Lack of Imagination

Post Reply New Topic

I don't have much of an imagination, but I'd like to have one. I could never stand it at school when we were told to write things for English. I can only rehash.

When I read (and I read a lot) I never visualise the characters and rarely visualise the places, I concentrate exclusively on what they are doing. I'm curious as to whether that's commonplace with you lot?

I am f*****g well imaginative! Burn them down! Burn them down! Burn them down, those pages who deny Us

A study about that:

http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/doc ... aig_BC.pdf

But can be some circularity in that - because is assumed that autistics have litle imagination, perhaps people (specially children) with much imagination are not diagnosed as autistics (if you read papers about how to diferentiate between Asperger and Schizoid, one classical criteria is "rich imaginative life = schizoid")

Well it's true for me. I do have a lack of imagination.

I'm confused. Many people here say they have a great imagination, which contradicts most websites/information about AS which states we don't. I'm a diagnosed Aspie. I do lack imagination. It's one of the most difficult things for me and always has been, especially in school. We were often made to do projects and things that required us to make something from our imagination. I was ALWAYS the worst in the class when it came to this. I went to art college, which I succeeded at...until the second year when the course shifted from still life drawing to creating our own artworks from our own ideas. I left shortly after due to struggling too much with it and having to copy someone else's work just to get SOMETHING down on the paper. Even the psychologist who diagnosed me pointed out my limited imagination.

So, like I said, I'm confused. Why do so many websites state we lack imagination, when so many Aspies say otherwise? My lack of imagination must be unrelated to AS but why so severe if so?

Perhaps people with much imagination are over-represented at internet discussion forums (I am not talking only about autistic people and autism-related forums; I am talking in a general way)?

my imagination is impaired in that I can not imagine that I could be someone else or put myself in someone elses position.

also, like Annemaniac, I can only draw things I see or have seen, or things that are build from pieces of things that I have seen...

I'm actually quite decent at creative writing but I have a very hard time writing about what other people's thinking process might look like.

They say such because of the way people with Autism play as children; no make believe play, and playing with toys inappropriately (lining them up for example).

This above is more of an Autism thingy, rather than Asperger's.

People with Asperger's tend to have a complex fantasy world they withdraw to due to social isolation, which is imagination, even if it does draw from other fictional pieces. They'll probably include siblings into this world if they have any as children.

I had this a lot as a kid. I'd live in such a fantasy world most of the time. So there was a lot of imagination there.

Maybe they use a very broad terminology ("lack of imagination") when they in fact speak about something more specific (lack of make-believe-play with toys or with people, more than lack of any imagination at all)?
It seems to look a bit like the speaking of lacking empathy, where it in some cases isn't as much a question of lacking empathy, as a question about how one shows it.

But when such a broad terminology is used, people are more likely to misunderstand it, and if they just repeat what they have heard and add their misunderstanding, you have more and more people who get to believe that autistic people lack all kinds of imagination (or empathy) in general.

It matches my experience.
Also, even as a child when it might have appeared I was playing creatively, I was just repeating a scene from a book, movie or tv programme, often word for word. I'd try to imagine the scene differently, but even when I decided to change something, I was at a complete loss to imagine how the 'characters' would react to the change, so I'd just start the scene from the beginning, change something else, try to imagine a response from the 'characters' (to the change),give up and repeat process.

I would usually 'work' with the same scene, hours on end at a time, for time periods spanning many months. Sometimes I'd return to one I had dropped and pick it up for a few months again.

nah, quite the opposite. I'm do a lot of visual thinking so when I read I can see the whole action as if it was a film. I hate detailed descriptions of places or nature and the like, I get overwhealmed just as if I was actually seeing it.

They just keep spewing out age-old facts because they don't have the imagination to invent new ones.

Actually, NTs generally can't understand aspies.

I find that I too have an overactive imagination. I was something of a daydreamer in school. I began to focus my imagination when I was around 14, and Started writing fiction properly. I haven't looked back since

I visualize the characters and places. If I re-read a story (even after a long time) I'll visualize everything the same way I did on the first reading.

that made lol. and i have a over active imagination, bob barker frequently calls me on down. sometimes it can be a bit intrusive. this is my mind goddmit and i will not have a gameshow dude running the show

Even though I have an imagination, it isn't very detailed or creative; I think it's safe to say that it's kind of impaired. I mostly picture my favorite anime characters in my mind; sometimes in still pictures, sometimes moving as if I'm watching a video clip. Each picture or "video clip" only lasts a few seconds. I can mix them up or create new ones, which is always a lot of fun and is the way I get inspired to draw pictures. I have great difficulty picturing scenery, which is why I never include it in my drawings. The dialog of the characters in the "clips" is usually always something I've heard somewhere, either from the anime shows themselves or clips on the Internet. It is extremely difficult for me to create my own characters; and it is just as difficulty to come up with plotlines for stories, which is why my imagination has no real story. I tend to think of it as just one huge copyright-infringing mess of anime characters and stuff I've seen/read on the Internet.

I have an awesome imagination. Mine is very detailed, very colorful. I can almost taste, feel and smell the things that I see in my daydreams.

However, if I was asked to write any of these down, I wouldn't be able to. I wouldn't know how to place these dreams into words if this makes any sense at all...
And I never made predend with other kids. At preschool, when we had to, I would sit in the corner, and make all the other kids in my group leave. I wouldn't let them play either. I would only make pretend by myself.


And I do lack empathy, also, which sucks.