Illustration by Drew Shannon
First Person is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.
When I had trouble sleeping, I sometimes played a guided meditation that asked listeners to imagine themselves by the sea. Feel the sand between your toes, the smooth, calming voice instructed. Listen to the waves crashing and watch the sun setting over the water.
I tried to follow along. I heard children playing and laughing. I felt my skin warm under the sun. I smelled coconut-scented sunblock. But what I couldn’t do was see any of it.
I didn’t know that some people could actually visualize themselves on the beach. What an amazing magic trick to have a movie in your mind!
But how come I can’t?
I learned about aphantasia in my mid-20s, from a colleague who had listened to a podcast about the phenomenon during her commute. She was trying to explain it, but I couldn’t understand.
“Imagine an apple,” she instructed.
“Uh, okay, sure,” I replied. People have been saying “Imagine XYZ thing” my whole life; it has no real meaning to me. I just stood there staring at her.
“No, close your eyes and imagine the apple.”
I closed my eyes and said nothing. People don’t actually see things, I thought. That makes no sense.
“Do you see an apple?” she asked eagerly.
“Like, actually see an apple? No. I see black and a little bit of static, like an old TV.”
“Well, you can imagine an apple, right? What colour is your apple?”
At that point, I was getting frustrated. “There is no apple,” I blurted out. “It’s just black, so I don’t know what colour the apple is!”
She was quiet. I opened my eyes and saw her staring at me.
“I think you may have aphantasia,” she said.
I finally understand the Danish way of being genuinely present
It was jarring to have a colleague hand me a diagnosis for something I hadn’t even heard of until two minutes before. I didn’t get any work done the rest of the day. Instead, I researched aphantasia and read Reddit posts from other self-described “aphants.” It was all I thought about.
I found online exercises and example images of what someone with aphantasia might see versus what someone with an active mind’s eye can visualize. I learned that it’s a spectrum: Some people can see faint images, others see nothing. I see nothing.
How did I not realize this until adulthood?
I grew jealous of people who have vivid imaginations. When reading books, they’re able to visualize the scenes as though it’s a movie in their mind. I wanted that too. All I can see are the words on the page in front of me. I can, however, hear the characters’ voices, inflection and tone, as if I’m listening to an audiobook.
Still, I’ve learned how to live, work and create without a mind’s eye.
It took me a long time to realize there’s a difference between imagining and visualizing. I can imagine, I just do it in other ways. And my mind stores information differently. I am surprisingly good at remembering faces, whereas my very visual partner is terrible at it. Just don’t ask me to describe a person to a sketch artist, because I will let you down.
I absolutely love to read, but I avoid fantasy novels as they tend to rely heavily on visual descriptions. Instead I prefer romance, as the genre is devoted to evoking a feeling.
I enjoy writing as well, but I need to add descriptive imagery during rewrites, referring to actual images to get the details right.
My senior dog has taught me a thing or two about how to age well
Not long after learning I have aphantasia, my mom died of cancer. At first, I worried that the memory of her would fade if I couldn’t visualize her face. But I chose to think of the positive side: If I can’t imagine them, I won’t be accosted with random images of her in pain. Another upside of the way my brain works is that, nearly a decade later, I can still hear her laugh.
When my son was little, we were driving home from school one day when his squeaky voice piped up from the back seat: “Mom! I’m imagining a ninja jumping from roof to roof on all the houses!” I felt a sudden lightness, and tears welled up in my eyes.
Despite my work toward acceptance over the years, I’m grateful my son won’t live with this unknown barrier. It will be easier for him to learn, grow and create in a world catered to the visual sense.
Crystal McDougall lives in St. Thomas, Ont.