From Martin Ellis, London, UK
As someone with total aphantasia, I found Shayla Love’s article “Think of an apple” to be of great interest. I found out that other people could actually picture things in their minds only when talking to my wife some 10 years ago (11 April, p 36). She really struggled to believe that I can’t!
In particular, I found the section about two different visual processing streams extremely interesting. I hadn’t read of this before. It makes total sense because when I construct a concept of something in my mind, by putting together all the ideas that make up that “thing”, I find myself reaching in space and, in fact, placing those ideas in different spaces around my mind. I also feel that colours are strongly related to different positions in space. I can’t see them, but I feel where they are.
For this reason I’d be devastated to be able to picture things! I am certainly not going to try any “fixes”, because I feel strongly that it would crush my ability to think in the abstract, something I cherish.
Advertisement
