external tools / notes / lists
Counts (from regex pre-pass)
- Total primary-source matches: 9826
- Unique authors with at least one match: 4658
These counts include literal mentions, not just metaphors. The classification below is from agent reading of a 30-chunk sample.
Classification of the sample
| Bucket | Count |
|---|---|
| Genuine metaphor (cognition / memory / experience) | 8 |
| Practical externalisation (compensatory strategies) | 8 |
| Literal mention | 9 |
| Edge / unrelated | 5 |
(Numbers sum to the sample size of 30. The "practical externalisation" bucket is added for this family because the brief's "externalisation hypothesis" depends on counting those as evidence even when they aren't metaphors.)
Genuine metaphor sub-uses
Cognition as list-of-properties
The most common metaphor in the sample: in place of an image, the mind holds a checklist of attributes. The "list" is not literal paper but a description of how recall feels.
"Same way I 'picture' an apple, it's basically just a list of traits about whatever it is like 'round sweet fruit, usually red or green.'" 2022 · t1_i37y9ae ↗
"When i try to do that, essentially im just thinking of a list of properties i know about the object in question" 2023 · t1_j7a1d4a ↗
"Or I just say it's like I make a list of characteristics about what I srr, rather than think of an image." 2020 · t1_fl9dug0 ↗
"If I have to draw something I just I just think of descriptive words for thing." 2022 · t1_i8v4ylb ↗
Memory / autobiography as text-summary
Autobiographical recall is described as a written abstract rather than a re-experienced scene.
"Seems like I should have more than a cliff notes version of my own life." 2022 · t1_htdi7dz ↗
"I can’t visualize my kids faces or my house but I know what they look like in the sense of a list of shapes and colors." 2021 · t3_q41ct0 ↗
Decision-making as multiple-choice / pre-built option list
A subtler metaphor: the aphant's mind cannot generate options unprompted but can rank an externally supplied list. Cognition is framed as selection from a menu rather than free generation.
"Unless someone specifically laid it out as an option to choose from, as if in a multiple choice quiz." 2022 · t1_ikhmbvi ↗
"everyone and everything is broken down and shoved into corresponding boxes (or fields if you’re doing the data base thing)" 2026 · t1_obron3w ↗
Practical externalisation (not metaphor, but evidence for the externalisation hypothesis)
These are real compensatory strategies, repeated often enough that they are characteristic of the sub. They are not metaphors for inner experience; they are descriptions of behaviour that substitutes for missing imagery.
"I keep a dream journal for funsies. Turned out to be useful." 2023 · t1_j6sw5p5 ↗
"I also do oral notes if I think of something I need to remember I just speak into my phone. I have calendar reminder set to remind me every Tuesday and Thursday" 2026 · t1_o76x28u ↗
"What you can do is take photos. Maybe keep a journal if you also have SDAM." 2023 · t1_jyoez2o ↗
"making lists was/is a big part as is watching how other people do things and listening intently." 2020 · t1_g0xfnio ↗
"I take notes, figure out what I can DIY, what I'm better off buying" 2024 · t1_lwoptxr ↗
What this family tells us about aphantasia phenomenology
The cleanest metaphor pattern is "cognition is a list" — when asked how they think of an apple, an outfit, or a person, aphants repeatedly reach for the language of bullet points, properties, and traits. This is consistent with semantic-over-episodic encoding: the content is there, but its format is propositional rather than pictorial. The "cliff notes" and "list of shapes and colors" framings extend this from object-recognition into autobiographical memory. The metaphor's failure mode is its tidiness — real cognition is unlikely to be as discrete as a checklist; the language is at least partly a post-hoc rationalisation that survives because it is communicable to non-aphants. The practical-externalisation evidence (journals, photos, calendar reminders, oral notes into a phone) is the most concrete support for the brief's hypothesis: aphants demonstrably move memory load onto external substrates.
False-positive notes
The regex hits "note," "list," "journal," "photo," and similar tokens, almost all of which appear in non-metaphorical contexts: idioms ("the list goes on," "side note," "take note"), literal lists of authors or symptoms, musical notes, and casual mentions of going to the library. In the 30-chunk sample, only 8 chunks (27%) use the family terms as metaphors for inner experience, and another 8 (27%) describe practical compensatory tools — so roughly half are off-topic for either reading. Applied to the 9826 primary matches, an honest estimate is on the order of ~2,600 metaphor-related and ~2,600 externalisation-strategy chunks, with the remaining ~4,600 likely literal or unrelated. Because the family terms are everyday English, this is the highest-noise family in the regex pre-pass; counts here should be treated as upper bounds.
What this answers and doesn't
- Answers: which sub-uses of the external-tools / notes / lists family appear in r/Aphantasia, and in what rough proportion sub-users invoke them as metaphor versus describe literal compensatory behaviour.
- Does NOT answer: how common the family is compared to typical-imager language (no control corpus); whether the externalisation strategies are causally compensatory or just generally good practice that aphants happen to mention more; how stable a given user's metaphor preference is over time.