The B-Roll #24: Can you see it?

Happy Sunday, sunshine.

I want you to think of your favorite coffee shop or restaurant. A place within your comfort zone. Maybe you have a favorite spot or a favorite barista (server/bartender).

Could you picture it?

Can you see yourself walking in through the front door, looking around and recognizing the inside?

It doesn’t matter if you need to close your eyes or not. And maybe the picture was a little hazy, but could you see it?

When you close your eyes and think of a memory, can you see it, or is it darkness?

When you’re reading a book, do you picture the scenes as you’re reading them? Do you have a mental image of the characters as the author describes them?

If I told you to picture the sun setting over the ocean, can you see it?

If you said yes, it turns out that you’re been living like most of the population and I didn’t know that was actually a thing people could do until recently.

You know, in cartoons, they depict someone counting sheep with the sheep literally jumping over a fence?

I DID NOT REALIZE THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO CAN REALLY VISUALIZE THAT.

Ahem.

Hi, I’m Berrak and I recently discovered I suffer from aphantasia. My overachiever brain has done it again because I literally can’t picture things in my mind. And this includes people’s faces, places I’ve been, etc. But I don’t have total aphantasia, so sometimes, I can see outlines or quick snapshots.

The term phantasia was first coined by Aristotle around 350 B.C. to describe the mind’s eye and it simply means imagination. Nearly 2,000 years later, Adam Zeman, professor of cognitive and behavioral neurology at the University of Exeter in the U.K. coined the term aphantasia in 2015, which is now a recognized neurological condition.

Here’s how the Cleveland Clinic describes it:

“Think of visual imagination like a television. Some people have black-and-white TVs. Others have color TVs. An extremely vivid imagination is like having an ultra-high-definition digital television. Having aphantasia is like your mind not having a TV because it wouldn’t use it. Because your “mind’s eye” doesn’t work like that, your imagination works in other ways.”

“Aphantasia may also affect the way you store or access memories. People with aphantasia are more likely to have difficulties with first-person (autobiographical) memory. That means while they can recall things they did or experienced, they can’t visualize them.”

Sigh.

The relationship between aphantasia and dreaming is also interesting. While I have incredibly vivid dreams that are sometimes like movies, the mind blindness kicks in almost immediately, even when I’m describing the dream in great detail.

The most fun I’ve had in a while is trying to explain this phenomenon and its relationship with reading to my friends. When we read the same books, especially with detailed world-building, they can literally see everything in great detail. One described it as a movie scene playing in front of her. I…I don’t visualize anything. I understand the concept. I could describe it to you, but unless I see drawings or there’s a movie adaptation of the book, the visual does not exist in my brain.

I’m still working through this, but I think this probably has something to do with why I’ve been obsessed with taking and saving pictures since I was a kid.

But more on that another time.

Life has been a lot for me lately, but I’m easing back into creativity.

How about you? What's been going on in your world?

Snapshots from the World of Berrak
* I just hit a milestone at work: It’s been 1 year since I began this contract at Microsoft and I really love it. I will find out in June if it’ll get extended and I’m beginning to dip my toe back in to start looking for consulting projects in the meantime.
* One night, I went on my personal blog to update the header image and 3 hours later, I had audited 15 years of posts, updated the theme, and it felt good. In fact, I just published a new post for the first time in a long time.
* 2024 has been off to a rough start with reading because I haven’t been able to focus on anything besides the news. But I got over the hump.

Fiction: “More Than You’ll Ever Know” by Katie Guiterrez - Drama about a woman caught leading a double life after one husband murders the other and the true-crime writer who becomes obsessed with telling her story.
Nonfiction: “If You Can’t Take the Heat: Tales of Feminism, Food, and Fury ” by Geraldine DeRuiter (aka The Everywherist) - I literally read it in one sitting and it cracked something open in me (which may have been the catalyst to get me writing again)

Staying connected and a tiny ask for help

Making the choice to leave Twitter has been difficult for me. My account is still active but I am no longer posting or engaging there. If you’ve done the same or you’re also active on any of the following platforms, let’s please get connect:
* Threads - This is where I’m the most active
* Mastodon - Second most active (or getting back into it after a few months)
* Bluesky - Starting to really explore this one

I also left Substack, so my venues for sharing and growing this newsletter have shrunk significantly. If you do enjoy it and know someone else who would, please share with them.