Art and aphantasia

Hey there, Wout, welcome to the community!

First off – While aphantasia may influence behavior, cognition, and the processes you use to think & perform tasks, it will not bar you from being able to anything everyone else can do. Their are a number of known aphantasics performing professionally as artists, fiction authors, musical composers, sommeliers, hypnotists, athletes, world-renowned business visionaries & creatives, and other professions one may question aphantasic efficacy.

However, I do agree with you that we likely are more prone to ideate, problem solve, and create with a "beginners mindset". Rather than being quickly biased with previous mental models, solutions we’ve used under similar circumstances, or the first idea that comes to mind, I think we may be more apt to focus on the fundamentals of a given project and then more incremently explore our path forward. Essentially trading higher imagination, speed, & resolve for higher logic, experimention, & adaptability.

What we know for sure so far – mental imagery plays a notable role in: in autobiographical memory; our emotional response to imagined things/events; visual working memory; and perceptual illusions.

I’ll respond with some of the widely self-reported differences as well as some of the recent findings that still require further validation!

In the meantime, what personal strengths do you think may have been amplified by you uniquity of thought?

i am a jewller. i make things from gold, silver, copper. i cant "see" the finished product of what im making, but i can take inpiration from pictures, and make my own unique version of that idea. i cant draw to save myself, cant sculpt life figures in wax, but when im working a piece, my hands and mind work in harmony to find the right balance to create a pleasing shape.

i have too look up how wide a ring should be, and cut sheet to that size, but i can make a ring, decide on embellishments, and place those in pleasing arrangements. often i have to see the thing in front of me, to know what i need to do. Sometimes i suffer "paralysis by analysis" because i have to choose intelectually what to do, lacking an image.

l have a feeling that l had some form of this when younger due to trauma. but later in life l became very good at mentally visualising almost anything l wanted to imagine. But wife might be like this because she can’t or rather she has difficulty visualising how to get to a place we had been to many times. She also flis out if l try to describe a location in our yard where something is to be found, such as a plant growing.because she doesnt appear to visulise the verbal descriptionlas andimage. l did ask her if she could imagine holding a cube in her hand that had different colourcolours for each side, and turning it over slowly to look at each colour and she said yes she could.
l think the idea of being able to visualise a colour or rainbow is wonderful because it relies on what you seen and long term memory. it may be cured with practice or stimulation of the visual cortex.