Man discovers he has "aphantasia" - he can't picture things in his head - and that everyone else can: https://t.co/DMy6NVOgnx— Kate Gray (@hownottodraw) April 24, 2016
And it blew my goddamned mind as well!
I struggled to imagine what goes on in his mind. It just comes so natural. It's much easier, for me, to "see" things before thinking up facts. If someone asks me to describe a person, I would first picture said person in my mind, and then describe what I "see," and I would find it difficult to give any sort of description if my mental image isn't very clear.
When someone gives me directions, I would "see" the route in my head. Or at least imagine it somewhat like a navigation app's display, with almost all square blocks unless noted otherwise. Then I would kinda overlay my in-head navigation to the real route to figure out where I'm going. (Side note: can't wait for AR to be a thing so I don't have to imagine this)
I wondered how he "gets" the world when reading fiction. I often correlate the quality of a fictional story with how vividly I can imagine the world (hence why the Harry Potter series is one of my favorites). Seeing this fantastical universe is the only way I know to be able to live in it and fully experience the story. How can I relate to it if I can't see it? Would it move me emotionally at all?
In college, I learned that some people can't imagine three-dimensional figures as easily as I could, which I thought was quite interesting –– wouldn't it make learning some parts of Calculus more challenging? –– but this, aphantasia, is much more fascinating. I'm having trouble imagining his world as he was finding it difficult to understand that other people can "see" things in their minds. Can he even comprehend how that works? Because I can't imagine what my mind would be like without it.
