How aphants adapt to their aphantasia and come up with alternative means of doing tasks that some do with visualization is really intriguing to me. For now, we don’t quite know how those with congenital aphantasia have learned to adapt to it, just that we just do.
Asking an aphant how they do so would be like asking someone exactly how they are able to understand the words they read in a book. Sure, maybe if you think hard about it, you might describe how with years of practice you’ve come to associate certain symbols to be letters, combinations of those to be words, each with their own meaning you’ve come to know, and you are able to comprehend the meanings of chains of these words together through having seen them time and time again.
However, even going this far is difficult, and going further to try to recognize how one does all this seems impossible. It would be the same for an aphant trying to explain how they have adapted to their lack of visualization. It's just a part of our lives. However, better understanding how we adapt could help us understand the brain and its workings better. The brain is so complex and adapts to much more than aphantasia. Learning more about the mechanisms it adapts through might help us control our adaptation for our own purposes, like helping veterans better adapt mentally to fit back into civilian society, helping those who have suffered brain injuries to adapt to their new lives, or helping people adapt to other neurological conditions they might have.
What are your thoughts on this? Have you noticed any ways you've adapted to having aphantasia? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, I'd love to hear them!
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