Twenty-seven months later · 3:50pm Mar 7th, 2019
Well, what do you know - it's been twenty-seven months since my last blog post. Fancy that.
I've been rather busy with uni, you see. Mandarin Chinese is not an easy language to pick up.
But in those months I learnt something interesting. I have (among other things!) a condition known as 'aphantasia', which is the inability to picture things - in other words, I'm blind in my mind. (Note to self: Write a fic with that as the title. . .)
If I say to you, 'picture a sunset', what do you do? Can you 'see' the image in your mind, the reds and yellows and golds, the sun maybe just poking his nose over the horizon? Can you see the clouds and the landscape, hear the wind in the trees, watch the path of birds as the fly back to their nests for the night? As you watch, does the scene become darker, until eventually the sun as set completely?
The idea that anyone could do any of this came as a real surprise to me, when I learnt that it was possible. As far as I know, I've never been able to 'picture' things; I always thought that expression was merely a metaphor. Aphantasia is a relatively rare, understudied condition, but I think it's fascinating.
One of my sisters, on the other hand, has synaesthesia, which is like the complete opposite. She has a ukelele she's very fond of playing, but I have to tune it for her because the notes all make different colours and letter of the alphabet appear in her head, and the letters have colours of their own, which often don't match the colours that the notes are making, so she gets confused.
Which is really weird.
Anywho, soliloquy over. 
Hi.
5024575
And the same to you!
welp, that's as strange as autism.
yay
well, good luck.
5030186
I know, it's pretty weird, isn't it?
Thanks for the follow!
I have it too.
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/901787/i-have-aphantasia
5264795
Thank you for telling me - I've never met someone else with aphantasia (that I know of). I score I'd say about 0-1 on the Apple Test.
5265186 I scrolled through your stories and they mostly seem to focus on a character. My stories also mostly have a character in the cover art and focus on the character. I wonder if that might be related to aphantasia. We don't focus on the happenings and surroundings since we can't see them. We focus on the deeper impressions of the characters and the happenings are just a means to the end.
How often do you describe the scenery in your stories?
5265190
That's a good point; I hadn't thought of that but it does make sense. I tend to skip sections in the story I'm reading which are describing the scenery, unless it's pertinent to the plot, but when I'm writing I try to give at least a general impression of what it might look like, as I know it's important for 'normal' people.
5265309 I do the same. If I see a paragraph that describes something, whether be a character or a thing, I automatically skip it.
When I wrote my first novel, I got some responses that said I don't describe things enough. I thought to myself, I'll throw those in at the end or maybe get somepony to think of some stupid descriptions for me. To me it just made no sense why anyone would want to muddy their texts with descriptions.
How long have you known that you have aphantasia?
The funny thing is, I was always good with stories. I could free-style a story in front of my kindergarten when I was just 5-6 years old. The best part of school was always free-style writing to me.
Maybe since we can't use pictures, we default to the meaning of words instead. And that's what writing is in its essence. Were you also good with storytelling and writing your whole life?
5265448
Ah, that's interesting - and a good idea to get someone else to do the visualising! I've not done that; I've always written everything myself, though whether or not I'm actually describing a scene well I'm not sure. I find describing a scene easier than a pony (or other character), for some reason - how about you?
I've always been good at writing stories and coming up with things too, oddly! I'm pretty sure I could visualise when I was younger, because I can remember reading Warrior Cats and having difficulty picturing the character Redtail as anything other than a red panda, weirdly. I went through a few years of very bad mental health and I think that may have taken away my ability to visualise, but I'm not certain. I've known I have aphantasia for about three years now, I think.
5265762 All ponies are the same kind of blob to me. I usually just describe them while they're doing stuff (I mention that they have wings when they do something with them). Same with scenery, I only mention things that are relevant.
I tried writing in descriptions, but I mostly just stared at the text, not knowing what to write, so I eventually gave up. And everypony else has enough on their plates, so nopony has time to add to my stories.
I've known I have aphantasia for like a week now. I had my suspicions before, but I wasn't very familiar with the whole concept.
5265818
It's a weird thing to grasp, isn't it - that other people experience the world in a completely different way. Aphantasia is a very understudied condition, but I'm hoping that will change as more people become aware of it. If you're interested, there's a Reddit forum for it (r/Aphantasia).
5266410 Yes, it is kind of weird.
I do have one superpower that most people don't have. I can control a muscle in my inner ear. In people, it usually only triggers automatically after a loud sound, but I can trigger it at will.
From just looking at me, you can't see or hear it, but inside my head I can play on a drum. And it's an actual sound (not hearing voices) but only I can hear it.
And thanks for the link. I have lots of reading to do, I see.
5266451
Ha - that sounds really weird! Not like waggling your ear, then? I have the ability to rapidly vibrate my eyeballs (voluntary nystagmus), but I think that's more common.
5266488 No, it has nothing to do with the outer ear. The muscle is inside the head.
The sound you hear after a grenade explodes near your head is produced by the muscle. And I can produce it at will. It tires after 20 seconds or so. I can trigger about 3x per second at max. If you like to listen to morse code, that's what I can produce, but only I can ever hear it. I think only about 2% of people have this superpower.
Can you vibrate eyelids or eyeballs? How does that affect your vision?
5266490
That's really strange! I've never heard of someone being able to do that voluntarily. I can vibrate my eyeballs; it causes my vision to become extremely blurred and jittery - I can only do it for a few seconds before it starts to ache, though.
5267034 This is the muscle I can flex:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tensor_tympani_muscle
I can perform REM phase with my eyes when I'm very sleepy, and it refreshes my brain for a little while so I can think more clearly. It's like a 1-second sleep cycle.
I sometimes bump at things when I do that, though.
5267086
That's really weird! How long have you been able to do those things?
5267728 I could do the rumbling since I was a child.
As for the REM phase, it kind of comes naturally when my brain starts to shut off. I can only simulate it when I'm fully awake.