The Dullness of Detailed Descriptions in Reading

Reading with aphantasia is a unique experience. Would you agree?

I’ve always loved reading, especially fantasy and sci-fi. However, I never enjoyed reading extremely detailed and literary descriptions of anything, whether it was the background of a scene, or of what a character looked like or wore. Whenever I started reading a descriptive paragraph or pages of that nature in a book I would mentally groan, and skim until the book moved on.

This scene from Maestro by R.A. Salvatore is a great example of such:

“The Room of Divination in House Baenre was among the most marvelous of constructions in all of Menzoberranzan. In this dark city knowledge was power. Mirrors lined three walls, the fourth being the massive mithril door, which gleamed almost as reflectively as mirrors. The apparatuses holding the mirrors were set several strides from each other all along the way, but were bolted to metal poles running floor to ceiling, and not to the wall. Each apparatus held three mirrors, set on iron hangers, edge-to-edge-to-edge, forming a tall, narrow triangle. In the center of the room sat a stoup of white marble, a round bench encircling it. Dark, still water filled the bowl. Deep blue sapphires were set in its thick rim, the angle of their reflection making the water seem wider” (pg. 119-120).

I never thought much about skipping over what I thought were literary digresses, until I found out about aphantasia. Suddenly, it seemed to make sense to me. Other people could actually see a scene play out in their head, and every detail added to their mental picture, while each new detail just seemed an unimportant boring addition to me. Envisioning and visualizing just did not seem to come naturally to me. Talking with others with aphantasia online, a number seemed to agree with me, and to have had similar experiences.

For students, parents, and teachers, it may be useful to have more of an understanding of aphantasia to help children enjoy reading more. Selecting the right genre can be the first step to reading with aphantasia. Action packed and fast paced books might linger less on overly descriptive moments like these, especially in certain genres like fantasy. If you’re a parent of a child with aphantasia, knowing this might help in keeping your child engaged in books that they are able to appreciate, and in leading them to develop a love of reading in spite of a lack of visualization.