When you imagine characters in a story you read

It's interesting you mention imagining actors in books, sometimes when characters are described I picture them similar to an actor or a specific character in a film or show. If the description doesn't remind me of anyone I can picture then I don't imagine what they look like and they're just blank for the rest of the book!

If the book is adapted to a film, then I just imagine the characters as there are in the film, otherwise to be honest I can hardly imagine every character very detailed, maybe only the main ones. By the way, how many books do you read? Do you have enough time for that? I have a lot of writing assignments but I still manage to read a book per week, especially since I am writing my [link removed by moderator] quickly without being distracted in order to have more time to read.

That's good to hear  

Interestingly, I read that article and only answered one of the questions correctly! I don't think I have aphantasia because I've always had a very vivid, visual imagination, but I do remember struggling with concepts like those in the article when I was at school.

P.S. Discombobulated is one of my favourite words

Ooh, that's a tough one. I like them all; Holy Mountain I'd say. I really really do like Dance of Reality/Endless Poetry though. 

Yup, that's right, how much influence it had on SF films.

Personally my visual imagination is very good and I actually find it really easy to imagine what characters might look like or indeed what a scene or environment might look like, if it has been well described. This is one thing that I really like about talking with other Autistic people, their inclination to give lots of details when they are describing things, I'm 'there' in my head, I can visualise everyone/everything that they are describing really well.

I just hope it all goes swimmingly with Villeneuve's version! Didn't know about the series on the Bene Gesserit. Maybe they might take a lot of pointers from Chapterhouse. I think that God Emperor woukd have to take some form of different approach, but then it might be disjointed from the series.

Breadpud said:

I know of Jodorowsky's attempt to make the film and I still need to see the documentary. I love Jodorowsky

It's amazing that if that project wasn't a faliure, Alien probably would never have been made. It's wonderfully absurd, especially the training regimen he put his son through to play Paul. Right, I won't give any more away!

Do you prefer El Topo, or The Holy Mountain?

I know of Jodorowsky's attempt to make the film and I still need to see the documentary. I love Jodorowsky

Yes, lots o' holes in Dune 84 but still a grand attempt.
There's already talk of a spin-off TV series or TV film about the Bene Gesserit. Perhaps the later Dune novels might be smaller affairs if it all goes swimmingly. I could imagine God Emperor as an Anime/Manga or CG version done for by a streaming company.

You're welcome. I don't mind too much trying to describe things like that; it's often one of the best ways of understanding myself to try to explain to someone else. It kind of left me a bit bewildered for while, but actually I think it's found me a new direction to try to tackle some of my "without the mask who am I?" confusion - so all's well.

Even more amazing; thanks to  posting about a forum especially for Aphantasics, I discovered some scientific research into mental imagery tasks, one of the conclusions of which was...

"What Zeman’s findings do suggest is that mental imagery may be unconscious in the brain of an aphantasic. That is, people with aphantasia may be able to form visual images, but don’t have conscious access to them."

If only I'd read that first, to know that my guesswork was right, I might not have gotten myself quite so discombobulated!

I think it will be a pretty difficult concept to make mainstream. I like Lynch's version too, I'm a massive Lynch fan. Lynch's version did stray from the books in some very fundamental ways. The death of Jamis was omitted, and that gave Paul's character his first encounter and moral dilemmas as to taking a life. Also the Bene Gesserit being psychic wasn't part of the book. The Weirding Way was altered also. I can't understand why they made it rain at the end of the film! Sandworms die by exposure to water, Spice is created by sandworms, and that renders most of the meat of the story useless. Aesthetically it looks amazing, (apart from the worms and some effects) but that is a pretty bad plothole! Lynch made the film very much his. I like it but it is very much Lynch's vision, and not so much Herbert's. I just hope Villenevue stays as faithful to the book as possible.

If the Dune films are a success, what happens when they make God Emperor? I think that's unfilmable by nature. So much inner monologing, most of the story takes place in Leto's ethereal sense of consciousness. I think that Children of Dune is as far as it can go.

Have you seen the documentary about Alejandro Jodorowsky's version, or saw the artwork? Now that would have been very weird! Looked like it wouldn't have been very faithful either!

A fan of Dune and the 1984 film. The casting looks ok so far I agree. I do like David Lynch though and imagine 20,000 years in the future would be a little 'weird', so I hope Villeneuve doesn't mainstream it too much (I'm not a fan of Villeneuve so far). I saw the film first back in 84 and then read all Frank's books.

Thanks for sharing this - I can see why it must be really hard to describe your experiences.

The only thing I seem to really struggle with (in terms of visual memory) is facial recognition. I can recall the faces of my family and close friends very well, but I have to see someone very regularly before I get to the point where I can remember their face (it gets a bit embarrassing when people recognise me, but I've forgotten them). When I worked in customer service, I used to get customers who'd come in every week and be really angry that I couldn't remember them (they'd refer to things we'd discussed and I just couldn't place them). It always baffled me how other people could remember customers' names and faces so well.

The odd thing is that my brain must somehow encode visual information, and I'm sure it doesn't do it by converting images into, say, a verbal description; though I am primarily a word thinker. I have been a painter, a photographer, and a product designer. I can pass intelligence tests which involve mentally rotating 3D shapes. I have no problem recognising people or my favourite flowers. All of this is normal for aphantasic people from what I can gather, and in fact it seems very common for us to be visual artists. As I said in the thread about dreaming, I can only assume that I do have a "mind's eye", but that it isn't available to my conscious awareness; only to some kind of image processing sub-system which hands me answers without showing its workings out.

When asked what colour our family car was when I was a kid, I know it was orange, but I cannot tell to what extent an image of an orange car is generated inside my head somewhere that I can't directly reach, or whether this is just an individual factual memory to which the answer is "orange" (it's hard to believe that this could be the case for every single detail that I would be able to recall about the car).

Describing how it affects my autobiographical memory is even more difficult, because I think my recall is very strongly affected by my alexithymia. It's not just that my autobiographical memories don't have pictures; I don't really feel that I "relive" anything at all, in the way that other people describe (I cannot really tell how metaphorical this description is meant to be).To a large extent I live in a kind of permanent "now" - my past is very vague to me, and it doesn't feel much like something that I actually lived through. I know plenty of things about it, but I'm not sure they're what most people would call "reminiscences".

I may add to this later. I feel that I have taken a tangent into things which I have never tried to put into words before, and I'm finding it quite difficult. Although my direct recall of emotional states is very poor, they come to me when I try to translate my thoughts into words - I worry that if I'm not careful, I may be rewriting who I am. Maybe I need to. I need to think.

If you don't mind me asking, how do memories work for you? I tend to see them as visual images.

Luckily for me, I find this a very simple question, and my answer may surprise some of you.

My answer is, no, I cannot. Not ever. Not even if you just showed me a picture of them two seconds ago. Not even if I try to imagine them as played by my best friend.

This is called aphantasia. I can see with my eyes just fine, but I can't conjure up images only in my mind. I have no "mind's eye"

That's a really difficult question. Sometimes, I can see the character clearly based on the author's description; sometimes, their features aren't very clear; other times, I see an actor, like you described.

I wouldn't know how to answer this one.

If the writer describes the characters well, then yes - obviously I can imagine what they look like.

But often I guess I don't bother e.g. 'Sparver' who is a 'hyperpig' in a book I'm reading at the moment... I don't associate an image with the name when it comes up - and I'm a highly visual thinker in normal circumstances.

If I read a book sometimes I find it so interesting when it gets adapted to a film. Sometimes they get it bang on, other times it falls way short of the mark. I will often envision actors myself as characters, sort of armchair casting.

Waiting for Denis Villeneuve's version of Frank Herbert's Dune. The casting looks good so far! 

Another thing, it is REALLY HARD to answer questions about how often you don't understand other people. This test would require that after all social interactions I had the other part answer questions about what they actually meant, what I misunderstood, if they were actually bored with me, if I talked too much about something etc.