This podcast episode is from the Shelf Life article The Blind Mind, which originally published on December 29, 2020.
In The Blind Mind, I explore what it’s like to read and write with aphantasia—the inability to visualize images in my mind. I share how I didn’t even realize my brain worked differently until my thirties, when a coworker mentioned how strange it would be not to see mental pictures. For me, reading means keeping a list of descriptive details rather than watching a movie in my head, and writing description comes more easily because I’m already translating from words to words—no image required. I also talk about my friend Goñi Montes, an artist with hyperphantasia who experiences most of his thoughts as vivid, multidimensional visuals, and how our friendship helped me understand the spectrum of how human brains can work. This is a heartfelt look at what it means to create stories when your mind’s eye is completely blind—and why that doesn’t have to be a disadvantage.
