my head. Similarly, I am not traumatised by things other people would find troubling, nor do I require trigger warnings, even though some of the awful things I read about have happened to me personally in the past.
But if you think that means I lack empathy, you would be mistaken. I feel emotions – both my own and other people's – very strongly. Nor do I have a poor memory. On the contrary, I have excellent recall of facts and figures, and you would definitely want me on your quiz team – except for the picture round, obviously. I have a strong sense of direction and I love a nice map, but I have difficulty driving myself somewhere without the satnav, even if it's a journey I've made numerous times in the past. I consciously memorise a series of landmarks (turn left at the house with the white fence, take the turning between the bush that looks like a sheep's bum and the post box) and then know that I will recognise them when I see them. Trust the process has become my mantra, although if someone painted the fence green or trimmed the sheep's bum bush I'd be scuppered.
If I don't think in terms of images, then how do I formulate thoughts? The answer is, in concepts, emotions and words. It's not a process I can explain – as with the imaginary apple, I just 'know' something, can feel it or describe it without having to 'see' it. I can't imagine what it is like to have mental images any more than you can understand how it must be not to have them. My brain works differently, forms connections in other ways – its plasticity is a source of constant wonder.
Do I feel deprived? Disadvantaged? No and no. I don't think you can miss what you never had. I dream vividly and in colour. I have a very strong internal monologue, which is sometimes too loud and insistent; I can appreciate beauty in nature and art, even if photographs are the only way I can take the image with me to revisit later. In my case, out of sight really is out of mind. Coincidentally, I am also left-handed and used to adapting to a right-handed world, so why would adapting the way I think be any more challenging? And before you ask, no, there is no correlation between aphantasia and being left-handed.
A common question on aphantasia support forums – yes, there are such things – is how can you be a writer/artist/creative if you are mind-blind? Please, don't confuse mental images with imagination. I know many writers who envisage their story unfolding in their heads like a film reel: they can watch what happens to their characters in real time. Just because I don't 'see' my characters in the same way, it doesn't mean I can't know them or describe what happens to them. I may even know them better because of it: I listen to what they tell me about how they feel; I know how they react in any given situation; I feel their emotions as if they were my own; I have conversations with them.
But don't ask me what colour their hair is, or how tall they are, or about their body shape. I might mention these physical details if they are important to the story; otherwise I'm happy to leave it to you to create your own mental image.
Comments
Post a Comment