What are the best careers for aphantasiacs? I sometimes worry about being fired from a future job because of poor performance and bad memory. Does anyone else share these same thoughts?
Share
You must be signed in to comment
Total Comments (4)
on March 23, 2021
Zeman’s 2020 study, “Phantasia – the psychological significance of lifelong visual imagery vividness extremes”, found that aphantasics were twice as likely to work in the sciences, life sciences, and engineering than hyperphantasics. It is hard to give career advice based solely on one being aphantasic but speaking from my own experience, I do well in positions that I can focus on different projects for short spurts of time and involve speaking and collaborating with others. I also get a lot of benefit from working with teams that have strong internal organization and set clear expectations. The less that is unknown the better I am at focusing on what’s important. I like working in spreadsheets because they organize a lot of information in a small space, and allow me to filter relevant information as needed.
An element that runs though all the work I do is logic. To build spreadsheet formulas you use logic. In team collaborations, I often ask questions inquiring the potential effects of different ideas, to help prioritize the most promising ideas. Additionally, I contribute by breaking down the prioritized-ideas into logical steps which we then turn into an action plan.
What do you enjoy doing? What type of works or problem-solving do you naturally get hyperfocused on while doing?
You can find the study mentioned as well as a few articles regarding career’s in the link below. Just click the “Career” search filter when you get to Aphantasia Index.
Hi J_baby,
I had a very successful career in events as a lighting designed, audio engineer, vision switcher, cameraman, rigger and organiser.
My current career is in the public service an Australia. I have difficulty remembering numbers and words and use a note book diligently.
I have run teams of up to 30 people on various projects. The key is to be organised and to rely on processes and systems.
Any difficulties I have had due to aphantasia I have been able to find solutions and ways of working to accommodate. I find I am more diligent when looking at information and providing quality assurance because I do not remember and scrutinise closer than other people.
I am 48, I run my own business. I would consider myself successful. Just discovered I got aphantasia. Can’t see anything. I realised in my business, alot of things I learnt before Google was speaking to people. Discussing products. This would set in my brain a knowing of the product. Google helped more. I need to constantly keep up with new info, or I will forget it. Post its, notes to myself. Google maps has saved my life, I don’t get lost anymore. The Calender app. New technology is there to help, use it. Photos on your phone, put the images outside your head, to help u. I’ve had this my whole life, been struggling remembering images, but our new technology has helped a ton. And now that I have a name for what I got. What a relief.
Differentiating between having knowledge and visualizing images, I have Aphantasia, yet it has never impeded my performance in my various technical careers. It is important to note that having Aphantasia does not determine one’s ability to excel as an employee.