🍎 Elephantasia (aphantasia) - can you see an apple in your mind?

This week we roll headfirst into the interestin' world of aphantasia.It all started with conversations inside Find Your Creative Voice and The Picture Book Course - when Good Shippers were telling us, “I can’t see ANYTHING in my head.” Which sent us down a rabbit hole of aphantasia, imagination. And does everyone experience it the same way?Nope.In this episode, we chat about:What aphantasia isThe “apple test” 🍎Emotional memory vs visual memoryWhy some creatives need reference and others work 100% from imaginationWhether Google has made our “mind palace” lazyNot being able to picture things can be a creative advantage. We promise.Smells, textures, music and sensory imaginationSynesthesia (colours for days of the week?)Why your wobbly memory-bike drawing might be better than a perfect diagramHow imagination changes from childhood to adulthoodBlind drawing experiments we neeeeed to try at Art ClubTimestamps for our timestamp fans00:00 – Elephantasia? Aphantasia? However you say it…02:00 – The apple spectrum and vivid vs blank imagery03:00 – Reading fiction without mental pictures05:00 – Emotional memory and creepy seaside steps07:00 – Mental collage vs drawing from scratch10:00 – Drawing bikes from memory11:00 – Why aphantasia might make you a better designer14:00 – Idioms, haystacks and giant bears16:00 – Smells, lemons and sensory imagination17:30 – Synesthesia and coloured weekdays20:00 – Wolves, dreams and Google as reference23:00 – Teenage bedrooms and peak memory moments25:00 – Is creativity in your head or your hands?28:00 – Blind Art Club challenge incoming 👀What about you?Can you see the shiny apple? Or is it more of a murky apple-shaped idea?We’d genuinely love to know. Come over to Instagram and tell us how your brain works. We're nosy.Come and say hello! ✏️ @thegoodshipillustration🌏 www.thegoodshipillustration.comp.s. We love answering your illustration questions. Click here to submit your question for The Good Ship Illustration Podcast 🎙