You say “apple” to me and I’m #1, glossy skin, insides, all that
And how in the hell does one navigate life, or enjoy a book, if they’re not a #1?! Reading a book is like watching a movie. I subconsciously assign actor’s faces to characters and watch as the book rolls on.
Yet #5’s are not handicapped in the slightest. They’re so “normal” that mankind is just now figuring out we’re far apart on this thing. Fucking weird.
EDIT: Showed this to my wife and she was somewhat mystified as to what I was asking. Pretty sure she’s a 5. I get frustrated as hell when I ask her to describe a thing and she’s clueless. “Did the radiator hose pop off, or is it torn and cracked?” “I don’t know!”
EDIT2: The first Star Wars book after the movie came out was Splinter in the Mind’s Eye. I feel like I got that title. What’s it mean to you?
Some people also don’t have an internal monologue. I’m probably a 3 or 4, it takes significant effort to see something in my head. But my thoughts a words and they definitely have a voice.
I assume there is a scale for how well we can imagine every sense.
I mean I guess that’s lucky in some ways my thoughts never stop
Mine don’t stop either, but it’s just constant words. Are your thoughts mostly images?
Words mostly but I can visualize accurately
I thought it was either 1 or you have aphantasia. Didn’t realize there was a range.
I’m #4 on this chart at any given time when awake. When I’m waking up from a dream its like #2 and actual dreams are generally #3.
Ok imagine a six sided die. Roll it in your mind. What number is on top
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Do you have shares in imgur or something? Use a different image host that doesn’t delete your images for not upgrading.
Stop supporting enshittification.
I have severe 5 aphantasia. It was such a relief when a name was put to it.
Hahaha same! I started asking every person I know about it because I was so curious. Like, that can’t be real, you can’t see stuff. But everyone I know seems to have some level of actual visualization except me. And I am an okay artist, just need references and a lot of trial & error when drawing.
When tying your shoelaces what images or dialogue you have in your head?
I don’t remember ever having any. When I was learning I looked at them while doing it, and after I had it down it was muscle memory.
When tying your shoelaces what images or dialogue you have in your head?
Uhhh… none.
Is that a thing that happens for some people?
I was answering the “how does one navigate life” question towards the end lmao.
Op’s post was a long and winding road. It’s hard to know what to react to.
How many Au/ADHD can do this vs non-neurospicy? Just curious of there’s a difference or likeliness one way or another.
I can see and manipulate objects in my head. I can make up voices or objects in my head and “hear” them. I can remember a smell, but I couldn’t make one up - iow I could slice an imaginary apple and imagine the smell. I can feel an object’s texture without touching it.
I can’t imagine not having these things in my head.
Have taught Au/ADHD kids who range from one to five. I’m an ADHD one, but one of my favorite students is a total ADHD five.
Seems like it’s all over the place.
Adhd “levels”? A quick look around gets anywhere between three and seven levels of adhd depending on the website. Got a reference by a reputable org that lists what levels mean?
I assumed it was just the numbers on the image, not the level of ADHD. As in “a person with ADHD who matches with number 5 on the imagination scale in the OP”.
Ah, gotcha. Thanks for the clarification.
That is what I meant.
I find it gets better with practice to some degree, if I go for a long stretch reading more or less fiction I find it affects my imagination and ability to visualize with more or less detail and memorability. I don’t think it’ll bridge the gap to 5 necessarily, but it might bump a 4 to a 3 or a 2 to a 1.
Your mind has an active visual cortex. Other folks think more using their audio cortex. Some more with somatic awareness (feeling tone).
Mathameticians can visualize math.
Everyone is wired a bit different.
I’m a two or a four on the scale, depending on how much weed I consume. As heavy weed use dulls the minds eye. Though irregular use can enhance it.
And after years working in kitchens, I can think in smells. I.e.mix spices in my mind and smell them in my head before adding to a dish.
Some of us can even think without any senses.
Yeah I think everybody actually does, but the sense consciousnesses are a lot less subtle than stuff like intentions.
And even that last part can be let go of. What is beyond that is beyond conceptualization, but it’s not nothing. Nor is it something. As both are concepts.
I do have a hard time thinking without “listening” my own voice
Do you guys sometimes also get the weird feeling of: “this is my body, this is planet earth, this is my flat and I live here.” Sometimes that happens. And when that happens, I usually think about things like how the universe came to be the big bang, the laws of physics fighting each other until settling on a seady state. Then the Earth is created, millions of years of evolution go by and here you are, sitting on the toilet. The entire chain of thought only lasts for about five seconds and then you’re again stuck with the feeling of “I am back here on planet Earth”. Do you guys also get that sometimes?
That’s what happens when you get character switched to.
Kinda? I usually drift about how the hell we even reached our current situation from the beginning of the universe; how, despite being a huge collection of cells and bacteria, we understand ourselves as a single unit
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On the upside our kids aren’t going to be traumatised by pictures of apples.
My brain is like a vector database, it stores the “feelings” of information, not the actual information - if that makes sense?
I can make lightning fast connections in my head when something happens, like when something breaks in production, I see the symptoms and the vectors just connect from effect to the cause.
Can I explain to others why and how I know where the problem is? Nope. …Or yes, but it’ll take a long time for me to follow the feeling-vectors and put them into words I can actually communicate to other people.
For actual people and characters in books I also retain the shape and …something about them, but I couldn’t explain how most people in my life look like to a sketch artist.
When I read a book, I kinda retain the “feeling” of the characters and maybe one or two visual traits. I can read thousands of pages of a character’s adventures and I can maybe tell you their general body type and clothing - if they have an “uniform” they tend to wear.
I’ve read all 5 books (over 5000 pages) of The Stormlight Archive and I couldn’t tell you what Kaladin (the main character) looks like. I have no visual recollection of his hair colour, eye colour, skin tone or body type.
It always baffled me when a movie adaptation of a book came out and people were really upset that the characters looked wrong. And I was just “… you remember what the people in books look like??”. It turns out they do.
Oh, and DEFINITELY no voice in my head. I’d get myself committed if I had someone talking to me in my brain.
Isn’t 5 is called Aphantasia ? To be unable to visualize something in the mind?
Yep! Craziest thing is that we just started looking into this thing in the past 10-20 years. Proof to me that it’s no handicap, but if you took my mind’s eye away I’d feel crippled.
It has its benefits. You can talk absolute depravity, like Trump farting so much shit into Ivankas mouth that liquid diarrhea is overflowing from the side of her mouth with chunks of yesterday’s pasta bolognese dangling off her chin, and get no mental image of that filth. But you can enjoy that imagery.
I’m probably 1 but I can tune stuff out.
Stuff like “you are now manually breathing” doesn’t really bother me.
I’ve also got a lot of intrusive thoughts so maybe I’m just practiced at shutting it down.
Considering your specific example with an apple, what about other senses, what happens if you try and recall texture, smell and taste?
3 or 4
I can “picture” with images but it’s not top accuracy. It’s mostly imagining a thing existing
Same here. Had plenty of argument with teachers when I said I couldn’t really visualize things… I just had to “close my eyes and try harder”. Glad this kind of information is more out there now.
