This was so fascinating! Mark Lawrence is an aphant?? I read The Book That Wouldn't Burn (one of his books) and I was IMMERSED. I was genuinely sucked in and loved the whole experience.
I took the aphantasia test and it said I was phantastic, but I lean more toward aphantasia on the scale, which I think makes sense because my visualization isn't incredibly vivid.
It's incredible to me the different ways aphantasic writers manage to create immersive work. I haven't read anything by Lawrence or Green, but I hope to do it sometime (mostly out of curiosity!)
Do you prefer it when books are more visually immersive or do you not care much for such details?
Honestly, I get a little bored when there are a lot of visual details. But that could just be because I'm impatient and just want to finish the story :)
Oh my gosh! I felt so seen in this essay of yours, Heba. People rarely talk about aphantasia, and for you to talk about aphantasia for writers and readers made me sooo excited! I have aphantasia (I scored a 23), but I have loved writing fiction, reading fiction, and drawing (my only 3 hobbies 🥹) since I was veryyy little, even before I realised my lack of visual imagery.
My love for fiction literature and art as a whole, despite people thinking we require vivid imagination, has never dwindled. And anyway, I do imagine! Just not in the same way most do. My imagination is series of events, dialogues, character interactions, dynanmics or symbolism and metaphors I find interesting. Just without the faces. Or colors. Or visuals at all, haha.
Your essay was was an incredible love letter for people with aphantasia, it was incredibly accurate and relatable, and I have genuinely never felt more seen in this area ever! I appreciate this article so much, thank you 🫶
You have no idea how happy your words make me feel! Human cognition is truly fascinating. You're the third aphantasic I meet on Substack, and even so each of you seems to have a unique experience with mental imagery. I'm so so glad this post has resonated with you.
Thank you for taking the time to review and share it!
What a fascinating essay. I scored a 76, and I am realizing this is probably why I prefer reading and writing to watching movies. 🤣 I need to learn more about this!
Thank you for the thoughtful comment (and hello there, fellow hyperphantasic!). I agree with what you said; while I do love movies, books give me, to an extent, the freedom to imagine things how I wish. My vision doesn't always align with what the movie's director chooses lol.
Also, yes! I'm on the search for books on the topic as well. Some of titles that came up while I did research for this essay are 'The Shape of Things Unseen' by Dr. Zeman himself and 'What We See When We Read' by Peter Mendelsund (which was recommended by Malka Alweis in one of her Notes)!
Thank you for these recommendations, Heba. I look forward to learning more! Reading your essay reminded me of how I felt when I discovered synesthesia, and I thought, “Doesn’t everyone’s brain work like this?” It is exciting to discover more of our interior landscape. Do you know if the two are linked, by the way?
Wow so you experience synesthesia too? That's incredible. I've always wondered how it must feel to have the senses "crossover" like that. What kinds of it do you get?
Regarding your question, I remember reading that while hyperphantasia and synesthesia are distinct phenomena, they do have shared neural pathways. It largely depends on the person in question, but the general rule is that hyperphantasic individuals are more likely to experience it than those lower on the spectrum.
This is fascinating, Heba. My synesthesia has become much more muted as an adult. As a child, I had strong ordinal linguistic and mirror image synesthesia. The latter I still experience a bit, but even now I find myself thinking I am just being “dramatic” or overly “imaginative.” Funny how we brush these things aside. I literally flinched from a thought this morning and told myself not to overreact, and then I remembered the hyperphantasia and synesthesia and realized that the thought crossing my brain was to some extent experienced by my body, thus the flinch. I need to read more about this! Do you happen to know if there is a genetic component? One of my kiddos has very strong reactions to words, as though saying a word out loud makes it happen to him. We all try to be very careful of this, but sometimes it can be tricky. It’s funny, I never put all this together with my own childhood until writing this note out to you right now. It seems like I should have put these pieces together before, but I truly haven’t. Wow, you have given me much to think about! What a blessing to get to think about the puzzle pieces from a new perspective. Thank you, Heba!
I had to look these types of synesthesia up, and wow! They sound intriguing. I think I might have experienced the former (ordinal linguistic) to some extent before: I tend to associate particular numbers and colors with particular feelings or ideas. I don't know if this counts.
As for the genetic component, yes. These variations in mental functioning are almost always congenital and sometimes inherited.
I have to agree: this is certainly a fascinating topic to research on and learn more about ourselves and loved ones!
Yes, I think that kind of personification of numbers and letters is what I’m talking about. It’s vague now for me. As a child, it was like a whole narrative unfolding as I tried to do math. I appreciate your ongoing conversation. This is sparking all sorts of thoughts about my own children that are genuinely helpful.
I found this very interesting; I wasn't aware of this before. I scored a 77, and it said that I'm hyperphantasic. Maybe that's the reason I prefer reading to watching movies! Thank you so much for sharing this excellent essay.
This was so fascinating! Mark Lawrence is an aphant?? I read The Book That Wouldn't Burn (one of his books) and I was IMMERSED. I was genuinely sucked in and loved the whole experience.
I took the aphantasia test and it said I was phantastic, but I lean more toward aphantasia on the scale, which I think makes sense because my visualization isn't incredibly vivid.
It's incredible to me the different ways aphantasic writers manage to create immersive work. I haven't read anything by Lawrence or Green, but I hope to do it sometime (mostly out of curiosity!)
Do you prefer it when books are more visually immersive or do you not care much for such details?
Honestly, I get a little bored when there are a lot of visual details. But that could just be because I'm impatient and just want to finish the story :)
Oh my gosh! I felt so seen in this essay of yours, Heba. People rarely talk about aphantasia, and for you to talk about aphantasia for writers and readers made me sooo excited! I have aphantasia (I scored a 23), but I have loved writing fiction, reading fiction, and drawing (my only 3 hobbies 🥹) since I was veryyy little, even before I realised my lack of visual imagery.
My love for fiction literature and art as a whole, despite people thinking we require vivid imagination, has never dwindled. And anyway, I do imagine! Just not in the same way most do. My imagination is series of events, dialogues, character interactions, dynanmics or symbolism and metaphors I find interesting. Just without the faces. Or colors. Or visuals at all, haha.
Your essay was was an incredible love letter for people with aphantasia, it was incredibly accurate and relatable, and I have genuinely never felt more seen in this area ever! I appreciate this article so much, thank you 🫶
You have no idea how happy your words make me feel! Human cognition is truly fascinating. You're the third aphantasic I meet on Substack, and even so each of you seems to have a unique experience with mental imagery. I'm so so glad this post has resonated with you.
Thank you for taking the time to review and share it!
What a fascinating essay. I scored a 76, and I am realizing this is probably why I prefer reading and writing to watching movies. 🤣 I need to learn more about this!
Thank you for the thoughtful comment (and hello there, fellow hyperphantasic!). I agree with what you said; while I do love movies, books give me, to an extent, the freedom to imagine things how I wish. My vision doesn't always align with what the movie's director chooses lol.
Also, yes! I'm on the search for books on the topic as well. Some of titles that came up while I did research for this essay are 'The Shape of Things Unseen' by Dr. Zeman himself and 'What We See When We Read' by Peter Mendelsund (which was recommended by Malka Alweis in one of her Notes)!
Thank you for these recommendations, Heba. I look forward to learning more! Reading your essay reminded me of how I felt when I discovered synesthesia, and I thought, “Doesn’t everyone’s brain work like this?” It is exciting to discover more of our interior landscape. Do you know if the two are linked, by the way?
Wow so you experience synesthesia too? That's incredible. I've always wondered how it must feel to have the senses "crossover" like that. What kinds of it do you get?
Regarding your question, I remember reading that while hyperphantasia and synesthesia are distinct phenomena, they do have shared neural pathways. It largely depends on the person in question, but the general rule is that hyperphantasic individuals are more likely to experience it than those lower on the spectrum.
This is fascinating, Heba. My synesthesia has become much more muted as an adult. As a child, I had strong ordinal linguistic and mirror image synesthesia. The latter I still experience a bit, but even now I find myself thinking I am just being “dramatic” or overly “imaginative.” Funny how we brush these things aside. I literally flinched from a thought this morning and told myself not to overreact, and then I remembered the hyperphantasia and synesthesia and realized that the thought crossing my brain was to some extent experienced by my body, thus the flinch. I need to read more about this! Do you happen to know if there is a genetic component? One of my kiddos has very strong reactions to words, as though saying a word out loud makes it happen to him. We all try to be very careful of this, but sometimes it can be tricky. It’s funny, I never put all this together with my own childhood until writing this note out to you right now. It seems like I should have put these pieces together before, but I truly haven’t. Wow, you have given me much to think about! What a blessing to get to think about the puzzle pieces from a new perspective. Thank you, Heba!
I had to look these types of synesthesia up, and wow! They sound intriguing. I think I might have experienced the former (ordinal linguistic) to some extent before: I tend to associate particular numbers and colors with particular feelings or ideas. I don't know if this counts.
As for the genetic component, yes. These variations in mental functioning are almost always congenital and sometimes inherited.
I have to agree: this is certainly a fascinating topic to research on and learn more about ourselves and loved ones!
Yes, I think that kind of personification of numbers and letters is what I’m talking about. It’s vague now for me. As a child, it was like a whole narrative unfolding as I tried to do math. I appreciate your ongoing conversation. This is sparking all sorts of thoughts about my own children that are genuinely helpful.
I found this very interesting; I wasn't aware of this before. I scored a 77, and it said that I'm hyperphantasic. Maybe that's the reason I prefer reading to watching movies! Thank you so much for sharing this excellent essay.
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