What always amazes me is that just picturing words ends up a more vivid experience than actually seeing a full colour depiction with every detail thought out on a screen in front of you.
Is it something about the process of having to generate the visual yourself?
And another curiosity for me is whether people with aphantasia still experience this – ie even though your mind is not generating visuals, is reading still a vivid experience?
by OpenCantaloupe4790
4 Comments
Part of it, for me, is that the book will feel more “3D,” I guess. Like I feel surrounded by it in a way visual media just cannot recreate. The characters feel like real people that I am with. And because my brain is working to generate the visuals, I am also getting scents and tactile sensation. For some reason, I don’t get that with visual media.
I can’t picture anything lol, but I enjoy following conversations and the general plot.
TV much easier for me.
Sometimes I’m disappointed in my imagination. I’ll never forget how difficult it is for me to imagine Hogwarts Castle, for example. I feel submersed in that world and I forget my surroundings for sure, but then I watch the movies or Legacy game, say, and realize the castle is *massssiiivvve* and that I wish I could picture it much more crystal in my mind. Alas, tis hard.
The mind is playing tricks on you. You don’t feel the same way because what is presented on screen is not what you expected from the book. Your mind is telling you the dissonance is the fault of the movie, not your now imaginative deficiencies. This is what happens when you’re the type of personality that thinks you know better than everyone else