Imagination vs Creativity

People tell those with aphantasia they have no imagination.They are wrong. They just can't separate the thinking from the seeing.

The word "imagination" is broken. It is being used to describe two different things. One is the ability to handle data, to make connections, and build concepts. The other is just a visual feedback loop. If you have aphantasia, you don't have the video to replay. You still have the data.

In cognitive science, imagination is usually defined as mentally running events or possibilities that are not happening right now, not as “having pictures in your head.” Studies on memory and future thinking show that the same brain systems that help you remember a past event can also help you imagine a possible future one, even if that future does not feel like a clear picture.

Throw an elephant, a giraffe, a zebra, and a duck into a bucket. Mix them up. What comes out?

A visualizer looks at a picture in their head. They see a trunk on a striped duck. They are looking at a finished product. Maybe as a painting in an art gallery, maybe in a video. Maybe lovingly, or maybe they try to delete the new video they just created out of fear.

Someone with aphantasia isn't looking at anything. They are handling the specs. They pull "long neck" and "webbed feet" and "stripes" and they snap them together. They arrive at the same spot, they just took a different road. One uses a map with photos. The other uses the coordinates.

A perfect example of this is how Andy Weir wrote the book for the movie Project Hail Mary. He described the alien without ever seeing it in his mind’s eye. If you watch the movie you basically see what he described in the book, even though he never “watched” it in his head.

Research on imagination describes this as recombining elements from memory: features, concepts, and relationships, into new configurations. You do not need inner pictures to do that. It is about how information is stored and rearranged.

The result is the same. The process is just different.

Neuroscience papers talk about imagination as a set of “building” processes. You pull details from memory, put them together, and create a scene or a situation that does not exist right now. That could be remembering, planning, or asking “what if.” These studies care about the mental construction itself, not about whether it looks like a vivid film. That fits the idea that aphantasics are still simulating, they are just not watching a movie.

Imagination, in this sense, is a mental simulation. It is a concept. A sequence. A plan. You do not need to see the plan to know how it works. Some researchers describe imagination as using memory to build possible events and worlds, and they stress that what matters is the possibilities you can build, not whether they appear as pictures.

Ok, that got a bit deeper than what I had in my head when I started, so let’s move on to creativity.

Creativity is the work. It is taking that plan and hitting it with duct tape until it is a real thing. Think MacGyver trapped in the attic trying to escape death. He finds some cleaning fluid, a telescope, mothballs, rope, a pulley, and handlebars, makes them into a harpoon zipline to shoot through the window at a tree, and lives to see another day. (Honestly, I wrote this post just to work in a MacGyver story).

In creativity research, the standard definition is that a creative idea or product is both original and useful (or fitting) in some way. MacGyver fits both. Reviews of creative thinking use this as the starting point. Creativity is what happens when those imagined possibilities get pushed and shaped into something new that actually works in a real situation.

Imagination is the workshop. Creativity is the work that leaves the building. One is the thought. The other is the calloused hands.

Psychologist Mark Runco, who has written a lot about creativity, puts it in similar terms. In his work, imagination is mostly about inner thought that generates and explores possibilities, while creativity is about turning those possibilities into actions, objects, and outcomes in the world.

You can have a movie playing in your head all day and never build a thing. You can build, write, and invent without ever seeing a single frame. One isn't better. One is just louder.

Work on the “creative brain” backs this up. Studies show that creativity depends on different brain systems working together. Some help you come up with ideas. Others help you test, tweak, and choose them. None of that research makes vivid visual imagery a requirement. It is about how ideas are generated, combined, and selected.

Aphantasics don't have a slideshow. They have the blueprints.

The picture was never the point. The point is what you build.

Stay messy,

Paul

Sources (for readers who want the science trail)

Van Hoeck, N., et al. (2015). Cognitive neuroscience of imagination: Tips of an iceberg. Frontiers in Psychology.

Runco, M. A., & Pina, J. (2013). Imagination and creativity: The relationship between thought and action. In The Oxford Handbook of the Development of Imagination.

Beaty, R. E., et al. (2016). Creative cognition and brain network dynamics. Trends in Cognitive Sciences.