Reading with Aphantasia 

When you mentioned how you aren't picturing what someone is doing, it made me think of something my mom does. If I mention a place semi regularly (like the grocery store I like) when talking about my day, she wants me to show it to her or to stop by there when she's visiting so she can more accurately picture me going about my day. Which is pretty cute.

I just realized I have aphantasia yesterday and I'm still shook and amazed at the fact people can just imagine things and see images or scenes or videos, especially with memory and stuff. No wonder I can move on so quickly I've got literally nothing but concepts and notes tying me to memories

It's so interesting to read everyone's comments because you get to see glimpses of how people's brains work.

Thank You! This is exactly what I have and how I “visualize”. Thank you for saying this on a platform. It means the world to me knowing I’m not alone. Even my therapist doesn’t believe me!” 😊 thanks one more time!

And yea with things like 'fast' I don't picture anything, I just know what it is.

I am Dyslexic and Aphantasic. I have been like this in all my 76 years. I do not visualize. It makes Dyslexia very interesting. I am unable to pick myself out of a crowd in a picture. Yet letters and numbers to me, are a picture. When I look at a word, I must make an immediate decision on what it is, as in a second, he letters in that word will move their position. Doing book reports in school, was pure hell and took forever. In the 40s, 50s and 60s Dyslexia was still thought to be a sight problem, when it is actually a flaw in the brain. I taught myself to deal with it by forcing constant reading. Now I read upside down and backward, which is not unusual for Dyslexics. I have come to think that both Aphantasia and Dyslexia have a connection in someway. I can have a memory from something that has happened in my past, but I cannot create a vision out of the blue. I cannot tell what I would look like in a certain dress, yet I can remember myself at the age 5 in a blue leotard in dance class, but I cannot picture it. It is more like I am seeing a memory of related facts. When I read, my thoughts supply images that I cannot vision. Over my 76 years, I have managed to make it all work or me. No matter how hard I try, when I close my eyes, I get a black screen. I find this very beneficial in today's world, when you sometimes need to close the world out.

I just found out that I have aphantasia a couple of days ago , so I just wanted to say thx cause your videos help me understand it better and clearer , cause it can really mess up you brain trying to think about it 😅

Very interesting, thank you for sharing. When I read a book and see a movie, the visual from the movie is always stronger than the visual I made in my head. So when I think back to it later, I remember the visual from the movie. One of these I remember specifically was the Twilight series. I had such a different image of the main characters in my head after reading the book. I was rather disappointed when I saw the characters on the movie because they were not the way I had envisioned them. But now I can’t even recall the way I had pictured them, I can only picture the way they were in the movie.

I am currently watching your videos as I just found out moments ago that I have aphantasia. So odd, 50 years of never knowing this was a thing.

As an aphantasia the only books that I love to read is sci-fiction, fantasy, crime and mysteries.

Super interesting and validating to hear someone else explain it! The only thing I experience differently is audiobooks. I have a lovely combination of Aphantasia, Dyslexia, and ADHD so I find that reading a book along with an audio book helps me to process the information better.

I will also add that what I think most of us do in our mind requires a combination of imagery and automatic linguistic understanding. We have to choose whether an image is needed to understand the idea. For instance, if I'm discussing my day, I can usually speak about topics before I even know what I will say. My mouth just knows what to say. This is subconscious awareness. So I definitely understand ideas in purely language form too. When I say "hello, how are you doing?" I don't actually envision a mood in that moment. I just automatically understand what it means. When I recall my phone number, I don't envision the number. I just say it. If you ask me my name, I don't have to type it out in my brain, I just say it. I think you are just better than most people at understanding the world through language, which is why people with your skill sometimes have higher than average IQs. Most people have to combine language and images to understand the world clearly. There are some things that are very hard for me to understand without creating a picture in my mind. For instance, if I'm solving spatial math problems, I need to create a picture in my mind to help me solve it. Understanding it in language form is just too hard.

I'm really happy to know that u loved count of monte cristo...I had it as a book series...that is my favourite book series...❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

When I read, either I hear my voice, as the narrator, but I make up a specific voice for each character's voice. Of course, this means I read words, in real time, so a novel can take me days and days. I read all of the Harry Potter books, in bed, to my wife, acting out all the character's voices. This performance, whether out loud, or hearing it only in my head, gives me the experience of having lived part of each of the character's life. Have you read to your children? do you perform all the voices?

When I try to recall something from memory I can get glimpses of it but not fully detailed almost like when you look at something with the sun in your eyes. You can't stare at it only quick glimpses out of the corner of your eyes

Math is great for this sort of thing (things we can't picture). We can think of a family of cubes of various dimensions, so-called n-cubes. A square is a 2-cube (2-dimensional). A cube is a 3-cube (3-dimensional). We can connect six 2-cubes edge-to-edge into a 3-cube. In the same way, we can take six 3-cubes and connect them face-to-face to form a 4-cube (a 4-dimensional cube). We can describe this mathematically and reason about it, but nobody can truly visualize it. Our brains only evolved to understand three spatial dimensions intuitively. So we can describe it, and we can reason about it, but nobody can visualize it.

Yes I lose interest when it’s descriptive, I like dialogue and action concepts if reading fiction. But I read mostly non fiction, but in short bursts, as I need to think about what I’m reading to retain any information, otherwise it gets lost in my memory.

I have discovered I have aphantasia a few months ago. And your videos are so helpful to put words on something I could not explain. I am very grateful to you. You have such a solar energy. I really enjoy this authentic spirit of yours and this cute bashfulness. Thank you for your inspiring and helpful videos.

I'd like to see you and your husband compare memories. My mind is never quiet. There's always a monologue of my own voice chattering away in there. I see snapshot pictures of memories, live action replays of memories, and can make movies of books as I read or create from scratch (daydreaming) in there too. Getting to sleep is hard because the ol' brain just won't shut up! I can remember people's voices. My dad died in 2001, and I used to could remember his laugh. I've lost it over time. So that part can be fragile. I can still see his face light up and his head tilt back, but I can't hear him anymore. I'm thankful I had it for the time I did.

When I read the book first and then watch the movie I get the feeling: "Oh that is how he looks like." 😅

I'm learning so much about this topic thanks to you and it's extremely interesting to me. Thank you for these videos. By the way, the best example that came to mind for me is what happened to me when I read The Neverending Story as a child. In the book the "villain" isn't a person but rather it's just a Nothing that is eating away at the world, and the first thing I pictured was a black void. But then, the narrator said that the Nothing wasn't black, it wasn't white, it had no shape and it wasn't a void, it was just nothing. That was the first time I ever experienced being unable to imagine something, and I remember how it blew my mind but also bothered me so much. I couldn't stop trying to imagine it and failing. It still drives me nuts to this day, because I've always had a hyperactive imagination. So when I recently learned about aphantasia, I kind of related it to that experience (without the extreme frustration, because I guess if you are used to something it's not a shock). Maybe this example can help with describing it? I don't know, I just inmediately thought of that. Regarding movie vs book, for me the movies don't really replace the images in my head when I read unless I accept that image. For example, a lot of the characters from Lord of the Rings I imagine as the actors who played them because I think they fit, but not all. And when I don't like the adaptation and I reread the book, I keep imagining them how I like, not how they looked in the movie. The Neverending Story is again a good example, I didn't like the dragon of the movie at all, so when I read the book I still imagine it the way I used to (more of a Chinese white dragon with a snake-like body and silvery shines, instead of the dog-like furry flying carpet in the movie hahaha). You're awesome, thanks for throwing light on this topic!

I was judging you in my head when you were talking about differentiating Tyrion and Tywin in the books, then I remembered that I had to re-read that part three times. Pretty funny. It's nice seeing other people's perspectives when it comes to this.

I have aphantasia but enjoy audiobooks so it's intriguing to see how different aphantasia is on a person to person basis.

When a concept is beyond my imagination my mind just keeps trying to picture it I think. Until the subject changes/ conversation moves on.

I used to think in pictures. It was WONDERFUL. Then a doctor changed my seizure (result of brain injury) medicine, and i lost my pictures and now have aphantasia. I hate it. My mind is silent. I cannot escape into my head anymore. Reading stories is no longer pleasurable. I think it is worse having experienced both sides.

I think it's interesting how confused each side of the visualization coin is about how the other works. I think I might have hyperphantasia, or at least just a very vivid imagination, but I also really love movies. When you asked why people who can see movies in their mind while reading books even watch movies, it kind of surprised me. I'm not sure if everyone thinks like this, but I see both books and movies as just different mediums of storytelling. There are unique aspects of both that add to creating an atmosphere. For books, it could be diction, descriptions, figurative language, etc. For movies, it's sound design, the music in general, set design, costumes, and the skill of the actors. I hope that might be helpful to anyone.

Interesting stuff! Love your talks. It's an oddly interesting subject, and you're very easy to listen to.

Struggling with similar names (and names in general) is something I attribute to my dyslexia... . Audiobooks I'm not keen on, too, because it takes even more focus to avoid missing a bit, when my brain stalls momentarily, or whatever, when I'd normally just cast my eyes back over the word/sentence/paragraph/page. . I remember little detail, but couldn't imagine re-reading anything. My reading speed's half of what it should be (again, I associate with dyslexia) and my ADHD-PI means things need to be entirely novel to focus my brain. I'm hypo-phant, not full aphant.

I find that I fall in the middle. I have the internal dialogue but I do not ‘see’ anything.

Your videos remind me how interesting it has been to teach other people new things. I taught basic electronics and a specific piece of equipment in the Army and tutored several people in other situations. For me, an important part of any teaching effort involved me trying to build a mental model of how my students mind was grappling with whatever I was trying to teach them. Of course, I was quite often surprised that their mind did not work the way my model of it worked. In some cases, I was learning more than my student was. I would be fascinated to try learning something from you, as your student, and trying to teach you something you wanted to learn.

Thank you for more of your insights. Really a nice break to come back to your fascinating explanations, About book versus movies- When I have read the book first, then see the movie, I often am disappointed by changes, or by the way something is pictured is a let down compared to what was in my head. Often the the character looks so different from what I pictured, that the movie can feel like a bit of a jolt. When I read the book and see the movie, I remember both, and I compare and contrast between the two. Some parts I may like more in one, some parts more in the other. I have always thought this was what “everybody” did, when one speaks with some one else who has also read the book and seen the movie, I hope this answers your question.

another great video, thank you! ❣️

I do not have aphantasia and I love audio books and podcasts...most of them. I did realize as I was listening to you though, while I love to watch football games on TV I'm absolutely lost at listening to a football game and I hate it. I remember my Dad used to go out to the car and listen to games on the radio or even occasionally on trips turn the radio to sports. UGH. I got nothing out of it. It made me realize though, people who listen to sports on radio must be have very vivid images in their head. I'd never thought of that. Now there's this one podcast..and it will have like three stories of survival going at one time.... that's too much work for my brain. I don't think that's aphantasia..just laziness lol. Anyway this is so interesting to me that people think differently.

Fascinating!

Hi, I'm aphantasiac and I like to read. It's like a tool to enhance my conceptual imagination. I also like to see the nice words (poetry, aesthetics) and have them sound in my head. If I'm getting invested in the story I can figure out the atmosphere and emotions from the long descriptions. I often confused the characters, specially in the Game of Throne book.

Great video. It's interesting that while we both have aphantastia, we have different experiences of reading, audiobooks and cinema.

I find that when I read, because I can't picture the scene, I use a memory I have and base the scene there. So for example, someone describing where they grew up and the house they live in, I skim over all the details because I can't picture it and instead I just think of the house I grew up in.. Or a house I can remember being in.

Omg! You are talking about me! The Bookmobile would come to our school & I would pick up a technical document & the librarian would take it from me and give me a fictional book that I would take home & bring it back next week unread.

Before you mentioned the old movie thing with the words and then the picture is shown, that was how I imagined what was going on in your head. I was going to ask if that was how it was and then you said it. Another cool topic!

It's interesting that even with aphantasia, you pantomime some of the things you remember from books (eg. you pantomimed a person being put inside a body bag as you were explaining Count of Monte Cristo). Thank you again for taking the time to so thoughtfully describe your experience!

Nicely explained!

We don't have visual imagination so what's most interesting to us is the actual plot, and facts within a story. The analysis of the going-ons, building an understanding and new logical concepts about the story and characters. We can't imagine anything else, no visual feedback, experienced scenarios etc. It's like a computer without a screen. All in the dark

For me reading is a combination of vague images and feelings. I often reread a section I've just read to get a clearer picture and a fuller emotional impact of what I just read previously. I seldom get a full picture in living colors but what I do get when I read is an I'm there feeling. When experiencing the life I live, at each moment I'm there completely ( unless distracted ) but after that moment or period of time has passed and I recall what I've just experienced I have a more or less vague recollection of what I just occurred. This is very similar to the feelings I have when reading for pleasure or even when learning something new. I may be wrong but don't think many people actually see clear full living pictures in there head, I know I don't.

For me reading a novel or watching a movie are exactly the same, except the movie in my head while reading is far superior!

I get a mental image when I read (mostly Sci-Fi), but it's not an immersive experience like a movie, more like a stage performance with a minimalist set. And I can fill in some of the blanks from my own experiences or images from movies I've seen. If I'm reading, for example, an academic article, I don't have images but I hear the words as I read. I don't really notice unless I come to some term I don't know and might have to sound it out. Foreign words for example. I have an inner dialog, but not for every single instant of my daily life. Some things are just non-verbal perceptions of my environment. I can switch gears mentally and verbalize those perceptions. I guess I'm using different parts of my brain. For things like driving, I do automatically with no inside words unless I'm in an unfamiliar situation.

Concepts and relationships sounds about right for me. I remember how things interact, the relationship between characters, the concept of each idea. Full Aphantasia here too. Sci fi is good, i enjoyed Dune, hated Tolkein, love Becky Chambers, Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden books rock, for a change of pace Janet Evanovich’s Stehanie Plum books are so fun Fran Drescher as a Bounty Hunter in my mind lol. Agreed Audiobooks are not great for me, although i did find them really good for sleeping. Great video and i relate to a lot of it. Currently enjoying Dark Matter by Blake Crouch a fun quantum physics thriller

Just realized I have Aphantasia last week and I’m thinking back to school required reading books that I loved and hated and why. Tenth grade summer readings were The Great Gatsby and The Grapes of Wrath. I absolutely love The Great Gatsby because there was so much dialogue and and story lines for each character. I despised The Grapes of Wrath because there was just so much description and I ended up just skipping whole chapters. Also I do the exact same thing with rereading, especially Harry Potter. My mom never understood why I reread books so much and it just clicked for her why and it’s because I can’t just replay the “movie” I created in my hear when I read it the first time since there never was one. To experience the book again I have to read it again.

4:35 damn! Same! I even enjoy speculative fiction more.

OMG someone else like me for the most part, so happy I am not the only one. I use to work with someone that would read a lot, I mean a lot and she would come in the morning and talk about a book and say it made her cry or it scared her and she had to put it down which to me was funny but also made me jealous, my sister would feel things too when reading and I just did not get it when we were young. It would also amaze me, the first book I ever read was Pet Cemetery, it did nothing for me, did not scare me at all. Like you said, its like reading facts. The number of fiction books I have read in my 52 years can be done on one hand, I tend to wait for the movie lol. Non Fiction however for me is far more my thing, I have a bit of a thirst for knowledge. I am ok with Brian Cox, I can usually get him and what he is saying because its factual. Great video its always good to know you are not alone.

I wonder what i have. I absolutely CANNOT picture anything on command (for example, I fail all of the aphantasia tests and I am horrible in traffic, I can barely imagine how the next block looks in my hometown...) However, when I’m reading I’m definitely getting pictures in my head. Or more like, i can imagine what it would look like if I’d paint the scene or made a movie out of the book.

My wife has similar traits...the way you explain your experiences are profoundly important...I wonder if it would be possible to be “better” and visualizing since your more mindful of the lacy of thoughts... I wonder if we can train ourselves... obviously if possible and that’s a big if, we would have to be mindful first... Almost like this part of our brain was never recruited and at some point just turned off... I know that our bodies “mechanically” in fact does turn off if we don’t use it... it’s complicated...But for example many people lose glute activation and need to be retrained... I use to read slowly but now have a desk job and read much faster but well below average but I can read very technical things forever... so it depends on the source... Either way... thanks for the videos. Great stuff...

When thinking I almost always have some picture, even for abstract or simple concepts. But if it's not useful or descriptive I'll ignore it, kind of like how you generally ignore your peripheral vision. Also if I think solely of an isolated concept like "fast" I may picture something moving, though not consistently the same thing and probably with little detail. But if there's a context in which "fast" is brought up in then it's more likely that the bigger "picture" (sic) will take over. For purely abstract concepts with no physical manifestations the picture may just be a weakly associated memory, or could even just be indistinct shapes and colors (like a kaleidoscope). Oh, when thinking things like arithmetic (adding 4236 + 314) I often picture the actual digits as if I were writing out the problem on a piece of paper, though simple memorized problems (7+3) are so quick and automatic there's no picture, or no time for a picture.

So interesting, thank you. I remember both book, and movie, and compare them.But I have hyperaphantasia..just the reverse of you.

As an avid reader I’m always reluctant to watch the movie and if it doesn’t match how I’d visualised it ... it gets a 👎😂 Lord of the Rings was fantastic it was exactly how I’d imagined it to be. Love the videos this whole subject fascinates me. Keep them coming 👍❤️🙏🏼

I think that is people that can picture things do so because otherwise we would lose track of the past information as we read. It seems easy for me to store a picture rather than words.

I love reading, I love non-fiction... I don't really like fiction. I prefer learning something I find "useful", rather than someone else's imagination (personally). I think primarily in sentences (inner voice), and use visualisation secondarily (some people do the opposite). So I guess there are times I read that I have no pictures at all, which helps me go faster. I mostly call up images when the story gets too complex for me to remember all the "facts" so I go back, read the descriptions again then save it as an image in my head. So rather than trying to remember characters in words like "Oh he had blonde hair, with a broad chest", I just see a man with those features and I can move by faster with less sentences.

I have the same thing. I’ve been an artist for 40 years…you’re wondering how? I’ve used my materials to inspire me. I use a lot of hand made Japanese paper, lots of colour, texture and design, then my instincts kick in I’m gone….. I also wonder if anyone else is “face blind” as well. I don’t recognize people I know. My daughters boyfriend of 15 years, thinks it’s funny that I don’t recognize him on the bus or when he walk toward me on the street, only after he waves do I know it’s him.

Sometimes I reject the movie altogether and keep the story and characters Ive created in my head lol Like if the characters don’t align like in the book (looks, personality, appearance) or if the movie portrays a certain scene in a less passionate, more gruesome, or totally different way... 😅

So I thought of something while watching this talk, maybe you could try it out, or maybe it's crazy! But what if you were to gather some specific images to keep on hand for reading? A Song of Ice and Fire, just as an example, has been so thoroughly illustrated by so many professional artists and fans, it would be pretty easy to choose a painting you like of, say, the Wall, and just keep it open on your computer desktop when you read a Wall chapter. Also, for characters, you could pick an illustration you like for each major character, or even choose pictures of people who just remind you of that character (I'm always casting actors I like in my head!) and assemble them on the desktop when they are in the chapter you are reading. You might decide after reading for a while that a character is starting to remind you of a different actor, or a person you know, and switch them out. The idea is, you could just glance up at the pictures now and then, to make it maybe feel more real? Kind of like the way fantasy books often come with a map, which you can constantly refer to in order to track the characters' travels - but in addition to a map, you would have pictures to set the scene. Even with a story that hasn't been illustrated, if it were set on a coastal area, or a desert, you could just keep open a photo of those environments just as a general reference. If that sounds silly, please forgive me, but maybe it would be fun! I might try it myself, and see if anything feels different. In regard to your other questions, I'm certain that I conceptualize a lot of abstract concepts without images. It's with new and complex concepts that I definitely need a 'mental model' to help me. I think it's very interesting that you find heavy description in fiction annoying - I mostly feel the same way, but for a different reason: the less the author describes, the freer I am to picture the setting myself. I find the most vivid books can be very light on description, because my mind fills in, which is much easier than trying to decode the written descriptions provided. Unless they are really good at it, it feels too much like work! I've been doing a lot of audio books recently, and the inconvenience of looking back to check on things I've forgotten is kind of a problem. With me it's names especially. If I have a physical book, I can pretty quickly skim back to remind myself of something I've forgotten. But that's so much harder in the audiobook, I often just let it go and hope I don't end up too confused.

Thank you

To answer a couple of your questions: --When a concept doesn't have an existing picture to go along with it (like the expansion of the universe), I just make a picture up in my mind to associate with it. --I don't picture an image when you say a concept such as "fast." I just understand what it means. --That's a really good question about which image I remember if I read a book first and then see the movie, or vice versa. I never thought about it, but I now realize that the image I retain is whichever I did first. If I read the book first, then that is my permanent image, and seeing the movie doesn't replace the imagery. And vice versa.

Yes, there's a point after which i also have trouble forming pictures in my mind.

Funny that you liked The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King. I loved his work until that book came out. I was so excited for it to get published because I wanted to experience his take on dragons, and there wasn't even a dragon in it. I even named my daughter after the book Christine. I really loved that book! I also have aphantasia. I even have SDAM.

When I read Harry Poter I mostly used people I knew as the faces of characters, with some modifications. When the movies came out they kind of overwrote my default image for the characters but I still remember many of them as I imagined them before. But I've forgotten the faces of the ones that weren't based on a real person (e.g. I don't remember my original Snape's face). And I never really imagined a face for Harry, I kinda used him as my POV most of the time.

oh gosh I am the complete opposite as when I read a book I often get to the bottom of the page and I think to my self what did I just read there . as I find reading very slow and my mind tends to switch off presumably through slow bordom. Then I have to read it over. I cant speed read well and if I do it dosnt sink in as well. however if I listen to audio especially at double speed I take it all in and my recall is better. I can cover a lot of information by audio. Also when I think back over my life like say my 10th Birthday I can run the images of the main details of the day like a movie in my mind. or my first day at school when I was 5 and can see myself walking up to the school door. I can see the pattern on the bag made out of some old curtain fabric which held my plimpsolls. I can see the faces of my teachers their hair styles the clothes they wore and the sound of their voices. etc.

im the same, I love sci fi, and when I get buried in description flip flip flippity flip. Then continue reading. I really want to love books by C. J. Cherryh, reading the book flap totally sounds amazing, I haven't been abler to get through a single one. I adore big sci fi adventures, so its my guess, since its been more than a decade since I've tried to read her books, that she's probably super descriptive heavy.

Good thing about reading is you can create your own descriptive movie in your head from the words completely tailored to you likes with the added layer of visualizing character's thoughts which make books a much more personal experience than passively watching a movie, you become the movie.

I gave up on fiction books. Now I just read medical journals, news articles, look up rare diseases for fun, etc. but reading is hard for me because I get so lost while reading. I’ve downloaded speechify so I just take pictures of the text and my phone reads it to me. I can follow along non-fiction no problem. Books have never been like movies for me. I can never even imagine what the main character looks like.

that's so interesting cause I actually used to read so much Stephen King as a teenager despite having aphantasia too! but it's so funny cause I remember people saying "oh reading his books is like watching a movie" because it's kind of heavy on the descriptions, but the descriptions were often interesting enough to me without the visual input even tho I could not picture it. I'm not sure where you're from, but did your teachers ask you details like this about the books you had to read? I'm Polish and it's known that some teachers ask questions about like... the color of a curtain to check if you actually read the book and not just a summary. I always hated it, because it did not matter if I read the book and even got invested and enjoyed it, I never paid attention to those kinds of details, because I could never picture it in my head anyway.. and I also have a bad memory.. a Bad combination. And that's so interesting about audiobooks!! How do you feel about podcasts? I lose the plot too, but I just thought it's because I have adhd so I just have trouble focusing on it. Now that I've heard what you said about audiobooks I feel like the issue might mainly be the aphantasia after all. Because normally I also would skip over some long descriptions sometimes and maybe go back to check on them later, but that's impossible to do if it's an audiobook and it also just... takes longer, because obviously we can read faster than we can talk. Alsoooo I'm so glad you mentioned books from someone's point of view! I also get confused, but I didn't.... connect the dots before. Now it makes sense it's because I'm not picturing any of it. Anyways I know this is a video about aphantasia, but you've also talked about the lack of inner monologue in another video so I wanted to ask.. are you fluent in any other language? Because people often say "you're fluid in another language once you start thinking in it" and that was true for me and my inner monologue is now sometimes in Polish and sometimes in English, but I never really thought about how it would be for someone without an inner monologue (I'm sorry this entire comment is so messy, but I've just been adding sentences while watching, because I didn't want to forget anything...)

I imagine things clearly, but without an image... I never knew this was unusual until recently.

When you say fast, I think of a quick movement of lines

This is one of the BIg, Big reasons I do not read Fiction. Only on the rare occasion when it comes to stories portrayed on film like The Ring Trilogy and now Frank Herbert's Dune for the Denis Villeneuve movie. I do read a lot - just primarily technical and scientific manuals for Physics and I.T.. I can say I absolutely loved listening to Ready Player One on Audio read by Will Wheaton. That story is spot on my Childhood summed up so I could draw a great amount of detail based on my memories.

To help relate the concepts to others, I think a good example would be the abstract concept of love or loyalty. I personally believe love is a choice ... a disposition toward another human in which you place their needs above your own. This is in contrast to the idea of “falling in love” which I consider more of an emotional response that ebbs and flows. Regardless, however, of what one believes on the topic, for much of the thought process I’m not visualizing “love”. Now, at some point if I think of an example of expressing love through our actions, such as giving your spouse your umbrella while you get wet, or going off to work to provide for a spouse that stays home, I would visualize those acts. I do not, however have a visualization for the disposition of loving someone. Likewise with loyalty. I can’t visualize things that are largely characteristics/dispositions/character/wiring/etc. that would prompt you to act one way or another, but are not themselves the actions they prompt (e.g. you give the umbrella because you love, but giving an umbrella doesn’t mean you love).

With the book to movie thing, I form pretty clear ideas (I don't want to say images because they're not as clear as a movie image but if I could draw I would have a picture to draw from if that makes sense) of what characters and locations are like but the movie overrides that as soon as I see it. I then get pretty frustrated when the movie strays too far from how I had imagined the book. I also love when they go into paragraphs of description because I can "build" the environment more clearly in my mind.

I don't exactly get a movie in my head! I can't describe it very clearly. I read pretty quickly, like 300 words per minute I think? And I'm sure there are not enough pictures at that rate for everything I read. And there is no need for inner images or sounds as far as I know. I am not at all sure you are actually missing anything valuable. The way your brain works might be better!

I see the word fast ,see the road runner in my mind

Thank you for sharing your experience. I am from Brazil and I didn't find many channels or videos produced about this theme on Portuguese. If any of you have any suggestion for me in English, Spanish, Italian or French, it would be welcome. Hugs

Do you live in the present moment more than most people? Do you feel calmer and more relaxed than most?

Your intense facial expressions make me smile. If there were an Olympic event for facial muscles, you might be on the team. :)

All the time. That's fantasy. There is nothing I cannot picture. When reading if they say I'm going down a dark road , I see a dark road and if a monster appears but they don't describe it(writers usually do) I'll make my own monster, etc... I picture everything and nothing can not be pictured. I've pictured what I think the afterlife is like, heaven and I know I'm limited but I can picture any idea on earth

I seem to have a mild form of it? I have vague shapes but mostly think in emotions???? I am an avid reader and I can only really do fiction (fantasy, sifi ect... ) and the only way I can get through a book well and remember more when I use audiobooks!

I watch movies because remember how you said you read 150 books last year... it would take me 150 YEARS to read one book... think about it... you keep on making it seem like your losing out and others are winning... there NO winning or LOSING... there’s just different and let’s learn from each other... I love how you explain everything especially from your point of view in combination with the new information and your thoughts... my wife is similar to you... I just want you to understand that others think differently and the ones who see or hear stronger usually lose sense of the other.... Again... I have ADD and OCD... I can get into such details and it’s awesome... but if I have to read a book... I’ll rather get punched in my fast... Reading an ordinary book is too hard... A got an engineering degree... because it worked with how I thought... I use to hate people who could read and write so well so easily...until I met someone who hated me because math was so easy... Than it clicked...

Yes I always visualize when I think. A name brings up a face that I remember, a description brings up a visualization of what is being described. I can't imagine not being able to see the concept i'm thinking about within my head. My visuals are not clear and movie like, they are more like a cloudy and blury view.

lol, adjectives such as "fast" don't have images for me. I generally visualize noun phrases, so I might see a man moving fast when I read "he ran fast", but if I saw the word "fast" on its own it would simply be an abstract concept. Edit: the example of "fast" is the one that finally helps me to understand how aphants/aphantasics live. I can imagine (haha get it) extending my inability to picture abstract concepts to concrete concepts for aphants.

Very interesting stuff. I have to read a book before seeing the movie. Otherwise, while reading the book, the movie just replays in my head and ruins it. Watching the movie second prevents that from happening because my mind is occupied with the movie Thank you for sharing your view.

I can't get my head around what you are experiencing when you're reading 😅 Like when I read I look at a word and I hear it in my head so that's how I know what the word says. Becuase I could hear it. And for me there can't be any flow or overlap like you describe, it has to be one word at a time because I can't hear multiple words in my head at the same time. This must be why i'm such a slow reader! But I hardly get a picture when i'm reading so I can relate in that sense. I find descriptive books dificult because I don't remember the descriptions and I tend to forget descriptive details about characters. Really interesting stuff :)

I have discovered I have Aphantasia, I generally have not enjoyed reading books growing up,but with a few exceptions. I really enjoyed reading Satre's No Exit in School. Witty, dialogue heavy, lots of word play. That's what I enjoy,I hate any story involving a lot of visual descriptions. I also prefer reading Scientific literature or history books, fact orientated instead of detail orientated. I do feel like I am missing out an entire avenue of human experience, sometimes it makes me feel less human for not having the privilege to experience this

When you can't make or imagine a picture, you still do. It just ""dissipates" beyond your understanding. No biggie. Or, it goes on and it's just a relic of imagination in your minds eye.

How about this? I wrote a book, using lots of dialogue and very little description. An editor told me that I had good dialogue. Now I know why I focused on that! Anyway, I don't remember much about my own books that I wrote. I don't remember the ending and I may not remember the characters' names either.

What is for You emotional discovery type of book? Is it same with people who are telling You about their emotional discoveries (they are not interesting cause it’s not actions for example)?

5.22 Yes! I too prefer dialogue in a book. Pages of description is just so boring. If I read a book & then watch the movie I’ll only notice parts of the book missing rather than how the characters might look or the scenes differ. Also, I’m less likely to read the book after watching the movie first.

I just realized something very bizarre about this. I'm a streamer, so I know when I'm looking at a camera and talking, the whole time I'm imagining myself and what I look like in other people's eyes. You don't do this at all. So you're literally just staring at a camera while talking and it's kind of freaking me out how good your eye contact with just a camera is :D

The only time I can say I've come close to not being able to imagine something was when I had to read Chaucer. Couldn't find it in English (which is my second language) and had to settle on reading it in my mother tongue instead. It was a freaking nightmare - the words were completely unfamiliar compared to how we speak now, I couldn't imagine a damn thing, my brain kept trying to imagine something... anything, but there was nothing to latch on to. Since my brain was trying to conjure up some images to go with the story it was all white in there, not black; it was like being in a white room, but there were no corners or any distinguishable features, just white all around. Luckily, years later I got a chance to read Chaucer's stories in English - it was great, the words were so similar / familiar it was no trouble at all, very enjoyable experience. If anyone Romanian sees this comment and is about to read Chaucer, all I can say is: Don't read it in anything but English! Just NO! Don't waste your time reading his stories in Romanian.

I don't like lots of description in books either. I assume it helps people visualize the scene, but since I can't, I don't see the point in it. I find I have to concentrate a lot to read fiction, as only having words for a fictional story is often not enough cues for me to work with. I can do podcast/audio books, and i can sort of imagine things when given the audio. I cant imagine the visual or olfactory, but more the texture of something. I listen to horror/mystery and with the description AND audio I can imagine touching something slimy or the texture of soil, etc.

I have aphantasia and see no images when reading a book. Sometimes I just listen to movies with my eyes closed or doing something else, becvause it is more like how I read a book. It works most of the time, except when essential information is conveyed in a key image. I love fiction, especially fantasy and sci-fi, like you. I haven't thought about whether I like more action. Maybe so. I also prefer info being presented in dialogue, bot detailed descriptions.

Do you hum/sing songs to yourself. If I’m humming to my self I can hear the song in my head

With the book and movie thing I find that for whatever the movie included from the book, i remember the movie but for what the movie excluded I remember my visualization. And sometimes my mind will use the images from the movie to enhance my own visualization so they blend together and when I'm re-reading a book, (Harry potter is a really good example here) its like I'm watching my own movie with the same cast and same sets acting out scenes that the movie never included.

I had a pretty low opinion of the LOTR movies, and nothing from the movies has replaced the images I formed when I was young. The Harry Potter films, on the other hand, worked so well for me that I can’t really remember how I pictured most of the characters and locations before I saw the movies. Maybe it’s just a better adaptation!

When I picture a concept or idea I can’t picture or am unfamiliar with I work with what I best understand and try to expand from there. So if I’m picturing the edge of the universe. I’ll think of stars in a black void, galaxies, gas then things fading to static. It’s not at all accurate but it’s the best I can do. I always see images. Even when people are talking to me. It’s a little movie in my head. So when you said if you go out with a friend and they tell you about their day you hear it as a list of things the person did. I see you in a coffee shop with friend with a little thought bubble next your head with a list in it.

I have aphantasia and I not only like to read fiction, I write fiction. When I write (or read), a description is a series of facts--if I know what something looks like in the real world, I can remember that without seeing it. It's almost, but not quite, as if I remember images in words or spatial constructs. My writing has a minimum of description, a lot of dialogue (including inner dialogues), BUT I also depict a lot of emotions and interpersonal relationships. About book vs movie/TV images: I read Outlander first and when I saw the series, I could not get over the fact that the actor did not look like my idea of Jamie. How can this be if I can't visualize? Well, the author described his hair, eyes, nose, cheekbones, height, and mouth. Red hair with gold, copper, and auburn is not the same as reddish brown hair. Flat cheekbones are not them same as rounded ones. And so forth. I thought the actor who played Jamie wasn't tall enough because the author said Claire's head came to the middle of his chest and the actress' head was above that. Turns out, he was tall enough, but SHE wasn't short enough.