Aphantasia

yyaldrin

in je ogen waait de wind
i reckon it could potentially have a knock on effect on all sorts of areas of your life. im just speculating though. more interested in myself really.
out of curiosity, how is your sense of direction, or orientation?
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
i've just done this test it was crap. it says how well can you imagine things? and then if you say quite well, it says you can imagine things quite well.
I was thinking how can they possibly measure this. I can see that they can put those who see nowt at one end and maybe I can accept some people - those they describe as hyperphantasic - at the other, but they say there is a whole spectrum and I cannot see how they can rank two given people as a six and a seven or whatever.

That said a lot of tests and indexes are pretty subjectively created. Like when they talk about happiness indexes and stuff, suppose they say people in Nigeria are happier than in Finland, it just means that they asked a load of people how happy they are and more Nigerians said they were pretty happy than Fins did. But how do we know the two groups meant the same thing by "pretty happy"? It's difficult to see what else they could do... but I feel they should be more open about how inexact these things are when they report them.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
I wouldn't say I have this at all in general but I am very bad at recognizing faces. Sometimes I don't recognize people I know well. Like once I met my cousin on the nightbus and although we grew up seeing each other all the time, cos I wasn't expecting to see her I just couldn't put it together who she was. And I've had other similar occurrences. I wouldn't say it's at the real problem level but I am noticeably worse than most
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
This is interesting

Patients suffering from intrusive memories, it has been discovered, can be calmed by being presented with alternative strong visual imagery, such as playing the game Tetris – the mind can only hold one mental image at a time, and the vividness of the new image overwrites the old intrusive one.

Cos when I was a kid there was a period when I played Tetris a lot and the imagery was very powerful. There was a point when I found it really hard to sleep cos whenever I closed my eyes I saw Tetris blocks totally filling my mind's vision, really dominating my senses when I lay in bed. So yeah I can well believe Tetris would be effective in this
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
i got the type of one where you can dream in images. maybe im just lazy.
Fair. But then you’ve also said stuff like this:
the images get finished in the imagination. that's where they come to life and that's why they can outcompete the literalness of the digital image
Or, on a passage from the Bible:
And what about the pictures? They're good aren't they?
Idk, I’ll take your word that you have it, just saying if someone wanted to make the case that you’ve putting us on and actually have very advanced internal visualization powers they could make a pretty strong one.
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
to the people with minds eyes, how vivid is the image?
If I try to imagine a beach, for example, I feel like I can’t vividly picture the sand, water etc all at once? My mind has to sort of pass over smaller constituent parts individually. With dreams though, similar to what Luka was saying, it’s completely different. The images can be waaay more elaborate.
 

sufi

lala
If I try to imagine a beach, for example, I feel like I can’t vividly picture the sand, water etc all at once? My mind has to sort of pass over smaller constituent parts individually. With dreams though, similar to what Luka was saying, it’s completely different. The images can be waaay more elaborate.
my beach has a lot of details, surf, palm trees, maybe a small house on stilts with a carved pirogue
 

sufi

lala
my beach has a lot of details, surf, palm trees, maybe a small house on stilts with a carved pirogue
dreams maybe less so - mine are really vivid and colourful, the imagery is more robust, more solid, but very slippery when it comes to details
 

linebaugh

Well-known member
dreams are no more vivid than waking thoughts for me. its like I'm looking through a beige screen at night time.
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
dreams are no more vivid than waking thoughts for me. its like I'm looking through a beige screen at night time.
Dreams can be quite murky for me as well, but then at other times the complete opposite? It’s like receiving radio transmissions, the clarity can drastically depend on the day, or fade in and out.
 

sufi

lala
Dreams can be quite murky for me as well, but then at other times the complete opposite? It’s like receiving radio transmissions, the clarity can drastically depend on the day, or fade in and out.
tbh my theory is that dreams are non-verbal commandments from outerspace about how we should pilot the planet towards our sci-fi destiny, mostly we forget them, but we still play out their script mindlessly and ineptly
aphantasists are immune of course
 

Benny Bunter

Well-known member
Fair. But then you’ve also said stuff like this:

Or, on a passage from the Bible:

Idk, I’ll take your word that you have it, just saying if someone wanted to make the case that you’ve putting us on and actually have very advanced internal visualization powers they could make a pretty strong one.
You have to connect your mental ears with your inner eye and the whole range of your emotional response. This is literally how to read. Very very few people can do it. A tiny, tiny number of people. Corpse is teaching himself how to read. It's a worthwhile endeavour.
 

mvuent

Void Dweller
notice how mr. davis vanished from the thread as soon as old posts that his alibi didn't cover started flooding in. aphantasia? no, his condition would be more accurately diagnosed as afraudtasia...
 
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