I'm aphantasic but I've drawn my whole life. In Pictionary I show off and draw exactly the thing being described, meanwhile others struggle with their stick figures. It's hilarious.
So on the one hand I can draw an excellent random generic man or a generic face. If you pose for me I'll do an uncanny portrait. But I can't draw my wife of 30 years -- I can't even see her in my mind. I can't draw an actor I've seen 200 times unless I were to sit with photographs and ingrain their face by deliberate practice
Comments
Can you draw things without a reference? What happens if you try to play pictionary?
I'm aphantasic but I've drawn my whole life. In Pictionary I show off and draw exactly the thing being described, meanwhile others struggle with their stick figures. It's hilarious.
So on the one hand I can draw an excellent random generic man or a generic face. If you pose for me I'll do an uncanny portrait. But I can't draw my wife of 30 years -- I can't even see her in my mind. I can't draw an actor I've seen 200 times unless I were to sit with photographs and ingrain their face by deliberate practice
If I cannot see - with my eyes there and then - a scribble happens.
To sort of expand: I'm old enough that a diagnosis makes zero difference. But it does explain so much.
When misophonia became a thing it explained so much of my reactions to certain noises, that I was not alone.
Just knowing that others are experiencing the same removes some of that aloneness.