Sorry to hone in on what is clearly not your point, but I have a question: as a prolific reader, how do you process visual descriptions? What about other sensory descriptions? Are you able to simulate hearing the wind in the trees, feeling the breeze, smelling the air? I saw the articles about aphantasia when they first came out, and it really interested me, I think partly because I'm on the other end of the spectrum: my meditative sessions often involve a partially or fully (difficult) simulated environments, and one of my favorite things about books is how I can transport into that world entirely, effectively escaping reality for a while. Closing the book is like waking up from a dream.
I don't process visual descriptions. I will retain "important" parts of descriptions. I know Rand's hair is red, I know Perrin is big, and I know Bilbo is short. But if it's not "plot relevant" it doesn't stick in my head and, like Cathy, it's not uncommon for me to skim out just the important stuff. I can't see them in my head and, I would argue, it's not really relevant usually. Other sensory descriptions are also pointless for me. I can understand and remember how things like that might make me feel, and I do get "transported" away still but it's just concepts and feelings moving around in my head without an "sense" particularly.
Wild. So, does this prevent you from experiencing that jarring feeling when you’ve built up a mental image of a book character or scenery and suddenly you see things looking completely different from your expectations in a TV show?
Yup, never had a feeling anything like that but I've heard it described many times. My "jarring feelings" come when they act very differently from the story. WoT is a fantastic example - I loved all the casting despite them not "looking like they were described in the book" - but then I grew much more distraught as they stopped acting like their characters in the books.
It's just not about the sensory, it's about the conceptual.
Forgive me my incredible fascination 😅 I rely so much on my “mind’s” eye, ears, hands, etc. I’ve been on a medication once for about 24h that seemed like it made my thoughts “slippery”, which also impaired mental sensory simulations like this, but it also just impaired thought in general, so I really can’t begin to understand what this must be like.
That's a good question too. This could explain why I, personally, often get overwhelmed with very long descriptions of like scenery or a room because I can put it all together in my head. Sometimes I find myself skipping or skimming long paragraphs that go on and on about how a tree looks. I understand the work and talent the author has put into it, but once I read it, my brain kind of moves on.
I also have aphantasia. Sometimes I think I can see one portion of a person's face at a time if I concentrate really hard, but I think I'm just fooling myself because a flood of descriptive words flow in my brain. So the part that really amazes me is how incredibly vivid and detailed it seems like my dreams are, like watching movies on the big screen with all the details and colors. How can those two things be from the same mind?
Right?! It's so weird that we have visual dreams, but I guess it's a different part of the brain somehow and almost all aphantasics have visual dreams - totally forgot to include that little weirdness in this but it blows my mind.
Sorry to hone in on what is clearly not your point, but I have a question: as a prolific reader, how do you process visual descriptions? What about other sensory descriptions? Are you able to simulate hearing the wind in the trees, feeling the breeze, smelling the air? I saw the articles about aphantasia when they first came out, and it really interested me, I think partly because I'm on the other end of the spectrum: my meditative sessions often involve a partially or fully (difficult) simulated environments, and one of my favorite things about books is how I can transport into that world entirely, effectively escaping reality for a while. Closing the book is like waking up from a dream.
I don't process visual descriptions. I will retain "important" parts of descriptions. I know Rand's hair is red, I know Perrin is big, and I know Bilbo is short. But if it's not "plot relevant" it doesn't stick in my head and, like Cathy, it's not uncommon for me to skim out just the important stuff. I can't see them in my head and, I would argue, it's not really relevant usually. Other sensory descriptions are also pointless for me. I can understand and remember how things like that might make me feel, and I do get "transported" away still but it's just concepts and feelings moving around in my head without an "sense" particularly.
Wild. So, does this prevent you from experiencing that jarring feeling when you’ve built up a mental image of a book character or scenery and suddenly you see things looking completely different from your expectations in a TV show?
Yup, never had a feeling anything like that but I've heard it described many times. My "jarring feelings" come when they act very differently from the story. WoT is a fantastic example - I loved all the casting despite them not "looking like they were described in the book" - but then I grew much more distraught as they stopped acting like their characters in the books.
It's just not about the sensory, it's about the conceptual.
Forgive me my incredible fascination 😅 I rely so much on my “mind’s” eye, ears, hands, etc. I’ve been on a medication once for about 24h that seemed like it made my thoughts “slippery”, which also impaired mental sensory simulations like this, but it also just impaired thought in general, so I really can’t begin to understand what this must be like.
That's a good question too. This could explain why I, personally, often get overwhelmed with very long descriptions of like scenery or a room because I can put it all together in my head. Sometimes I find myself skipping or skimming long paragraphs that go on and on about how a tree looks. I understand the work and talent the author has put into it, but once I read it, my brain kind of moves on.
I'm sure it's different for everyone.
I also have aphantasia. Sometimes I think I can see one portion of a person's face at a time if I concentrate really hard, but I think I'm just fooling myself because a flood of descriptive words flow in my brain. So the part that really amazes me is how incredibly vivid and detailed it seems like my dreams are, like watching movies on the big screen with all the details and colors. How can those two things be from the same mind?
Right?! It's so weird that we have visual dreams, but I guess it's a different part of the brain somehow and almost all aphantasics have visual dreams - totally forgot to include that little weirdness in this but it blows my mind.
Last night's dream even had a dream inside the dream. My mind can be exhausting lol
I was gonna ask if folks with aphantasia still have visual dreams. Question answered!