Henk0

Listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History (The Celtic Holocaust) last night, I wished I had that ability

The graphics bit is interesting. I was into drawing comic strips when I was a kid, and in my teens I got really into making cars for the first Grand Theft Auto game. My early attempts looked terrible, but towards the end of that period, I was rated as one of the best in that little scene. I've worked a bit with graphic design in other periods, and I still enjoy some UI design, though I'm mainly focused on coding (mobile apps/games) now. Now, having worked with some great designers & illustrators, I know they're in a completely different league than I could ever hope to be. Thinking about the creative process is interesting though, as I clearly have some idea of what I want the end result to be, without being able to mentally picture it in any way that would make sense to non-aphantasiacs

Any chance that someone from the old GTA scene is hanging about here btw? :D

Thanks, I hadn't thought of that, but it makes perfect sense!

I'm aphantasic, and I read that book during psychology studies. I actually used the method of loci for a social psychology exam where we got 320 total questions + answers and a random set of those questions would be on the exam. I used my parents farm as the location. It worked surprisingly well for me, considering I couldn't actually 'see' any of it, but rather used my inner spatial sense, combined with alliterations/rhymes for some connections, to form the memory.

I have very vague memories from childhood (and in general). It's all quite abstract, with the spatial sense substituting for real imagery, and perceiving 'silent' voices when recalling conversations. There's no smell, taste or physical sensation. If I remember an embarrassing situation, there is the an emotional component (cringe), but even the emotional component is usually quite weak

Daydreaming: Not in the way that I think people mean when they talk about daydreaming. I'll close my eyes and think sometimes. I usually get bored with that pretty quickly though, since it's just inner monologue/dialogue without any real sonic component

Second this. I'm aphantasic, but when I think about 3d space, it's like there's an invisible grid in my mind that helps me keep track of relative positions, and my sense of direction is possibly even a bit above average. Conversely, I'm often surprised by common it seems to be for strongly visually minded people to have a terrible sense of direction.

I have enjoyed exploring and comparing my inner experience with other people since I discovered I was aphantasic (my ex was an artist and very visual, and first I thought she was the odd one). Now I usually do a little informal psychometric test session with people when the subject comes up. Asking them to imagine standing outside the house where they grew up, then walking to the kitchen and pouring a glass of milk. I have them rate their inner experience on a hand-to-hand scale for: color, sharpness, detail, focus area size, opacity/transparency. It's interesting how much people vary

My inner experience as aphantasic is:

Visuals: - Closing my eyes I generally see black. Sometimes I can see vague, morphing images, blurry and colorless, if I'm falling asleep into a dream. On high doses of marijuana or normal-to-high doses of LSD I get some stronger visuals, but it still seems a far cry from many others sober-state visual imagination

Sound: - This was my next surprise after discovering I had visual aphantasia. That other people apparently hear themselves talking in their head. I have an inner monologue (and dialogues), but there is no real sound quality to it. Same thing if I imagine a song or a melody. I know how it goes, I can sing along in my head. I'm a songwriter, so I also make up melodies all the time, but I don't 'hear' anything in my head. This is a more confusing concept to convey than the abstract spatial awareness.

Taste / Smell: - Again, apparently it's common to be able to imagine eating this or that food, and actually smelling and tasting it. I lack this ability too. I can get an idea of whether something will taste good with something else, but there's no sensation of taste

Dreams: - My dreams are actually very vivid, and after experimenting with lucid dreaming before, my dream recall is generally good too (though dream recall works like other memories, so it's all abstracted into spatial positions, dialogues and knowledge about location and details)

Also agree with some other things that some people have written here:

- I've always found it hard to pursuse long-term goals or imagined futures. I tend to gravitate to what I find most interesting at the moment and follow that impulse

- I find it fairly easy to get over bad experiences

- I don't 'miss' people much, even if I really like it when I spend time with someone close. I imagine getting over a breakup would be a lot harder if you kept having vivid memories of times you spent with them. My memories are a lot more abstract and vague.

- Photos are a memory aid. Should take more of them - I'm bad at recognizing faces, especially if it's someone I don't know well and they've changed their hairstyle, or they look similar to someone else. I easily mix up characters in films/series, or fail to notice that some character is played by [famous actor I know] until the credits roll

- I generally enjoy reading non-fiction much more than fiction. Though I have read a lot of fiction books in my life. Knowing what my experience of reading fiction is, and comparing that with what it can be for people who are not aphantasic, I do feel a bit envious

Since I discovered aphantasia, I've at times felt like I'm lacking something, and missing out on part of the human experience. However, after talking to people at the other end of the scale, I actually appreciate that I can close my eyes and all I see is black, and that silence is actually silence. If you have no control over the images and sounds that appear in your mind, I feel that it could be both exhausting and anxiety-inducing depending on the content and intensity

Nope. Human nature is to do what is possible within the confines of actual and perceived external and internal limitations to increase our partner value in order to procreate and propagate our genes. The increase in partner value as a motivation is often not conscious, and is evaluated via our emotional system based on proxy variables like social status among our peers, and appreciation and attention from others. There are different ways to increase status and attention, and in optimal conditions, people tend to learn early on what they are naturally better at, for example sports (signals physical health), music, art, poetry (signals intelligence), administrative work (signals intelligence and reliability) etc. People are naturally inclined to be productive, not for money, but to be valued and appreciated in their social context for the reaons above. Our society is not a natural or optimal (in evolutionary terms) environment for humans, and many of the incentives that drive our behaviors in it are set up with the goal of maximizing economic productivity of the system (or a subset of it with more political and ideological influence), but have a negative impact on the wellbeing and functioning of the people in it. When someone becomes trapped in a situation where they are unhappy – unemployment, or a terrible job that they can’t realistically leave – he or she is likely to sink into depression and a state of learned helplessness. When you’ve learned that nothing you do has any effect on your situation, you give up, do what you have to do to survive and no more, and self-medicate through food, alcohol, drugs, media consumption or whatever else gives you some relief from feelings of hopelessness, shame and guilt. From outside, this may look like: Laziness

Anovikov: The lack of empathy, not just in the system you describe, but in your praise of it, is quite disturbing. Of course, this used to be a common attitude in most parts of the world some decades ago, and the way it contrasts with most other comments in this thread is telling in many ways.

Your reasoning showcases the authoritarian mindset and moral framework, where other people are judged based on rigid ideas of right and wrong, with no interest in or understanding of their individual problems, abilities or past experiences. People are good or bad, and bad people should be punished until they become good. The problem with this moral framework is that it is disconnected from reality. Punishment doesn’t help a woman who uses alcohol or heroin to soothe a brain and nervous system that is damaged by trauma from childhood abuse. It adds more trauma, and more incentive to continue numbing her pain. Someone who hasn’t experienced real trauma cannot possibly understand how this feels, and it’s easier to just label her a bad apple and get her out of sight and out of mind

Agree fully on the points about people working with addicts, and Purdue seem to have no moral compass to counteract the profit motive. About the enslavememt to the chemical itself, it’s more complicated. The drugs primarily tend to serve as substitutes for the natural positive reinforcers the addicted person is missing, and there’s often a history of trauma and psychological unhealth prior to the drugs entering the picture. Like for the Krokodil users in the parent post, the natural and externally imposed consequences of maintaining the habit lead to a negative spiral where there’s more pain, suffering and hopelessness to face when trying to quit. I highly recommend Johann Hari’s book ”Chasing the Scream”, and Gabor Mate’s ”In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts”. Truly enlightening reads if one wants to better understand addiction

Nice!

I like the idea and design

Two things that bugged me:

1. I'd like a fast mode, where you just get immediate feedback on the answer (with correct answer displayed) and then onto next question immediately without showing the country info bit

2. who's flag -> whose flag (or "which country's flag is this")

Aphantasia is definitely real. My inner visual world has always consisted of the view of the inside of my eyelids. Thinking for me is an almost purely verbal process, in an inner voice that I don’t percieve as sound in any way. I can navigate in my mind, and describe accurately places I’ve been, but there’s never an image, only a kind of spatial perception, combined with knowledge (of materials, colors etc.)

I thought this was how everyone’s mind worked, until I met my ex, who is on the opposite end of the scale. She described her inner world as sometimes more vivid and detailed than the real world. I thought she was almost unique in this, until I started asking other people and realised that most people see images in their mind, of varying detail and vividness. Some can easily project onto their visual input and, for example, put a moustache or wings on someone. I’ve also come to learn that many people hear their own voice when they think (and many, non-schizophrenic, people hear other voices too), and can also imagine smells and tastes.

My episodic memory is affected by my aphantasia, as well as my people recognition skills. I can find it hard to recognise someone if they’ve changed their hair, grown a beard or changed their appearance in some other way.

I do dream though, vivid dreams, and am quite good at recalling them. But again the memory of the dreams, like other memories, is not visual.

I’m quite fascinated with this subject, and have some thoughts of picking up where I left off on my psychology master to be able to study it more. It’d be interesting to see if there are correlates in big-5 personality, iq, mental health etc.)

Surprised to see no mention whatsoever of sleeping position. My experience is that very few people snore when sleeping on their side, but that back-sleepers are highly overrepresented among snorers. My father suffered, unknowingly, from sleep apnea. I recommended that he teach himself to sleep on his side instead, by propping himself uo with pillows or sewing a ball into the back of his pajamas. He taught himself without tricks like that, and he no longer has sleep apnea. To end a bad habit of mouth breathing, another simple trick is to simply tape ones mouth shut with surgical tape in the evening. I’ve done this myself to get back to nose-breathing after bouts of rhinitis. Simple behavioral modifications often trump overpriced hitech solutions and invasive procedures