Thank you so much for sharing, it's beautifully written.
Is it ok to ask how you experience reading and writing poetry? Many people talk about the images that poems evoke, but I'm sort of curious how you experience the emotions conveyed by poetry, and if there are any kind of poems that are particularly difficult for you to connect with?
I hope that's not a rude question or anything of the sorts, I'm just genuinely curious since I'm the opposite -- my mental images can be so overwhelming sometimes that I need to take many breaks from writing.
Well, both images and emotion get through, I just have thoughts about them instead of created images. This could put me a step or two removed from the images evoked, but doesn’t mean there is no imagination involved, it’s just different. And I think I get it.
I can’t claim to know how others react to emotions evoked by poetry, but we’re all human. Our emotions are personal, and yet seem universally relatable if we are at all empathetic.
So I intuit feelings using what I know, and experience, as my reference. And I imagine by unconsciously assembling ideas and concepts, rather than creating a picture.
But I am curious about how people who can visualize see the images that come up; how vivid, how easily mutable, and how detailed the images can get. And about how it can get to be overwhelming,
A while ago, the subject of aphantasia came up in conversation because a person I know has that, and he essentially said that he has no imagination, but I disagreed, because he can still enjoy playing roleplaying games with us and such or feel deeply connected with literature, so I felt like they're not separate things at all, just different flavours of imagination, one visual and one non-visual.
I got the same feeling from your explanation. I think maybe because visualising is more common, that we have a very simple idea of what imagination is like... But there's so much more to it, and so I loved hearing your perspective too. Thank you for taking the time 💛
Thank you so much for sharing, it's beautifully written.
Is it ok to ask how you experience reading and writing poetry? Many people talk about the images that poems evoke, but I'm sort of curious how you experience the emotions conveyed by poetry, and if there are any kind of poems that are particularly difficult for you to connect with?
I hope that's not a rude question or anything of the sorts, I'm just genuinely curious since I'm the opposite -- my mental images can be so overwhelming sometimes that I need to take many breaks from writing.
Well, both images and emotion get through, I just have thoughts about them instead of created images. This could put me a step or two removed from the images evoked, but doesn’t mean there is no imagination involved, it’s just different. And I think I get it.
I can’t claim to know how others react to emotions evoked by poetry, but we’re all human. Our emotions are personal, and yet seem universally relatable if we are at all empathetic.
So I intuit feelings using what I know, and experience, as my reference. And I imagine by unconsciously assembling ideas and concepts, rather than creating a picture.
But I am curious about how people who can visualize see the images that come up; how vivid, how easily mutable, and how detailed the images can get. And about how it can get to be overwhelming,
Thanks for asking.
I'm so happy to have heard your perspective 💛
A while ago, the subject of aphantasia came up in conversation because a person I know has that, and he essentially said that he has no imagination, but I disagreed, because he can still enjoy playing roleplaying games with us and such or feel deeply connected with literature, so I felt like they're not separate things at all, just different flavours of imagination, one visual and one non-visual.
I got the same feeling from your explanation. I think maybe because visualising is more common, that we have a very simple idea of what imagination is like... But there's so much more to it, and so I loved hearing your perspective too. Thank you for taking the time 💛
Lovely writing and peculiar world. I will gladly come back here and read more!
Very cool! I had no idea about this... ty for sharing!
Alex, this is very interesting…well-written, too. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Mark, on both counts. There’s more to come.
Looking 👀 forward to seeing your posts!
Very well written! And I didn't know you were one of the folks who aren't visual thinkers!
Thanks Nicole, I didn’t know either until I did.