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?
#1 is really useful for 3d modeling. I can work out most of the details in my head, then put the final design into a computer to print.
I once managed to write an entire OpenSCAD model on paper. When I typed it into a computer (aside from a few syntax errors) the model was exactly as I wanted.
The advantages are very fast design iterations. The disadvantages are that I have to remember the entire final product and not confuse it with any previous iteration while writing it down; and that I have to actually write it down and not just assume that the 3d printer will start on its own.
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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’ve been using imgur to save random images for what feels like a decade and not a single one has been deleted
When tying your shoelaces what images or dialogue you have in your head?
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.
I have severe 5 aphantasia. It was such a relief when a name was put to it.
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.
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.
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.
I’m that way with ice cream. I own an ice cream business that creates custom ice creams, and after many years, I can think of a a flavor combination, and sort of “taste it” in my mind.
I love ice cream, but I don’t eat it that often any more. If I have a craving, often just thinking about what flavor I’d have is satisfying enough, but I don’t really need to eat the ice cream.
I just did it as an experiment, and imagined a combo of honey, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper. My mouth watered, but after a moment of really concentrating on what that flavor would taste like, I felt fairly satisfied enough about experiencing the taste, that I don’t feel a need to actually eat the ice cream. I think my brain has trained itself to release ice cream endorphins based on the thought alone, and not the actual taste experience from my tongue, and that satisfies my craving.
I should write a diet book: “Think And Grow Thin.”
Just from that one flavor combo I now want to try all your ice creams 😂💜
Yeah, you do. Honey Cinnamon is my secret weapon.
I can make ice cream out of almost anything, but here are some of my favorites:
Peach Cinnamon
Bananas Foster (Banana, cinnamon, caramel)
Raspberry Chocolate Chip
Raspberry Brownie
Raspberry Nutella
Coffee Nutella
Salted Caramel with Candied Bacon
Almond Joy (Coconut, Almonds, and mini dark chocolate chips)
Mayan Chocolate (Cocoa powder, cinnamon, cayenne pepper)
The Honey Cinnamon is also great when it’s infused with Bourbon or Scotch. We also make our own homemade caramel, fudge, brownies, cookie dough, etc., all organic or natural as much as possible. All of our fruit ice creams are made with real fruit, no artificial sweeteners, flavors, or colors.
I literally make the best ice cream in the world, and have done events alongside Top Chef contenders and winners, including Richard Blais. Don’t you wish you had that mental tasting ability right now?
They’ve done studies on dopamine with sugar. It’s not the eating it that’s satisfying, it’s the getting it. So most dopamine is released on the way to the mouth. Assuming you’ve had ice cream before and the neural pathways are laid.
Which is why the first bite is the best.
But yeah the mind has some plasticity. We can learn to be more visual or olfactory ‘thinkers’.
Makes sense. It’s why we have that Pavlovian response to just the promise of something tasty. It shouldn’t be surprising that the same effect that is making our mouths water, is also releasing endorphins in anticipation of the taste. Just thinking about it is pleasurable enough to release endorphins.
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
Is this new, somehow? I’ve always recognized that the people around me think differently. I even recognized that there was a spectrum.
I’m definitely a #1, and always recognized that about myself. I’m like to write, and I think that activity demonstrates the spectrum well. Stephen King once said that he doesn’t understand why people struggle with writing. He just pictures the story in his head, and writes what he sees. When I read that, I instantly recognized myself. That’s how I write.
But I also know that some people write almost like they are putting together a puzzle. They choose certain words that go together well, and they are constructing their narrative brick by brick. I think poetry is often constructed like that, and I think those prose writers have a more poetic sensibility than others, and that sort of writing reflects it. That might explain why I really don’t care for that style of writing much, because I am extremely bad at poetry. That construction style just doesn’t work for me.
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?
No
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
Considering your specific example with an apple, what about other senses, what happens if you try and recall texture, smell and taste?
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WARNING your neurochip implant has detected copyrighted material in your imagination cortex. Please be aware that we are legally obliged to report repeat offenses to the authorities. For your protection, please refrain from picturing further copyrighted material.
On the upside our kids aren’t going to be traumatised by pictures of apples.
You guys are gonna lose your shit when you find out some people don’t have an inner monologue.
This one I find difficult to comprehend.
My inner monologue is petty much my entire thought process. How does one think and rationalise without one?
I’m a
5 on this scale (maybe a 41 on this scale (maybe a 2 if I’m distracted, processing other stuff) and I have a big component of kinesthetic sense and some emotional tone comes into play. It actually often takes work for me to turn ideas into words. This gets harder if I’m tired or sick or something.Edits: I forgot the actual anchors.
I am a 5 on this scale, and for all other senses. No smell, sound, touch or taste either.
So yea; it when I say my inner monologue is pretty much my whole thought process.
It totally blew my mind; when I realized others could see actual images in their heads.
The no inner monologue thing still boggles me. Considering my point of view; where it is all of my inner self.
What the fuck do you mean some people don’t have an inner monologue. How do they… Think thoughts? I literally cannot comprehend how they work through thoughts.
Probably different for everyone, but I have neither and sometimes feel almost compelled to speak my thoughts out loud. If I don’t speak them they’re just kind of abstract feelings or impressions.
I’m convinced lots of people actually don’t think
The proper way humans are supposed to think is with Critical Thinking Skills. It used to be taught in schools, often in English classes. Remember being taught how to write an essay from the General concept to down to the specific point? That was teaching Critical Thinking Skills, learning how to craft a coherent argument.
Today, many states actively discourage the teaching of Critical Thinking Skills. Republicans in particular hate it. About a decade ago, the Texas Republican Party even included opposition to Critical Thinking Skills in their state platform, claiming that it taught children to defy authority figures. No it doesn’t, it just teaches them when those authority figures are trying to exploit them. They actually tried to position Critical Thinking Skills as detrimental to childhood education.
If you don’t develop Critical Thinking Skills, you will substitute orderly thinking with a sort of ad hoc, improvisatory, chaotic thinking, which is easy for someone with a nefarious agenda to tap into and manipulate. Those with good Critical Thinking Skills learn to recognize and resist things like propaganda.
Literally everyone does this tho. It only feels like everyone else because you can’t be aware of when you’re not thinking.
No, having kids now I am sometimes super tired only being able to function for the daily activities without much planning and thinking about others. This made me realize this state (or even worse) is probably normal for a lot of people.
Vibes or visuals
Vibe thinking?
How the fuck would you function without an inner monologue AND aphantasia…
That’s me. Best way I can describe it is like a word cloud but no text or dialog. A bunch of concepts with varying importance and strength of connections.
Me too. I think in the connections between ideas. Almost like thinking in metaphor. Also OP said they were surprised aphantasia is not a disability, but thinking without senses is way faster, you don’t need to think in a straight line, but can just think a clump of thoughts at once.
Non-linear thought is super helpful! But yeah, I have to actively translate to words.
I don’t know, that’s hard to imagine
That should be my next post! 😂 My inner monologue is like words on a page. And again, I can’t see how one could enjoy a novel with the monologue and mind’s eye.
My inner monologue even reacted to your comment when I read it 😅
I can’t actually see the image with my eyes, I don’t believed people actually can but I suppose it can be. I can see flashes of black and white stills in my mind but that’s it. My dreams are the same just with weirdly numb feelings. Like when you are in vr and someone touches you, you have the feeling in your mind but don’t feel anything physical.
I’m on the very realistic visualization end of these and I wouldn’t say that I see anything with my eyes when I’m visualizing. It’s more like I have a viewing room in my mind that I can expand, or push away as I need, in a similar way that I can change the volume of the voices in my mind.
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.
@KoboldCoterie you can still be an artist. You’ll just have to rely more on references but it’s possible. There’s one person that made a video about it that I saw some time ago. https://youtu.be/ewsGmhAjjjI
