Lack of imagination...how has it effected you??

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I suffer from lack of social imagination like, "Make up conversation between you and another person", or "create an imaginary interview with the president". Stuff like that.
Otherwise, I'm PURE imagination, on the level of Willy Wonka. Hah!

I only skimmed it but I think I may lack theory of mind. Some stuff I've read about Schizoid Personality Disorder says they lack theory of mind. I was officially diagnosed with that instead of AS. A lot of stuff about autism I've read says Aspie kids lack imagination to thou.

Lack of imagination can be a positive thing in some ways thou because I'm more realistic in some ways & imagination can make people dangerous. Some think I may be a stalker because of my crush obsession with Miranda Cosgrove but I can not create a fake fantasy relationship in my mind or come up with a crazy plan to try & meet her because I lack the imagination for it.

I'm not sure.

I don't think I have a lack of imagination: I'm almost paralysed by how strong and vivid it is sometimes particularly in noisy, visually assaulting and crowded spaces.

I personally don't subscribe to the idea that I completely lack social imagination. If I completely lacked social imagination, I wouldn't have been able to write/understand stories and fiction or participate in Drama class. I help people out with tasks, I hold doors open for them and buy presents. I have been able to respond to friends and family's emotions. These tasks require some kind of basic theory of mind, even if mine might be only basic and straight forward.

That said, I cannot small talk to "save my life". I can tell jokes and be satirical. I struggle to walk up to people and say hello. My strength seems to be in my ability to respond to people and help them with practical tasks/information. I also see the depth in people's emotions and needs. Some have called me a good friend, so clearly I must have some social awareness.

I am not everybody though.
Different people probably have different strengths and weaknesses.

This is why I find "blanket" *idiom* definitions like "lacks imagination" or "lacks social imagination" incredibly offensive. I feel angry because I believe that these definitions dismiss many of the social and imagining strengths that I do have. These "black and white" definitions also conveniently ignore the idea that some people can in fact (if given the chance) develop some social and imagination skills in some cultural settings. I admit that I might be very "weak" in some areas that might come naturally to other people, but that's no excuse to write of me (or anyone else) off completely.

I'm not saying that I'm perfect, but it seems that many people "parrot" (repeat) these textbook definitions without really thinking about them critically.

What about different kinds of social imagination in different cultures?
What about different kinds of theories of mind?

Different people have different kinds of minds.
It can be painful and not always be easy to have a different kind of mind.
That's why I believe that they should be respected for what they can do and supported, not
judged and labelled on what they can't.

Last edited by AmberEyes on 27 Jun 2011, 3:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Definitely agree. "Lack of imagination" is just another way for others who don't understand and don't care to understand what is going on inside our minds to tell us how defective we are and to put themselves above us in every area. We should not be susceptible to believing their outside-in judgments of us. Many of their judgments are inaccurate, and the rest are emotional projections of themselves. Each person can determine for him- or herself their own type of imagination and how best to apply it.

I find the entire idea of social imagination to be interesting, especially in the ways that I can find differences between how I process things and how NTs do.

I can write fiction, visualize characters, give them thoughts, beliefs, reactions, ideas, etc. But if you show me a photograph and ask me what the people in it are thinking, feeling, or doing, I won't have more than a minimal answer. I do wonder what is going on here, that I can imagine these things, but have more difficulty assigning them.

Anyway, I can tell there is a social deficit at work, at least for me. It annoys me when I see people (NT or autistic) say that autistic people are unable to realize that other people have minds, or that people are people, or in other ways suggest that our social deficits exist on a level that makes no logical sense, when I think it is both more complex and less profound than that.

Last edited by Verdandi on 27 Jun 2011, 4:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I experience this too. For me, it's like self-generated stuff being or feeling more real and easier to process or express than external incoming stuff. Maybe if I looked at a photo for an hour, I'd be able to tell a whole story about it, but other people expect me to come up with one in a minute. Most of my answers are like, "The person on the right is wearing a green shirt." The weird thing is if the photo has cats instead of people in it, I am somehow more able to quickly assign thoughts, feelings, theory of mind stuff.

Interesting!

Do you find you more easily get feline communication sometimes? I was having an argument once with someone over whether cats are actually capable of more than hunger, fatigue, and fear, and that pet cats are only nice to people because they get food. This seemed ridiculous to me because my cats have communicated a wide variety of emotions, wants, needs, etc. to me that go well beyond this idea that non-human animals are basically automatons, but many people don't see that.

I don't know that it's an autistic thing specifically, but I have seen more autistic people say similar than I have NTs. I suspect many NTs see it too, but perhaps are more likely to assign anthropomorphic personalities and intentions to these communications.

I had a lot of imagination when I was a child.

Now I think my imagination is just average really, for my age.

I'm not entirely sure what is going on with the animal personification in my mind, but I'm going to take a guess. Possibly, with cats, I can just put myself into the shoes of each cat to make up a story about their interactions, with myself applying intellectual rather than intuitive theory of mind to them, similar to the way I would write a piece of fiction. When looking at a photo of humans, I am well aware that each of them is an alien mind external to myself and thinks/feels very differently than I do, and I have difficulty playing any of them and applying theory of mind to them, because they are so very external to myself and their theory of mind is foreign to me and frankly a lot more complex than mine. Cats are simpler beings, and so am I.

With fictional human characters, they are internal, even though they are not representations of me in a story. They are still created and given their personifications by me, like I do with cats in a photo. The most important thing is that their interactions in the story make sense. All is well as long as everything makes sense. This is a quality that I find difficult to locate in the real world of human interactions, because the external minds are very complex and making sense does not seem to be high on priority list for many people. I am also more confident playing cats and fictional characters, because there is no anxiety involved in getting something wrong when theory of mind is applied to a world in which I control the horizontal and the vertical. (Outer Limits fan here)

Besides, cat facial expressions are easier to read than human facial expressions, and their faces are cuter and thus more pleasurable to dwell upon, and I don't think cats are automatons at all. I empathize better with them than with people. When it comes to thoughts not involving higher level cognitive functions, I'm sure I think more like cats than like NT people. To me, cats are more real in their personhood than most people, and they express themselves at face value, thus allowing more open communication between us.

another "lack of imagination" example:

pretend that this brick is a car, and this pencil is a man....

If I had no imagination, I'd probably have a split personailty by now or something. My imagination is what saved me as a child. I've always written detailed stories and fan fics that were so good, I've been told I should have them published. I was looking into having one published but I got really put off from it when people kept telling it would be a wonderful children's book. I really had no target audience in mind but I abandonded it for fan fics. I actualy enjoyed writing fan fics more than original stuff. I originaly started writing Lion King fan fics as a way to interact with the characters. Yes, I wrote myself into them as an unbeatable super hero type and was always saving Timon from evil biologists and the Pridelands from poachers and developers. Sure I probably came across as a "Mary Sue" but writing these were very theraputic for me. I'm working on a Sonic fan fic...and plan to write myself into them as well but since I plan on posting it online, I will probably give myself another name. The idea is about Mobius (Sonic's universe) and the hallow earth being one in the same. I discover it when exploring a cave system. Perhaps Sonic, Princess Sally and the others are able to walk upright and use advanced technology because their ansestors were animals the nazi's expirmented on. I've always read that the atmosphere of the inside of the earth is like 100 times purer than it is on the surface and animals from there are bigger than surface animals...perhaps they are smarter too. Walking upright perhaps is a result of the purer enviroment. I don't think someone with little imagination could cook up an idea like that.

Last edited by MagicMeerkat on 27 Jun 2011, 7:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

that is exactly me, except I'm 43. from my exterior, you'd never ever be able to guess the wild and amazing things going on in my head. I think in pictures, I dream in color, I am artistic, and I soar to great heights-- in my imagination. My body, however, gathers cobwebs

I don't know... I would say a brick is a brick and a pencil is a pencil...
I guess it's what's done with them...

Pretend that this brick is a car:
Drill holes through the brick and add axels and wheels.
Failing that, make a car out of Lego bricks.


Pretend that this pencil is a man:
Stick one of those plastic pencil character themed toppers (that come free in cereal packets) onto the end of the pencil.

As a child, I remember watching a puppet show where pencils could talk. The pencils represented children going on a school trip. It was very surreal. It was also strangely entertaining. There were girl and boy pencils. One of the boy pencils got stuck on a class assignment, so a girl pencil helped him out.

As for personification, don't even get me started on toothbrushes.
There's a children's song where two toothbrushes sing about getting married. The tune is an "earworm". That song scared me as a child.

I rarely ever pretend anything. I'm a concrete thinker. It is what it is. Although I do have some ability to imagine things. I can imagine what a flying car would look like, and what it would be like if the value of G changed from 9.81 to 0.

Hmm, my mother said I played pretend as a child, and then described me reenacting a scene from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea when I was five or six. I thought I read something somewhere about reenacting scenes like that, but I can't remember where.

Apparently it annoyed my paternal grandmother.

Last edited by Verdandi on 28 Jun 2011, 2:21 am, edited 1 time in total.