Career and education stories

Aphants self-report mixed paths: programming and abstract reasoning often feel like a fit, while visual arts and geometry are where the loss bites — and yet a surprising number make their living in art anyway.

Programming as a comfortable home

Programmers come up over and over in these threads, often surprised to find each other and quick to say the lack of imagery is no obstacle — sometimes even an asset.

"I started programming before I found out about aphantasia. It's kinda funny to think that I make a fantasy world on a computer instead of in my head." 2020 · t1_ff9x9ic ↗

"Also a programmer and honestly I think aphantasia helps. It's so much easier to think like a computer in terms of objects, data and process when you rely on images and have to reduce it all to concepts." 2018 · t1_e5k9rzw ↗

"Programming games? Really? You are a programmer? You would be amazed how common that career is among aphantasiacs." 2020 · t1_ff9ocxh ↗

"Yes. I have aphantasia, and a programmer, don’t know if it helps, but I’m good at it at least aha" 2019 · t1_es0l2sg ↗

"Inventor/programmer" 2019 · t1_f5fbjhe ↗

"Can I be an artist?" — the recurring question

Variants of "I can't become an artist because of aphantasia" appear from 2017 onward. The replies are almost uniformly that no, the obstacle is imagined; art is a skill, not a slideshow.

"Art is a skill, not being able to visualize is not a sufficient excuse." 2017 · t1_dho7y65 ↗

"You want to be an artist? Roll your sleeves up and get to work. Plenty of nonvisual thinkers are artists. The way you think about things and how you get from inspiration to production will be different from other people." 2017 · t1_din6u8b ↗

"But to say that you couldn't be an artist because of aphantasia is just false. There are professional aphantasiacs who make their living doing art." 2017 · t1_dhjtm7d ↗

"Yup. I’m an artist, and I have aphantasia. Depending on the type of art you want to do, you just find ways to fill the gap that aphantasia makes. For me, that means finding, or taking, good photos to use as a source to work from." 2019 · t1_ef4jd9e ↗

Working artists who left for other reasons

A second cluster comes from people who actually trained as artists and then left the field — but their reasons rarely have to do with imagery, and a few argue aphantasia made them sharper because nothing could stay private in the head.

"I went to both undergrad and grad for fine art and was an acclaimed young artist - with aphantasia. The reason I didn't continue to pursue had nothing to do with not being able to \"see\" in my head. If anything, it made me a better artist - cos I would have to always be getting my ideas out of my head to understand them." 2023 · t1_jtv3y8l ↗

"Facts, I have aphantasia, and I'm working on becoming a published author. And I recall something like 50% of pixar's animation team has aphantasia. In fact, a surprising percentage of artists do have aphantasia." 2022 · t3_zeauhe ↗

School: STEM clicks, geometry and spelling don't

When people look back at school, the same divide repeats. Mathematical and abstract subjects feel native; geometry, spelling, and anything that asks the student to "just see it" can be a slog — even for high achievers.

"I personally have always excelled in mathematical subjects while struggled in artistic or English subjects" 2019 · t1_ers1su9 ↗

"I really struggled with spelling, grammar, and math (especially geometry). I think because I could never see words, sentences or geometric shapes in my head so getting my head around concepts was harder." 2021 · t3_kz1xv7 ↗

"I have a masters in Biomedical Science and was overall an honor student throughout middle school-masters. I currently work in a research lab and am a published author in my field. So I don't think aphantasia overall negatively affected me quite the opposite actually." 2021 · t3_kz1xv7 ↗

"I do think it’s likely that sometimes problems can be made worse by teachers not understanding that you can’t ‘just see it’ though." 2021 · t3_kz1xv7 ↗

A worry about the future

Programmers who feel comfortably suited to their field still sometimes wonder whether the same abstract-reasoning niche is the one most exposed to automation.

"As a programmer I think it'd put me out of a job faster than AI can" 2026 · t1_ogg3gy9 ↗

Synthesis

The career and education stories pool around a clean shape: aphants gravitate toward programming, engineering, science and abstract problem-solving, where reducing a problem to "objects, data and process" can feel like a native dialect rather than a workaround. The visual arts produce the loudest worry — "I can't become an artist because of aphantasia" is a recurring post title — but the people who actually went into art (including a self-described acclaimed young fine-art grad and posters citing Pixar animators) almost uniformly report that the lack of imagery was either irrelevant or a clarifying constraint that pushed them to externalise ideas. School memories split the same way: mathematical and abstract subjects feel easy, while spelling, grammar, and geometry — anything that rewards "see it in your head" — can be unusually hard, with otherwise high-achieving aphants quietly carrying lifelong workarounds. See themes/career_stem_overrep.md and themes/career_chosen_avoided.md for the larger thematic frame; themes/education_school_struggles.md for the school side.