Submitted 2 weeks ago by shalafi@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://i.imgur.com/OlhiGci.jpg
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.
Solid 5 here. And I love to read. I love the smell of books, I love the feeling in my hands and I love the stories of course. I don’t have an image of an character in my head, I don’t have an image if the landscape, but I still enjoy it.
This is really about how much abstraction you have in your thinking. I’ve seen people be very heavily on the #1 side when i was a kid, and it was always baffling to me that people seem to be unable to talk about objects if they don’t have very detailed descriptions of superficial details that seemed completely irrelevant to me.
And how in the hell does one […] enjoy a book, if they’re not a #1?!
I can only speak for myself (#5) here, but I can barely enjoy books. If they’re any sort of fiction, where I have to imagine a world, characters, objects, … it’s very exhausting. I read fiction books in school, but haven’t picked up a fiction book out of my own will in years. But I do enjoy non-fiction books, especially when they convey Ideas you don’t need (or maybe can’t) picture visually.
Side note: I found people who read a lot (of fiction) often being critical of movie adaptations. I never understood this, because even ‘meh’ movies offer a far superior experience than just reading the book to me. It took me a while to realize that movie adaptations are a kind of ‘disability aid’ to my aphantasia.
The medium of books are qualitatively different from movies. With movies it’s all about the context, the action, the dynamism, the mood. With books, it’s more of a mind meld with the author, and you get richer subtext, connotations, shadings of meaning, and inner monologue.
If you’ve ever seen a movie that tries to hew exactly to a novelistic source (e.g. he Discworld movies), it’s an extremely plodding thing. If you’ve ever read a book that tries to carry a story onwards from a cinematic source (e.g. Star Wars EU), the pacing and treatment feels very different. It’s unavoidable.
It’s unfortunate about aphantasia limiting your enjoyment of books. I wonder if my “1” referring to the chart above limits my involvement with nonfiction and purely conceptual writing.
I’m a total and absolute 5 no visualization no inner monologue and I absolutely love fiction.
That guy just doesn’t like fiction. Fiction has plenty of “facts” and events. That make it plenty enjoyable. It’s no different then a nonfiction history book. Just it’s not about earth.
So his lack of visualization has nothing to do with his dislike of fiction.
Be just doesnt like it.
I play DND with a “theatre of the mind” battle system (no map or miniatures, we just remember where we are) with a a dude who’s a 5 and I have no idea how he does it.
I play DnD with a lot of theatre or the mind. I’m a 5 (also 5 with all other mental sensors).
It isn’t to hard, you just remember the description, the detail and context.
If the story is engaging, it is easy.
I’m a big fan of story, some writers rely too much on imagery, great writers story transcends the imagery.
E.g. I can’t stand Tolkien, too much time describing (for me) pointless visual detail. Love Pratchett’s work, the story and subtext are amazing.
Most days I’m about a 3, sometimes it’s more like 4. If I’m reading a book or doing something like that, where I’m really focusing on the visualization, I can get to 2. The only time I ever get to 1 is when I’m laying in bed at night about to fall asleep.
I have real trouble sleeping sometimes, and one of the things I do to help is put on instrumental music (lately, a lot of jazz sax), and then pick some random scenario, like:
“if I could be king of the world what policy changes would I make?”
Or “if I ever get to have kids, what kind of things would I most want to teach them?”
Or “Let’s design the perfect floorplan for my dream home”
And as I begin to drift off, but while still consciously aware, I can see things in stunning detail, but it’s always like they’re semi transparent. That’s not a great example, because there’s no backdrop, but it’s the best I’ve got.
am I the only one like this?
fuck you, I’m imagining a rainbow tapdancing apple with a top hat on a Roomba on a taxi
I’m mostly a 5 occasionally a 4 with occasional flashes of 1 when reading a particularly immersive book.
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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
You’re not in england. England banned imgur because they’re trying to build a database of internet users for oppression purposes and imgur said no.
It wasn’t all old data, but it was a lot. Why trust a corporation with your memes? You’re on Lemmy for a reason. You know how this ends.
When tying your shoelaves 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?
Yeah I was answering the “how does one navigate life” question towards the end.
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?
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
That’s what happens when you get character switched to.
No
Yes, though it’s when I start thinking about my layman’s understanding of quantum mechanics or other small science, then I look around and think, “How the hell? What is this and why am I in it.”
I am probably 1/2, but creating images in my mind is not something I do on a daily basis, which is probably why I lack creativity in certain areas. Also I had hard time remembering faces for most of my life, and only recently it get slightly better.
Attention is a big part for me to remember a thing. I never remember actor faces, even less so — names.
Names are hard for me in general. Unless I see it in chat or use the name for sufficient amount of time, there’s no chance I’ll remember it. That’s one of my problems with movies: I never remember actors or directors, I remember characters and scenario.
Too fun and interesting to be a shitpost. Half my family are 1 the other half are 5. Woo!
I’m somewhere between 5 and 4 if I’m really trying. Never felt like a handicap or anything before
One time I had a dream about the ascii game I played. I dreamed it both IN TEXT, and my brain produced images of the people, places, and things at the same time as I usually imagined them.
Ok imagine a six sided die. Roll it in your mind. What number is on top?
I am not on this scale.
How to draw an apple in the mind?
Colour? What colour?
That’s extra charge.
Make a ring in your mind, have it spin.
Make another ring inside the first, have it spin on a different axis than the first.
Make a third ring, put it inside the first two, have it spin on a different axis than the second.
That is as far as I can go, it’s hard, but I can make it look right if I concentrate. I absolutely can not get a 4th ring into the mix, the details get fuzzy and I can’t get it to move right. How far can you go?
I tried visualising 4 dimensions once or twice, but it doesn’t really work out for me.
So I have no way to get that 4th axis for the 4th ring.
There are times I can be “sucked into” a book. I’m in there, seeing the story like its real. I forget about everything else momentarily. Very jarring when my concentration is broken, and suddenly I remember who/where I am.
Oh wait can people really imagine something with that amount of detail in their heads??(#1) I (#3) always thought the idea of sonething is enough
I’m a 5.
Probably why I prefer graphic novels and was not really into textual books that much. I wish I could play a whole movie in my head while reading a book. I’m so jealous.
My dreams are super vivid though, and lucid dream often. And I remember my dreams in heavy detail. My dreams are like a 1 or 2.
I’m probably about a 4, maybe 3.5, on this scale. It kinda sucks not having any idea what it’s like to actually be able to visualize things, so I don’t even really know what I’m missing.
Kinda the point of the headline. Apparently you’re not missing much or the ancients would have figured it a handicap, named it and studied it.
Far from a handicap, I was reading that scientists and mathematicians are mostly 5s. Maybe you can save CPU cycles and think in more abstract terms?
I’m a software engineer, so that tracks.
Or Indians, they’re kind of known for their mind games.
I am good at design, can visualize how something will look when it’s done but no don’t SEE in my mind like that when I imagine how things look. It’s a different sort of knowing. Cannot hold an image and rotate it in my mind and absolutely can’t read a map that isn’t facing the right way, there is a blindness.
Surely not antphasic because I do see in dreams, same as through eyes. And I do KNOW how things look when they aren’t in front of me, and can know what imaginary things might look like too, but it doesn’t at all feel like seeing it with my eyes.
Love reading. Love love love it, learned when I was very young, same age I was learning to talk, actually, like a language not a skill. And I do have an internal ear, when I remember music I hear it in my mind and it is so much like hearing it in my ears. Imagining how something looks does not feel the same as seeing it.
I can’t imagine not doing #1, the only way I’ll do other numbers is if you’re asking me to imagine a hand drawn apple, colored or not, etc.
5 here … I just recently learned that mind’s eye actually meant an image.
We’re a 1, we can see, smell taste and even move the apple around along with an entire environment around it.
What we can’t do very well is thinking with words, though that has slowly been changing the past few years where we can think a little bit with words, however it’s mostly thoughts as emotions, objects and feelings of action.
Instead of thinking “I need to walk to the kitchen for water” we just think of ourselves physically getting up and getting the water with the sense of urgency and need. BuT when speaking/writing the way we do that is by remembering the visual words and hope they’re spelled out physically and what emotions/visuals connect with. Ie a physical apple in our mind have connections to the physical feelings of saying “Apple” [c.Eng], “manzana” [c.Esp], “りんご” [c.Jp] then each of those would have connections to spellings, grammatical connections, factoids, etc kinda like a language web.
But yeah anywho idk if anyone else thinks like that but it makes learning different languages hard, having to learn Spanish rn is like a full time job and after this we’re learning German, Dutch and then some other languages for the challenge/fun.
Solid five on this one, sometimes I can even feel/taste/smell it if applicable. Mostly happens when I think of sharp things though cause then I feel it from when I cut myself, literally did it while writing this comment. Is this an autism thing or do I just have multiple layers of mental fuckery?
GCanuck@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
No snark, but how do you test this?
Like I can picture an apple, but it’s not real, so how do I know if I’m a 1 or a 4?
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
If you think of how an apple looks and you get a visual representation, depending on how detailed it is. If not, you’re a 5.
Bgugi@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think the “test” is to describe a scene, then all details
minorkeys@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
If he see something with one eye but not the other, is it real?
Fedizen@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Describe the apple you see in your imagination. Color? Texture? Shadows? Environment? Can you draw your image?
There is some flexibility here; I tend to have different levels (1-4) based on how awake I am.
Killer@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I think it’s the amount of detail when you picture it. Can you rotate it, cut it, maybe take bite out of it?
Nalivai@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Did you try to think of a real apple but got a not real picture of it? Can you change it into some different thing? Can you change it to a realistic picture if you want?