Writing in the Dark

So Apparently, I Have Aphantasia? Who Knew.

I learned something kind of wild the other night while visiting a book club as a guest:

I have aphantasia.

What is that, you ask? It’s the inability to visualize images in your mind. And suddenly, a lot of things that didn’t make sense… started making sense.

We were talking about books and authors—chatting about covers, titles, characters—and I casually mentioned that I can never remember authors’ names. Even if I’ve read the book and loved it with my whole heart, I can’t pull up the cover image in my head. I also can’t remember books the way other people can. That probably sounds bizarre, but it’s true. I don’t have that mental movie reel people talk about. I just… don’t see it.

One of the women at the table asked, “If you close your eyes right now, can you picture an apple?”

I closed my eyes.
“No,” I said, matter-of-fact.
I wasn’t surprised. I knew I wouldn’t be able to.
What I didn’t realize was that everyone else could.

That Time I Tried to Meditate My Way to Clarity (Spoiler: I Couldn’t)

A few years ago, I got really into this thing called the Silva Mind Control Method—a meditation technique that leans heavily on visualization. You’re supposed to create a mental movie screen, project images onto it, and use it to “manifest” things or calm your nervous system.

I tried so hard. I bought the book. I even paid for the fancy Mindvalley course (which wasn’t cheap, by the way). But I could never “see” anything. I figured it was my ADHD. Or anxiety. Or just me being bad at relaxing.

There was one part where you were supposed to visualize yourself moving through crinkled tinfoil. (Don’t ask—I still don’t get it.) I’d close my eyes and instantly: nothing. Darkness. No image. Just black space.

I remember feeling so frustrated. So disappointed. I wanted to do it right. I just couldn’t.

Now I know—it wasn’t me. It was aphantasia. I literally don’t have the mental movie screen other people use.

Writing Without Pictures

Here’s the funny part: I’m a writer. I’ve created entire fictional towns and characters and places that feel real to readers. But apparently, I’ve been doing it without ever “seeing” a scene in my mind.

When I write, I don’t see what’s happening—I feel it. I write about emotion. Texture. Temperature. Sensation. I might describe what a stone wall feels like after rain, but I won’t describe what it looks like unless I’m looking at a photo or standing in front of it. I can’t conjure it from memory.

Even when I try to picture places from my own childhood—ones I’ve visited a hundred times—I can’t. There’s no image. Just a vague sense of space. A mood.

I can’t close my eyes and picture my mom’s face. Or my dad’s. But I can feel the calm settle in my bones when I remember the scent of Red Door perfume on my mom, or the rasp in my dad’s voice when he spoke. That’s what memory is like for me—it’s not visual. It’s sensory.

Real Places, Imagined Feelings

When I describe the football stadium in Where Old Ghosts Meet, it’s not one real place. It’s a mashup: part Dunmore, part Scranton, part made-up. Same with the Maplewood ice cream shop. And the food stand Josie works in. I’ve worked behind real food stands—but when I write about them, I don’t recreate the actual place. I write what it felt like to be there.

And there’s a strange kind of freedom in that. Because the places I write about don’t really exist. They’re inspired by real ones, sure—but they’re shaped entirely by memory, mood, and feeling. Which means no one can ever say, “That’s not what it looked like.” Because I don’t even know what it looked like. I just know how it felt.

When I reference “Douglas Arthur’s” in Where Old Ghosts Meet, I was thinking of “Art Douglass Shoes”—a place so many of us in Northeast PA went to as kids. I remember the crunch and salt of the pretzels. The rocking horse. Climbing onto the platform to get fitted. The cold of the metal device they used to measure our feet. The excitement of getting new shoes. But the physical space? Gone. I don’t remember how it looked. Just how it felt to be there.

Readers See, I Feel

What blows my mind is learning that some readers actually see full-blown scenes when they read—like a movie playing in their head.

I don’t remember the classics. I don’t retain the details from The Great Gatsby or To Kill a Mockingbird the way other people do. Not the scenes. Not the imagery. Not the physical details, the names of characters, or even the order of events sometimes.

But I remember how they made me feel. I remember the ache. The tension. The weight of injustice. The longing. The message. The theme. That’s the part that stays with me.

And I was always insecure about that—especially as an English student, and later as a teacher, sitting in rooms full of well-read academics. I often felt on the spot, like any request for detailed analysis was a pop quiz I hadn’t studied for.

But now I know why.

And yet… I still write. I still create. I still examine.

Just differently.

A Different Kind of Vision

I never thought that not being able to visualize was a shortcoming—because I didn’t know other people could. But I’ve definitely felt frustration. Especially with meditation, memory, or descriptive writing. Sometimes it does feel like a disability. But I’m trying to accept that it’s not a flaw. It’s just a different way of experiencing the world.

And weirdly enough, I think it makes me more me as a writer. I don’t get stuck worrying if a place looks “real” or “accurate.” I describe what things feel like, and trust the reader to fill in the rest. The places I write about don’t exist—and they don’t have to.

They just have to feel real to someone.
And that’s enough.

Oh—and while we’re at it: I also can’t, for the life of me, remember genres.
Fantasy? Contemporary dark something? New-world speculative this or that? No idea.

But that’s a blog post for another day. . .