lack of imagination?

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Precisely, Batz. I never understood WHY NTs reason Autists are not imaginative - nonsense.

Overwhelming data to the contrary (ie: your post). Further, MANY, not just 'a few,' Autists are accomplished/famous artists, musicians, writer, etc. Science takes imagination too. I think Wrong Planet has some astoundingly creative inhabitants; Batz just said so too.

I get told that I do not have an imagination, but I know that I have to make up social situations in advance in my head so that I know how to handle them. So to me this does not mean that I have a lack of imagination that it is just in overload all the time.

oh i hate that too. it is ridiculous. what about all those autistic people who are exceedingly creative and use their imagination to produce all the great stuff our world revels in?

There is no proof of that.

There is also a strong argument that these "excentric" famous people were in schiziophrenia spectrum (specially because many of these famous people had close relatives with schiziophrenia, like Eduard Einstein, son of Albert), not in autism spectrum. Of course, there is also the possibility that "sciziophrenia spectrum" and "autism spectrum" could be the same thing.

If you use the word imagination in the sense of creativity then I don't think that there's anyone who really lacks imagination.

However, my husband sometimes approaches a situation with the idea that another person will react/think in the same way that my husband does.
If the other person thinks differently, my husband has a problem with seeing the other person's perspective.

That's a social lack of imagination. It causes problems sometimes because he can't adapt to the fact that someone disagrees with him and that things don't go according to how he planned them. He needs time to let it all sink in.

An NT person can sometimes predict that another person may not agree, and then have a back-up plan for if that happens.

My father, who over time my mother and I have realized is most likely on the spectrum - perhaps moreso than me, has NO social imagination whatsoever. Nor can he even imagine for one moment that other people have different views from him. He is absolute in his judgements and won't accept that his views are opinions, not law. Anyone who disagrees with him is, to him, lying. Because he cannot imagine that it is possible for anyone to hold a different view to his own.

So in that sense, he lacks imagination completely, as he is unable to 'imagine' the views or opinions of others that differ from his own.

However! He is a respected and competent business man and architect. He has designed bridges and buildings, some of which are landmarks now, and has even been featured in Time magazine due to his architectural genius.

In that respect, he has boundless imagination, free-flowing creativity and open-mindedness.

Imagination is a difficult thing to place in a tick-box. It manifests in so many different ways.

No imagination? Hmmmmmm, that doesn't sound right. If it is, what's happening inside this so called mind? Mere simulations?

I appear to be very good at simulations.

If I see a situation where my husband might have a problem, I warn him about it.

I'll say something like "she might say that she's not authorised to do what you want."
Then my husband can prepare himself for the possible set-back.
I also add "don't get angry if....." because very often he'll get angry with the frustration of, for him, an unforeseen complication in whatever he wanted to happen.

Tails, with your father, I wonder whether his confidence in his own point of view has contributed to his achieving what he has.

That's a sort of ironic thing, that certain Aspergers traits can reward people in one way, and punish them in another.

This is exactly my problem; I have a lot of difficulty moving away from a set way of doing things, even if I know that my way of doing things is causing problems.

It's fairly obvious that I don't lack a creative imagination; I am a composer, and I'm good enough at it that I won the prize for the best final-year composition folio at my uni.



I was similar, except that I'd get my mother and tell her what to say, and act out dialogue from the books that I'd been reading.

I have a very good imagination. Sometimes I drift off into my own world from time to time.

Very well articulated. I can relate directly. Let me preface my remarks by saying that I only been recently aware of AS, and the high probability that I may indeed have it.

People have told much the same as what you say... that I expect them to react in the same way that I would. They tell me I'm self-centered, egotistical, and arrogant. I've always been baffled by this. I end up responding with a "what?!? I didn't mean that at all!!" There is usually a breakdown in communication.

As I've learned about AS, I've seen this pattern happen again and again; I always thought there was something wrong, but not sure what it was. Was it me? Was it them? What the hell?
As I've gained a little bit of perspective on this issue, I can see how this idea of social imagination (empathy) has been so central to the whole social infrastructure of my life. This seems to be why I can't seem to keep people around me very long. I'm not able to fully understand their states of emotion... they don't get what they need emotionally, and disappear.

Like I said, looking at things this way is sort of new to me. I am realizing a lot. Let me just thank you good people for your insightful words.

I have a huge imagination. I always have. I played elaborate storylines with my dolls as a child. The AS didn't come through in "lack of symbolic play." It came through in my being a dictator with peers- "You play this the way I want you to play it! You're doing that wrong! You're supposed to do this!" This is one of the many, many reasons I hated having friends come over to my house to play.
-OddDuckNash99-

I do wonder if there are different mechanism that lead to what is commonly called imagination. A few examples:

1. Most seem to agree that writing a story from scratch is very imaginative.

2. Lying is something that requires imagination too.

3. Visualising something before the inner eye is imagination.

4. As is associativity. It's often called imaginative thinking.

5. Being able to imagine how something works requires imagination too.

Unless a similar or the same system is already known to a person and that knowledge would only have to be transferred to

6. But even this is sometimes called imagination in some contexts - that's the ability of abstraction.


I found I can do some, but some others in some situations I cannot do. For example:

I can understand how other people react (social interaction stuff), can explain it to myself, but cannot at all use my imagination to react in the same way as them.

I am able to work with abstract concepts, use a lot more analogies than the other people where I live, but some other abstract concepts continuously baffle me because I'm stuck with the concrete reality.


So it seems to me as if the huge thing that is called imagination is something that consist of parts that though they are connected in some way, are also independent in so far as that they can exist without the other parts. And then these parts - let's think of abstraction - is the result of various abilities, not just of one.

I think there's some understandable confusion about what's meant by 'imagination'.

I don't think it refers to creativity.

It's about understanding what people are trying to say.

I think it's a reference to the difficulty Aspies have with metaphor - which requires a degree of imagination to draw meaning from.
IOW, it's a reference to the Aspie tendency to take things literally.

I know that AS kids are said not to engage in imaginative play - but I don't think that's connected to this particular reference.

If you read Autistic Psychopathy, Hans speculates that individuals with his disorder are more creative than those without it, as all they have to draw on is their own thoughts and experiences (in other words, they're cut-off from external thoughts and ideas from society).

This is an interesting way to look at it.