Aspergers - Discussion about Imagination

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I've never understood others saying autistic people have issues with imagination. I have never had one issue with imagination in my entire life. Of course I didn't feel compelled to play pretend with my peers as much as other kids, but I've never had a deficit regarding creative thinking or whatever someone would define imagination as, and now that I'm an adult people act like that's now an issue as I spend a lot of my time imagining things I'd like to create, like comics and fantasy video games. When I was a kid I even actually preferred reading fiction for awhile as I can visualize things quite well and it was a good exercise in doing so.

Problem is also that you guys are generalizing. You thinking that all autistic people have fit to those criteria. When in reality. If you have a stuntend imagination it can be a part of autism. But having a vivid one to can be aswell. As for the Addiction thing I don't know if that's true, but I don't think it's at a higher rate than the average populus. I Think some aspie behaviors can be seen as addictive type behaviors. but as for physical addictions. I Don't know about that but i doubt it. Like when you obsess over one thing to the point of all else. I think the thing. I can relate to you as you have a lot of strong held ideas. That being said it doesn't necessarily make them right. I had some [color#5099b2]interesting[/colorIdeas as well. Looking back, alot of them were warped by my world view. That being said i don't know about higher rate of addiction maybe we should do like a poll or something. I assume you mean to things like drugs.

Oh yes, I don't know where to start on describing my vivid, novel, original, (at times even practical, and timely) imagination - without stretching the English language to it's limits!

Have active imaginations become well.............more active during quarantines / stay-at-home directives?

I know where you are comming from. Most people are visual thinkers and especially nearly all women are able to do. Only few are unable as well as I'm unable to it. I'm only able to remember some few situations like films and my dreams are visually. Some people here seem to confuse empathy and compassion as I did nearly my whole life. But it's not the same.

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I am as I am. Life has to be an adventure!

Thought about this again. Once you have deep empathy you are able to see (!) how others feel (!) by generating the same feelings they have in parts of your brain. For this it's kind of a connection of visual thinking with generating, knowing and feeling emotions. Same for language. It requires a connection of verbal thinking and puting emotions in language. People show emotions in body language and verbal language as well as they get the emotions of others from those.
For this have strong visual thinkers with poor language skills problems if it comes to verbal language. People who aren't visual thinkers have problems if it comes to see them in body language and people who don't generate typical emotions have problems. And the ones who don't lack the typical connection beween their feelings and their verbal or nonverbal language.

_________________
I am as I am. Life has to be an adventure!

I think it may be possible that I lack imagination.
Don't get me wrong, I love reading fiction, especially fantasy and sci fi with all their difference and escapism.
But I struggle to come up with an original vision in my head that's not from real life experience or the books I've read. (Possibly all that reading was making up for an inherent lack within me?)
I'm really not sure, how does one measure imagination anyway?

Recently, I have started to understand more about the job of a musician in a popular band. I had always listened to the whole composition and the featured solos. Now, I realize that most of the people on stage are usually either doing something quite repetitive, or just waiting while someone else does all the work.

I see myself as not too extreme on the spectrum...definitely on the AS side and more light even on the AS spectrum...approx. 120-140 "aspie" and 80-100 "NT" on that quiz, and 28-34 on the AQ test...I've taken both several times. I've never had a formal diagnosis though I met with a guy for a while who specialized in people on the spectrum and worked with me as if I had a diagnosis (and generally his advice was spot-on). I definitely identify with quite a few AS traits and even having AS itself etc but don't readily identify with having a disability, so...I actually don't want to get a diagnosis though maybe someday I will, idk. I suspect I would come back with an AS diagnosis although it doesn't really matter to me one way or the other.

Personally I feel I have a very good imagination and always have, for the most part. As a kid I was often lost in a fantasy world (and I'd gesture with my hands and twirl my hair and walk around the yard in circles while inhabiting that world). When I was really young my imagination hadn't developed much yet, and I would simply count to myself in my mind and imagine numbers (up until age 4 or so), or I'd sing to myself songs I'd heard in a movie or on the radio etc or sometimes imagine a world based on a toy I had (such as a GI Joe).

Gradually my imagination did become more vivid and I got into things like video games, books, movies, etc and my fantasy world became richer in detail and more all-consuming. One specific trait though was that other people were not allowed in this world. So that right there I think is a spectrum thing. I don't remember playing many "pretend" games with friends. I had some friends and we played and did things together such as video games, sports, exploring, etc., but the fantasy stuff was usually only interesting by myself, not with others. I definitely had a very keen imagination involving many ideas and people etc in my world. Often it was a fusion of all my favorite games, movies, music, books, plus people I knew in real life. This continued for quite a while into adolescence and even a little as an adult, until I gradually phased it out.

I noticed that when I got into writing as a young adult to adult, my writing often took on esoteric qualities. Though it was always very imaginative, sometimes the language I used was so complicated that people would be challenged to even understand it (similar to something by e.g. James Joyce). I think this could also be a spectrum thing -- creating work that has personal significance or where there is detail that others will miss or not appreciate. Also once I got into poetry I became really into formal poetry and became enamored with form. I remember I became disappointed in grad school initially when I realized no one was encouraging much formal writing. So I gradually started to learn free verse and then that became my preference. My visual art tends to be very abstract, I don't see myself as willing to be disciplined enough to work towards realism.

I've enjoyed literally all kinds of reading material, and obsessed over everything from fantasy, sci-fi, graphic novels, philosophy, science, math, psychology...every subject. Same with music...all genres, although I've only ever played two instruments well - piano and guitar, and the music I play tends to be fairly specific (jazz/classical piano and mainly electric guitar). I can improvise to no end but don't have the patience or desire to sit down and compose. When I used to learn compositions (pieces) I'd always miss some notes or do something slightly wrong, I came to realize I'd have to work really hard to make it in that environment; although the piece would be >90%, I couldn't get the last bit of perfectionism needed to thrive. I think it was something about having to do it exactly "perfectly" that I resisted (and to have to memorize precisely). So I developed my own way of improvising which ended up being more jazz than I had expected and it basically suits me (I kind of taught myself to play jazz and fused it with the classical I had learned from lessons). I'm not a professional or anything like that, but I've had people compliment me and refer to me as a "professional" or "like a professional" despite the fact I only play as a hobby. What I do is 100% my imagination, since I basically try to come up with as many different musical ideas as possible on the piano without having to write them down or memorize rote.