Aphantasia

[Primeval Stasis]

Does anyone else on the site have aphantasia*? I just recently found a name for something I dealt with my whole life. I imagine it is pretty rare in tabletop rpgs and readers.

*Aphantasia is the lack of a minds eye. When I read or play, I'm unable to picture what is happening

[Tecmes]

The former cognitive student in me has to ask: let alone naming it, how did you come to the realization that you were different in that regard? I can understand how it can pop up in a RPG (I guess: difficulties coming up with appropriate action when no visual support and sufficient description is provided? Fatal allergy to OSR?), but outside of the hobby? (If that's too complicated to explain and/or you are tired of explaining that, please ignore my question!).

[Primeval Stasis]

7 hours ago, Tecmes said:

The former cognitive student in me has to ask: let alone naming it, how did you come to the realization that you were different in that regard? I can understand how it can pop up in a RPG (I guess: difficulties coming up with appropriate action when no visual support and sufficient description is provided? Fatal allergy to OSR?), but outside of the hobby? (If that's too complicated to explain and/or you are tired of explaining that, please ignore my question!).

I had lunch with one of my friends (who happens to be my former GM) and he was talking about the condition. I think he said another friend of his has it, and he was doing research into it. It clicked with what I've always experienced.

I used to inhale books when I was a kid. Like, LotR when I was 8. I loved to read, but always wondered what people meant by picturing the scenes. I would try but nothing would happen. Ditto for RPGs.

I can sometimes get something for less than a full second, but it's usually a very dark silhouette of an image and feels very intangible. Even the image of people I know really well (including my spouse).

Decision-making in RPGs isn't hard though. I can still imagine, but the data works in a different way. Trying to explain it to my wife, I likened it to seeing the code, but not the interface that the code renders. Everything you need is still there, but doesn't look pretty.

[yxanthymir]

On 11/19/2023 at 2:08 PM, Primeval Stasis said:

Does anyone else on the site have aphantasia*? I just recently found a name for something I dealt with my whole life. I imagine it is pretty rare in tabletop rpgs and readers.

*Aphantasia is the lack of a minds eye. When I read or play, I'm unable to picture what is happening

I believe you will not find many people here. I am almost at the extreme opposite, hyperphantasia. I don't know if it is exactly it. But many times I feel I am reading a book and it seems like a movie.

Scenes are very detailed, but faces aren't unless they are meticulously detailed by the author. Strange situations happen when I read a book and watch the movie at the same time, and I have two different images for a character.