Think back to your favourite autumnal walk in the woods. What do you remember? Perhaps you recall the cool air on your skin, the scent of a bonfire drifting on the breeze, the rustling of leaves in the trees, the patterns of light on a woodland floor. Maybe you feel the ache in your legs as you finally reach the top of the hill and the deep relief as you lie in soft, damp grass staring up at the sky through the treetops.
Your sense memories of wandering can inspire you to walk again. Even better are the experiences you revisit, mentally time travelling to take yourself back to special places. I know from my research into people’s relationship with places in nature that those memories can powerfully shape your behaviour, orienting you towards caring for the planet.
But personally, I recall those autumn walks from a different perspective. I close my eyes and find my mind filled with facts that are stripped of sensory detail. My memory of magical woodland is a story I tell myself, not an experience I vividly relive.
So how do I make sense of the trail I make if I cannot rewalk it in my imagination?
A quiet mind
The ability to voluntarily create vivid mental images exists on a scale. At one end of the scale, around 5% of us have hyperphantasia, seeing an inner vision that is as real as the world around us. At the other end of the scale, around 3% of us have a mind’s eye that is blind. Try as we might, and even when we concentrate, we cannot see anything except the inside of our eyelids. In between lies an ability that visualise that ranges from blurry and indistinct to clear and vibrant.
Contemporary research into aphantasia only began in 2015, so for much of my life, I didn't have words to understand the difference I felt. I always struggled to engage with visualisation exercises, but I thought everyone understood “imagine yourself on a beach” as a metaphor, a coded instruction to remember information about beaches you had visited. I was shocked to discover that other people could actually see white sand and crashing waves in their mind’s eye.
Over time, I began to realise that it wasn’t just sight that was missing in my imagination. In fact, I have multisensory aphantasia, meaning that I cannot voluntarily conjure sights, sounds, textures, smells or tastes. And like at least 25% of people with aphantasia, I also have SDAM, or severely deficient autobiographical memory, restricting my ability to mentally time travel. I cannot re-experience my past or inhabit my future, so I remain eternally rooted in each present moment.
Journaling my journey
I have had aphantasia and SDAM all my life, and they are just some of the ways my brain seems to be different from the majority of other people’s. I try to conceive of how my life would be different if I could vividly imagine or mentally time travel. And too often, I feel my differences as a deficit.
But I also see the gift of being perpetually in the present. My aphantasia pushes me to be a keen observer as I translate the sensory world into words. And to compensate for the challenges of SDAM, my journal has become an essential container for my memories.
I use observations and reflections in my journal as ways to create a connection with my past experiences. Life with SDAM can leave me feeling fractured, and looking back at my memories can feel like reading a newspaper report of someone else’s life.
However, words offer a measure of certainty about who I have been. Reading old diaries, I recognise my handwriting. A younger version of me pulled graphite over paper to scratch myself into curling, exotic shapes. My words are a continuous line from my past to my present. And while I cannot follow their thread directly into my memory, I trust the hand that documented my life.
Benefits of journaling
If you can visualise and remember, it can be tempting to rely on your innate abilities. But history fades. The beautiful walk you went on last week might already be lost amidst the tumble of everyday life.
Research has shown that people with less developed autobiographical memory have some protection against age-related cognitive decline, perhaps because we learn earlier to compensate for a mind that is already failing us. But when we write about our experiences, we capture precious, seemingly insignificant moments that can resonate months or years later.
Here are just some of the benefits that I’ve experienced from journaling my journey:
Capturing detail. Journaling gives me a vibrant, external record of my wandering. With my attention turned outwards, I long to capture every detail of a walk. I find the words to describe sights, sounds, scents, textures and tastes. I make the whole world a story, and find my place in it.
Ordering events in time. Unaided, I cannot sequence my memories. “Sometime before yesterday” is my joke response to the question of when something happened. My journal, unfolding day by day, helps me see how the trail of past events leads to the present moment.
Capturing emotions. It was only as I started journaling that I realised how limited my emotional vocabulary was. One exercise that helped me was committing to journal every day for a week, beginning each sentence with the words, “I feel…”. I ran out of words quickly and had to dig deep. But as my vocabulary expanded, I was able to describe feelings in multicoloured patterns, rather than painting with the primary colours of happiness and sadness.
Processing the past. While I cannot re-enter my memories, I feel the impact of my past experiences. So, journaling helps me process my feelings and grapple with my past. My journal is a safe space where I can explore my feelings and find resolution before I commit to real-world action. I can see how I’ve grown, too; challenges that bothered me a decade ago seem trifling now as my life has expanded to accommodate them.
Reducing stress. Expressive writing through journaling has been shown to reduce stress and improve emotional wellbeing. Just the act of sitting and writing helps me find a still place where the turmoil of the day falls away. Writing in my journal can be a meditation, helping me find peace and presence when I am knocked off course.
Making sense of my journey. My journaling practice ranges from writing in pencil in a hardback notebook to capturing quick notes on my phone. If I’ve written long hand, I often go back and transcribe my notes onto my computer, creating a searchable record of my life. I so often find connections between the notes from the past and my feelings in the present. I see the ways I am stuck and the progress I have made. The process is laborious but so rewarding.
Make a trail with words
If you love walking, I encourage you to start writing about your adventures. Take a hardback notebook that you can balance on your knees and pencil to write with. Sit often and observe the world around you. Write what you see. Find words for scents, sounds, textures and tastes. Make maps of your wandering, and fill them with detail. The act of journaling your journey helps you become more present as you notice the extraordinary richness and diversity in the world around you.
And reflect on your progress. Not just the steps you take but the changes you observe in yourself. Notice the thoughts you carry as you walk, the resolutions you discover and the revelations that appear on the horizon. Let your wandering take you to new places in your heart and mind. Become a confident explorer of your inner world as you step out onto the trail.
And if you think you might be affected by aphantasia or SDAM, I strongly recommend checking out the resources from the Aphantasia Network. They also regularly interview researchers on their YouTube channel. On their website, you can also contribute to ongoing research into different aspects of visualisation and memory.
Journaling your journey helps you discover your unique perspective on the world. You can make a trail with words, as well as your feet.