some people say that autistic people have no imagination, but that’s not the case for me. i have a very complex imagination, but am unable to express it well.
when asked a question that involves social imagination, i imagine so many possibilities that it’s like my brain short-circuits, and i can’t verbalise any of them. i’m thinking of a hundred things at once, and to me it’s almost as if each thing is equally likely, so i just can’t pick one to speak about.
i do, however, have difficulty visually picturing things in my mind’s eye. i can’t even see a picture of a dog inside my head. i know what a dog looks like, and i can visualise some of the details of a dog or what a dog’s silhouette might look like, but i can’t imagine a whole dog. and i definitely can’t visualise a dog in motion.
imagination is a complex topic, and boiling it down to “autistic people lack social imagination” is a huge oversimplification of how things can be.
ajlinker 