Imagine a dog. Got it? I don’t. Here’s what it’s like to be unable to visualize anything.

Vox:

If I tell you to imagine a beach, you can picture the golden sand and turquoise waves. If I ask for a red triangle, your mind gets to drawing. And Mom’s face? Of course.

You experience this differently, sure. Some of you see a photorealistic beach, others a shadowy cartoon. Some of you can make it up, while others only “see” a beach they’ve visited. Some of you have to work harder to paint the canvas. Some of you can’t hang on to the canvas for long. But nearly all of you have a canvas.

I don’t. I have never visualized anything in my entire life. I can’t “see” my father’s face or a bouncing blue ball, my childhood bedroom or the run I went on 10 minutes ago. I thought “counting sheep” was a metaphor. I’m 30 years old, and I never knew a human could do any of this. And it is blowing my goddamn mind.

While I’m not as afflicted as the story’s writer, I have many of the same issues. When I say/type the word “cube”, the vast majority of you will see a three-dimensional cube in your mind’s eye. I don’t have a mind’s eye. I see the actual word “cube”. It’s the only way I can visualize it. It’s probably why I have such an incredibly bad sense of direction. I can’t visualize the three-dimensionality of geography and place myself spatially. Maps mean nothing to me because I can’t imagine my place in the in the 3D space.