Whether you visualize – or not – it doesn’t define you, nor does it link with the quality of what you can produce. There are extraordinarily talented artists on both ends of the spectrum from aphantasia, inability to visualize in the mind’s eye, to hyperphantasia or hyper-vivid, almost lifelike imagination. Not convinced?
Ed Catmull, founder and former CEO of Pixar who created some of our favourite Disney classics like Toy Story, Finding Nemo and Inside Out; happens to be blind in his mind’s eye. A BBC News article featuring his story has illuminated several assumptions we make about creativity. Catmull is quoted here saying; “People have conflated visualization with creativity and imagination, but they are not the same thing.”
Catmull reminds us that we are capable of great work, regardless of our neuro-differences. We just go about the creative process in different ways!
Are you aphantasic or hyperphantasic? Tell us more about your creative process.