science

I have aphantasia. I never knew it was a thing, or that not being able to picture things in my mind was different from what most people experience until I saw a Ted talk about it a few years ago.

I am a creative person but my creations are very iterative because I have to make something, see it, then decide how I want to change it. But it’s very difficult for me to get a sense of what each change will actually look like until I make it. And inevitably I will need to change more once I see the next stage. So there’s a lot of trial and error, or a lot of ‘versions’ before I’m done.

This only affects visual stuff - painting, molding, drawing, planning to construct something and visualizing the final form, etc. Even just thinking about how a room will look by rearranging furniture is difficult until I actually start moving things.

If I’m creating something that’s not visual, say just writing a story, it’s not an issue.