“Close your eyes. Picture an apple. Describe what you see.”

When a friend posed this to me, I sort-of saw, briefly, a fuzzy rendering of an apple. It dematerialized and I had trouble calling it up once it had faded. It wasn’t clear or photographic. It was more of a fleeting mini-impression of an apple. I mumbled something about yeah I saw something.

Later, I realized I’d fudged a bit. Unconsciously, I’d felt obligated to announce that I had been able to picture with clarity the apple in the prompt.

My friend, given the same challenge, had only seen a black screen. Nothing apple-ish at all. And she’s had a long career as a graphic designer. (More on that later.)

What do you see when you close your eyes?
Image by Armin Dropic from Pixabay

What’s going on here? In a word, aphantasia. Turns out some of us don’t see a fully formed photorealistic apple in our mind’s eye in response to that prompt. It’s okay to be a bit vague, or wholly unable to conjure up an imaginary apple. Like so many aspects of life, our individual ability to picture imagery with our eyes closed is on a spectrum. I’m in the middle somewhere.

What is aphantasia?

“Aphantasia is the inability to voluntarily visualize mental images.” The source of that answer is the website for the Aphantasia Network, where you can take a quiz about where you are on that spectrum. One feature on the linked page gives you an assignment to visualize something (no spoiler) and then provides a number of image manipulation tools to edit the image so that it’s similar to what you’re able to see in your mind’s eye. Fascinating exercise to try out for yourself.

After I learned about aphantasia, and that my colleague saw a black screen instead of any kind of apple, I felt a burden of shame lift from my shoulders. I sighed with relief. Every time those meditation apps wanted to me to transport myself to a mountaintop and turn around, taking it all in just like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, and I just went blank, it wasn’t for lack of trying. It’s just how my brain operates. Losing that self-imposed roadblock freed me up to consider more questions.

Someone with full-on aphantasia may have grown up thinking that expressions like “picture an apple in your mind’s eye” were just metaphorical. It can be shocking to learn as an adult that some people actually do that!

There’s more

At the other end of that spectrum is hyperphantasia – where a person’s imagination is so vivid that, as one person I know describes it, “it’s all a movie from Pixar.” I can’t fathom how different life would be if, when I closed my eyes, the pictures I chose to imagine were supercharged, hyperrealistic, nearly fantastical movies, full of special effects and filters. With a mind’s eye like that, it would feel different to walk around in the real world, which might look dull by comparison.

And then you begin to expand beyond the visual imagination to other sensory faculties. Does the same range of precision show up differently in different senses? Does the term aphantasia also apply to the other kinds of sensory imagination? Can you hear music clearly in your head? Can you generate in your mind the physical sensations of touching sandpaper or a baby’s cheek? And so on.

Another pertinent question: Can a person’s dreams be more visual than their waking life? How is that possible? How does that work in the brain / nervous system?

Do first, assess later

In conversation with my graphic artist friend with aphantasia, we wondered whether that’s why she makes art – so that she can see it. If she cannot see it in her imagination, then the way to experience an idea is to make it real – on paper, on screen, on canvas, etc.

What about other mediums of expression? When I write music, for example, I’d rather discover what happens than figure it out in detail beforehand. Same with writing sentences, for me. Same with making music videos.

At some point, the intellect plays a role, and I find that the more difficult work. I recently took a class about mapping out the plot for a novel. That was extremely challenging. Spinning out sentences and seeing what happens? Much simpler. Similarly, with music composition, I prefer to let the music flow and figure out what it is – analyze the harmonic rhythm, the melodic themes, etc. – sometime later.

With music videos, where I am an untrained amateur, all I can do is put things together, see what results, massage, observe, lather, rinse, repeat. Iterate as often as it takes to get somewhere. As a rank beginner, I have very little skill or experience to draw on when it comes to the finer points of assembling moving pictures. But the process is familiar to me from other art forms.

In praise of pantsing

In general, for any of my creative pursuits, I favor what some writers fondly call “pantsing” – meaning creating first and analyzing later. Lauren Sapala, linked to above, prefers to call it intuitive writing. I’ve also heard it described as “discovery writing.” Whatever the label, the process of waiting to apply reason until after the initial creative acts rings true for me. This is true for writing sentences, writing music, arranging music, stovetop cooking (not baking, where the chemistry matters more), and more.

When someone asked me the other day how I support my creative moments, I replied, “I get stupid.” I get out of my head, and out of my own way. I don’t want to be picturing something before it shows up. I want to explore.

Like me, you may know – or be – a person who needs to lay everything out in their heads first, before beginning to commit to the medium of expression they’ll use. That’s not me. (Again, it’s a spectrum.)

And you?

What about you? Do you prefer to know what you’re working on before you begin making it? Would you rather just get started and follow the muse? Does your answer vary depending on the medium? On your level of skill or experience? On the absence or presence of a tight deadline? I’d love to know more about how this plays out in your life. In any case, I hope you find, as I do, that being aware of the wide span of experience is itself freeing. We get to be the way we are, wherever on that continuum we happen to land. We each have our own creative process. And if it works for us, it works.

Luna Project Update

Bright Panther Moon went up on May first – the music video and audio are here. If you want to know each time this year a new piece launches in honor of the next full moon, subscribe to my YouTube channel. To buy high-quality downloads of the music, please visit me on Bandcamp. Thanks for your support! Next up, Blue Moon on 31 May.