Post #225440
2026-01-24 07:08 UTC
Replies (19)
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@foolishowl@social.coop 2026-01-24 07:20
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to That would make it hard to explain all us nerds with our speculative fiction and role-playing games.
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@Johns_priv@mastodon.social 2026-01-24 07:52
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to My problem is more trying to communicate all the things that go on in my head. One can be artistic and with a wild imagination but lacking the necessary skills to translate that into a medium (text, paintings or drawings, music, sculptures, whatever) and the patience to learn.
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@Mikanux@eldritch.cafe 2026-01-24 08:10
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to I've never been able to think of an interesting story to write about, I'm also a very bad musician, and I have never been able to come up with names for my characters in video games. (And french lessons where you had to come up with a story was hell to me)
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@annso@framapiaf.org 2026-01-24 08:11
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to I love to write but I’m having a really hard time writing fiction because when I need to imagine what could happen in my story, only the most logical thing comes to mind. I cannot generate thousand of ideas in a minute, like my peers seem able to do.
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@dancingtreefrog@mastodon.social 2026-01-24 08:15
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to Hi. I'm not autistic but my godson, whom I have known for 30+ years (from his childhood) doesn't lack imagination at all. And he would agree. He's written fantasy stories, paints original imaginary scenes in oil and watercolor, and makes ceramics. Sometimes I think the people making up the diagnostic criteria are the ones that lack imagination.
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@JaxVent@lgbtqia.space 2026-01-24 08:30
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to I'm a musician and poet, I've written songs and short stories. Can't draw to save my life though 🤣 As a child I would lose myself in role playing super hero games with my friends. Like, for hours. My bestie and I had a game called 'mermaids' we invented which basically involved walking round the estate scouring the kerbs for nuts, screws, coins, anything metal to be used as currency in our mermaids game. We never got past this stage and spent hours getting up quite a collection 🤣 Anyway I think we display creativity differently. I don't remember lining up cars etc but now as an adult, I find repetitive organisational tasks incredibly relaxing and I always find my mind going off into the most incredible daydreams.
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@benjamincox@writing.exchange 2026-01-24 08:32
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to As a writer and collaborator with other autistic authors, I frequently find myself plunging into flights of fancy that are both mundane and fantastical. Where I do struggle, however, is writing from a NT perspective. Frankly, I would appreciate any advice. 🙏🏻
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@isisevrinen@mastodon.chasalin.nl 2026-01-24 09:30
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to If people tell about, say, their house without describing how it looks I have trouble imagining a different house from my own. However, I think up the weirdest things. I saw my toe sticking out the bath water, surrounded by foam and thought of a story about tiny people living on my toe thinking it must be a mountain. But if you say 'think up a story now' I can't do it.
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@hanscees@ieji.de 2026-01-24 09:44
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to I can imagen the psychologist telling me I'm not #actuallyautistic on a long pole hanging by her feet in a ravine surrounded by dragons trying to take the first bite out of here fine thank you.
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@freelyselected@mastodon.online 2026-01-24 09:45
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to Yeah I would say I at least lack imagination in the ways that are expected. I definitely can’t do it on demand, which wasn’t very helpful for the creative subjects at school. Particularly I’ve never been very good where I needed to come up with a story or an idea for a project.
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@jwrm22@hsnl.social 2026-01-24 09:47
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to I don't believe I lack creativity. As an engineer with autism, I'm able to combine solutions in unusual ways. I can get stuck in the iterating, where a solution is rarely good enough. (And believing my solutions to be trivial once they are 'invented')
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@CartyBoston@mastodon.roundpond.net 2026-01-24 09:58
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to "The DSM-5 refers to difficulties in "sharing imaginative play" or "social imitative play" as part of the social communication deficits." I am no DSM fan but that's not the same thing. it's more about communication and interaction than the ability to imagine.
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@RandamuMaki@mstdn.social 2026-01-24 09:59
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to I'm a writer with more ideas for stories than I could ever write out in my lifetime. I have more than enough imagination, thank you very much. Back when I was growing up I explained numerous times that I could envision what I read and wrote in full technicolour 3D in my head. These worlds are realistic enough that I could wander off the beaten path and explore them with my mind filling in the blanks. It's just that neurotypicals don't listen to kids when they say something.
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@mavu@mastodon.social 2026-01-24 10:01
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to absolutely no lack of imagination here. But. I think this might be a result of a (common?) Condition with autistic people: aphantasia This might get mixed up with / is labled "lack of imagination", which is kind of understandable but still not correct. I can imagine all the things, I'm just bad at conjuring up a detailed visual representation off them in my head.
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@mensrea@freeradical.zone 2026-01-24 10:01
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to not autistic so not voting, but this shit is why we need to stop neurotipicals from defining things. what absolute nonsense
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@Aspiedan@autistics.life 2026-01-24 10:19
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to I have found I cannot invent / create from scratch, but I can modify and fix better than most. I can write poetry, but even that is modifying my mess of thoughts and emotions into something understandable.
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@alicemcalicepants@ohai.social 2026-01-24 10:25
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to undiagnosed, but I was a habitual daydreamer as a child (alongside my hobby of creative writing), and I do wonder if this was my way of coping with sensory overwhelm/struggling to connect with the people around me and feeling very alone in my head.
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@mees@sunny.garden 2026-01-24 10:26
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to i don't imagine things in images. But I do imagine stuff. More in entities and ambience, I guess. I can never remember what characters in books look like. Or the buildings/rooms they're in. But I love reading books.
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@Bel_tamtu@meemu.org 2026-01-24 10:30
@KatyElphinstone@mas.to I taught myself to read at the age of two and read voraciously, and I drew, and I played with ponies and horse figurines instead of dolls. I definitely had a pretty active imagination as a child, and I still do as an adult. There's some difficulty, I don't have a great visual imagination for example. I am quite unpracticed in writing and trying makes me anxious, but I used to write fiction in grade school and these days I have tried writing my first fanfiction ever and it's going well. I used to write a lot of poetry. I played games where I imagined myself as all kinds of things well into sixth or seventh grade, and I got exposed to TTRPGs and furry fandom and fanfiction and the flights of fancy just kept going. So yeah I struggle to imagine what something or someone looks like, and I need more practice with wordsmithing, but this never hindered my imagination, I don't feel. Imagining another's feelings is hard too but with practice I can get better at it.