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worry, on 10 May 2016 - 05:23 AM, said:
One of the nerds who helped develop Firefox figured out recently he has Aphantasia, the inability to visualize anything ever, and wrote about his experience: https://www.facebook...56834777480504/
Loki, on 10 May 2016 - 06:53 AM, said:
worry, on 10 May 2016 - 05:23 AM, said:
One of the nerds who helped develop Firefox figured out recently he has Aphantasia, the inability to visualize anything ever, and wrote about his experience: https://www.facebook...56834777480504/
That's an interesting read. I have the opposite problem in that every word, thought, concept etc is a picture. I'm constantly converting pictures to words. It's one of the reasons I hate when people ask how I am feeling. I usually just say 'fine' because 'small white elephant drowning in yellow storming sea' tends to take too much effort to put into 'normal' words.
Loki, on 10 May 2016 - 07:50 AM, said:
worry, on 10 May 2016 - 07:05 AM, said:
That is equally interesting. Is there a name for that?
I have no idea. If it has a name, I haven't been able to find it. I just know that visual thinking/picture thinking isn't correct.
It's hard to explain but I'll try to give examples.
Hands pressed together flat with fingers pointing up, highway overpass, rocks of salt. - Please pass the salt. (An easy one to explain)
Woman standing in kitchen holding a knife, grandfather clock - Heirloom necklace. (Not so easy to explain)
Small white elephant drowning in a yellow storming sea - I'm feeling small bursts of anger (small white) caused by a bigger issue (elephant) that is making me feel anxious (yellow) and it's overwhelming (storming sea) and I'm not sure I can handle much more of it (drowning). (Headache causing)
Sometimes my associations are the same as other people and sometimes they are thoroughly different. When I am trying to describe something, especially an abstract concept, it is basically beyond me because a black triangle (a sense of knowing based on what we don't know but do) doesn't mean to other people what it means to me and I don't know how to put it into normal words . And common associations with certain things like colours or symbols don't apply. For instance, yellow is never a good or happy colour. Snowflakes never represent snow or the cold. It's heavily based on symbolism but at the same time if you say 'imagine a car' I see our car. But if you say "I was late because there was a crash on the M1' I see a shattering clock, yellow car, generic highway, M1. So, if you said to me 'shattering clock, yellow car, generic highway, M1' I would be all 'Oh, there was a crash on the M1 so you're late'. But if you said 'shattering clock, white car,generic highway, M1' it would mean you were late because the M1 was full of bad drivers.
I also never see words. I see symbols and numbers and letters used as symbols or numbers. But any time there are words in my thought (so a picture that has words in it, like an open book) the words are just fanciful scribbles. I can't see 'forest' or 'Seven' in my head. I can see Roman numerals though. Certain numbers also have matching colours and/or the colour changes the thought. So, IV black font white background is four. IV in the middle of a blank book page is fourth. IV on a clock face is four o'clock. But IV white with a black background means four in relation to a count down. 11 black on white background means eleven. But 11 on a yellow background means uncomfortable.
I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well...
Oh damn, how did I miss this?
How does that FB guy remember anything? My entire memory is image based!
I think I get where Loki is coming from. I remember things as symbolic images all the time. I mean my mental image for a theory was once a dented circle with a hole in the centre.
I visualize everything. Sometimes literally, sometimes symbolically.
It's definitely easier for me to read something than to write or describe something.
). I then use that initial construct in all further interactions occasionally updating as necessary. The less descriptive words and the less emotion based words an author uses the easier it for me to read (in fact, there is a point where I just can't read a book if it has too many feeling or descriptive words). It's why I love Erikson. He writes pragmatically which makes it easier for me. But that said, my constructs aren't always correct because there are fundamental connections I make differently. For instance, I usually don't know what colour a characters skin is unless it's been described using racial terms ie African American or the word to describe the colour of their skin isn't a colour that is associated with concepts. For instance, I only realised that Quick Ben had black skin when I saw the artwork for the Subpress GotM. Shiara had to explain to me that the picture was correct. I had constructed him as black but not as black skinned - his essence was black but I never made the connection of 'dark' and 'black' to be literal. Black almost never translates as a colour. So, as I read an every forming, changing image is created but probably not like you would make. When you think of Quick Ben you might imagine a man. What I see is black swirls against a black background and several swirling pools of ash. That's Quick Ben. Do you know how the eqyptians would enclose names in a circle? When I imagine Quick Ben in relation to other things or in a certain place I do that. (I have attached a terrible paint rendition of Quick Ben standing next to a tree). However, I can take my Quick Ben and translate him into a more recognisable human form but I do that by finding a similar already existing character in a movie and then say 'Quick Ben looks like them, sorta' but it's again based on not their appearance but their presence. In fact, I very rarely associate anything by appearance or looks. It's always based on presence which is why I sometimes say two people look alike and then Matador will point out that one is an asian male with black hair and the other is a white woman with blonde hair. 
