dark blue background with colourful text on top that reads: visual imagery and improv

Hyperphantasia, Visual Imagination & Improv

Notice your skills in visual imagination and visual processing to make your scenes even better. You don't need hyperphantasia, either.

So in this episode you learn about the spectrum of visual imagination, from lots to none, and explore how you imagine visual details in improv. I cover what the spectrum of phantasia is, from hyperphantasia to aphantasia, then go into how it affects improv.

Why is visual processing important?

How you visually process details in a scene are not just important for exploring the environment, scene painting, or describing an object (the obvious parts). You can also use it to create characters or incorporate an emotion. Flash memory-ing an emotion involves phantasia! It affects a lot.

Can you improve your visual processing? Change where you are on the visual imagination spectrum? We’ll look at that kind of stuff too. I’ll give you some improv exercises to do to check out your own visual imagination.

Also apologies for using my space heater tonight half way through the recording. Oops. It cold! Removed most of the noise, but some artifacts remain. I’ll be cold next time or put on extra socks or something!

Listen to the episode

This podcast is hosted/produced/etc by me, Jen deHaan. You can blame me for the whole thing. You can submit your questions, heckles, comments, blame, more heckles, or even a voice note on the website.

Talk on Discord

Discuss this topic with improvisers

This link will take you directly to the forum for this newsletter on the Improv Update Discord.The discord also contains a bunch of channels for improv nerds. Nice.

Jen deHaan
Jen deHaan

Jen deHaan founded StereoForest in 2024 to focus on creating comedy podcasts, audio dramas, and audio fiction series that blend scripted and improvised material.

Jen has taught long form improv classes at/with World’s Greatest Improv School (WGIS), Compass Improv, Highwire Improv, and Queen City Comedy. She was also the WGIS Online School Director, and hosted a lot of improv jams.

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