SPEAKER_00 0:00

This one I didn't see coming even after I found out about Afantasia. I didn't realize that when I give directions, I'm expecting kids to create a video in their head of the different steps so that when I'm done talking, they go do their thing and they start playing the video of the directions in their head.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Want to support the podcast? You can purchase fun and unique items like t-shirts and books at shane's braindomain.com. Pop on over and take a look. Thank you for supporting the Discovering Your Mind podcast. Aphanasia is a condition characterized by an inability to visualize mental images in one's mind. If you have just discovered that you or someone you love has apantasia, or if you're just fascinated by the subject in general and love learning more about it, you are in the right place. The Discovering Your Mind podcast delves into all aspects of the mind's eye, including apantasia, hyperphantasia, and everything in between.

SPEAKER_02 1:13

Enjoy part two of the experiences, insights, and methods of a middle school teacher who discovered that apantasia was a thing with Paul Bogish. Okay, talk about what apantasia is not.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

Well, I think we should start off with it's it's not a diagnosis. So it doesn't show up. There's no code for it in the medical industry. Uh there's no special paperwork that you would do for a uh PPT for teachers in school, there'd be no special ed meeting that would have to be held, no 504. It's really just identifying kids that are receiving the wrong tools in a classroom. And it's not something that while there are definitely cases of student of people who are aphantasia who have aphantasia from trauma, in my experience, and again, I could have it wrong because I don't really dig into the personal lives of the kids, I haven't seen that. So what I'm mostly dealing with is kids who are born this way, always been that way. It's not through lack of trying. Uh, it's just it's the way that they process information. The other thing that it's not is it's it's not a lack of imagination. And out of everything, this might be one of the things that took me the longest to get to. And I've really started digging into, well, okay, there's imagination and there's creativity. And so I thought to myself, okay, someone with aphantasia can be creative, but they can't have an imagination because if you can't see it, then you're not imagining it. And so we have really kind of come to the point where we only use the word imagine to label a picture in someone's head. And when you start looking at the science behind, you know, the research in it, it has nothing to do with a picture in your head. It has to do with connecting things that previously were not connected. And so someone with aphantasia can absolutely connect something that has not previously been connected. You know, if you throw an elephant, a giraffe, and a zebra into a bucket, you stir it around, what comes out? That's something that's never existed before. And someone with aphantasia can answer that question. And so it's it's not a lack of imagination. You can still use all of the data in your imagination without running the video, uh, without running the still photos. And the creative part is just simply making it come true. I think a great example is you know, the imagination is what happens in the workshop, creativity is what comes out of the workshop. And, you know, a lot of people have a great imagination. They're not very creative. Some people are very creative, but they don't have the imagination, and some people magically have both. So it's really made me see how these kids do have an imagination. I just have to give them different tools so that it could be tapped into in my classroom.

SPEAKER_02 4:19

When I discovered A Fantasia, it was long before it had a name. Nobody knew about this thing. I thought I'd discovered something that nobody knew, right? And when it was given a name, and all of a sudden I could find stuff about it on the internet and I could find people talking about it on YouTube. It was fascinating. So I just wanted to hear what everybody else was saying about it because I just had this very small, all these years, just this very small window, because I'd only been able to talk to you know the people in my life about it. And so I remember one of the videos I was watching, it was you know, someone who could visualize that was trying to explain it, and that's how she described it. She said, They literally don't have an imagination. And I immediately said, Hold on, because I I've always felt like I had an amazing imagination, right? I I write children's books and poems, I come up with all this, you know, stuff that's never existed before. Like to me, that's what imagination was. But all she was meaning by that word was visualizing, running the picture, running the video, right? Running the picture. And so we had both internalized that word, and it meant something completely different to each of us. And so that's one of the advantages that I think comes out of talking about it, is it gets us a little bit out of what we think is true, what we know is true, and hear it from someone else's perspective. Like, okay, maybe my way is not the only way.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah, I had a parent write last couple of weeks ago that said uh she wishes she had a translator for her kid so that you know you can talk into it and then it will translate the words into words that made total sense to her daughter.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Right. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about the website you're working on that's that's uh gonna help do that.

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Yeah, so I wanted to put the paper somewhere. So I knew I wanted to put it up on a simple website. I knew I wanted to include some of the resources that I was reading. More than that first two or three pages of Google. There's a lot of stuff that if a parent says, you know, what is A Fantasia? They'll find you know some halfway decent things, um, especially if they end up on, oh, is it just AFantasia.com, the A Fantasia Network. Like, like if they end up there, they're doing all right. But there's a lot of stuff that's just, you know, generic just to get hits on the internet. So I wanted to place some, you know, some of the research documents that I've been looking at uh in a nice summarized way. And then after that lady wrote the about the translator, I was like, whoa, that could be done. And how helpful this would be for a kid who could take a question, plug it into the translator, and it will basically the translator will say, here's what your teacher is actually looking for in words that a kid with aphantasia would understand, and vice versa, where a teacher could plug in a question and it would come out in a way that they could include it on the test or for homework or what for whatever. So it's up on the website, it's no pictureneeded.com. And I would say that the translator is about 75% done. It's pretty good right now. I'm still, you know, stress testing it. And you know, like my wife yesterday was like, Oh, try this question, try that question. So, like I'm still, you know, stress testing it, changing the responses and tweaking it. At this point, it's definitely better than nothing. You know, you put a question in, the first thing it does is it gives you a short version of the question, it gives you a little bit longer version of the question, it gives you a section called, here's what the teacher is actually looking for. And then it gives you a section that says, you know, here's three things you could do to get you started in your thought process for answering the question. So it's you know, a pretty straightforward little thing. But in the the test that I've been running on it, I hope it's helpful to somebody.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Yeah, I love that. That's such a cool idea.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Yeah. Yeah. And again, like I know there's a couple of little flaws here and there with certain types of questions. Right now, I have it assuming that the teacher gave them the notes on it already. So, like, it's it's kind of like almost like maybe like a more of a test prep or homework based on what you did in class. So it's it's not currently set up properly to give answers to questions that a kid might have to research that were not was not discussed in class. I don't know if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

All right. In your paper, you talk a little bit about the difference between sympathy and empathy.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

One of the things that teachers need to do is not assume they know what the kid is thinking. And, you know, sympathy is that, you know, kind of feeling sorry for someone, that empathy is being in their shoes. And the problem is even with this, even if you try to be empathetic, you still cannot experience what they're experiencing. I can have a kid who their grandma died. Uh, you know, I get that. I can absolutely say I've walked in those shoes. You know, something else happens at home, somebody loses a job and things are really rough. You know, I could say I've walked in those shoes. I know what that's like. I can put myself pretty close to how that kid is looking at the world and hearing what I'm saying. A kid with aphantasia, I can't. And that's really hard to say because kind of always want to be able to put myself in kids' shoes and understand what they're going through. And so it makes me kind of work harder to make sure that there are multiple paths to success in my class, that it doesn't look the same for everybody. So that even if I can't be truly empathetic, they can still be, you know, truly successful because there are choices and and different avenues to success that are available to them.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Right. For me, the difference between sympathy and empathy is sympathy is feeling bad. Oh, poor you, you have this thing. And empathy is, oh, you're different. That's awesome. You have this cool thing, and here are your strengths, and here are some tools that can help you, right? It's it's a it's a negative versus a positive. My good friend said to me, When I first found out you had A Fantasia, you first told me what it was, he said, I felt bad for you. But he's all now I don't feel bad for you at all. In fact, I think it's your superpower.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Yes. Yeah, your answer is better. So when you're being sympathetic, you're looking at it as what you what the kid can't do. When you're empathetic, you're looking at what can the kid do. But you have to know enough about the apantasia to realize there are incredible superpowers that come with this. And because I know my daughter the best out of anyone who has this, she could do things that I can't do. You know, if if she attends a meeting, she has such a different perspective. She's not bringing all of the garbage that happened before the meeting to help solve that problem. It's fresh, it's in the moment, and it's being dealt with right then and there, not like, oh, well, this happened last time or this happened whatever. It's a very fresh perspective with fresh energy. You're not picturing what happened before, you're not picturing what's going to come next. You are literally just dealing with every word in that moment and paying attention in a way that I just can't. Her ability and all of these kids' abilities to appreciate people's differences and for lack of better words, love everyone, regardless of their backgrounds, what's happened before, what might happen after. They're just so welcoming. They don't come in and prejudge you. They take you for who you are and what you can do, and that's exactly who you're supposed to be. You know, they're not trying to change you, they're not trying to see you as somebody else. And that's just such a cool thing, man.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

All right. Uh, in your paper, you talk about why you believe that naming aphantasia can change a student's entire school history. Explain that to me.

SPEAKER_00 12:46

You actually gave me goosebumps. It's just like I have goosebumps all over my body. And again, I just want to stress again that while I attempt to identify the kids with aphantasia, I don't have many conversations about it with them. Because again, it sets off a whole, you know, if a kid goes home and like Mr. Bogus says I have aphantasia, that steamrolls a whole set of things that my school system might not be happy about. So I kind of skirt around the edges. So, like, even with that kid, I started off the podcast somewhere near the beginning, that kid today in class, where she said, you know, I need to visualize this. And I said, That's not your strength. There was like a load lifted off of her because she just thought that that's the way you're supposed to do it. These kids think that they're poor writers. They think that they don't like reading because they don't understand what they're reading, and then their reader reading comprehension is poor. When they score poorly on those computerized tests that show that they're low grade level, it makes them feel like, oh, everybody's better than me. When the math teacher is giving a the word problem section of the unit, and all of a sudden they've forgotten every single concept that they aced previously. Well, what makes me, you know, why am I so stupid for these? Why can't I get this? If anyone happens to be a teacher out there, I mean, it's it's super hard to like go through your teacher life and not subliminally label kids because you're, you know, you're in some way testing them, you're in some way determining whether they can do or not do something. And for the most part, it's the same kids each year who can't do something. You know, the kids who struggled in sixth grade, probably the kids who struggle in seventh and are probably the ones who struggle in eighth. And if you wake up every single morning knowing that you can't do what all the other kids are doing, you then label yourself. Even if someone didn't stamp you with a label, you put it on yourself. You know, we're really good at labeling ourselves, focusing in on our weaknesses. And when I have a discussion with a kid, and it's normally the older kids, it's normally the eighth graders who I have had for three years. And again, I don't know them as well as like a core teacher would, because my class only meets 20 times a year every other day. But I, you know, I would know them a little bit better. And you you can just see their faces go like, oh, I'm not dumb. Like literally, like they'll use those words. Oh, I just thought I was stupid. I'm like, no, it's has nothing to do with that. It's just you were given the wrong tools. You were given the wrong thing to be tested on. If the point was your reading comprehension, why are we testing you on your reading comprehension on whether you can remember, you know, what kind of clothing the bee in the story was wearing or whatever, whatever, whatever. You know, especially the kids who you know, I can't imagine, you know, go even farther through the system. There's one adult conversation that sticks out in my mind. It was so eye-opening to see how this person had carried around so much baggage that was based on them being assessed on things that expected them to be able to, you know, visualize. And if those assessments were different, if somebody had known, if they were given different tools, literally like their whole spirit, their confidence, and who knows where they're going, you know, would change. And so I think that's it really is like it lifts a burden off of their shoulders. And even like I had one kid earlier this year, uh, she was walking out of the room talking with her friend, and she goes, My inner dialogue is broken. Like I can't figure it out. Like everybody else could think about blah, blah, blah, and I can't do it. And I was like, Whoa, come on back here. And I know she had scored a one on that, so I know she had aphantasia. I was like, that was right at the point where I had learned, you know, the long word for not having inner dialogue, whatever that is. I had just been reading about that, and I was like, whoa, no, here is what is going on and what why you have no inner dialogue. Just like, oh, really? Well, that makes sense. You know, can you imagine like, well, maybe you could, uh, you know, like what it's like to not be able to do something, but you don't know why you can't do it. And people are telling you the reason why you can't do it, but it's not the real reason, you know?

SPEAKER_02 17:08

Yeah. And it reminds me of a guy I interviewed one time. And the way he found out he had aphantasia was uh through trying to do hypnosis, and he's trying to do it with you know, all these other people, and they're all having this great success, and he can't get anywhere with it. And he said to me, I thought I was broken. He said that same word, I thought I was broken. Why can't I do this? And then he said it was such a relief when I found out, oh, I'm not broken, right? I'm just different, and I can do hypnosis, I just can't do it the same way they're doing it. Right. And he found his own his own path to it. So yeah, I love that. Even though I have aphantasia, I didn't really understand what it was until I understood what it wasn't, until I heard other people explaining what they were actually, what was actually happening in their mind, helped me go, oh, okay. I hadn't gone that far with it, right? When I first learned about it, it was this small little thing, and I didn't really understand what it was or how it affected me. Now that I hear other people explaining their experience, it helps me better identify mine. And there was a couple things in your paper that just made me appreciate that. So you talked about having a favorites folder that you can scroll through, right? That was one of the things you said about people with aphantasia. They don't have a favorites folder that they can scroll through. Well, as someone with aphantasia, it's like, oh, you do people do that? Right? Right? Like that's what that's what I get mainly from people with aphantasia, is we didn't ever realize that people are doing this stuff. And so when we hear the specifics like that, it's like, holy cow! I had no idea that people were doing things like that. And then you go inward and like, okay, so how do I do it? You know what I mean? And it helps you start answering your personal questions about how does this work for me? Another one that you said that was the same kind of thing is having an episodic film to replay. In the beginning, it's like, oh, I can't picture stuff. I didn't realize people were replaying films of their memories. You have this very vague basic understanding of what it is. And then when you hear about what other people are experiencing, and and for some people, it makes them sad, like, oh, I wish I, oh, I wish I had that ability. I wish I could do that. I wish I could picture my loved one's face in the after they died and pull them up. And you know what I mean? Like, so it can take you down a negative place, but it just never did that with me. I don't know if it's my nature or what, but but it always what it always does for me is just excites me, like, oh, I get to learn about myself and I get to embrace myself. I'm not worried about not being like you. I want to be like me. And it helps me explore that at those avenues. So I always appreciate hearing visualizers' experiences because they tap into things that I had never considered or thought of before.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

Like when my daughter found out, she's a researcher, like she will go digging deep into things. Within like two weeks, she had this super iPad with all of these programs, with all of these things. And when she came home the next time, she showed us now like how she's doing notes and researching in school. Like, and if she had only known this beforehand, she would have been using this, you know, through high school, middle school, whatever. You know, she read about other people and how that you know, things that they did, took all of those things, figured out which ones work best for her, filtered out the rest, and you know, ended up now. She has a system when she's taking, you know, classes. Also then experience here's the things that would help you, uh, instead of just thinking that you're incapable.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Right. I'm not broken, so what's the answer, right? Yes. All right. Talk about anxiety and anticipation.

SPEAKER_00 21:19

What I found as a pattern with so many of these kids is that anxiety that occurs with any situation that is new. Uh, like I cannot imagine having to go to school on the first day when you cannot predict what's on the other side of the door, or not predict what happens when you take a left in the hallway, or not predict what it looks like, you know, in your classroom or what your teacher is going to look like. Going to the lunchroom and trying to pick a seat. You can't see what those seats are going to look like. And it's just like foreign to you. And so what I found is that there's a lot of those kids have. I guess not the official word is what? Generalized anxiety. That's the like the diagnosed term. So it's not necessarily generalized anxiety, but it's just that anxiety that comes before doing something they've never done before. And a really good example with my own kid is that we kind of had the idea. I have the idea that if you're going to drive the car, you're going to go get the oil changed. And it was a fight. Like I could not figure out why this was a fight to like go have the oil change. Now, this was three years before finding out that she had aphantasia. It was just like, just go. Why won't you go? You have the, you know, book a time, you know, the whole thing. Like, just you've done other things like this. Why can't you do this one? And then finally she's like, How about if we make a deal? Because we've been arguing about this for how long? How about if you come with me the first time and then I'll go every time after that? So I went with her once. And then there was literally like now she just schedules it on her own. She goes on her own. And what's interesting though, she stays within the same chain of oil change places because they all look the same. And so knowing what to expect is so important. You know, like if you're going to go to a doctor that you've never been to before, what's on the other side of the front door? And someone who visualizes will just describe and lay out the waiting room. You know, the generic doctor's waiting room, they'll describe the type of chairs, the color of the fabric, where the receptionist is sitting. Like that it doesn't matter what doctor you go to, before you even open that door, you already know what to expect. And all of a sudden I realize that these kids, my kid, they don't know what to expect when they open the door. You know, there's nothing on the other side, you know? And so uh being very specific, like I want to create a video for incoming fifth graders of the middle school that is so detailed that leaves nothing out. That literally like the video just walks down the hallway. It's not like a picture of the room, a picture of this. Like it's like, okay, we are getting off the bus, we're walking up the front stairs, we're walking in the door, we're walking in, you know, like and my daughter took me through that, like what she would want to see in the video. And I was like, oh my God, that just and you know, there's that tie, there's a expression in education a rising tide lifts all boats. Like that video would help everybody, not just kids with aphantasia, it would help every single kid feel better about what they're walking into.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

All right, talk about multi-step directions and working memory.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Oof. This one I didn't see coming even after I found out about aphantasia. I didn't realize that when I give directions, I'm expecting kids to create a video in their head of the different steps so that when I'm done talking, they go do their thing and they start playing the video of the directions in their head. And it especially became true when I found out about this, I was in a little tiny classroom in the library. So we would often go and work in the library, but we would start off in my classroom. So I would give directions in my classroom. Here's what we're gonna do, here's where the supplies are. This is what you're gonna do first, second, third, fourth, fifth. Now let's go out and do it. And then when I found out about aphantasia, I was like, that was a total and complete waste of my time. And you know, and the kids' time, I wasted their time because as soon as the last word came out of my mouth and they left, they couldn't picture anything that I was describing. They couldn't redo all of those directions that I told as a, you know, in a story sort of format that I thought would make sense because I'm literally watching the video in my head as I'm giving the directions. And so it became a lot more clear now, where it's like, all right, here's the first thing we're gonna do. I've always been a classroom where everybody's doing something slightly different, but it's even become more so like that. So we were building some towers last week, and everybody built the base. And then as kids got to different places, I gave the next step as they got there. So instead of giving all the directions, it was one step at a time as kids needed it. And it just, it just makes sense. Just, you know, I didn't see it, but now it makes sense to me totally.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Read the book that inspired this podcast, A Fantasia and Beyond, available on shane's braindomain.com and Amazon.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

All right, talk about creative work and writing.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

So I had a conversation with a kid with A Fantasia, and I said to them, I was just like trying to see how they process stuff. I was like, if you're gonna take a long ocean voyage on a small boat and you were gonna bring a brand new animal that did not previously exist, but you were going to make it by combining two animals that you know exist into this new animal, what kind of animal would you bring on the voyage? The kids with the A Fantage was like, What are you talking? My you know, one person was like, Well, I need to know where we're going and why. I need to know that, you know, like struggle to answer. But this one kid, it was like instant. And it happens to be a kid that I know struggles with so many other things like this. And it just so happens the kid loves sea creatures. They have such background knowledge on sea creatures that they were so creative in the type of animal they created and why it was going to be viable for this journey. And I it just in that one moment, I was like, again, like we perceive certain kids as not knowing things, but it's is it because they don't know it or is because they just don't have anything to like latch it onto? They don't have that background experience. And that's why the apple test you give, I think might be a little bit wonky with some people because I eat four apples a week. I have an apple tree. I live in Connecticut and go apple picking every single fall. We have, I worked at Old Sturbridge Village and I'm very familiar with like vintage old apples, you know, heirloom apples. I've I've done research and stuff on like cider mills and that sort of thing. So if you ask me to picture an apple, I can go crazy with it. But if you ask me to picture like a Brussels sprout, that's a fuzzy picture.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

I actually like that about the apple test because I know that everybody is picturing things different based on their familiarity with it. Everything about it plays a role on how well they're gonna visualize it or how they're gonna visualize it. But that helps me pinpoint how they're visualizing. I I've used the square as well. When I first started, I was using the square. I feel like some of the answers I get with an apple, I wouldn't get with a square. And that's why I also ask about horses or chickens or cows and pigs. I'm always switching up, trying to switch up what I'm asking people about, not too much because I like to compare what different people are saying. But I I love that about it, that it kind of opens up and people will then tell me those kind of things. Well, I pictured this apple because I just went to this apple orchard. If it's a red square, mostly what I got was, oh, I actually pictured a cube, or it was there was less detail there. Right. And with the apple I get from one lady, she said, I get 30 screens all playing at the same time, all in front of me at the same time, of every apple apple I've ever had. This memory is over here, is playing, and this apple I ate yesterday is over here, and like all this stuff. And so I I just kind of love those details that come out of asking the different things.

SPEAKER_00 30:02

Yeah, and I I see the angle that you're taking.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

I wanted to share a few more of my thoughts about the apple test versus the square test, because this is something that has never come up before, and I find it interesting. It's been fascinating to talk to Paul because we are coming at this from completely different perspectives, experiences, and objectives. Paul is a visualizer who is mainly trying to identify which of his students may be in the aphantasia spectrum so he can observe them and help them. The score test works great for those objectives. As he said, he only keeps track of one, two, and three, and doesn't give much, if any, thought to those who are four, five, and six. I, on the other hand, have had complete global aphantasia my entire life, and I am fascinated by the details that visualizers provide. Like Paul said earlier, he thought everyone visualized in the same way he does. But I, on the other hand, learned from the get-go that nobody was visualizing the same way. I'm trying to pull out as many details about their unique internal experiences as possible. That is a completely different purpose and objective than Paul's. He's trying to identify, observe, and help those with aphanasia. I'm trying to have an in-depth conversation with the person sitting across from me about the details of their inner experience. I think the Apple test does a much better job at getting people talking about these details. In other words, he likes it tight without much wiggle room, where I want it wide open where anything and everything can come to the surface. Like I said before, understanding the details about how people are visualizing has helped me better understand what aphantasia is and how it affects my life. I think we are each using the correct test for what we are trying to accomplish. If you're interested, you can check out the original YouTube video that I did around five years ago using the red square test. There's a five-part series that I called A Fantasia and Beyond on my Chains Brain YouTube channel. This was my first attempt at documenting my research and features an early rendition of the questions that later morphed into my book and this podcast. Check it out.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

Some people will have totally different responses if they've seen something in real life versus if they've never seen it. And like one thing that I've been like amazed at recently is like, do you have a pet by any chance? No. Have you ever pet a dog? Yes. Okay. Can you imagine right now what it feels like to pet a dog on your fingers? Can you feel the fur? No. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

So my son can he call himself a super toucher, super super feeler.

SPEAKER_00 33:02

So now some some people with aphantasia, I found, can imagine that, but they like I can imagine petting a killer whale. I I've never pet one before, but I could feel the sensation of the skin. And so, like my wife, for example, she can only imagine things that she's already previously touched. And if she didn't previously touch it, there is no like creating the sensation.

SPEAKER_02 33:31

I have a friend that's the same way visually. He cannot visualize things that he's not seen before. Everything he visualizes is something he's already seen. So, yeah, that's that's what I'm talking about. All this nuance, all this, all these differences. Nobody's the same. And that's really what my questions are are designed to do is let's see what people say. Right? Because you just never know. And and the things you discover along the way, the things you're discovering along the way are the same things I've discovered along the way. The more people you talk to, it's like all of a sudden, oh wow, that's not like me at all. Or I didn't know people did it that way. Or, you know, I have another friend that can't visualize with his eyes closed, does it with his eyes open? So so then you go into, well, everyone, when they're asking people to visualize, they tell them to close their eyes. So is he struggling because he can't visualize, or is he struggling because his eyes are closed? It's amazing, it's just all amazing. It's all amazing. All right, talk about reading comprehension.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

I think that one that that connected to the uh when the kids are told to read a passage that requires all of that, you know, descriptive language, and then they're tested on it and it comes back, they didn't re you know, they didn't, they don't have the answers. Kid after kid after kid is always like, Oh, I just skip those sections. You know, I don't I don't why why are they even in? I know like my daughter was like, she said that all through her life. She was like, Why would the author spend any time writing those paragraphs? Like, if there's no point to it, why would they even be published? Why not just get to the point? And yet those are the things that they're gonna get tested on. And so, like, you know, the not the nonfiction stuff uh that's not flowery and descriptive, the reading comprehension comes back, you know, at the appropriate level. And this is where, like, I think some of the if you knew you had aphantasia or if you can, if you had someone giving you coping mechanisms. So my daughter, I said to her, I was like, she aced out of the reading test in high school. It's the I ready test. You know, you you sit down, you read the passage, you answer the questions, you move on. You sit down, you read the passage, you move on. You know, it's the most horrible thing to promote reading. But she like, you know, she bounced right through it, and by whatever year she was like done with it. And so I was like, Well, how did you pass that? How I don't understand that if you can't visualize that information, you're being asked questions about visualizing the information. How did you get hundreds and not just fail everything? And she had the most interesting response to me. She said, because she knew she was going to be tested on it, she could just, as she's reading it, she took the things, and and this is how I'm describing it, not necessarily her. She would like put them down on that file card for that passage. And she would answer the questions and she went back to the file card. And you know, if it was like what color dress, she was like, Okay, on my filing card, there was dress purple. And you know, she didn't have to picture it, it was dress purple. She would answer that. And then when she was done answering the questions, she ripped up and threw out the filing card. As long as she if she knew ahead of time, that was how she plowed through that, is just by filing it away as random facts that sometimes didn't mean anything, but she would be able to pick up on you know the matching words on her filing tab versus the matching words on the question. So, like, even if kids knew that, that this is what you have to do. That, you know, these words, you don't have to visualize them. You just have to, you know, like like again, like you're describing an elephant. You don't have to visualize it to know the descriptive words for an elephant, you know? Talk about art and spatial tasks. This is one that in the beginning, I thought that that the kids are that anyone with aphantasia was going to end up being bad at art and they were gonna be bad at anything spatial. So hitting the spatial thing first. Uh, there has been research on this that shows that there is not a big difference between visualizers and people with aphantasia. And I forgot the details. I'm trying to draw back the details because there is one subtle thing in that study. But basically, that uh spatially people can still have the same outcome. And with art, it's been really interesting that most kids hate art. And if they do like art, it's because they're in a very, when I ask them, they're in a very specific unit. Um, but anything that's like starting from, you know, like here's your open canvas, paint your picture, they tend to uh struggle with. But again, I think there's a fascinating community of aphantasia artists out there who tell their stories online. There's some, I have a the name of a couple in my paper, and it's interesting to see how they approach art. And I think a really cool little art trick if you want to do with someone is if you have a person with apantasia and a person who visualizes in the same room, give them both a piece of paper and have them draw a smiley face. What's the first thing you draw, Shane?

SPEAKER_02 38:49

I don't know. Let me do it.

SPEAKER_00 38:50

Good, do it. So draw a smiley face. You're the only person to ever say that. I was taking a risk and I was thinking he's gonna be the first. So everybody that I've done this with with A Fantasia, they draw the inside first. So they'll draw like the nose. And so literally, we have a wall in my house that's chalkboard paint. And my kids, when they were home for the holiday, I was like, go try this. Each of you go, and they're still up there on our wall now. And one of them drew the face from the inside out, and the other one drew the face from the outside in.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

Again, I love that I'm breaking some of these molds for you because I am the guy to do that. I am so freaking unique, man. You have an assumption I'm gonna break it, right? And I just kind of love that perspective of yeah, these are there's all this research, these studies. We generally know these things, but what about that horse that eats meat? Or what about that guy with M apantasia that draws a smiley face with the circle? Right? Like you you get into these details and and the assumptions start to fall away. All right, talk about personal organization.

SPEAKER_00 40:00

So, what I found with a lot of the kids, they they live on one of two extremes. They're either, and you talk about one that has a lot of nuance, this one there's a lot of exceptions. But generally, they tend to have rooms where everything is perfectly in place, or rooms where there's nothing in place and stuff is strewn everywhere. Thinking about it, like the kids where it's everything is in place, they that's what they need. They need to know that their sock is always going to be in that drawer. On the other end, the kids that have the mess, the second they walk out of the room, the room is not messy. The second they turn their head, the room is not messy. The second they close the closet door, the closet is not messy. They still will have their system within the mess where they won't have a picture of it. It's like everything they own has a coordinate in the room. And what's amazing is that if you mess with one thing, it's like everything goes off. Like, you know, I've I move a table or at home, if we move something in the living room, that's like it's a shocker to the now, the entire thing needs to get reorganized in the head, and all the coordinates need to get redone. And how, you know, like especially like a bedroom, a bedroom is you know memorized in a certain way. My my daughter did, we did a really awesome thing with my daughter, this experiment. I again I was trying to figure out like how she processes things. So I gave her a piece of paper and I said, draw your bedroom. Like here, I drew the door, and I said, You draw the rest of it. And she like within like with faster than I could, she drew her entire room, you know, the cabinet, the bed, the death, the this, that, and the other thing. I was like, How did you do that? She's like, Well, that's just where they are. And somebody else that was there that said said, do the picture again, but with the bed on the opposite wall. She couldn't write a single thing. And so, you know, moving, you know, the shoes always go in the same spot. If you decide to move where we keep our shoes, that is like house warfare will occur. It is like the most dangerous thing we've ever done in our life to our daughter if we decide to like move where the shoes are going to get stored. I will never park in her parking space in the driveway again. Like it, because those coordinate coordinates are like set in stone. And if it's not where it's supposed to be, it kind of uh, you know, it throws everything off.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

Okay.

unknown 42:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:36

Talk about decision fatigue.

SPEAKER_00 42:40

This one I have I have almost gone back a million times and and decided to take this out because this is a lot of the stuff in this paper is my observations. You know, if I've seen a pattern, and at this point I've had hundreds of kids that I've been able to observe with aphantasia, and you know, I'm I'm I see those, I'm looking and looking, looking, looking, looking for patterns, you know, one marking period, and then I could see with the next set of 40 kids, do those same patterns occur? And so for a lot of the kids, because the questions they're trying to answer and the situations they're trying to navigate take extra brain power, it seems like it gets to a point where it's just like I don't want to think of anything else. Like I'm done. In my class in particular, sometimes there are kids who like, you know, again, we do a lot of building and something might fall over. And I could see with the kid like they're done trying to figure it out. Like they they don't, you know, like I don't want to push it. Like, all right, just you know, pack up and you know, take a break for a moment. If there's like new things that are occurring, so like especially in the first couple of weeks of a market. Period where you have the new schedule, you have the new teachers, those kids seem to have less of a reserve. And I'm wondering if I'm placing this feeling on them. And maybe I'm not, you know, maybe I'm interpreting it wrong. But it definitely seems like as they come in every day and they get used to knowing what comes next in my routine, there's a comfort level that occurs that's different than the other kids. And I know that makes sense that, you know, the more you see a teacher, the more comfortable you become. But there's there's some other like thing that clicks. And I can't, I don't know the words, I don't know the thing, but they seem to just make a jump after about three or four classes. Once there's no longer those minute-by-minute decisions that they're making, because again, I teach a my class is so different. It's so different than anything they've experienced before. So everything is new, everything they're trying to figure out. They don't have the language or the background to figure out things. And again, after about three or four classes, those kids with aphantasia, they're like different students. Like they just, I'm like, I'm running through like the list of kids in my my head from this year that all of a sudden, like third or fourth class, they're like these, they just burst into these star performers that I just I don't see coming. Um, and I I can kind of I'm thinking I kind of see that as they're not having to constantly think about what's coming next. How do I deal with it? What am I supposed to do? And they just, you know, they're not getting tired of having to do that all the time.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

At some point, too, it just goes back to that point where it just kind of clicks. There's no more confusion or uncertainty, and you know this what this is, it makes sense, and you can just get comfortable with it.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

Yeah, and that's the second time you brought that up, and it's it's so, so, so true. And there's this one particular student that sticks out in my mind. It was, it was, it was about four or five classes of just struggle, and me trying to figure out the words and what's going on, and this, that, and the other thing. And then finally things clicked. And then I told her parents, I was like, then all of a sudden, she was like just every class, so far ahead of everybody else, like, just so far ahead. It was just absolutely amazing. It was just it's amazing. And that clicking you talk about. I've talked about that with kids who dance, who play baseball. Um, one coach said that the kid, it takes him longer to learn the new skill than everybody else. But once they learn it, they never have to reteach it to the kid. And that's the kid that gets put up as the example for all the other students or for all the other players. Uh, same thing with dancing is that it took longer for the student to get the dance moves down, but now they're on, like, you know, the whatever team and the whatever this. And that's a whole nother level. I would love to write a guide for ballet teachers and sport coaches because that's one of the first things I researched is like, how do you do ballet if you can't picture it? And the basically the idea is that if they tell you to go across the stage and be light like a butterfly, like you're flying gently in the sky, that's not happening. But what they learn to do without the teacher doing it is they learn about the amount of pressure on their feet. So when the teacher says, yes, that's it, they know how much pressure there is on their feet. And that's something they can reproduce every single time. Whereas other kids are still thinking about flying like a butterfly, which is a little bit different every time. And so that allows those moves to be more precise. And I'm amazed at how many of the kids are actually dance, not amazed, but like there's a lot of kids that are dancers who have this, and it makes total sense.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

I love these perspectives and insights. One thing you talked about is is it apantasia or something else? Talk about how some of these things might not be aphantasia, but other things coming into play.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Yeah, and this is definitely not my strength, and my knowledge of that is basically almost that line and a couple of other sentences. But I think we cannot jump to assuming it is. And so when you see the kids do something in class, you you can't you can read my thing, you can read how I'm describing how the kids are in class, but you better not assume they have apantasia. You better be asking questions, and that's where knowing your kid is important because so many of these things with apantasia could also be the result of something else. Obviously, the the the visualization piece, not so much. Uh, but some of the things that you'll see the kid doing in class could be the result of something else.

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Very good, beautifully said. All right, the last thing I'd like you to talk about is validation. From my perspective, it's so important to me that when I am in a setting where visualization is being used or being talked about, if the person doing it simply knows about aphantasia and validates my experience just with a sentence or two of if you can visualize or if you can't visualize, then this just acknowledging that I exist and that my thing is real and that I'm not going to be able to have the same experience as everyone else in the room. Just that simple piece of validation takes what could be me getting angry at this idiot up here who doesn't know what they're saying, into just relaxing into the moments of okay, they get it and they see me and I'm validated, and I'm seen, I'm heard, and they at least acknowledge that aphantasia is real, that I have it, and that this may cause whatever they're teaching or doing to be an issue for me. Just that little nugget of validation goes a million miles for me. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

One of my issues with like special ed is that we try really hard, I think sometimes, or too hard, to change the kid to fit into the system. And so if you look at the different accommodations and modifications and everything else, the teacher is saying this is how it should be done. And if a student can't do it that way, we try to do all these tricks and force them to do it the way the teacher wants it to be done. That is coming from the angle of the kid is broken, and we need to somehow fix them so that they could be normal. Because we've already decided, of course, you know what normal is. And so when you can validate the fact that your outcome, your output, your process is different, and it's supposed to be like that, and it leads to the same or possibly even better outcome. To me, that's just like the normal process of how I do things. I know that's not the norm in a lot of classrooms. You know, allowing the space for everyone to be themselves and to use their strengths to improve on the weaknesses is, I think, all we can, you know, ask of kids instead of trying to force them to do everything the same darn way.

SPEAKER_02 51:29

I couldn't agree more beautifully said, Paul. All right, that is pretty much it. Is there anything else you would like to say before we sign off?

SPEAKER_00 51:39

No, I think I have said everything that's been in my head for a while. I hope it came out somewhat logical and understandable.

SPEAKER_02 51:48

Yeah, I thought it was great. And you brought up a lot of things that uh we haven't really discussed as much on the on the podcast. You've brought some attention and some detail and some fine points to some of these things that I really appreciate. So keep up the good work and thank you, Paul.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

If you like what you hear, please subscribe, follow, and engage with us, and share it with your friends and family as we continue to explore this fascinating subject. For additional information about this episode or Shane's brain, check out the show notes. Thanks for listening to the Discovery Your Mind podcast. You are beautifully unique.