What Do People Mean By No Imagination?

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I read in my Autism report from when I was 13 years old that I had ‘No Imagination.’ I don’t understand what they mean because I thought I did have an Imagination.

Could that mean "aphantasia", which is not uncommon with autism? That means the inability to imagine a visual scene. Like if someone were to say "imagine an elephant with an upraised trunk balanced on a seal", most people can imagine this "in their mind's eye", but people with aphantasia are unable to imagine that (or any other scenes). If it was a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist who noted that you have no imagination, then they might well mean this condition. If it was a layperson, then the vernacular meaning of "no imagination", means not creative, unable to take a concept and extend it, unable to consider the outcome of changing elements of a situation (like "imagine if you placed this chihuahua on a surfboard on an ocean of whipped cream" ), etc...

That characterization thru me for a loop too.

That Aspie characteristic does not strike true. I have a very vivid sense of imagination. I operate on 5 or 6 planes at once and seamlessly move between them. The best that I can make out is that they are referring to social imagination, such as trying to figure out what someone is feeling or thinking. If that is what they are describing, then I fit that particular definition.

I read on some sites that one of the symptoms of Aspergers is not doing things like pretend play as kids & I defiantly did not do that. Perhaps the report is talking about lack of imagination with that kind of stuff.

I think it must be more on the Creative side. As a child I did the ‘let’s pretend thing’ sometimes I worked better with that on my own rather than people. If I am travelling someone I always try to visualise the journey whilst planning and even more so on the days leading up.

When it comes to things like Creative Writing when at school most of my stories was a copy of another story maybe with a little more content or a rushed content. When it came to certain tasks it depended on whether I was actually interested or not.

It could be you were given some test that was supposed to gauge your level of imagination. The problem with certain perceptual tests is they measure according to neurotypical responses. So someone with autism can be imaginative, but not in a typical way.

It has nothing to do with playing pretend. In this case, imagination means social imagination: being able to naturally and accurately predict how most other people will behave when engaging with them socially.

If you find yourself often perplexed and confused in social situations, and others around you seem to know what's going on and you don't, it's due to lack of social imagination on your part.

It's because it's only a perceived lack of imagination.

I would personally argue that ASD people have a significantly larger capacity for imaginative thought, but we lack both the ability to express this in words and don't have an audience that will be accepting of it.

Agreed. How can you spend so much time in your head or enjoying time on your own and not have a powerful imagination? I've known so many NTs who get bored on their own (I've never experienced this), which to me points to a huge lack of imagination.

I think one of our errors tends to be expecting an individual to be the same all the time. One of theirs is expecting all people to be the same.

What do they mean? Well I can't imagine.

I do have an imagination, but mine is verbal, not visual. I think tasks of this kind would be a stretch for me.

Another type of imagination refers to "theory of mind," putting yourself in the other person's shoes.

I was assuming that the "no imagination" in the report would be referring to the kind of imaginative story telling that is probed in those diagnostic tests where they give the subject five objects, like a bit of string, a paper-clip, a playing card, a ball and a tea cup, and ask them to make up a story using them. They are, I understand, looking to see whether the subject can imagine these objects as representing other things that can play a role in some creative story. I am completely hopeless at such tasks, and just see the objects for what they are.

Wrong.

What you are talking about has its own label. Its "theory of mind".

But ironically lack of "tom" is an actual trait of autistics.

Imagination is ...imagining things in general. Autistics are sometimes wrongly pegged as lacking imagination in general,but that's bs (some autistics are worse than NTs and some are more imaginative than the average NT).

This is weird cuz for me, I'm innately creative.
I sing, write and draw..it's my God-given talent,
however, for drawing I often find that I have to see a picture or a still of what I need to draw, I can't just draw from my mind, well I can but it's not gonna be accurate and I need accuracy.

I also have vivid imaginations when it comes to stories and plots and twist, I operate daily on 2 or 3 stories I have going on in my brain..sort of like daydreaming.. some I write down///one reason I can't drive..
I don't think it has to do with social creativity that's indeed a different thing,
but what does play pretend mean? like cops and robbers and such?... well I think I did use to play pretend..

that's actually a pretty good question, maybe it's like what EyeDash says..aphantasia?

Whatever it was, the writer was referring to you, only. (Singular)

Not all autistics